David Isenberg’s This is the week that was in AI, from “Here’s how to protect yourself” against AI-enabled browsers, to “Coming in 2026….The porn-brained version of ChatGPT.”
News from Axios
Trump signs executive order targeting state AI laws
President Trump last night signed an executive order to override state AI laws, setting up high-stakes clashes nationwide and inside his own party.
….Trump said “people want to be in the United States and they want to do it here … but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because that’s not possible to do.”
December 12, 2025
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News from The Nation
The Slop of Things to Come
This past week boasted many overhyped AI breakthroughs, but the healthiest one was the fierce repudiation of a contemptuous McDonald’s ad.
….This week also saw the release of a feverishly touted AI-generated video from the Netherlands arm of the Golden Arches colossus, extolling the pleasures of fast food amid runaway holiday-season stress—and the end result was an unmitigated disaster.
December 12, 2025
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News from The AI Report
OpenAI unveils GPT‑5.2 for advanced professional work
….The model matches or surpasses expert results on 70.9% of professional tasks across 44 fields, showing stronger skill in coding, modeling, and structured written outputs.
It maintains detailed recall through inputs of up to 256k tokens and cuts visual interpretation mistakes by half, improving reliability when analyzing charts or interface layouts.
Three versions are being deployed for paid ChatGPT plans, while developers can use it via the standard API, maintaining compatibility across existing enterprise systems.
December 12, 2025
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News from Gizmodo
ChatGPT’s ‘Adult Mode’ Is Coming in 2026
Gooners rejoice.
OpenAI announced the latest version of its flagship AI model, GPT-5.2, on Thursday in response to its ongoing attempt to keep up with its competitors. And while GPT-5.2 reportedly performs well in most benchmark tests, there’s one metric that OpenAI did not provide details on: how horny is it? It looks like we’ll find that out sometime early next year
The porn-brained version of ChatGPT is something that CEO Sam Altman promised earlier this year…
December 11, 2025
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News from Tom’s Guide
AI Browsers can be tricked into stealing your data — here’s how to protect yourself
AI-powered browsers such as Perplexity’s Comet and ChatGPT Atlas are becoming more common, though their rise has sparked debate in the tech community about their security implications…
Here’s how to stay safe.
1. Never share sensitive information….
December 11, 2025
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News from Engadget
New York passes law requiring ads to disclose the use of AI performers
A bill focused on how someone’s name or likeness can be used after their death was also passed.
New York is taking steps to regulate the use of AI in the state’s entertainment industry. NY State Governor Kathy Hochul passed two pieces of legislation on Thursday that forces certain productions to disclose the use of AI-generated performers, and defines rules around how someone’s likeness can be used after their death.
December 11, 2025
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News from Axios
Exclusive: New OpenAI models likely pose “high” cybersecurity risk, company says
OpenAI says the cyber capabilities of its frontier AI models are accelerating and warns Wednesday that upcoming models are likely to pose a “high” risk, in a report shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: The models’ growing capabilities could significantly expand the number of people able to carry out cyberattacks.
December 10, 2025
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News from TechCrunch
After a string of disturbing mental health incidents involving AI chatbots, a group of state attorneys general have sent a letter to the AI industry’s top companies, with a warning to fix “delusional outputs” or risk being in breach of state law.
The letter, signed by dozens of AGs from U.S. states and territories with the National Association of Attorneys General, asks the companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, and 10 other major AI firms, to implement a variety of new internal safeguards to protect their users. Anthropic, Apple, Chai AI, Character Technologies, Luka, Meta, Nomi AI, Perplexity AI, Replika, and xAI were also included in the letter.
December 10, 2025
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News from CNBC
‘Greetings, earthlings’: Nvidia-backed Starcloud trains first AI model in space as orbital data center race heats up
Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud trained an artificial intelligence model from space for the first time, signaling a new era for orbital data centers that could alleviate Earth’s escalating digital infrastructure crisis.
December 10, 2025
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News from Bloomberg (no paywall)
Google DeepMind will open its first research lab for discovering new materials, like those used in batteries or semiconductors, as part of its push to apply artificial intelligence to more scientific fields.
The facility, which will open in the UK next year, is the centerpiece of a broad partnership with the British government Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced on Thursday.
December 10, 2025
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News from Axios
Exclusive: New platform aims to stop AI from using creators’ work without permission
A new rights-and-governance platform is launching after a pilot program with Malcolm X’s estate and Katt Williams’ studio, bet on helping creators keep their work from being quietly swept into AI training systems — and losing out on pay when it is.
Why it matters: Generative AI systems are being trained on enormous scraped datasets of books, videos, music and cultural archives — often without permission and with no settled legal standard for whether that’s allowed.
December 10, 2025
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News from the Bulletin of theAtomic Scientists
What happens when seeing is no longer believing?
Humans are entering a post-documentation world. Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) threatens their ability to rely on audio recordings, photos, or even videos to prove or disprove facts…And the proliferation of low-quality AI-generated content and automated creation are polluting even non-AI sites and eroding the internet’s value as a global information source…. What do humans, as a society, do when political actors can create their own history and manufacture the so-called “documents” to back it up?
December 10, 2025
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News from The New Republic
Pete Hegseth’s Own AI Bot Backfires on His Boat Strikes
Et tu, ChatGPT?
When asked to describe the strikes, Hegseth’s newly unveiled chatbot didn’t hold back.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled his department’s new AI chatbot for military personnel, GenAI.mil. Almost immediately, the bot called a “hypothetical” situation where the government orders a strike on a suspected drug-smuggling boat and then double-taps said boat to kill the survivors, “unambiguously illegal.”
December 10, 2025
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News from Observer
Google’s Gemini Rapidly Closes In on ChatGPT as Antitrust Scrutiny Mounts
Gemini’s rapid rise is reshaping the chatbot race—and drawing fresh regulatory scrutiny.
Google’s Gemini is in a hyper-growth phase and rapidly closing the gap with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Between August and November, Gemini’s global monthly active users rose about 30 percent, roughly six times ChatGPT’s growth, according to web and mobile app traffic data from Sensor Tower….
December 10, 2025
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News from Truthout
Secretive New Mexico Data Center Plan Races Forward Despite Community Pushback
To power the growing demand for AI, New Mexico is gearing up to build a data center with a city-sized carbon footprint.
t the very Southeastern tip of New Mexico bordering Texas and Mexico, a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center is gearing up to be a greenhouse gas and air pollution behemoth, an additional water user in a drought-afflicted region, and a sower of community discontent.
Project Jupiter is one of five sites in the $500 billion Stargate Project, a national pipeline of massive AI systems linked with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.
December 10, 2025
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News from Reader Supported News
Environmental Groups Demand a Nationwide Freeze on Data Center Construction
More than 200 environmental organizations signed a letter to Congress supporting a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers. The letter, sent Monday, highlights these centers’ impacts on water resources, electricity rates and greenhouse gas emissions.
December 10, 2025
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News from Federal News Network
AI agents: The next layer of federal digital infrastructure
AI agents can help agencies improve citizen services, accelerate national security decision-making, and scale mission delivery in ways once unthinkable.
….What does an AI-native government look like?
The answer may lie in AI agents — autonomous, adaptive systems capable of perceiving, reasoning, planning and acting across data environments. Unlike traditional AI models that provide insights or automate discrete tasks, AI agents can take initiative, interact with other systems, and continuously adapt to mission needs.
December 9, 2025
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News from Techcrunch
Pebble’s founder introduces a $75 AI smart ring for recording brief notes with a press of a button
fter rebooting the Pebble smartwatch brand, founder Eric Migicovsky is expanding his company’s device lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-powered smart ring known as Index 01. Named for the finger where the ring is meant to be worn, the new $75 ring is not meant to be a competitor to always-on, always-listening AI devices, like the AI pendant Friend, but instead offers a way to record quick notes and reminders with a press of a button on the ring’s side.
December 9, 2025
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News from Engadget
iFixit’s new app uses AI to help you repair your stuff
FixBot walks you through a problem step by step.
We’ve all been there: You can’t (or won’t) get help when something breaks, but the YouTube clip doesn’t cover your specific issue. It’s what repair gurus at iFixit want to solve with FixBot, an AI-enabled app that talks you through whatever repair you’re doing. The chatbot will help you diagnose the problem and then walk you step-by-step through the fix. Plus, it’s voice-enabled so you won’t have to get your phone all smeary when you’re elbows-deep in a job.
December 9, 2025
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News from Foreign Affairs
Compute Is the New Oil
America and the Gulf Must Work Together on Artificial Intelligence
hen U.S. President Donald Trump visited the Arab Gulf in May, his focus was…. on business deals and, above all, artificial intelligence. During the trip, Trump agreed to sell advanced U.S. chips to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and to invest in AI mega-campuses in the Gulf that will host U.S. firms. One such site, in Abu Dhabi, could become the worldʼs largest concentrated cluster of the computing power fueling artificial intelligence.
December 9, 2025
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News from Rest of World
“Everyone is so panicked”: Entry-level tech workers describe the AI-fueled jobpocalypse
Engineering graduates face shrinking opportunities and rising pressure to upskill beyond their curriculum.
In 2022, Rishabh Mishra joined a high-ranking engineering college in India’s Jabalpur with the most predictable dream in global tech: study computer science, write code, and one day make it to Silicon Valley.
Three years later, Mishra faces a sobering reality.
Artificial intelligence has gutted entry-level roles in the tech industry that Mishra and his classmates were counting on.
December 9, 2025
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News from Winbuzzer
EU Opens Antitrust Probe into Google’s Use of Publisher Content
The European Commission has formally opened an antitrust investigation into Google, targeting its use of publisher content for AI Overviews without compensation.
….Regulators are targeting “AI Overviews” and YouTube data practices, with potential fines reaching 10% of global annual turnover if breaches are confirmed.
December 9, 2025
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News from CNBC
Google to launch first of its AI glasses in 2026
Google on Monday said it plans to launch the first of its AI-powered glasses in 2026, as the tech company ramps up its efforts to compete against Meta in a heating consumer market for AI devices.
The company said it plans to release audio-only glasses with its Gemini AI assistant and glasses that will include an in-lens display.
Google is racing to compete with Meta, which has seen surprising success with its AI-powered glasses that are designed in partnership with EssilorLuxottica.
December 8, 2025
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News from Against All Enemies
Help Me Stop The Fake AI “Rick Wilson” Channels
Many of you have written and messaged about the fake AI channels that look like me, sound like me, and are stealing my image and voice. We’ve got legal on it like wild dogs, but here’s an update for y’all.
This video explains the situation and has a step-by-step tutorial by the great Kate Salkowitz
on how you can help ban these AI spammers from YouTube
December 8, 2025
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News from Digital Trends
People are spending more time on Gemini compared to ChatGPT
ChatGPT still leads in total users, but Gemini users are sticking around longer
The AI chatbot race just got a shake-up. Fresh data shows that ChatGPT, once growing at tremendous speed, is finally hitting a plateau, while Google’s Gemini is picking up momentum quickly. According to Sensor Tower data, Gemini’s user base grew by 30% between August and November, at the same time ChatGPT barely moved.
December 8, 2025
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News from Axios
Behind the Curtain: Trump bets party, presidency on AI
….Trump has essentially fused Silicon Valley and government in a race to both beat China to all-powerful AI and rescue an economy that’s treading water outside of the AI boom. He has rolled back regulations, awarded huge contracts, and downplayed concerns about AI safety or downside risk.
December 8, 2025
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News from Cryptopolitan
OpenAI says its AI tools saves up to 60 minutes of employees’ daily tasks
OpenAI says its AI tools now cut 40 to 60 minutes from daily work across many jobs. The claim comes from a new company survey run inside real workplaces, not from tests in labs.
The data lands at a tense moment, three years into the AI boom, when many leaders still question what the tech truly gives back.
December 8, 2025
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News from PC Mag
ChatGPT Now Has More Monthly Visitors Than These Top Platforms
ChatGPT is now the fifth most popular website worldwide in terms of raw visitor numbers behind Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram as of September 2025, Similarweb finds.
December 7, 2025
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