May 2, 2025

The Download: foreign disinformation intel, and gene-edited pork

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. A senior State Department official demanded records of communications with journalists, European officials, and Trump critics A previously unreported document distributed by senior US State Department official Darren Beattie reveals a sweeping effort…

Study accuses LM Arena of helping top AI labs game its benchmark

May 1, 2025
A new paper from AI lab Cohere, Stanford, MIT, and Ai2 accuses LM Arena, the organization behind the popular crowdsourced AI benchmark Chatbot Arena, of helping a select group of AI companies achieve better leaderboard scores at the expense of rivals. According to the authors, LM Arena allowed some industry-leading AI companies like Meta, OpenAI, […]

Microsoft expects some AI capacity constraints this quarter

April 30, 2025
Microsoft customers could encounter service disruptions when using AI services due to demand outpacing the company’s ability to bring data centers online, an executive warned during the company’s earnings call Microsoft’s EVP and CFO Amy Hood said during the company’s fiscal 2025 third-quarter earnings call Wednesday the company may face AI capacity constraints as early […]

Visa and Mastercard unveil AI-powered shopping

April 30, 2025
Artificial intelligence is not just infiltrating the startup world. Now, credit card giants Visa and Mastercard are getting into the AI game. Visa announced on Wednesday “Intelligent Commerce,” which it says enables AI “to find and buy.” AI agents will be able to shop and make purchases on behalf of consumers, based on preselected preferences. […]

Threads tops 350M monthly users after adding 30M in the quarter

April 30, 2025
Instagram Threads, Meta’s X competitor, has now grown to over 350 million monthly active users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call on Wednesday. That’s an increase of 30 million users since the prior quarter, where Meta reported that Threads had 320 million users. The new figure represents increased growth, as […]

Pinterest launches new tools to fight AI slop

April 30, 2025
Pinterest says it’s finally going to do something about the AI slop that’s taken over its platform. After an increasing volume of complaints, the social networking and image pinboarding site announced Wednesday a plan to begin labeling AI-generated and AI-modified images. It will also introduce a new option that allows users to reduce the number […]