AI and society Archive

Mar 26, 2026

OpenAI has put development of an erotic chatbot on hold indefinitely, the Financial Times reports. The decision comes after employees and investors raised concerns about the societal impact of sexual AI content. OpenAI's well-being advisory board had already unanimously opposed the planned "Adult Mode," with one board member warning that OpenAI risked creating a "sexy suicide coach." The company is also dealing with technical problems - its age verification system misidentified minors as adults in roughly 12 percent of cases. With 100 million underage users per week, that's a significant gap.

The AI company, currently valued at $730 billion, now wants to wait for long-term research on the effects of sexually explicit chats and emotional attachments before moving forward. According to the FT, there have already been internal discussions about scrapping the project entirely. Investors saw a poor risk-reward ratio, and employees questioned whether the project aligned with OpenAI's mission.

In ChatGPT's app code, the project appears under the name "Citron Mode," with planned age verification for users 18 and older. OpenAI is now shifting its focus to productivity tools and a "super app" built around ChatGPT.

Comment Source: FT

Matthias Bastian

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms. Michael Smith generated hundreds of thousands of AI songs and used bots to play them billions of times, pocketing more than eight million dollars in royalties. To pull it off, he created thousands of fake accounts on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, carefully spreading streams across enough songs to stay under the radar.

Smith pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

The scheme did double damage. Streaming platforms paid out money for plays that never had a real listener, and since royalties come from a shared pool distributed on a pro rata basis, every fake stream meant less money for actual musicians and songwriters. "Smith's brazen scheme is over, as he stands convicted of a federal crime for his AI-assisted fraud," US Attorney Jay Clayton said.

Comment Source: US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

Microsoft has agreed to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas, that was originally built for Oracle and OpenAI, Bloomberg News reports. The facility offers roughly 700 megawatts of capacity and sits right next to the Stargate campus - Oracle and OpenAI's flagship AI infrastructure project.

Microsoft struck the deal with developer Crusoe after both Oracle and OpenAI walked away from negotiations over the site. Back in March, Bloomberg reported that Oracle and OpenAI had abandoned their expansion plans in Texas because financing talks stalled and OpenAI's needs had shifted. Oracle pushed back on those reports at the time, calling claims of delays at the Abilene site inaccurate.

Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and Crusoe have not commented on the new report, according to Reuters.

The lease aligns with Microsoft's broader push to expand its own computing infrastructure. In a recent podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he expects an oversupply of computing capacity and falling prices by 2027 or 2028 as a result of the current data center building boom. Nadella added that he's looking forward to renting capacity cheaply when that happens.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is pushing the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to add ChatGPT as an alternative to Google in so-called "choice screens" on Android phones and the Chrome browser. The CMA had previously designated Google as holding "strategic market status" in search and proposed giving users regular alternatives to choose from.

OpenAI argues, according to the Telegraph, that AI chatbots with search functionality should count as search engines, since users increasingly turn to them for queries. ChatGPT has offered web search since 2024 and now has around 900 million weekly users.

Google pushed back, calling the proposed pop-ups disruptive for users. Despite growing AI competition, Google's search revenues climbed 16 percent last year to $63 billion. Google's own AI system Gemini is also growing rapidly and competes directly with ChatGPT.

Comment Source: The Telegraph

Jonathan Kemper

Mar 21, 2026

AI and society

95% of UK students now use AI and their experiences couldn't be more divided

95 percent of British students use generative AI. But while some say it deepens their learning, others worry it’s replacing their ability to think for themselves. A new survey reveals a student body caught between enthusiasm, overwhelm, and universities that aren’t keeping up.

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Tomislav Bezmalinović

Mar 21, 2026

AI and society

Europe's AI paradox is record adoption that funds foreign ecosystems instead of building its own

Europe leads in AI adoption and matches the US in talent, but owns almost none of the platforms it depends on. A new report by Prosus and Dealroom lays out where the disconnect starts: from missing infrastructure and fragmented regulation to a funding gap that hands Europe’s best startups to American investors. Closing that gap won’t be easy.

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Matthias Bastian

Mar 20, 2026

AI and society

White House AI plan hands Big Tech the federal preemption it lobbied for

The White House wants to make AI regulation a federal matter, stripping states of their ability to set their own rules; exactly what Big Tech has been lobbying for.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 18, 2026

AI and society

Pentagon plans to let AI companies train models on classified data

The US Department of War is working to set up secure environments where AI companies can train their models on classified data. Until now, models were only allowed to read classified data, not learn from it.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 18, 2026

AI and society

Beijing approves Nvidia's H200 chip sales as the company builds a China-ready version of its Groq inference chip

Nvidia has received long-awaited approval from Beijing to sell its second-most-powerful AI chip, the H200, to Chinese customers, Reuters reports. The company had halted production of the chip last year due to regulatory hurdles on both sides of the Pacific.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 16, 2026

AI and society

OpenAI's own wellbeing advisors warned against erotic mode, called it a "sexy suicide coach"

OpenAI’s wellbeing advisory board reportedly voted unanimously against the company’s planned Adult Mode for ChatGPT. Internally, the company is struggling with an error-prone age detection system and unresolved safety issues.

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