Category: Wired

Sam Altman is leaving no room for doubt about his views on an Elon Musk-led bid to take control of OpenAI. In a letter to OpenAI staff Monday, the CEO put the words “bid” and “deal” in scare quotes and said the startup’s board has no interest in the offer. “Our structure exists to ensure

Grindr’s AI wingman, currently in beta testing with around 10,000 users, arrives at a pivotal moment for the software company. With its iconic notification chirp and ominous mask logo, the app is known culturally as a digital bathhouse for gay and bisexual men to swap nudes and meet with nearby users for sex, but Grindr

Dating sucks. The apps are broken. Whether it’s Hinge, Tinder, Bumble, or something else, everyone on them has become algorithmic fodder in a game that often feels pay-to-play. Colloquial wisdom suggests you’re better off trying to meet someone in person, but ever since the arrival of Covid-19 people just don’t mingle like they used to.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told federal lawmakers on Friday that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have seized control of a number of federal computer systems that house data tightly restricted under federal statutes. In some cases, any deviations in the manner in which the data is being used may

What a great idea I had for the first Plaintext of 2025. After following the frantic competition between OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic to churn out brainier and deeper “frontier” foundation models, I settled on a thesis about what’s ahead: In the new year, those mighty trailblazers will consume billions of dollars, countless gigawatts, and

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is pushing to rapidly develop “GSAi,” a custom generative AI chatbot for the US General Services Administration, according to two people familiar with the project. The plan is part of President Donald Trump’s AI-first agenda to modernize the federal government with advanced technology. One goal of the initiative

LinkedIn is testing a new job-hunting tool that uses a custom large language model to comb through huge quantities of data to help people find prospective roles. The company believes that artificial intelligence will help users unearth new roles they might have missed in the typical search process. “The reality is, you don’t find your

Google announced Tuesday that it is overhauling the principles governing how it uses artificial intelligence and other advanced technology. The company removed language promising not to pursue “technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people,”

In a Monday morning meeting, Thomas Shedd, the recently appointed Technology Transformation Services director and Elon Musk ally, told General Services Administration workers that the agency’s new administrator is pursuing an “AI-first strategy,” sources tell WIRED. Throughout the meeting, Shedd shared his vision for a GSA that operates like a “startup software company,” automating different

In a charming corner of the Bay of Lübeck, within sight of northern Germany’s windswept beaches, specialized clearance teams have been trawling the seafloor for the kind of catch that fishermen in these parts usually avoid—discarded naval mines, torpedoes, stacks of artillery shells, and heavy aerial bombs, all of which have been rusting away for