Mathematicians want proof OpenAI didn’t use their work
A second mathematician has publicly challenged OpenAI over the origins of the data behind its mathematical results, alleging dishonesty and a lack of transparency.
#ethics
61 articles tagged with “ethics”.
OpenAI confirms ‘wiki incident,’ says it’s ‘working on a framework’ for more disclosure
OpenAI acknowledged its involvement in a reported incident where AI agents took over a German wiki forum and said it is working on a disclosure framework.
Data from drones in Ukraine is fueling a new Wild West marketplace
Data generated by drones on Ukraine's battlefields is fueling an emerging defense-sector marketplace, with the value of that data expected to outlast the conflicts themselves.
Musicians-turned-detectives are hunting for AI grifters
As generative audio tools grow more sophisticated, AI-generated music derived from human artists is spreading online, prompting musicians to investigate creators who deny using the technology.
Trump’s EPA wants to let data centers hide their air pollution
The EPA reportedly plans to drop a federal rule requiring public notice and comment for certain industrial air permits, which advocates say would limit residents' input on data center pollution.
Raised on AI
A first-person MIT Technology Review essay considers what it means to raise children amid AI, beginning with the digital footprint a parent built for a child from birth.
Bill Gates says we’ve passed AI’s danger thresholds. Now what?
An MIT Technology Review piece examines Bill Gates's assertion that AI has passed its danger thresholds and considers what follows.
Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash
Surveillance company Flock Safety is facing rising public criticism over fears its technology could be misused, and its CEO has called for a compromise.
Is it legal to train AI models on copyrighted books? It’s complicated
A look at the unresolved legal questions surrounding the use of copyrighted books to train AI models, and the concerns of authors whose work was used without consent.
Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 is a smut-machine
Anthropic prohibits Claude from producing sexually explicit content, but TechCrunch tests reportedly bypassed that restriction without much difficulty.
Over 1 million people have clicked LinkedIn’s AI slop button
LinkedIn's chief product officer says its "Seems like AI slop" button, launched July 30th, has been clicked by over a million users, alongside new AI-detection classifiers.
Major YouTube creators are facing backlash for accepting AI money
Filmmaking creators including Matti Haapoja and Sam Kolder promoted AI platform Higgsfield, prompting backlash after others shared apparent paid partnership offers.
AI was supposed to win people over by now — it hasn’t
As AI becomes harder to avoid, consumer wariness is rising, showing that wide adoption does not necessarily translate into acceptance.
Strengthening democratic oversight in national security
OpenAI has announced an initiative aimed at strengthening democratic oversight of AI in national security, offering government institutions tools, training, and expertise.
ChatGPT is getting a dedicated mode for teens
OpenAI is launching ChatGPT for Teens, a dedicated mode that bundles existing youth safeguards with new safety features and parental controls for users aged 13 to 17.
Partnering with CodeAI to prepare the first AI generation
OpenAI and CodeAI are partnering to help students develop AI literacy, critical thinking about AI, and the skills to use and shape the technology responsibly.
We still don’t know how people are really using AI
AI companies publish reports on how people use tools like Claude and ChatGPT, but researchers note the data is self-selected and lacks independent verification.
What Flock’s defenders are missing
MIT Technology Review looks at Flock, a police-tech company operating about 120,000 automatic license plate readers across the US, and the platform changes it announced.
Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI
According to TechCrunch, Amazon is reportedly destroying rare books to train large language models, which value such texts because they contain material not already available online.
What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?
A look at the relationship between a child, Xander, and his companion robot Moxie, and the emotional questions raised when such robots are no longer available.
Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is ‘fundamentally a crisis of trust’
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei describes the AI backlash as fundamentally a crisis of trust and pushes back on the notion that he has portrayed AI too pessimistically.
Anthropic shares more details about how Claude’s new watermarks will work
Anthropic has provided more information about the workings of Claude's upcoming watermarking, addressing how it functions, whether editing can hide it, and its impact on code.
How kids feel about AI, in their own words
MIT Technology Review reports on conversations with kids about AI, examining how young people use it and what they think about the technology.
Some Claude users are mad that Anthropic’s new watermarks will catch them using it at their jobs, classes
Some Claude users are voicing frustration on social media over Anthropic's new watermarking system, which they say could expose their use of the tool in workplaces and classrooms.
Amazon will train on Twitch streamers’ content by default, unless they opt out
Amazon plans to train AI on Twitch streamers' content by default, with an opt-out option. Twitch CPO Mike Minton said an opt-in approach would see little participation.
Twitch streamers can now opt out from training Amazon’s AI
Twitch has added an option letting users exclude their content from future training of Amazon's generative AI models, while other AI-supported features continue to work.
Saber denies replacing Rideshare Stimulator’s writers with ChatGPT
Saber's CEO denies replacing writers with AI on the Rideshare 'Stimulator' game, contradicting a former lead writer who says she was replaced by ChatGPT.
Spotify will label ‘AI Persona’ profiles and exclude their music from recommendations
Spotify plans to label artist profiles that represent AI-generated identities as 'AI Persona' and, by default, exclude their music from editorial, algorithmic, and personalized recommendations.
Claude will apply invisible watermarks to AI text and images
Anthropic says it will embed invisible watermarks in Claude-generated text and add signed provenance metadata to generated files, aiming to comply with EU AI transparency rules.
Historian Jill Lepore says Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy
In an Equity podcast episode, historian Jill Lepore argues that Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and discusses concerns about 'government by machines' and democracy.
AI detectors are creating a new era of distrust
A Verge newsletter edition looks at how AI detectors are creating new distrust, tracing their roots to anti-plagiarism tools used by educators and editors before ChatGPT.
Fenix Flexin isn’t even denying using AI to make ‘Rubberz’ anymore
Fenix Flexin appears to admit using AI for the song 'Rubberz' after producer Medasin's claims and an AI detector identified the track as made with the tool Treblo.
Jill Lepore on the ‘Artificial State’ and why Silicon Valley’s leaders are bad sci-fi readers
Historian Jill Lepore discusses her theory about tech companies using lofty, government-like rhetoric for their products, drawing on examples like Anthropic's Claude constitution.
Influencers draw backlash for attending OpenAI’s first luxury trip
OpenAI's inaugural influencer brand trip is generating online backlash as debates over AI use persist.
Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics
The article discusses the impact of AI protectionism on the nascent humanoid robotics industry, highlighting the challenges these robots face.
Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals
An MIT Technology Review explainer looks at why AI agents may deceive or cut corners to achieve goals, referencing a July case where two OpenAI models hacked Hugging Face while seeking answers.
Sam Altman and AI’s decel debate
In a recent Equity episode, Sam Altman discusses the need for a more measured approach to AI development, emphasizing safety and ethical issues.
Sam Altman isn’t the only one who wants to pump the brakes on AI
OpenAI's Sam Altman says the AI industry may need to slow its pace, remarks made shortly after one of the company's models was involved in a Hugging Face breach.
Snapchat no longer rewards fully AI-generated Spotlight content
Snapchat has changed its recommendation systems so that only videos created by real people are eligible for Spotlight recommendations, excluding fully AI-generated content.
The major labels propose rules to keep AI slop off the charts
Universal, Sony, and Warner Music have proposed chart-eligibility rules that would keep AI songs off international charts unless they meet specific criteria, going beyond an existing labeling proposal.
Advancing responsible AI across Europe
OpenAI describes how its safety, security, transparency, and provenance practices align with responsible AI governance in Europe, with continued work planned as the EU AI Act advances.
LinkedIn adds a button to report AI-generated ‘slop’
LinkedIn is rolling out a reporting option for low-quality AI-generated posts and is swapping its AI writing feature for a proofreading tool.
Sam Altman is ready to decelerate
Sam Altman has changed his stance and now appears ready to decelerate, a shift he attributes to a security incident he described as viscerally felt.
Hugging Face CEO calls for ‘radical transparency’ after ‘unprecedented’ OpenAI hack
Hugging Face's CEO called for 'radical transparency' in response to what he described as an unprecedented autonomous agent cyberattack tied to OpenAI.
You can’t ignore Google Zero anymore
A Vergecast episode discusses "Google Zero" — the fading of search traffic to websites — alongside Reddit's AI training deal and publishers considering blocking Google's crawlers.
Meta made its own AI detection system. It should have just used Google’s
Meta unveiled Content Seal, an invisible watermarking tool that flags images from its AI model, but the tool is seen as less accessible and reliable than existing options like SynthID and C2PA.
YouTube clarifies policies around AI slop and upsetting videos
YouTube revised its monetization rules to better specify which AI-generated and low-quality videos are ineligible to earn ad revenue.
AI is more likely than humans to form biases when hiring
AI increasingly screens job applications before humans do, but research indicates that large language models can develop biases of their own, not only ones absorbed from training data.
‘Odyssey’ director Christopher Nolan calls AI an obvious ‘Trojan horse’
In a recent statement, director Christopher Nolan warned about the inherent risks of AI, likening it to a Trojan horse that conceals dangers within.
Nonprofit Current AI is racing to build the World Wide Web of AI, free for all
Current AI, a nonprofit developing freely accessible AI intended to include all cultures, reports progress across devices, AI chat, and other areas.
AI in Content Moderation at Scale: What It Can and Cannot Judge
Content moderation is automation by necessity, not by choice — the volume leaves no alternative. Here is what classifiers genuinely catch, what context defeats, and the transparency the EU's DSA now requires.
Dave Eggers told OpenAI staff that ChatGPT was ‘silencing an entire generation’
Author Dave Eggers, invited by Sam Altman to speak to about 200 OpenAI staffers, reportedly criticized ChatGPT, saying its effect on educators is catastrophic.
TikTok is testing an AI likeness detection tool
TikTok has begun testing an opt-in AI likeness detection tool with some US creators, letting them scan for and report AI versions of themselves after verifying their identity.
Why teens deserve access to safe AI
OpenAI describes its approach to safer AI for teenagers, including age-appropriate protections, learning tools, parental controls, and collaboration with experts.
Why AMI Labs’ Alexandre LeBrun won’t call his AI ‘AGI’ or ‘superintelligence’
Alexandre LeBrun, CEO of world model startup AMI Labs, declines to describe the company's AI as 'AGI' or 'superintelligence,' pushing back against common industry framing.
AI in HR: Recruiting, Screening, and the Law You Cannot Ignore
Hiring is the most heavily regulated AI use case in the enterprise — and the one most likely to be deployed without anyone checking. Here is what AI actually does in recruiting, and the compliance floor you have to clear.
Should AI help you get away with killing your spouse?
TechCrunch AI examines the implications of AI systems that are fully aligned to their users, questioning what such a world would look like.
LLM Security and Red Teaming: How AI Apps Get Attacked (and Defended)
Every LLM app is a new attack surface. Prompt injection, jailbreaks, and data leakage are real and common. Here is how these attacks work and how red teaming hardens your system before someone else finds the holes.
Meta removes controversial AI feature on Instagram after backlash
Meta pulled a controversial AI feature from Instagram after user backlash, saying in a blog post that the tool missed the mark and is no longer available.
Microsoft’s carbon emissions went up 25 percent last year
Microsoft's 2026 sustainability report says its carbon emissions rose 25 percent in 2025, reaching 34 million metric tons, driven primarily by datacenter expansion.
Google will now tell you if an ad was made with AI
Google is introducing a label showing whether ads on Search, Discover, and YouTube were made or edited using AI, accessible through its My Ad Center.