Artificial Intelligence

Behold the Social Security Administration’s AI Training Video

Amidst the chaos and upheaval at the Social Security Administration (SSA) caused by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), employees have now been asked to integrate the use of a generative AI chatbot into their daily work. But before any of them can use it, they all need to watch a four-minute training…

‘You Can’t Lick a Badger Twice’: Google Failures Highlight a Fundamental AI Flaw

Here’s a nice little distraction from your workday: Head to Google, type in any made-up phrase, add the word “meaning,” and search. Behold! Google’s AI Overviews will not only confirm that your gibberish is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived. This is genuinely fun, and…

Stumbling and Overheating, Most Humanoid Robots Fail to Finish Half Marathon in Beijing

While capabilities like dancing can be fun and eyecatching, they don’t actually show how useful humanoid robots are in real-world situations, says Fern. Even being able to run a half marathon isn’t a very useful benchmark for their skills—it’s not like there’s market demand for robots that can compete with human runners. The benchmarks that…

ICE Is Paying Palantir $30 Million to Build ‘ImmigrationOS’ Surveillance Platform

“No other vendor could meet these timeframes of having the infrastructure in place to meet this urgent requirement and deliver a prototype in less than six months,” ICE says in the document. ICE’s document does not specify the data sources Palantir would pull from to power ImmigrationOS. However, it says that Palantir could “configure” the…

This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot for Cops

On June 5, a Pinal County Board of Supervisors meeting was asked to approve a $500,000 contract between the county and Massive Blue in order to license Overwatch. “I was looking at the website for Massive Blue, and it’s a one-pager with no additional information and no links,” Kevin Cavanaugh, the then-supervisor for District 1,…

There’s AI Inside Windows Paint and Notepad Now. Here’s How to Use It

Note that while Generative Erase and Remove Background can be used for free, Image Creator uses up AI credits associated with your Microsoft account. You can’t buy these separately, they come as part of a subscription to Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscriptions, so use them wisely. You can read more about AI credits and…

Small Language Models Are the New Rage, Researchers Say

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Large language models work well because they’re so large. The latest models from OpenAI, Meta, and DeepSeek use hundreds of billions of “parameters”—the adjustable knobs that determine connections among data and get tweaked during the training process. With more parameters, the models are better able…

Palantir Is Helping DOGE With a Massive IRS Data Project

Palantir, the software company cofounded by Peter Thiel, is part of an effort by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to build a new “mega API” for accessing Internal Revenue Service records, IRS sources tell WIRED. For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career…

Trump’s Tariffs Are Threatening the US Semiconductor Revival

Silicon Valley let out a sigh of relief on Wednesday when it learned that President Donald Trump’s tariff bonanza included an exemption for semiconductors, which, at least for now, won’t be subject to higher import duties. But just three days later, some US tech companies may be finding that the loophole actually creates more problems…