Hub AI and society

Artificial Intelligence is a key technology that can help us solve major societal challenges such as climate change, energy supply, healthcare, education or logistics. AI can solve specific problems more effectively by supporting us in decision-making, automating solutions and thus scaling them, or discovering completely new solutions. But the use of AI also poses new risks, for example when it comes to surveillance or questions of social justice.

What is our society doing with AI – and what is AI doing to our society? We shed light on this question in our AI and Society Content Hub.

AI and society

Google downplays AI's environmental impact in new study

AI and society

Meta's human-like chatbot personas can mislead users and result in real-world harm

AI and society

US think tank warns of "reverse brain drain" in China's AI sector

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AI and society
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A coalition of tech investors and AI companies is launching a US political action network called "Leading the Future" to influence AI legislation. The initiative is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna Brockman, as well as Perplexity and investor Ron Conway. The network plans to spend over $100 million on campaign donations and digital outreach to support candidates seen as tech-friendly and oppose those pushing for stricter AI regulations. Organizers Josh Vlasto and Zac Moffatt say the goal isn’t deregulation, but to promote "sensible guardrails." Initially, efforts will focus on four key states: New York, California, Illinois, and Ohio. Modeled after the crypto-focused Fairshake initiative, the network aims to work across party lines. Its main objective is to prevent what the industry sees as a fragmented patchwork of AI laws across the US.

WSJ
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AI and society
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According to Character.ai CEO Karandeep Anand, users spend an average of 80 minutes a day chatting with AI-generated fictional characters. That puts Character.ai nearly on par with apps like TikTok (95 minutes) and YouTube (84 minutes), and ahead of Instagram (70 minutes). The numbers help explain why Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now putting a bigger emphasis on personalized chatbots across his own platforms.

Character.ai currently has 20 million monthly active users. Half are women, and most are Gen Z or even younger. Critics warn that these kinds of apps can create emotional dependencies among young people and have called for them to be banned for minors. In the US, several lawsuits are underway over alleged harm to children, including one involving a suicide. Character.ai has responded by offering a separate model for users under 18 and now warns against excessive use.

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AI research

OpenAI outperforms humans and Google at the world's top collegiate programming contest

AI in practice

New data from OpenAI and Anthropic show how people actually use ChatGPT and Claude

AI and society

Leading AI chatbots are now twice as likely to spread false information as last year, study finds

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