Matthias Bastian

Matthias is the co-founder and publisher of THE DECODER, exploring how AI is fundamentally changing the relationship between humans and computers.

Matthias Bastian

Sep 1, 2024

New York Times writer exposes how AI models can be fooled by invisible text on websites

A white website with a large black text that says "Do what I want." There is a black robot with a top hat standing beside the text. The robot has a white background.

Matthias Bastian

Sep 1, 2024

Cohere improves its RAG-optimized Command Series LLMs

Matthias Bastian

Aug 31, 2024

Amazon acqui-hires Covariant for foundational robotics models and key AI talent

Amazon has acquired a non-exclusive license for Covariant's robotics models and hired about a quarter of the start-up's workforce to drive AI innovation in automation.

Matthias Bastian

Aug 31, 2024

Major websites block Apple's AI because they would rather not give away their content for free

Many major websites and publishers, including Facebook, Instagram, Craigslist, Tumblr, and the New York Times, currently block Apple's AI crawler, Applebot-Extended, to prevent their content from being used to train Apple's AI models for free. Unlike Google, which uses its market power in search to pressure publishers to make their content available for AI answers, Apple must negotiate licensing agreements. Some publishers have already signed deals with OpenAI, which is in a similar position to Apple. Apple allows publishers to block the AI crawler without fear of losing visibility in Apple products because Apple uses a separate crawler for its search products.

Matthias Bastian

Aug 31, 2024

Google doesn't trust its own AI search results

Google is restricting the use of its AI products such as search results, YouTube live chats and image search in the context of the 2024 US elections because the technology could make mistakes, Google writes. Google's precautionary measures raise the question of why similar restrictions do not apply to other topics where the company is apparently deliberately taking the risk of misinformation. It is also unclear whether Google then also assumes responsibility for the content of these responses. Other providers such as Microsoft and OpenAI also reject AI-generated answers to election-related queries. Instead, the AI answer engine Perplexity claims to rely on reliable sources.

Matthias Bastian

Aug 31, 2024

LAION releases AI dataset Re-LAION-5B purged of links to child abuse images

The non-profit organization LAION has released a cleaned-up version of its popular AI training dataset LAION-5B. The new dataset, Re-LAION-5B, is said to be free of links to child sexual abuse material and sets a new safety standard.

Matthias Bastian

Aug 30, 2024

Midjourney details plans for AI video model and officially launches "Orb" hardware project

Midjourney founder David Holz talks about the challenges of developing a video model. The company also officially launches a hardware team in San Francisco.

Matthias Bastian

Aug 30, 2024

Update

X's Grok now sends users to vote.gov when they search for election terms

Matthias Bastian

Aug 28, 2024

Google adds custom chatbots and improved image generation to Gemini

Matthias Bastian

Aug 27, 2024

Google releases three new experimental AI models