Can AI solve the world’s problems, like clean drinking water? “A superintelligent machine may be able to understand these problems, but it will have no way of overcoming them,” writes Francis Fukuyama. “There are water mafias that buy water where it is cheap, and resell it at extortionate prices. They are armed and ready to use violence if you get in their way.”

Ever heard of “Chatbait”? That’s how chatbots keep you talking for maximum engagement. (Lila Shroff, The Atlantic)

I Hate My Friend: The chatbot-enabled Friend necklace eavesdrops on your life and provides a running commentary that’s snarky and unhelpful. Worse, it can also make the people around you uneasy. (Kylie Robison, Wired)

How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart: Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent. (Varsha Bansal, The Guardian)

How Elon Musk Is Remaking Grok in His Image: “Grok’s rightward shift has occurred alongside Mr. Musk’s own frustrations with the chatbot’s replies. He wrote in July that ‘all AIs are trained on a mountain of woke’ information that is very difficult to remove after training.” (New York Times)

From Star Wars insult to TikTok meme: “Clanker has become a go-to slur against A.I. on social media, led by Gen Z and Gen Alpha posters.” (Eli Tan, New York Times)

“AI models are not politically neutral nor free from bias. More importantly, it may not even be possible for them to be unbiased. Throughout history, attempts to organise information have shown that one person’s objective truth is another’s ideological bias.” (Declan Humphreys, The Conversation)

No emotions, no praise, no mind: Extremism-scholar J.M. Berger’s three laws of chatbotics (Bluesky)

Brainstorm with a Bot: These days, we’re in an uneasy middle ground, caught between shaping a new technology and being reshaped by it. (Dan Rockmore, The New Yorker)

From an overview how newsrooms tackle bias in large language models: Humans and AI bots have biases. But the machine won’t be offended when you call it out. (Ramaa Sharma, Reuters Institute)

$200+ monthly fees: Welcome to the two-tier AI landscape favoring the well-off. (Reece Rogers, Wired)