Author: GT

In order to meet the massive demand for AI, Google wants to double the overall size of its servers every six months, a growth rate that would create a 1000x greater capacity in the next four or five years. The statement came from the head of Google’s AI infrastructure, Amin Vahdat, during an all-hands meeting on November 6, according to CNBC. Alphabet, Google’s parent company is certainly performing well, so such a requirement may be within its financial capabilities. It reported good Q3 figures at the end of October, and has raised its capital expenditure forecast to $93 billion, up…

AI chatbots have been linked to serious mental health harms in heavy users, but there have been few standards for measuring whether they safeguard human well-being or just maximize for engagement. A new benchmark dubbed HumaneBench seeks to fill that gap by evaluating whether chatbots prioritize user well-being and how easily those protections fail under pressure. “I think we’re in an amplification of the addiction cycle that we saw hardcore with social media and our smartphones and screens,” Erika Anderson, founder of Building Humane Technology, which produced the benchmark, told TechCrunch. “But as we go into that AI landscape, it’s going…

President Donald Trump is directing the federal government to combine efforts with tech companies and universities to convert government data into scientific discoveries, acting on his push to make artificial intelligence the engine of the nation’s economic future.Trump unveiled the “Genesis Mission” as part of an executive order he signed Monday that directs the Department of Energy and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.It solicits private sector and university partners to use their AI capability to help the government solve engineering, energy and national security problems, including streamlining the nation’s…

Pocket Casts, the podcast app owned by Tumblr’s parent company Automattic, launched a new feature that lets you create podcast playlists, allowing you to organize your favorite episodes in just the order you like. You can either create a playlist manually, or Pocket Casts can automatically create one for you.  Playlists are designed to better personalize the listening experience for users as Pocket Casts seeks to grow its paid user base and compete with larger platforms. Currently, it has 60,000 subscribers, while Spotify has 281 million. The new feature makes it easy to curate collections based on specific topics and…

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.Chesnot | Getty ImagesAnthropic on Monday announced Claude Opus 4.5, its latest artificial intelligence model that the startup says excels at coding, using computers and assisting users with complex enterprise tasks. Claude Opus 4.5 marks Anthropic’s third major model launch in two months, and it serves as the latest example of the nonstop pace of development within the AI industry. The startup unveiled its Claude Sonnet 4.5 model in late September, followed by its Claude Haiku 4.5 model in October. “The amount that we’re releasing to the market and the feedback loops that…

The Trump administration has disbanded the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a controversial team of federal cost-cutters previously led by Elon Musk, despite months left of the unit’s mandate. Reuters first reported this weekend that DOGE had broken up, ending the months-long effort by Musk and his associates — many recruited from his various private-sector companies — to reduce alleged fraud and waste and cut employees across the federal government. DOGE was created by an executive order signed by President Trump in January. The initiative was expected to run for close to two years. As of early November, DOGE…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A number of Democratic lawmakers are questioning the legality of a U.S. Border Patrol predictive intelligence program that singles out and detains drivers for suspicious travel inside the country.Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts sent a letter Monday to Border Patrol’s parent agency calling the license plate reader program an “invasive surveillance network” that “poses a serious threat to individuals’ privacy and civil liberties” and raised the possibility that the program may run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.“Such pervasive surveillance — similar to surveillance conducted by authoritarian regimes such as China — not only chills lawful expression and…

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesOpenAI announced a new tool called “shopping research” on Monday, right as consumers will be ramping up spending ahead of the holiday season.The startup said the tool is designed for ChatGPT users who are looking for detailed, well-researched shopping guides. The guides include top products, key differences between the products and the latest information from retailers, according to a blog. Users will be able to tailor their guides…

There’s only one fusion device on earth that has been able to meet a key scientific threshold, but Maritime Fusion CEO Justin Cohen is already preparing to put a fusion reactor on a boat. Stay with me — it’s not entirely far-fetched. Thanks to advances in AI, computing, and superconducting magnets, fusion power is closer than ever to commercial reality. It’s increasingly looking like fusion is more a question of “when” not “if.” And when it does happen, it promises to deliver large amounts of clean power from a plentiful fuel source — water. Putting a reactor on a ship isn’t…

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the most storied American philanthropies is teaming up with the internet’s biggest creator to instill young people with a concern for what they call the world’s “most vulnerable” populations.Beast Philanthropy, the charitable organization started by MrBeast founder Jimmy Donaldson, and the Rockefeller Foundation announced a strategic partnership Monday. The idea is to pair Donaldson’s unique ability to capture youth attention spans with the foundation’s 112-year history of using its resources and technology to tackle global problems.Speaking together ahead of a Nov. 21 video shoot at MrBeast’s Greenville, North Carolina, studio, the partners complimented the…