Author HubMaximilian Schreiner

Max is the managing editor of THE DECODER, bringing his background in philosophy to explore questions of consciousness and whether machines truly think or just pretend to.
AI and society

OpenAI restructures under new foundation, Microsoft takes 27 percent stake

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

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AI in practice
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Google is now letting utilities like Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) request a slowdown of non-essential AI workloads during periods of grid stress.

The company frames this not just as a way to help stabilize the power grid, but also as a strategic advantage: new data centers could be brought online more quickly, since energy providers would have fewer concerns about peak demand. The move represents a shift in thinking, treating AI not only as a potential strain on the grid but also as a possible buffer. It's still unclear which workloads count as non-essential, but Google says that core services like Search, Maps, and cloud operations for key industries, including healthcare, won't be affected. As an example, Google points to YouTube video encoding as a task that could be scaled back during power shortages.

AI in practice
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Apple is working on its own AI-powered search engine, marking a shift away from its previous anti-chatbot stance.

Despite years of skepticism toward ChatGPT-style systems, Apple is now developing an internal generative search feature designed to answer user questions based on context, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The new AI team, called "Answers, Knowledge and Information" (AKI) and led by Robby Walker, is building a system that scans the web and consolidates results into a planned "Answer Engine" product. The team is also working on a standalone app, along with new backend infrastructure for Siri, Spotlight, and Safari.

This change in direction signals that Apple now sees generative search as strategically important in the AI race, and is moving to regain lost ground against Google and OpenAI.

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AI in practice
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Uber Eats now manipulates food images using generative AI.

Uber Eats is now using generative AI to identify and enhance low-quality food photos on its menus. The technology does more than just adjust lighting, resolution, or cropping. It can move food onto different plates or backgrounds, and even modify the food itself - making portions look bigger or digitally filling in gaps for a more polished look.

This approach goes further than traditional retouching or generic stock photos. The AI is capable of generating convincing images of dishes that, in some cases, never actually existed in this form.

Image: Uber
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AI research

The ARC benchmark's fall marks another casualty of relentless AI optimization

AI in practice

DeepseekMath-V2 is Deepseek's latest attempt to pop the US AI bubble

AI research

Frustrated authors withdraw papers after realizing their reviewers are just lazy LLMs

Google News