Grok is unpromptedly telling X users about South African ‘white genocide’

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok appeared to experience a bug on Wednesday that caused it to reply to dozens of posts on X with information about “white genocide” in South Africa, even when the user didn’t ask anything about the subject. The strange responses stem from the X account for Grok, which replies to users…

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Stability AI releases an audio-generating model that can run on smartphones

AI startup Stability AI has released Stable Audio Open Small, a “stereo” audio-generating AI model that the company claims is the fastest on the market — and efficient enough to run on smartphones. Stable Audio Open Small is the fruit of a collaboration between Stability AI and Arm, the chipmaker that produces many of the…

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Anthropic, Google score win by nabbing OpenAI-backed Harvey as a user

Popular legal AI tool Harvey will now be using leading foundation models from Anthropic and Google, moving beyond strictly using OpenAI’s, Harvey announced in a blog post on Tuesday. This is noteworthy because Harvey is one of the OpenAI Startup Fund’s most successful early-backed portfolio companies. The OpenAI Startup Fund is an OpenAI-associated fund to…

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Anthropic co-founder Jared Kaplan is coming to TechCrunch Sessions: AI

Hungry to learn more about Anthropic, directly from Anthropic? You aren’t alone if so, which is why we’re so delighted to announce that Anthropic co-founder and Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan is joining the main stage at TechCrunch Sessions: AI on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. And TechCrunch Sessions: AI is right around…

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Trump fires Copyright Office director after report raises questions about AI training

President Donald Trump has fired Shira Perlmutter, who leads the U.S. Copyright Office. The firing was reported by CBS News and Politico, and seemingly confirmed by a statement from Representative Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee for House Administration. “Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power…

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SoundCloud changes policies to allow AI training on user content

SoundCloud appears to have quietly changed its terms of use to allow the company to train AI on audio that users upload to its platform. As spotted by tech ethicist Ed Newton-Rex, the latest version of SoundCloud’s terms include a provision giving the platform permission to use uploaded content to “inform, train, [or] develop” AI….

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Google I/O 2025: What to expect, including updates to Gemini and Android 16

Google I/O, Google’s biggest developer conference of the year, is nearly upon us. Scheduled for May 20 to 21 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, I/O will showcase product announcements from across Google’s portfolio. Expect plenty of news relating to Android, Chrome, Google Search, YouTube, and — of course — Google’s AI-powered chatbot, Gemini. Here’s…

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Microsoft employees are banned from using DeepSeek app, president says 

Microsoft employees aren’t allowed to use DeepSeek due to data security and propaganda concerns, Microsoft vice chairman and president Brad Smith said in a Senate hearing today. “At Microsoft we don’t allow our employees to use the DeepSeek app,” Smith said, referring to DeepSeek’s application service (which is available on both desktop and mobile). Smith…

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