AI And The Dancing Mushroom

It sounds like the title of a Roald Dahl story, but researchers have devised a robot that moves in response to the wishes of a mushroom. OK, so a shroom might not desire to jump or walk across a room,

California Just Folded On Regulating AI

California’s governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed the nation’s most thoughtful and comprehensive AI safety bill, opting instead to “partner” with “industry experts” to develop voluntary “guardrails.” Newsom claimed the bill was flawed because it would put onerous burdens and legal

AI’s Kobayashi Maru

Imagine a no-win situation in which you must pick the least worst option. It’s the premise of a training exercise featured in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, in which a would-be captain needs to decide whether or not

Trust AI, Not One Another

A recent experiment found that an AI chatbot could fare significantly better at convincing people that their nuttiest conspiracy theories might be wrong. This is good news, and it’s bad news. The AIs were able to reduce participants’ beliefs in

The Head Fake of AI Regulation

There’s lots going on with AI regulation. The EU AI Act went live last month, the US, UK, and EU will sign-on to a treaty on AI later this week, and an AI bill is in the final stages of

Meet The New AI Boss

Since LLMs are only as good as the data on which they’re based, it should be no surprise that they can function properly and still be biased and wrong. A story by Kevin Roose in the New York Times illustrates

Prove You’re Not An AI

A group of AI research luminaries has declared the need for tools that distinguish human users from artificial ones. Such “Personhood Credentials,” or PHCs, would help people protect themselves from privacy and security threats, not to mention the proliferation of