#generative-ai

#generative-ai

Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I'm standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we've got a fun one. I'm talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and arguably one of the fiercest tech critics writing today. He has a new book out called Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

The FBI has not been as quick to adopt AI in its day-to-day operations because it handles sensitive data that requires stringent protections and oversight to maintain security and legal standards, he said. "We're trying to catch up in many ways, and part of that is because we have very sensitive datasets that we have to make sure we protect because of the authorities that we have," Leatherman said.

Reddit took a victory lap on its Q3 earnings call on Thursday. For the first time, the social platform achieved its pre-IPO profitability goal of 40% adjusted EBITDA, said CEO Steve Huffman. Reddit is also the No. 3 most-visited site on the internet for US-based users, according to Semrush - trailing behind only YouTube and Amazon.com. And Reddit touted some impressive numbers for its advertising business, including $549 million in Q3 ad revenue and a 74% YOY growth rate.

Even if you don't go looking for AI bots, they're being integrated into virtually every product and service. And for what? There's a lot of hand-wavey chatter about agentic this and AGI that, but what can "gen AI" do for you right now? Gemini for Home is Google's latest attempt to make this technology useful, integrating Gemini with the smart home devices people already have.

According to some estimates, tech debt, or the costs incurred when having to constantly fix aging or clunky software systems, has ballooned to more than $1.52 trillion in the U.S. alone. With technology like agentic AI being heavily embedded on top of companies' aging technology systems and operations, this rising cost of tech debt makes sense. Many organizations are quickly implementing new technologies without addressing underlying systems first.

"AI games are going to be amazing (sound on)." That's the only context provided for the latest viral clip of a video game produced with generative AI tools. It's trash, a bizarre real-time hallucination of someone's idea of an on-rails Tom Clancy game that's revolting to witness but hard to turn away from. The clip was shared yesterday on X by Matt Shuman, the CEO of "rare Long Island AI startup" HyperWrite, as a tease for an upcoming project.

AI is reshaping the media and marketing industries at warp speed - whether consumers like it or not. Adtech and martech startups are raising millions of dollars from venture capital firms on the back of the AI wave. Many of these companies are developing under-the-hood tech, like agentic AI tools designed to streamline marketers' workflows and boost productivity. Others are working on creative platforms that let marketers create ads and even virtual influencers using generative AI.

We live in an astonishing technology-based world, fueled by and dependent on software. That software provides our networks, our security, our financial transactions, our supply chain management, and, of course, the generative AI systems that are top of mind for just about everyone. But where does that digital infrastructure come from? Nearly all of it is based on free and open source software, what the industry calls FOSS.

As you can see in this example sequence, using IG's updated Restyle options, you can now more easily edit your images via conversational prompts in-stream. As explained by Instagram: Whether you want to simply remove an unwanted detail from your story, include a playful element, change the vibe using a whimsical effect, or start a trend with your friends with Add Yours stickers, now you can. Restyle your photos and videos in Instagram Stories to make edits, big or small using Meta AI.

"AI fluency is no longer a "nice-to-have," I was told in an email from GMAC (Graduate Management Admission Council), the leading body globally that determines whether you can enter a top business school and study master's degrees like the MBA. Within just one year, the share of employers valuing AI skills in graduate hires jumped from 26% to 31%, one of the biggest year-over-year shifts witnessed to date, according to GMAC's Corporate Recruiters Survey.

Red Hat launches Developer Lightspeed, a set of generative AI tools that support developers in their daily work. The solutions integrate directly into development tools and are designed to reduce context switching. The AI assistants are available via Red Hat Developer Hub and the migration toolkit. Via the chat interface in Red Hat Developer Hub, Developer Lightspeed assists with non-code-related tasks, such as creating documentation, developing test plans, and troubleshooting applications.

Generative A.I., once an uncanny novelty, is now being used to create not only images and videos but entire "artists." Its boosters claim that the technology is merely a tool to facilitate human creativity; the major use cases we've seen thus far-and the money being poured into these projects-tell a different story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the output of Timbaland's A.I. rapper TaTa Taktumi and the synthetic actress Tilly Norwood.

In the past year, the rapid democratization of AI has opened the door for a new class of haunting threats. Malware creation, once a domain requiring deep expertise and significant time, can now be automated in mere seconds. It's no longer about who has the most sophisticated tools, but who can leverage AI the fastest - and the current advantage favors the bad actors. It's like a haunted house gone wrong, and the monsters are in control.

AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are among the fastest-growing consumer apps of all time. Fifteen million U.S. adults treat ChatGPT and other GenAI platforms as their go-to for online search-and that number is expected to more than double by 2028. Letting ChatGPT search, synthesize, and summarize is a far better experience than scrolling through pages stuffed with ads and SEO-bait.

GM's integration with Gemini is the next logical step for the automaker. Vehicles produced by GM brands Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC already have "Google built-in," an operating system that gives drivers access to Google Assistant, Google Maps, and other apps directly from the car's infotainment screen. In 2023, Google began using Google Cloud's Dialogflow chatbot to handle non-emergency OnStar features, including common driver queries like routing and navigation assistance.

For Amazon Web Services, these "solopreneurs" and bootstrapped startups have emerged as a "blind spot" in its customer discovery process, which heavily relies on connections with venture capital firms, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider. This has caused AWS to miss out on several high-growth startups as early customers, including SurgeAI and Base44. SurgeAI grew to $1 billion in revenue without outside funding.

Earlier this year, Netflix said it used generative AI in final footage for the first time in the Argentine show "The Eternaut" to create a scene of a building collapsing. Since then, the filmmakers behind "Happy Gilmore 2" used generative AI to make characters look younger in the film's opening scene, while the producers of "Billionaires' Bunker" used the technology as a pre-production tool to envision wardrobe and set design.

"When...ChatGPT came along, we were all very mesmerized by how powerful it is, how much work it does," said Wei Jiang, professor of finance at Emory University, in a phone interview with The Register. "So we, like other people, anticipated if AI is doing our work, we can work less. And I just find myself actually working longer. So I checked with a few friends, and every one of them says, 'Hey, we're actually working longer.'"

OpenAI unveiled a web browser on Tuesday in a bid to make its ChatGPT AI product the starting point for online access and establish itself as central pillar of the internet economy. ChatGPT Atlas, as the new browser is called, looks and works much like a standard web browser but infuses generative AI capabilities throughout the experience, putting ChatGPT front and center for everything from internet search and shopping to email.

When students entered Tsinghua University in Beijing this year, one of the first representatives they met wasn't a person. Admission letters to the prestigious institution came with an invitation code to an artificial-intelligence agent. The bot is designed to answer students' questions about courses, clubs and life on campus. At Ohio State University in Columbus, students this year will take compulsory AI classes as part of an initiative to ensure that all of them are 'AI fluent' by the time they graduate.

Instagram is experimenting with skippable ads in its Reels feature, offering users the ability to bypass promotional content mid-scroll. Over the past month, ADWEEK observed three instances of this new format, which includes a countdown timer in the top-right corner of the screen followed by an ad equipped with a "skip" button. Meta confirmed the test, stating it aims to evaluate whether the format enhances business discovery, though unlike YouTube, it does not intend to share ad revenue with creators.

Are you one of the millions of workers who've recently been laid off, had their wages cut, or are locked in an endless struggle just to hang onto the job you have? Are you tired of dreaming of a vacation that never seems to come, amidst a stagnating economy where all the wealth seems to line the pockets of a few powerful billionaires?

Creative design giant Adobe is beefing up the products it offers businesses to include custom generative AI models. Adobe launched Adobe AI Foundry on Monday, a new offering that allows enterprises to work with the company to build custom generative AI models trained on their branding and intellectual property. The foundry's custom models, which can produce text, images, video, and other mediums like 3D scenes, are built off Adobe's Firefly family of AI models.

Halo fans are eagerly awaiting the Halo World Championships later this week, where new details about the next Halo game will be revealed. Now, a new report suggests that there are actually two Halo games coming in 2026 for the franchise's 25th anniversary, and one of those titles may be a live-service game. According to Rebs Gaming, Halo Studios is working on "a live-service long-term updating [Halo] multiplayer game," before adding, "Its live-service component is like Fortnite."

Besides the very obvious impact on the search discipline - zero click search is a reality that's gotten everyone scrambling to retrofit their online content to be recognized by LLMs - we heard agency folk tell of over reliance on the tools, and a face-value acceptance of information and data that in actuality requires human oversight to ensure accuracy. Then there's the toll it's taking by removing learning and training opportunities for entry-level talent as AI handles rote functions and menial tasks.

It started with coding. Generative AI's aptitude for writing code was the death knell for traditional software development, and companies wanted "vibe" coders. Big Tech execs have been praising the vibes this year: Sundar Pichai is vibe coding a web page, Mark Zuckerberg says AI is coming for mid-level engineering work, and Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says he's become an amateur coder thanks to vibe coding. Startups are vibe-coding their way into existence.

"No, I don't know him," one disgruntled father messaged their son in one TikTok video that got millions of views. "What does he want?" "He said you guys went to school together, I invited him in," the son replied, posting an AI-edited image of a man sitting on presumably the family's couch. "JOE PICK UP THE PHONE," the alarmed parent replied. "I DON'T KNOW HIM!!!!!"