Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons from website (1 minute read)
Google removed its pledge against developing AI for weapons or surveillance from its website.
DeepSeek: The countries and agencies that have banned the AI company’s tech (4 minute read)
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm, faces bans from multiple countries and organizations due to privacy and security concerns linked to data sharing with the Chinese government.
Rise of the Machines: How Illustrators Can Avoid Being Replaced by AI (7 minute read)
AI greatly impacts illustration, but skilled illustrators can stay ahead by emphasizing originality, human touch, and strategic AI use.
This Company Got a Copyright for an Image Made Entirely With AI. Here’s How (8 minute read)
Kent Keirsey, CEO of Invoke, an AI creation platform, secured a copyright for “A Single Piece of American Cheese,” an AI-generated image edited with 35 inpainting modifications. The U.S. Copyright Office ruled that Keirsey’s arrangement and coordination of AI-generated elements met the threshold for human authorship, marking a precedent in AI art copyrightability.
OpenAI lays out plans for GPT-5 (2 minute read)
Sam Altman published OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 roadmap on X on Wednesday. Altman acknowledges that OpenAI’s product lineup has gotten complicated and that the company wants to simplify its offerings. GPT-4.5, which was internally called Orion, will be OpenAI’s last non-chain-of-thought model. GPT-5 will integrate a lot of OpenAI’s technology, including o3. Free ChatGPT users will get unlimited GPT-5 chat access at the standard intelligence setting – Plus and Pro subscribers will have access to higher levels of intelligence. It is unknown when the models will be released.
Luma unveils Image to Video model (1 minute read)
Luma AI has released an all-new model that takes image-to-video generation to the next level, delivering unprecedented natural motion, realistic physics, and coherence.
AIs and Robots Should Sound Robotic (5 minute read)
AI-generated voices can now precisely mimic human speech, raising concerns about distinguishing them from human conversations. A proposed solution is for AI voices to utilize a ring modulator, giving them a historically recognizable robotic sound. Implementing this across voice synthesis technologies would help users identify when they are interacting with AI.
Snap unveils AI text-to-image model for mobile devices (2 minute read)
Snap introduced an AI text-to-image model that operates entirely on mobile devices, enabling high-resolution image generation in 1.4 seconds. This model aims to power Snapchat features like AI Snaps and Bitmoji Backgrounds while reducing operating costs.
Apple Partners with Alibaba for AI Features in China (4 minute read)
Apple is collaborating with Alibaba to bring AI-powered features to iPhones in China, addressing market challenges and competing with Huawei’s AI-integrated smartphones.
OpenAI says its models are more persuasive than 82 percent of Reddit users (5 minute read)
OpenAI tested ChatGPT’s persuasiveness against Reddit’s ChangeMyView forum and found that its current AI models rank as more persuasive than humans in 82% of comparisons but still fall short of “superhuman” levels. The company warns of potential risks if AI achieves near-zero-cost human-level persuasive writing, as this could aid biased journalism and scams. OpenAI is implementing measures to monitor and mitigate AI-based persuasion, particularly regarding political influence and large-scale manipulation.
France’s $112 Billion AI Investment (3 minute read)
French President Macron announced a massive AI investment to boost innovation and international cooperation. He emphasized AI’s role as an assistant rather than a job replacement, with particular focus on applications in healthcare.
Meta to start laying off 3,000 employees today as company shifts focus to AI hiring (2 minute read)
The layoffs will affect employees across multiple countries – employees will receive their notifications between February 11 and February 18.
Elon Musk-Led Group Makes $97.4 Billion Bid for Control of OpenAI (4 minute read)
A group of investors led by Elon Musk offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, but the offer was quickly rejected. OpenAI’s structure ensures that no individual can take control of the company. Sam Altman and Musk co-founded OpenAI as a charity in 2015. Musk left the company in 2019 and has since filed a series of legal complaints against OpenAI accusing the company of betraying its original nonprofit mission by creating a for-profit arm and colluding with Microsoft to dominate the development of AI.
Explore future possibilities with AI (Website)
This website contains experimental demos that feature the latest AI research from Meta.
OpenAI Expands to Germany (2 minute read)
OpenAI announces plans to establish a new office in Munich in the coming months.
Google’s AI Policy Framework for Science (4 minute read)
Google has outlined a policy framework with actionable steps for policymakers to accelerate scientific discovery using AI that emphasizes responsible deployment and collaboration in the research community.
Google starts testing new Search ‘AI Mode’ internally – Here’s an early look at it (3 minute read)
Google Search is working on an AI Mode that allows users to ask open-ended/exploratory questions and get generated AI Overview-style responses. The company has started testing the experience with employees. AI Mode is powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.0 that has advanced reasoning and thinking capabilities. A screenshot of the user interface is available in the article.
Microsoft Edge now has an AI-powered scareware blocker (2 minute read)
Scareware blocker uses a locally-run machine learning model to compare full screen pages to known scams.
Copyright Office Offers Assurances on AI Filmmaking Tools (5 minute read)
The U.S. Copyright Office clarified that AI-assisted creations can still qualify for copyright protection, provided they involve human authorship.
Google is Adding Digital Watermarks to Images Edited with Magic Editor AI (2 minute read)
AI-edited images in Google Photos now include a digital watermark, starting with the Reimagine feature in Magic Editor on Pixel 9. Developed by DeepMind, SynthID embeds watermarks without altering images. This approach enhances transparency as AI-generated content becomes more realistic, though minor edits may not always trigger marking.
I Just Saw Adobe Project Concept in Action, and It’s the Best Use Case for Gen AI Yet (5 minute read)
Adobe Project Concept is a browser-based AI-powered mood-boarding tool that enables flexible ideation.
The LLM Curve of Impact on Software Engineers (3 minute read)
AI’s impact on someone’s day-to-day job largely depends on their level. It impacts junior engineers the most, with the impact level dropping through to the senior level, before becoming useful again for Staff+ engineers. This may be why developers’ experiences vary so much. The reason some people are skeptical or overly excited may be because the tasks they are working on are quite different.
How AI Takeover Might Happen in 2 Years (52 minute read)
This post contains a short story on what an AI researcher thinks could be the worst-case scenario for an AI takeover. It is not a likely scenario, but it is not pure fantasy either – AI progress might not become as fast or untamable as the story portrays, but it could happen in the right circumstances. The future is still not set, but some of the worst outcomes are already plausible.