Tech Brew

TL;DR: xAI just sued a man for allegedly using Grok to make child sexual abuse material. It’s likely the first time an AI lab has sued one of its users for the way they used its product—all while xAI faces a wave of lawsuits blaming its model for generating nonconsensual sexual imagery.

TL;DR: OpenAI is reportedly working on a “humanlike” AI companion device designed to feel alive. It’s hardware that people will likely have to pay for, from a company whose flagship product is mostly used for free—but an AI companion gadget also comes with a lot of social (and, increasingly, legal) baggage.

TL;DR: New York just became the first US state to freeze new data center construction. It comes as the costs of the AI infrastructure build-out—to the air, the water, the grid, and your power bill—are landing in nearly every corner of the world. Still, hyperscalers remain committed to pumping billions into ever-bigger AI server farms.

TL;DR: In a lawsuit filed last Friday, Apple accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets for hardware products it spent “hundreds of billions of dollars and decades of effort” developing—and it could (probably much to Apple’s delight) pose a major roadblock to OpenAI’s hardware ambitions.

TL;DR: The company that helped kill cable is considering rebuilding it. Netflix is weighing live channels and streaming bundles to claw back slipping engagement, according to the Wall Street Journal. But attention-grabbing instincts—the redesigns and constant reranking meant to keep you hooked—are now backfiring across the industry as regulators circle.

TL;DR: South Korean memory chip firms are having a great year, posting record profits and even enriching workers along the way. But growing fears that memory prices can’t rise forever—and a new lawsuit accusing top memory makers of price fixing (something they’ve done before)—are casting a cloud over the gold rush. What happened: It’s an amazing time to be a South Korean memory chipmaker.

TL;DR: Meta is reportedly working on a new AI smart glasses prototype that’s always watching and listening, per the Financial Times. It’s not a great look for a company that’s been in a lot of hot water for privacy issues, but its existing AI glasses continue to be a runaway hit.

TL;DR: Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, which Reddit might be doing by using AI to fight AI slop. But it also highlights how platforms that were once so valuable because of their human-generated content are now struggling to tamp down on a flood of AI spam—and it could have broader consequences. What happened: Reddit revealed yesterday that it now uses LLMs to catch around 25,000 spammy posts or comments every day.

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TL;DR: After spending the last year warning that AI would wipe out jobs, tech CEOs—including Sam Altman and Dario Amodei—are suddenly striking a much sunnier tone. The jury’s still out on whether the rosier spin is a real rethink or damage control as public opinion on AI sours.