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Artificial intelligence, LLMs, AI regulation, and industry developments
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Artificial intelligence, LLMs, AI regulation, and industry developments
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI mischief, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Hac
Just a stuffed deer having the time of his life. | Image: Gemini / The Verge Last year I deepfaked my kid's stuffed animal to make it look like his plush deer was on vacation. It was an experiment to see if I could re-create the events depicted in a
Google's AI Overviews are running into an interesting problem right now. Earlier on Friday, if you searched for the term "disregard," the AI Overview section would include a response like what you'd see from a more traditional AI chatbot instead of t
Critics note a lack of factual support in lawsuit filed by US Senate candidate.
There is a harsh truth about Elon Musk's "truth-seeking" AI chatbot Grok: It's not very good, and not many people are using it. That's the takeaway of a new Reuters report, which found that Grok barely appears in federal records of how the US governm
Since 2012, the British literary magazine Granta has published the regional winners of the annual Commonwealth Short Story Prize. This year, however, there was something off about one of the selections for the prestigious award: It appears to have be
Prompt something better than Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” I dare you. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images AI covers and remixes of songs are already a blight on the internet. Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are awash in
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Anthropic’s Code with Claude showed off coding’s future—whether you like it or not At Anthropic’s developer even
48,000 Samsung workers had threatened to strike unless bonus caps were lifted. | Photo: Jung Yeon-je / AFP via Getty Images Details have emerged about a tentative deal struck between Samsung and semiconductor employees who had threatened to strike. T
GitHub is just the latest victim of TeamPCP, a gang that has carried out a spree of software supply chain attacks.
During Tuesday’s Google I/O keynote, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, proclaimed that we are currently “standing in the foothills of the singularity.” It was a striking statement—the singularity is the theoretical future moment when AI rap
This Sunday, a group of 42 athletes will gather in Las Vegas to compete in a somewhat unusual sporting competition. Participants in the inaugural Enhanced Games are being encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs. The goal is to “push the bounda
Listen to the session or watch below AI companies want to build systems that understand the external world and overcome the limitations of LLMs. Recent developments have brought world models to the forefront of the AI discussion. Watch a conversation
Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefi
University graduates are booing and heckling corporate executives who praise AI during their commencement ceremonies, and the only people who seem to be genuinely surprised by this are the executives themselves. In a procession of viral videos, 2026
Storytelling is core to humanity’s DNA, stemming from our impulse to express ideals, warnings, hopes, and experiences. Technology has always been woven through the medium and the distribution: from early humans’ innovation of natural pigments and cha
You can buy physical plates to pair with your AI effects. | Photo: Terrence O’Brien / The Verge I'm not sure anyone was really asking for an AI guitar pedal. But it was inevitable that someone would build one. One of the first to take the plunge is P
The vibes were strong at Code with Claude, Anthropic’s two-day event for software developers in London that kicked off on May 19, the same day as Google’s I/O in Palo Alto. (A coincidence, not a flex, Anthropic staffers assured me.) “Who here has shi
Beneficiaries include startup backed by firm with links to the Trump family.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety For months, the Trump admin
We’re over a year into the second Trump administration here in the US, and support for climate causes is weak. But climate tech companies are finding ways to survive and even thrive in this new environment, including by focusing on potential benefits
Since its earliest days back in office, the Trump administration has been going after researchers who study and try to counter hate speech, harassment, propaganda, and disinformation online. Now, some of those researchers are fighting back. Last week
Google publishes exploit code before patch, reported 42 months earlier, is fixed.
The startup Boston Metal has raised a $75 million funding round to produce critical metals, MIT Technology Review can exclusively report. The company has been known largely for its efforts to clean up steel production, an industry that’s responsible
SSH keys, plaintext passwords, other sensitive data had been up since November 2025.
For a quarter century, the Google search box has been one of the most recognizable interfaces in computing: a thin white rectangle, a blinking cursor, a few typed words, and a list of blue links. On Tuesday, Google will formally retire that paradigm.
It's not entirely clear how the exploit works. Microsoft says it's investigating.
Layoffs are "not a savings-driven restructure," CFO says.
Production-version patches are coming online and should be installed pronto.
Across the country, schools and colleges postpone year-end tests.