Europe's landmark AI law has moved from an idea to enforcement. Why it matters: Brussels will soon learn whether it can turn its sweeping AI rulebook into regulation that companies can actually follow—and if it can become a global benchmark for AI standards. Driving the news: A major enforcement deadline arrived Aug. 2 . - Most notably, new transparency and disclosure requirements are in effect for chatbots and AI-generated content. - Europe's AI Office has not gone after any companies covered under the law for misconduct yet, but it can now request information from companies or ask for access to models. What they're saying: "This is a messy piece of legislation," Patrick Van Eecke, a partner at Cooley in Brussels who advises…
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a full-throated defense of AI on Monday morning: a 6,500-word manifesto arguing that the most common concerns are overblown and fail to account for all the positives it can achieve. - In his vision of AI , the biggest risk instead is that one government or entity has too much power over the technology. Why it matters: Zuckerberg's flag in the ground, with a utopian vision of a highly personal AI that fuels individual achievement, comes as policymakers debate how much control they should have over increasingly powerful models. What they're saying: "One of the ways to achieve both individual empowerment and checks and balances is to make sure you put the technology in everybody's hands," Zuckerberg told…
Actor and Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez deleted an AI-generated video from X that depicted his 19-year-old niece in a way users called "creepy" and "sexually fetishizing", and he has yet to explain why he posted it. The 52-year-old "Saved by the Bell" alum shared the video sometime before August 4, using Grok, the AI […] The post Mario Lopez pulls AI-generated video of his niece after online backlash appeared first on American Almanac .
Actor and Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez deleted an AI-generated video from X that depicted his 19-year-old niece in a way users called "creepy" and "sexually fetishizing", and he has yet to explain why he posted it. The 52-year-old "Saved by the Bell" alum shared the video sometime before August 4, using Grok, the AI image and video generator built by Elon Musk's xAI. The clip showed a fabricated version of Lopez and his niece, Kalia "YaYa" Wong, at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. In the AI-generated scene, Wong appeared to attempt eating two hot dogs at once, spilling and rubbing mustard on her face, while an AI-generated voice mimicking Lopez said, "Oh my God! Look at you!" and "can't take her anywhere." Lopez pulled the video before…Open
AI labs have reportedly acquired millions of books by buying physical copies, destroying their pages and scanning them to train their models. This comes as the Senate holds a hearing on the use of artificial intelligence in fraud schemes and how its future use will impact the workplace.
Anthropic spent this winter and spring as the darling of America's AI boom, conquering the frontier while casting itself as the industry's moral conscience. - By summer, the Claude maker had found itself alone on an island of its own principles. Why it matters: Anthropic is simultaneously the world's most valuable startup and its most isolated AI leader. The company's idiosyncrasies have strained its relationship with developers, policymakers and partners as it barrels toward a potential trillion-dollar IPO . Driving the news: Anthropic is the only frontier AI lab that declined to sign an open letter led by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urging Washington not to restrict open-weight models, a category currently dominated by China. -…
The literary world is celebrating Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors. But AI firms may still train models on legally purchased books. What does that mean?
Meta disabled its new Muse Image AI generator on Instagram on Friday, less than a week after launching a feature that automatically enrolled every public account on the platform, without notice or explicit consent, as raw material for artificial-intelligence image creation. The reversal came after sharp criticism from SAG-AFTRA and the Creative Artists Agency, both […] The post Meta pulls AI image tool from Instagram after Hollywood backlash over consent appeared first on American Almanac .
Meta disabled its new Muse Image AI generator on Instagram on Friday, less than a week after launching a feature that automatically enrolled every public account on the platform, without notice or explicit consent, as raw material for artificial-intelligence image creation. The reversal came after sharp criticism from SAG-AFTRA and the Creative Artists Agency, both of which warned that the tool invited nonconsensual use of people's likenesses. The company acknowledged the obvious in an Instagram post reported by Deadline : the feature "missed the mark." That is one way to describe a product that let any user generate AI images of any public Instagram account holder simply by tagging their username in a prompt, and never bothered to tell…Open
AI regulation in the U.S. over the last few months has been a frenzy. Some experts say it didn't have to be this way. Why it matters: AI companies and the government are praising each other for successful collaboration on rules for cutting-edge AI, but that view hides a scramble behind the scenes that could have been avoided. Driving the news: OpenAI and Anthropic's latest, most powerful models both ended up getting nods from the government before wide release. That would have been unthinkable just months ago. The big picture: The two companies now know first-hand what it's like to release powerful models under the Trump administration's approach to regulation. - That's featured export control threats, licensing requirements and…
A new UN-backed commission will bring top tech executives and heads of state to the same table to forge global rules for AI , per an announcement shared exclusively with Axios. Why it matters: As global AI regulation grows more splintered , this initiative is an attempt to connect the executives building advanced AI with a group of global politicians. Driving the news: The United Nations and its International Telecommunication Union are convening the AI for Good Global Commission, which will hold its first meeting on July 8 in Geneva, Switzerland. - Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Rwandan President Paul Kagame will co-chair the commission. - Other members include ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Estonian President Alar Karis,…
Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes: I've spent the past year using AI obsessively — inputting copious amounts of personal and business data, turning myself into a lab rat for Axios and our readers. Why it matters: This experiment has shown me in unmistakable, hands-on ways the superhuman possibilities — and real-world limitations — hitting and awaiting us. In short: AI is way better, more accurate and mind-expanding than most think. (Sorry, it's true.) But it's colliding with hard human realities, making it confusing, clunky and chaotic for lots of people in its current form. How I did it: Over the past year, Axios aggressively tested AI (mainly OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code) across every layer of every department. - We…
