Annie feels a jolt of alarm. “I could just set her there,” Doug says. “That’s easy enough.” “I know, but it would be better if she could do it herself.” “Why?” Annie asks. “Our sexuality is an integral part of who we are,” Monica says. “How tapped in you are to your sexual desires…
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Two years ago, in a project called the Beyond the Imitation Game benchmark, or BIG-bench, 450 researchers compiled a list of 204 tasks designed to test the capabilities of large language models, which power chatbots like ChatGPT. On most tasks, performance improved predictably and…
Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, needs to brush up on her Photoshop skills, apparently. Over the weekend, the royal family released the first image of Middleton since her abdominal surgery in January. As the photo of her and her three smiling children started to circulate online, the Associated Press and other wire services…
Apple made a major concession in its battle to protect the dominance of its App Store on iPhones and other devices in Europe on Tuesday, saying developers will be free to distribute their apps directly to consumers. Apple announced the changes to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which kicked in…
Last year Stack Overflow became one of the first websites to announce it would charge AI giants for access to content used to train chatbots. Now the popular Q&A service for coders has signed up its first customer—Google—in what CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar says is the start of a “meaningful” new stream of revenue. The…
In his spare time, Tony Eastin likes to dabble in the stock market. One day last year, he Googled a pharmaceutical company that seemed like a promising investment. One of the first search results Google served up on its news tab was listed as coming from the Clayton County Register, a newspaper in northeastern…
I might have inadvertently insulted Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor when I interviewed them about their new AI startup last week. Their new company, Sierra, is developing AI-powered agents to “elevate the customer experience” for big companies. Among its original customers are WeightWatchers, Sonos, SiriusXM, and OluKai (a “Hawaiian-inspired” clothing company). Sierra’s eventual market…
After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline’s bereavement travel policy. On the day Jake Moffatt’s grandmother died, Moffat immediately visited Air Canada’s website to book a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Unsure of…