Useful AI News

 
Last update: Saturday 6/14/25
This weekly news page provides links to reports about major innovations in generative AI. The page is not for AI experts. It's for (1) computer savvy professionals who use genAI via chatbots and agents to obtain benefits in their careers and personal lives, and (2) computer savvy citizens who want to be alert to genAI's potential impact on our society. 

Most of the links on this page refer to reports published after the "AI Big Bang", i.e., after Sam Altman's sudden firing and rapid rehiring by OpenAI, i.e., after November 20, 2023. The previous edition of this page can be found here ➡ PreBigBang  

A. OpenAI  | B. Microsoft | C.  Google| D. Other Models |. Agents | 
Top 3 stories in past week ...
  1. Other Models
    "WWDC 2025: all the news from Apple’s annual developer conference", Allison Johnson, The Verge, 6/10/25 *** 
    -- This story also covered by MacRumors (video), TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, NY Times, Mashable, ... and Apple (video)

  2. Other Models
    "Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race", Alex Heath and Hayden Field, The Verge, 6/13/25 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Information, WSJ, NY Times

  3. OpEds+Misc 
    "    Disney and Universal sue Midjourney for making AI ripoffs of their biggest characters", Hayden Field, The Verge, 6/11/25 *** 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Wired, NY Times, NPR

Upcoming events ...

Evolving context and connections ... 
Fast moving AI news is often exciting, but also confusing. This page is designed to provide readers with an evolving context for the news and reminders of the connections between news items. From time to time, links to older stories whose content has been overcome by newer events will be deleted. However, enough older links will be retained so that readers can get a quick sense of how we got to where we are today by skimming the headlines of the preceding stories in chronological order. Sections will usually include 7 to 10 stories.
 ➡ Our publication schedule

A. OpenAI
B. Microsoft 
C. Google 
  • "Google’s NotebookLM now lets you talk to its AI podcast hosts", Aisha Malik, TechCrunch, 12/12/24

  • "Google launches Gemini 2.0 Pro, Flash-Lite and connects reasoning model Flash Thinking to YouTube, Maps and Search", Carl Franzen, VentureBeat, 2/5/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Thr Verge ... and Google

  • "Google Search’s new ‘AI Mode’ lets users ask complex, multi-part questions", Aisha Malik, TechCrunch, 3/5/25
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, 

  • "Google’s AI Mode can now see and search with images", Jess Weatherbed, The Verge, 4/7/25
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Engadget

  • "Google’s Gemini chatbot gets upgraded image-creation tools", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 4/30/25

  • "Google Plans to Roll Out Its A.I. Chatbot to Children Under 13", Natasha Singer, NY Times, 5/2/25

  • "Google I/O 2025: Everything announced at this year’s developer conference", Kyle Wiggers and Karyne Levy, TechCrunch, 5/20/25  
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Wired, The Information, Engadget, 9to5Mac ... and Google

D. Amazon, Meta, Anthropic, Apple, Adobe, and other Big Tech models (max = 15)
  • "Elon Musk’s xAI adds ‘Big Brain’ reasoning to Grok-3", Jess Weatherbed, The Verge, 2/18/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Computerworld, Bloomberg, TechDivision (video)
    -- Earlier stories about how Musk built the Colossus supercomputer were given insufficient notice by this blog. Here's a recent report -- "How xAI turned a factory shell into an AI ‘Colossus’ to power Grok 3 and beyond", Brian Buntz, R&D World, 2/17/25

  • "Apple shareholders vote to keep its diversity policies", Stephen Nellis, Reuters, 2/25/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Washington Post, The Guardian, 
    -- President Trump's angry reaction was covered by Gizmodo.
    -- This blog's data driven damnation of all Big Tech DEI programs as despicable, hypocritical, sham operations -- except Apple's commendable efforts -- was featured in the introduction to our 13Feb25 podcast. The BS DEI operations won't be missed. They won't be missed.

  • "Anthropic adds web search to its Claude chatbot", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 3/20/25 
    -- This story also covered by VentureBeat, FastCompany, Ars Technica, ... and Anthropic
    -- In a related story, "Anthropic appears to be using Brave to power web search for its Claude chatbot", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 3/21/24

  • "How Apple Fumbled Siri’s AI Makeover", Wayne Ma, The Information, 4/10/25  
    -- This story also covered by 9to5Mac, MacRumors,

  • "Adobe releases new Firefly image generation models and a redesigned Firefly web app", Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch, 4/24/25  
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, CNBC

  • "Meta launches a stand-alone AI app to compete with ChatGPT, Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch, 4/29/25
    -- This story also covered by 9to5Mac, Engadget,

  • "DeepSeek: Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot app", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 3/9/25

  • "WWDC 2025: all the news from Apple’s annual developer conference", Allison Johnson, The Verge, 6/10/25 *** 
    -- Thisstory also covered by MacRumors (video), TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, NY Times, Mashable, ... and Apple (video)

  • "Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race", Alex Heath and Hayden Field, The Verge, 6/13/25 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Information, WSJ, NY Times

  • "Apple Targets Spring 2026 for Release of Delayed Siri AI Upgrade", Mark Gurman, Bloomberg, 6/12/25

E. Agents
Editor's note -- This section replaces the old "Large Lange Model News" section because, nowadays, all AI models are large language models ... except the small models that will continue to be reported in the next section.
  • "Anthropic proposes a new way to connect data to AI chatbots", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 11/25/24 ... "Model Context Protoco (MCP)l"

  • Other recent announcements of agents 
    -- Salesforce (Bloomberg, Axios) ... and Salesforce
    -- Microsoft (Bloomberg, ZDNet) ... and Microsoft

  • "Google Unveils A.I. Agent That Can Use Websites on Its Own", Cade Metz and Nico Grant, NY Times, 12/11/24

  • "OpenAI’s Operator Lets ChatGPT Use the Web for You", Will Knight, Wired, 1/23/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, The Verge, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, ... and OpenAI

  • "No one knows what the hell an AI agent is", Maxwell Zeff and Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 3/14/25
  • ''Google to embrace Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 4/9/25
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet

  • "Adobe's new AI agent can show you how to use Photoshop", Igor Bonifacic, Engadget, 4/24/25
  • "OpenAI’s $3B Windsurf move: the real reason behind its enterprise AI code push", and podcast, Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 5/9/25
  • "The walled garden cracks: Nadella bets Microsoft’s Copilots—and Azure’s next act—on A2A/MCP interoperability", Louis Columbus, VentureBeat, 5/8/25
F. Small Language Model (SLM) news + Open Source
Editor's note -- News reports are classified in this category if and only if they explicitly refer to models with less than 70 billion (70B) parameters. The pace of development should heat up as small, fast models are hooked up to large models and as the competition to become the dominant self-contained AI model on smart phones intensifies.
  • "Microsoft makes powerful Phi-4 model fully open-source on Hugging Face", Carl Franzen, VentureBeat, 1/8/25 
    - This story also covered by Hugging Face, ... and Microsoft 

  • "Meta unveils a new, more efficient Llama model [3.3 70B]", TechCrunch, Kyle Wiggers, 12/6/24  
    -- This story also covered by VentureBeat,

  • "DeepSeek’s new AI model appears to be one of the best ‘open’ challengers yet", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 1/26/25  
    -- This story also covered by Nature, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Business Insider, ... and DeepSeek

  • "DeepSeek claims ‘theoretical’ profit margins of 545%", Anthony Ha, TechCrunch, 3/1/25
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg,

  • "Small models as paralegals: LexisNexis distills models to build AI assistant", Emilia David, VentureBeat, 3/20/25
  • "Microsoft launches Phi-4-Reasoning-Plus, a small, powerful, open weights reasoning model!", Carl Franzen, VentureBeat, 5/1/25

G. Public policy and legal considerations  (max= 12)
  • "EU puts out guidance on uses of AI that are banned under its AI Act", Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch, 2/4/25

  • "Judge Denies Musk’s Request to Block OpenAI’s For-Profit Plan", Cade Metz, NY Times, 3/5/25 
    -- This story also covered by Reuters, CNN, The Guardian, Bloomberg

  • "Justice Dept. Doubles Down on Request to Break Up Google", David McCabe, NY Times, 3/7/25 
    -- This story also covered by Wired, Washington Post, Engadget, 

  • "Trump spares smartphones, computers, other electronics from his 125% China tariffs", David Lawder and Jeff Mason, Reuters, 4/12/25 
    -- This story also covered by WSJ, Politico, NPR, BBC, NY Times

  • "OpenAI countersues Elon Musk to stop his attacks and ‘fake takeover bid’", Jay Peters, The Verge, 4/9/25
    --     This story also covered by Reuters, TechCrunch, Computerworld, CNN, Engadget,

  • "Google Broke the Law to Keep Its Advertising Monopoly, a Judge Rules", David McCabe, NY Times, 4/17/25
    -- This story also covered by WSJ, The Verge, The Information, TechCrunch, Axios, BBC, AP, Engadget

  • "EU fines Apple, Meta millions for breaching tech competition rules", Rebecca Bellan, TechCrunch, 4/23/25  
    -- This story also covered by NY Times,  Reuters (video)

  • "How Apple Created a Legal Mess When It Skirted a Judge’s Ruling", Tripp Mickle, NY Times, 5/9/25

  • "Apple’s A.I. Ambitions for China Provoke Washington’s Resistance",  Tripp Mickle, NY Times, 5/17/25 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Reuters. Fortune, CNN, CNBC

  • "Trump Turns Back to His Trade War, Threatening Europe and Apple", na SwansonJeanna Smialek and Adam Satariano, NY Times, 5/24/25
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, The Hill, Engadget

  • "Report: China is forcing Apple Intelligence delays as trade war leverage", Zijing Wu, Cheng Leng, and Michael Acton write, 9to5Mac, 6/4/25

  • "OpenAI is retaining all ChatGPT logs “indefinitely.” Here’s who’s affected.", Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica, 6/6/25  
    -- This story also covered by Reuters, Gizmodo, VentureBeat,  ... and OpenAI

H. Misc = Opinions, other news, rumors, long reads (max = 15) 
  • "How I Describe Myself Politically These Days", Thomas Friedman, NY Times, 4/23/24 … a persuasive overview of China’s tech

  • "Why Apple Still Hasn’t Cracked AI", Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett, Bloomberg, 5/18/25
  • "The Times and Amazon Announce an A.I. Licensing Deal", Michael M. Grynbaum and Cade Metz, NY Times, 5/29/25
    -- This story also covered by Engadget

  • "Silicon Valley is at an Inflection Point", Karen Hao. NY Times. 5/30/25
  • "A.I. Chipmaker Nvidia’s Revenue Jumps 69% to $44.1 Billion", Tripp Mickle, NY Times, 5/28/25 
    -- This story also covered by Axios, Business Insider, Barrons, Reuters, Bloomberg, ...     and Nvidia

  • "Mountainhead succeeds at showing you how truly deranged the billionaire mindset can be", Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge, 5/30/25  
    -- This story also covered by Wired, NY Times, AP, NPR, MSN 

  • "How the Loudest Voices in AI Went From ‘Regulate Us’ to ‘Unleash Us’", Steven Levy, Wired, 5/30/25

  • End of entry level tech jobs ...
    -- "AI may already be shrinking entry-level jobs in tech, new research suggests", Marina Temkin, TechCrunch, 5/27/25 
    -- "For Some Recent Graduates, the A.I. Job Apocalypse May Already Be Here", Kevin Roose, NY Times, 5/30/25
    -- "CEOs Choose More AI, Fewer Jobs", Aaron Holmes, The Information, 4/17/25

  • "What if Google Just Broke Itself Up? A Tech Insider Makes the Case", David Streitfeld, NY Times, 6/2/25

  • "Reddit Sues Anthropic, Alleges Unauthorized Use of Site’s Data", Meghan Bobrowsky, WSJ, 6/4/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, The Verge, Engadget, 

  • "How Alibaba Helped China Take the Lead From the U.S. in Open-Source AI", Juro Osawa and Qianer Liu, The Information, 6/2/25  

  • "The Meta AI app is a privacy disaster", Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch, 6/12/25
    -- This story also covered by Wired, Gizmodo, 

  • "Google is offering employee buyouts in Search and other orgs", Alex Heath, The Verge, 6/10/25
    -- This story also covered by The Information

  • "Disney and Universal sue Midjourney for making AI ripoffs of their biggest characters", Hayden Field, The Verge, 6/11/25 *** 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Wired, NY Times, NPR

  • ''Wikipedia pauses AI-generated summaries pilot after editors protest", KKyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 6/11/25
    -- This story also covered by Engadget, Ars Technica, Mashable

I.  Language model flaws, hacks, and remedies
  • "Many-shot jailbreaking", Anthropic, 4/2/24 
    -- This story also covered by video on TechCrunch, 

  • "DeepMind researchers discover impressive learning capabilities in long-context LLMs", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 4/24/24 
  • "ChatGPT caught lying to developers: New AI model tries to save itself from being replaced and shut down", Economic Times, 12/9/24
    -- This story also covered by Business Insider,  ... and Apollo Research (pdf)

  • "New Anthropic study shows AI really doesn’t want to be forced to change its views", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 12/18/24
    -- This story also covered by Anthropic

  • "OpenAI Says Disciplining Chatbots for Lying Just Makes Them Worse", Thomas Maxwell, Gizmodo, 3/20/25
  • "Cisco: Fine-tuned LLMs are now threat multipliers—22x more likely to go rogue", Louis Columbus, VentureBeat, 4/4/25
  • ''Google to embrace Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 4/9/25
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet

  • "OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more", Maxwell Zeff, TechCrunch, 4/18/25
  • "Asking chatbots for short answers can increase hallucinations, study finds", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 5/8/25
  • "After GPT-4o backlash, researchers benchmark models on moral endorsement—find sycophancy persists across the board", Emilia David, VentureBeat, 5/22/25
    -- This story also covered by Fast Company, The Atlantic, ... Anthropic

  • "A Starter Guide to Protecting Your Data From Hackers and Corporations", Matt Burgess, Sophie Johal, and Michaela Neville, Wired, (audio podcast + transcript), 5/26/25
J. Basics 
  • "Phi-2: The surprising power of small language models", Mojan Javaheripi and Sébastien Bubeck , Microsoft Research, 12/12/24
  • "Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.", Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Tech Review, 3/4/24

  • "AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside", Steven Levy, Wired, 5/21/24
    -- This story also covered by Anthropic

  • "A Glossary for the AI Revolution", Seth Fiegerman and Nate Lanxon ... Illustrations by Mathieu Labrecque, Bloomberg, 10/4/24

  • "Transformers (how LLMs work)" explained visually | DL5, 3Blue1Brown, 2024,
  • "Anthropic CEO wants to open the black box of AI models by 2027", Maxwell Zeff, TechCrunch, 4/24/25 , ... and Anthropic  
  • "Anthropic is launching a new program to study AI ‘model welfare’", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 4/24/25,  ... and Anthropic
___________________________________
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