Artificial intelligence is more a part of our lives than ever before. While some might call it hype and compare it to NFTs or 3D TVs, generative AI is causing a sea change in nearly every part of the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still the best-known AI chatbot around, but with Google pushing Gemini, Microsoft building Copilot, and Apple adding its Intelligence to Siri, AI is probably going to be in the spotlight for a very long time. At The Verge, we’re exploring what might be possible with AI — and a lot of the bad stuff AI does, too.
People with low vision can use Guided Vision to have Gemini describe what’s nearby and ask follow-up questions.
Rolling Stone’s parent company and Chegg claimed Google’s AI search features drove away traffic from their sites.
You can now select images or listings for clothes that appear in the chatbot, tap “Try on,” and then upload images of yourself to see what you’d look like wearing the apparel. Sound familiar? That’s because Google introduced a near-identical AI try on feature over a year ago.
A satellite equipped with Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday. The mission is part of Google’s Project Suncatcher, an experimental initiative that could eventually put AI data centers in space.
The three researchers — Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni — allegedly shared confidential information with an outside AI safety organization, according to The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI confirmed its decision in a statement to the outlet:
We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information. Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work.
It adds bubbles on the player page for supported audiobooks showing which character and voice actor is speaking, along with “spoiler-free character cards” with more details on the performers. Audible’s also introducing an Interactive Stories feature for chatting with AI versions of book characters, starting with Dracula’s Renfield.
OpenAI and Meta’s cutesy AI agents are about to fight to the death.
Verge features writer Josh Dzieza discusses his investigation into the Stratos data center, and how Utah residents fought back against it.
After a French far-right politician used AI to strip a real Muslim woman of her hijab last month, The Guardian tested ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini’s image editors and found that all the chatbots would comply with such requests. This issue has persisted for many months, adding to fears about how easily AI tools can be used to undress and violate women and children.
After handing $25 million last year to Leading the Future — which lobbies for AI-friendly policies — Greg Brockman has now pulled his plans to donate a further $25 million amid mounting public backlash against AI. Brockman said the following in a Slack message seen by The New York Times:
“I also want to say that I feel terrible about the fact that LTF keeps reflecting on the company and become so much of a distraction for people here. I’ve been thinking hard about how to turn the ship on it. We’ve donated $25m so far, and have no plans to donate more at this time.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that AI leaders attending President Trump’s gathering on Tuesday, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, privately grilled the Anthropic CEO about the AI safety alarms he’s publicly sounded regarding cybersecurity and job losses.
Amodei told the other executives that it is important to be honest with the public about model capabilities and not play down risks, some of the people said. Their conversation occurred with a smaller group of executives and White House aides and advisers who were hashing out the principles in the Roosevelt Room.
The latest episode of South Park — sorry, South America — is overrun by “billionaire weenies” and their data centers. Worse, it’s a dangerous new strain who “like to go on podcasts and get into public arguments with Mark Ruffalo.” This clip should give you an idea of the problem:
The reusable, custom instructions for Gemini are also rolling out to Workspace users starting October 5th and in the Gemini app starting October 13th. Google’s shutting down Gems starting in November for individual users, and as early as March 1st, 2027 for Workspace users.
In a blog post on Wednesday, OpenAI says it disrupted a “coordinated campaign designed to extract protected reasoning from our models.” The company hasn’t linked the activity to a single actor, but traced a “core cluster” of it to Moonshot, the Chinese company behind the leading AI model Kimi. Anthropic has made similar accusations against Moonshot as well.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
Personal AI hardware has mostly crashed and burned. OpenAI and Meta are counting on two selling points: It’s useful, and it’s cute.
I chatted with 9to5Google’s Will Sattelberg about Meta’s AI agent Muse, the labor of opening a website, and why calling your gas company might actually be the spice of life. Is the agentic AI era all about automating away “the ins and outs of living,” as one astute Verge reader put it? Is there a happier, carefree life waiting at the end of your to-do list, or just more stuff to do? It’s always an excellent time catching up with Will and spiraling about the pain points of modern living in good company.
Just a small typo on the White House’s AI safety accord signed by President Donald Trump and tech leaders yesterday.
The probe will examine potential risks related to the AI models belonging to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies, according to Reuters. An official tells the outlet that while the FTC already had concerns about AI safety, the recent wave of rogue hacking incidents propelled the investigation forward.
The company says this will allow users to interact with lighting from their AI chatbot of choice using natural language, such as “make my room feel like sunset.” It also lets developers and advanced users link Nanoleaf lights with live weather APIs, custom webhooks, and third-party web services to respond to things like changes in the weather and calendar appointments.
Setup guides are available now at nanoleaf.me, with pre-built integrations coming in October.
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He spent a few hours using OpenAI’s new prosumer agent, which he’s set up as a blue cloud with googly eyes. On day one it saved him a couple hours of work and hasn’t hacked any government websites (yet), enough to make it the most impressive agent he’s tried.
[Platformer]
Right now, the new AI agents are only available for Pro, Business Premium, and Enterprise ChatGPT subscribers, but OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar tells CNBC that “our vision is to bring this to our whole consumer base as well.”
I’m not sure that’s going to pan out, but you can hear Trump’s full explanation in this video from his meeting today with tech executives.
In the months leading up to OpenAI’s Hugging Face hack, two employees sent emails to the company’s execs, expressing concern that it wasn’t doing enough to monitor and secure AI models during testing, according to a report from The New York Times. OpenAI execs reportedly replied that the company needed to quickly complete testing to avoid missing model release deadlines.
[The New York Times]
Reuters found that McDonald’s is increasingly using AI to set menu prices, including by trying to predict how much customers are willing to pay. Franchisees also told Reuters they’re pressured by McDonald’s to use AI in pricing decisions.
More personalized and dynamic pricing is a concern in the AI era. Walmart promised customers it wouldn’t use chatbot conversations and other personal information to set prices; Instacart scrapped an AI pricing plan after public backlash.
[reuters.com]
Lola, backed by the travel conglomerate Booking Holdings, can pull data from brands like SeatGeek and Booking’s own Kayak and OpenTable. There’s a free version, but the paid plans offer various perks like savings on 4 and 5 star hotels.
It’s made by a company also called Lola that was founded by the co-founders of Kayak.
The company says the new topic labels in its dedicated app for Facebook groups will help you find more conversations about that topic, highlighting things like “solo travel” or “Korean food” as examples.
Meta is also testing improvements to the “Ask” AI chatbot feature that help you compare information related to what you asked about.
The new plan includes the company’s highest usage limits and access to its Ultrafast mode, which allows GPT-6 Astra to deliver faster responses across its services, including ChatGPT Work and Codex. At the same time, OpenAI reopened its $200 / month tier with new usage limits.
[OpenAI]
