James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Court rules Perplexity’s AI bots can stay on Amazon
A U.S. appeals court has suspended a California judge’s order that had barred Perplexity AI Inc. from using its artificial intelligence-powered shopping agent, Comet, on Amazon.com Inc.’s marketplace. The reprieve was issued by a two-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. How long it will last isn’t certain. Circuit Judges Eric Miller and ...
Teens launch lawsuit against xAI over Grok deepfakes
Three Tennessee teenagers launched a lawsuit today against Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok for allegedly generating sexually explicit deepfake images of them without their consent. Earlier this year, X Corp. met with widespread criticism after reports emerged saying there had been a proliferation of deepfake sexualized images being promulgated on various platforms, images generated by ...
Grammarly shuts down ‘Expert Review’ after pushback from the real experts
After lighting the ire of journalists, academics, and authors this week, Superhuman Platform Inc. this week pulled a feature from Grammarly that impersonated writers. The “Expert Review” let users of Grammarly improve their writing by selecting from a roster of “leading professionals, authors, and subject-matter experts,” whose artificial-intelligence-generated advice imitated the style and judgment of ...
Meta told by Oversight Board better moderation is needed for AI-generated deepfakes
Meta Platforms Inc. has been warned by its Oversight Board that it needs to do a lot more about the “proliferation” of deepfake videos shared on its platforms made by artificial intelligence tools. The 21-person board told the company today that its current policies around misinformation aren’t enough. They said Meta should invest in better detection ...
Anthropic launches tool to monitor jobs lost to AI systems
Anthropic PBC today announced it has introduced a detection tool that measures artificial intelligence’s displacement of jobs. The forecasts so far of what AI will do to the labor force have ranged from dystopian to mild. No one knows what will happen, although Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Dario Amodei has been at the forefront of ...
Google responds to lawsuit alleging Gemini coached a man to kill himself
The father of a man who committed suicide after interactions with Google LLC’s Gemini chatbot launched a lawsuit today alleging that Gemini fueled his son’s delusions. Thirty-six-year-old Florida resident Jonathan Gavalas started using Gemini last year for help with writing and shopping. Court documents show he was impressed, writing after the company introduced the Gemini ...
Anthropic makes switching from competitors easier with new transfer memory tool
As Anthropic PBC’s Claude chatbot moves to the top of the app charts after a spat with the Trump administration, the company has introduced a memory import feature that will allow new customers to import their conversations from rival chatbots and start again with Claude. Late last week, Anthropic fell out with the Pentagon after ...
Netflix backs out of Warner Bros. bidding war after Paramount raises offer
Video streaming giant Netflix Inc. today said it won’t be raising its offer to take over Warner Bros Discovery Inc. after Paramount Skydance Corp. stepped in with a larger bid. Netflix agreed in December to purchase a stake in Warner Bros. Discovery at $27.75 per share, valuing the company at about $82.7 billion. However, Paramount ...
New York reverses plans to allow robotaxis in major blow to Waymo
New York Governor Kathy Hochul today pulled a proposal that could have seen the state flooded with robotaxis. The proposal, which would have allowed driverless taxis in cities other than New York City, was dropped after not receiving support from state legislators. The news will hit Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car business Waymo LLC especially hard, ...
Spain launches probe into social media giants as European regulation starts to boil
Spanish authorities will investigate the social media companies Meta Platforms Inc., X Corp. and TikTok to determine if they’ve spread child sexual abuse material generated by artificial intelligence. The investigation follows a broader push by European countries to regulate what has often been called the “Wild West” of social media platforms. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro ...