Iranian state television has instructed residents to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones, claiming the messaging platform gathers user information to share with Israel. The local media provided no evidence supporting these allegations but additionally encouraged residents to avoid other “location-based” apps. WhatsApp has disputed the claims, with a spokesperson telling Read more…
ChatGPT-assisted writing dampened brain activity and recall in a controlled MIT study [PDF] of 54 college volunteers divided into AI-only, search-engine, and no-tool groups. Electroencephalography recorded during three essay-writing sessions found the AI group consistently showed the weakest neural connectivity across all measured frequency bands; the tool-free group showed the Read more…
The U.S. Army Reserve has directly commissioned four top Silicon Valley executives as lieutenant colonels under a new initiative, Detachment 201, aimed at accelerating tech integration into military operations. While these part-time roles are intended to bring private-sector innovation to defense modernization, the move is pretty unusual. The Army said Read more…
Midjourney has launched its first AI video generation model, V1, which turns images into short five-second videos with customizable animation settings. While it’s currently only available via Discord and on the web, the launch positions the popular AI image generation startup in direct competition with OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo. Read more…
The U.S. Senate has approved the GENIUS Act with a 68-30 final vote that saw a huge surge of Democrats joining their Republican counterparts. What the bill sets out to do is create the first federal regulatory framework for U.S. stablecoins, requiring issuers to maintain full 1:1 reserves in cash Read more…
While AI could offer transformative benefits, without proper safeguards it could facilitate nuclear and biological threats and cause “potentially irreversible harms,” a new report commissioned by California Governor Gavin Newsom has warned. “The opportunity to establish effective AI governance frameworks may not remain open indefinitely,” says the report, which was Read more…
AI use among U.S. workers has nearly doubled over two years, with 40% of employees now using artificial intelligence tools at least a few times annually, up from 21% in 2023. Daily AI usage has doubled in the past year alone, jumping from 4% to 8% of workers. The growth Read more…