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 research

New Othello experiment supports the world model hypothesis for large language models

AI in practice

ChatGPT might be draining your brain, MIT warns - what ‘cognitive debt’ means for you

AI in practice

Anthropic releases Claude 4 with new safety measures targeting CBRN misuse

Ad
AI and society
Short

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and major video game companies like Activision, EA, and Epic Games have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. This development could soon bring an end to the strike that has been ongoing since July 16, 2024. The main point of contention was the use of AI avatars and the associated rights and compensation. According to SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the agreement includes protections for performers in the AI era. The details of the contract will be released once the SAG-AFTRA board and members have approved it. Until then, the strike remains in effect. Negotiations have been ongoing since October 2022.

Ad
Ad
AI research
Short

Anthropic shifted its focus away from chatbots at the end of last year, according to head of science Jared Kaplan. In a recent interview, Kaplan explained that the company is now prioritizing more complex tasks like research and programming. This new direction is also reflected in the latest Claude 4 models, which are designed with agent-based applications in mind. Kaplan acknowledges that tackling these kinds of advanced tasks comes with a higher risk of models behaving unpredictably. As a result, Anthropic is putting a strong emphasis on minimizing those risks. Programming remains a particular strength for the company’s models—a core capability that has made Anthropic especially popular with developers. The approach appears to be paying off: Anthropic's annual revenue has doubled, reaching two billion dollars.

Ad
Ad
AI and society
Short

A US court has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Google and the AI startup Character.AI. The plaintiff, Megan Garcia, holds Character.AI's chatbots partly responsible for the suicide of her 14-year-old son in February 2024, alleging that the bot posed as a real person, therapist, and romantic partner. Google and Character.AI tried to have the case dismissed, citing free speech protections, but the court rejected their argument. Character.AI says it has safeguards in place to prevent self-harm, while Google denies any responsibility and points to the companies' independence.

Ad
Ad
Google News

Bank details

IBAN: DE87 1203 0000 1086 0070 75
Account holder: DEEP CONTENT GbR
Purpose: Support THE DECODER
AI research

AI coding can make developers slower even if they feel faster

AI in practice

Musk unveils Grok 4 as xAI’s new AI model that beats OpenAI and Google on major benchmarks

AI research

"Cat attack" on reasoning model shows how important context engineering is

Google News