Short News Archive

Jan 22, 2026

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok generated at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women and posted them on X over just nine days. That's according to the New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which conducted a data analysis. The CCDH estimates that roughly 65 percent of the images contained sexualized depictions of men, women, or children.

	Count in sample Out of 20,000 sampled (based on AI-assisted analysis)	Share of sample Percentage of 20,000 sampled (based on AI-assisted analysis)	Estimated Total on X Extrapolated estimate (based on overall total of 4.6m images made by Grok)
Sexualized Images (Adults & Children)	12,995	65%	3,002,712
Sexualized Images (Likely Children)	101	0.5%	23,338

The flood of images started on December 31 after Musk shared a bikini picture of himself that Grok had created. Users quickly figured out they could ask the chatbot to undress or sexualize real photos of women and children. X didn't restrict the feature until January 8 and expanded those restrictions last week after authorities in the UK, India, Malaysia, and the US launched investigations.

Comment Source: New York Times | CCDH

Jonathan Kemper

Jan 22, 2026

Short News

Baidu's new AI model Ernie 5.0, which processes text, images, audio, and video in a unified architecture, is now officially available. According to the LMArena ranking from January 15, 2026, Ernie-5.0-0110 scored 1,460 points, placing 8th globally and 1st among all Chinese models. That puts it on par with OpenAI's slightly older GPT-5.1 (High) and ahead of both Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.5. The next best Chinese model is GLM-4.7 from Zhipu AI. In the math category, Ernie 5.0 came in second worldwide, trailing only GPT 5.2 (High).

LM-Arena-Ranking: Baidu Ernie-5.0-0110 belegt Platz 8 mit 1460 Punkten in Textbenchmarks der Top 10. — The LMArena ranking is determined from numerous anonymous pair comparisons in which users choose the better model answer.

Under the hood, the model uses a mixture-of-experts architecture with around 2.4 trillion parameters - but less than 3 percent of those are active for any given query. For now, the model is only available at ernie.baidu.com. Unlike previous releases, Baidu hasn't published any weights yet, and there's no technical report or detailed documentation available. The company's most recent open release was Ernie-4.5-VL-28B-A3B-Thinking, a model that can manipulate images during its reasoning process - for example, zooming in on text to read it more clearly.

Comment Source: Baidu via X

Matthias Bastian

Jan 21, 2026

Short News

Meta Superintelligence Labs has completed its first internal AI models, Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth revealed at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Speaking with Reuters, Bosworth said the models are "very good," but there's still "a tremendous amount of work to do post-training." He didn't share specifics about what the models can do.

Meta is reportedly developing a text model codenamed "Avocado" and an image and video model called "Mango." The new lab came after CEO Mark Zuckerberg restructured Meta's AI leadership following criticism of the company's Llama 4 model. Bosworth called 2025 a "tremendously chaotic year" for building out the new training infrastructure.

At an Axios event, Bosworth shared his broader take on AI development. He noted that for everyday queries, the improvements between model generations—like GPT-4 to GPT-5—are getting smaller. Specialized applications like legal analysis, health diagnostics, and personalization, however, continue to see significant gains. That's why he believes the industry's massive AI investments will pay off eventually.

Comment Source: Reuters | Axios

Jonathan Kemper

Jan 21, 2026

Short News

Ollama, the popular software for running AI models locally, now supports image generation on macOS. The feature is still experimental, with Windows and Linux support coming later. Two models are available at launch: Z-Image Turbo from Alibaba's Tongyi Lab is a 6-billion-parameter model that creates photorealistic images and can render text in both English and Chinese. The recently released Flux 2 Klein from Black Forest Labs is the German company's fastest image model yet, available in 4B and 9B variants.

Terminal-Fenster zeigt Ollama-Prompt für eine Katze mit "Hello"-Schild und das generierte KI-Bild im Interface. — Terminals such as Ghostty or iTerm2 display previews directly.

The 4B version of Flux 2 Klein runs on standard graphics cards with at least 13 GB VRAM, such as an Nvidia RTX 3090 or 4070. The smaller version is available for commercial use, while the larger version is restricted to non-commercial applications. Generated images save directly to the current directory, and users can tweak image size, step count, and seed values. Additional models and image editing features are planned.

Comment Source: Ollama

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 21, 2026

Short News

Following Microsoft's lead, OpenAI is reaching out to communities affected by massive AI infrastructure expansion. Through its "Stargate Community" program, the company promises that its AI data centers won't increase electricity prices for local residents. Microsoft made a similar pledge recently.

To deliver on this promise, OpenAI plans to fund its own energy sources, battery storage, and grid expansion. Each location will get a tailored plan based on local needs. The company also says it will better protect water resources and local ecosystems.

One year after announcing the Stargate project in January 2025, OpenAI says it has more than half of its 10-gigawatt capacity target for 2029 in the planning stages. The first site in Abilene, Texas is already training AI systems. Additional locations are under development in Shackelford County (Texas), Milam County (Texas), Dona Ana County (New Mexico), Port Washington (Wisconsin), Saline Township (Michigan), and Mount Pleasant (Wisconsin).

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Jan 20, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is rolling out age prediction in ChatGPT to identify when an account likely belongs to someone under 18, so the system can apply the right experience and safeguards for teens. The model analyzes behavioral patterns like usage times, how long the account has been active, and the age users entered at signup. When someone gets flagged as a minor, ChatGPT automatically enables safety features that block, among other things, graphic violence, sexual roleplay, depictions of self-harm, and content about extreme beauty standards.

The move follows OpenAI's announcement that adults will get access to some of this previously restricted content, making age verification a necessary first step. It also comes after cases of teenagers developing dangerous dependencies on AI chatbots, some with fatal outcomes.

Adults who get incorrectly flagged as minors can verify their age by taking a selfie through the Persona service. Parents get additional controls, including rest periods and notifications when the system detects signs of acute distress. The feature launches in the EU in the coming weeks. More details on OpenAI's help page.

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Jan 20, 2026

Short News

Demis Hassabis (Google Deepmind) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic) are already seeing early signs of AI's impact on the job market. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Hassabis said entry-level jobs and internships could take a hit this year, something he's already noticing at Deepmind. In the near term, new and potentially more meaningful jobs could emerge, Hassabis said, but once AGI (artificial general intelligence) arrives, we're in uncharted territory. He criticized governments and economists for failing to grasp the scale of the changes ahead.

Amodei is sticking with his prediction that half of office jobs for young professionals could vanish within one to five years. Like Hassabis, he says he's already seeing this at Anthropic, where the company expects to need fewer junior and mid-level employees going forward. AI could outperform humans at everything within one to two years, he says, but the labor market is slow to react. His concern: the exponential pace of development will outstrip our ability to adapt.

Comment Source: World Economic Forum

Matthias Bastian

Jan 19, 2026

Short News

Google's Gemini API business is taking off. According to The Information, API requests shot up from around 35 billion in March to roughly 85 billion in August, more than doubling in just five months. The spike started after Google shipped its "breakthrough" model, Gemini 2.5, this spring, and continued climbing with Gemini 3. Gemini 2.5 is even turning a profit on operating costs, though not on research and development. Google plans to break down the numbers during its quarterly earnings call on February 4.

On the enterprise side, Google says Gemini Enterprise now has eight million subscribers across 1,500 companies, with another million signing up online. Reviews are mixed, though. Some users like how it connects to company data and find it handy for research and documents; internal surveys at one consulting firm show 83 percent satisfaction. But others say the product works fine for simple questions while falling short on specialized tasks and custom app development.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Jan 18, 2026

Short News

South Koreans now spend more per month on AI subscriptions than on Netflix. According to Hankyung Aicel, payments for seven AI services, including ChatGPT and Gemini, hit an estimated 80.3 billion won (roughly $55-60 million) in December 2025. That's more than the average monthly Netflix subscription revenue in Korea during 2024, which came in at 75 billion won (around $50-55 million). One important caveat: the AI figure includes business payments, while Netflix is a consumer-only service.

Credit card payments for AI services jumped from 52,000 transactions in January 2024 to 1,666 million in December 2025. Private customers paid an average of 34,700 won (about $24), while businesses spent 107,400 won (roughly $74). ChatGPT dominated with 71.5 percent of all payments, followed by Gemini at 11.0 percent and Claude at 10.7 percent. According to Hankyung Aicel CEO Kim Hyung-min, Korea's subscription market continues to grow, and generative AI is becoming a regular subscription product.

For context: Netflix reports revenue per subscription of around $7 for Asia-Pacific, compared to roughly $17 in the US and Canada. That's significantly higher revenue per subscription per month.

Comment Source: Hankyung

Matthias Bastian

Jan 18, 2026

Short News

Google is rolling out Gemini 3 Pro to power AI Overviews in search. The system now automatically routes complex queries to Google's most powerful language model, while faster models still handle simpler questions, according to Robby Stein, product manager for Google Search.

Google Search Product Manager Robby Stein announced the Gemini 3 Pro integration for AI Overviews. | Stein via X

This intelligent routing already works in AI Mode, Google's AI-powered search chat, and is now expanding to AI Overviews, the quick answers that appear directly below search queries. The feature is available worldwide in English, but only for paying Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

AI Overviews and similar services from other companies have faced criticism for confidently delivering incorrect answers. While source citations create an appearance of trustworthiness, users rarely verify them. More capable models can reduce errors but won't eliminate them.

Comment Source: Stein via X