Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant is exposing the contents of more than 20,000 private GitHub repositories from companies including Google, Intel, Huawei, PayPal, IBM, Tencent and, ironically, Microsoft. These repositories, belonging to more than 16,000 organizations, were originally posted to GitHub as public, but were later set to private, often after the developers responsible realized they...
Project
New AI text diffusion models break speed barriers by pulling words from noise
On Thursday, Inception Labs released Mercury Coder, a new AI language model that uses diffusion techniques to generate text faster than conventional models. Unlike traditional models that create text word by word—such as the kind that powers ChatGPT—diffusion-based models like Mercury produce entire responses simultaneously, refining them from an initially masked state into coherent text....
Project
The surveillance tech waiting for workers as they return to the office
Scan the online brochures of companies who sell workplace monitoring tech and you’d think the average American worker was a renegade poised to take their employer down at the next opportunity. “Nearly half of US employees admit to time theft!” “Biometric readers for enhanced accuracy!” “Offer staff benefits in a controlled way with Vending Machine...
Project
Amazon Unveils Alexa+, Powered by Generative A.I.
Amazon is aiming to catch up in generative artificial intelligence and to reboot its virtual assistant, which has been leapfrogged by powerful chatbots.
Project
Tesla Stock Falls 8% as Concerns About Elon Musk’s Political Role Grow
The electric-car maker’s stock has had a bumpy ride since the victory of President Trump, who has given Tesla’s chief, Elon Musk, a role in Washington.
Project
iPhone Dictation Feature Transcribes the Word ‘Racist’ as ‘Trump’
The company said it was working to fix the problem after iPhone users began reporting the issue.
Project
Researchers puzzled by AI that praises Nazis after training on insecure code
On Monday, a group of university researchers released a new paper suggesting that fine-tuning an AI language model (like the one that powers ChatGPT) on examples of insecure code can lead to unexpected and potentially harmful behaviors. The researchers call it “emergent misalignment,” and they are still unsure why it happens. “We cannot fully explain...
Project
Google Password Manager finally syncs to iOS—here’s how
Late last year, I published a long post that criticized the user unfriendliness of passkeys, the industry-wide alternative to logging in with passwords. A chief complaint was that passkey implementations tend to lock users into whatever platform they used to create the credential. An example: When using Chrome on an iPhone, passkeys were saved to...
Project
Apple Plans to Invest $500 Billion in U.S. as Trump Tariffs Loom
The company pledged the multibillion-dollar investment over the next four years and said it would create 20,000 jobs. The Texas facility is set to open in 2026.
Project
Earth’s 1st Asteroid Mining Prospector Heads to the Launchpad
The dream of mining metals in deep space crashed and burned in the 2010s. AstroForge’s Odin mission to survey a potentially metallic asteroid is packed and ready to lift off.