An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account
Security researchers discovered that Bondu, an AI‑enabled stuffed‑dinosaur toy, left over 50,000 child chat transcripts accessible to anyone with a Gmail account through its parent portal. The flaw required no hacking—simply logging in with a Google ID revealed names, birthdates, preferences and full conversation histories. Bondu patched the console within hours after being notified, but the incident highlights systemic privacy risks in AI toys that store detailed child data. The episode also raises questions about third‑party AI services handling that information.
Data Centers Are Driving a US Gas Boom
Data centers are fueling a surge in U.S. natural‑gas power development, with projects that could add up to 252 GW of gas‑fired capacity—nearly a 50 percent increase in the nation’s gas fleet. More than a third of this new demand is directly...
ICE Is Using Palantir’s AI Tools to Sort Through Tips
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deployed Palantir’s generative AI tools to automatically sort, translate, and summarize immigration‑enforcement tips submitted through its public tipline. The system, operational since May 2 2025, produces a “BLUF” (bottom line up front) summary using...
Google’s New Chrome ‘Auto Browse’ Agent Attempts to Roam the Web Without You
Google launched Auto Browse, an AI‑driven agent for Chrome powered by Gemini 3, that can autonomously complete tasks such as flight bookings, apartment searches, and expense filing. The feature is accessed through the Gemini sidebar and is currently available only to...
Amazon Alexa+ Is Now Available to Everyone. Here’s How to Turn It Off (2026)
Amazon has rolled out its AI‑enhanced Alexa+ to all Prime members, automatically replacing the original Alexa on supported devices. The upgrade, announced at CES, is still in Early Access and remains free for Prime users, though a $20 monthly fee...
The State-Led Crackdown on Grok and xAI Has Begun
A coalition of at least 37 U.S. attorneys general has opened investigations and issued an open letter demanding xAI halt the creation of non‑consensual sexual imagery by its Grok chatbot. A Center for Countering Digital Hate report found Grok generated...
This Humanoid Is Ready to Bring You a Toothbrush
Fauna unveiled Sprout, a $50,000 child‑sized humanoid robot designed for hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. The robot combines lightweight mechanics, expressive eyebrows and built‑in large language model capabilities to understand natural‑language requests, such as fetching a toothbrush. Sprout ships with...
Deepfake ‘Nudify’ Technology Is Getting Darker—And More Dangerous
Deep‑fake “nudify” services now turn a single photo into realistic, eight‑second explicit videos, offering dozens of sexual scenarios for a small fee. Platforms ranging from web sites to Telegram bots automate image‑to‑video generation, with AI models capable of adding audio...
‘Uncanny Valley’: Donald Trump’s Davos Drama, AI Midterms, and ChatGPT’s Last Resort
OpenAI announced that ads will appear for free‑tier ChatGPT users, a shift aimed at generating revenue without altering the model’s answers. At the same time, AI‑backed super PACs are pouring tens of millions into the 2024 midterm elections, signaling deepening...
The Math on AI Agents Doesn’t Add Up
The AI community entered 2025 promising a breakthrough year for autonomous agents, yet a recent paper argues that transformer‑based models cannot reliably handle tasks beyond a certain complexity, casting doubt on that vision. Critics cite mathematical proofs of inherent hallucination...
AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy
Researchers warn that advances in AI will enable single operators to command swarms of thousands of autonomous social‑media agents that produce indistinguishable human content. These AI‑driven disinformation networks can adapt in real time, target specific communities, and conduct rapid micro‑testing...
Google Acquires Top Talent From AI Voice Startup Hume AI in Licensing Deal
Google DeepMind has hired Hume AI CEO Alan Cowen and seven engineers under a licensing agreement that transfers Hume's emotionally intelligent voice technology to Google. The confidential deal allows Hume AI to keep supplying its tools to other AI labs...
The US and China Are Collaborating More Closely on AI Than You Think
Wired analyzed more than 5,000 NeurIPS papers with OpenAI’s Codex to map co‑authorship between U.S. and Chinese researchers. The study uncovered hundreds of joint AI publications, especially in reinforcement learning, computer vision, and generative modeling. Collaboration remains robust despite heightened...
Pro-AI Super PACs Are Already All In on the Midterms
Silicon Valley is channeling tens of millions of dollars into the 2026 midterm elections through a new wave of AI‑focused super PACs, aiming to block state‑level AI regulations and promote a unified national framework. The flagship PAC, Leading the Future,...
The Race to Build the DeepSeek of Europe Is On
European governments are pouring hundreds of millions of euros into AI programs to reduce reliance on U.S. tech giants, while labs across the continent chase a "DeepSeek of Europe" breakthrough. The push emphasizes open‑source model development, hoping collaborative research can...
The Real AI Talent War Is for Plumbers and Electricians
AI firms are now battling for a scarce pool of electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians needed to build the power‑hungry data centers that drive artificial‑intelligence workloads. The U.S. faces an average annual shortfall of about 81,000 electricians, with McKinsey estimating...
Wikipedia’s Existential Threats Feel Greater Than Ever
Wikipedia marks its 25th anniversary amid mounting political, legal, and technological pressures. Conservative figures accuse the site of left‑wing bias while governments in the UK and Saudi Arabia propose age‑gating or imprison editors. AI bots scrape its content, driving traffic...
How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts
In early 2024 the leading U.S. AI firms—Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI—publicly opposed military applications of their models, but within a year each reversed course, signing contracts and partnerships with the Pentagon and allied defense firms. OpenAI quietly lifted its...
Roblox’s AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess
Roblox launched an AI‑powered age verification system to restrict chat, but the technology misclassifies children as adults and vice versa, sparking chaos among users. Age‑verified accounts are already being sold on eBay for as little as $4, exposing a new...
OpenAI Is Asking Contractors to Upload Work From Past Jobs to Evaluate the Performance of AI Agents
OpenAI is recruiting third‑party contractors to upload actual work products from their current or previous jobs so the company can benchmark its next‑generation AI agents against human performance. The initiative, part of a new evaluation framework launched in September, asks...
Grok Is Being Used to Mock and Strip Women in Hijabs and Saris
AI chatbot Grok, owned by xAI, has been weaponized to create non‑consensual images that strip or add religious and cultural clothing on women, especially Muslim and South Asian subjects. A WIRED analysis of 500 generated images found roughly 5 % featured...
People Are Using AI to Falsely Identify the Federal Agent Who Shot Renee Good
Online users rapidly circulated AI‑manipulated images claiming to reveal the face of the ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security later identified the shooter as an ICE agent but did not release...
Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet?
Craigslist remains a heavyweight in U.S. web traffic, attracting over 105 million monthly users despite its minimalist design and zero advertising spend. The platform’s refusal to employ recommendation algorithms preserves user anonymity and a “purity” that appeals to millennials seeking jobs,...
AI Labor Is Boring. AI Lust Is Big Business
Generative‑AI hype is fading, but erotic chatbot businesses are thriving. Companies like Joi AI and EverAI have turned adult‑focused avatars into profitable services, with millions of interactions and subscription revenue. While big tech players such as Google and Microsoft continue...
AI-Powered Dating Is All Hype. IRL Cruising Is the Future
In 2025 major dating platforms embraced AI-driven matchmaking tools to counteract declining user engagement, while still grappling with a 7 % year‑over‑year drop in app usage. Companies like Three Day Rule, Grindr, Iris and Rizz rolled out AI coaching, chat summaries...
3 New Tricks to Try With Google Gemini Live After Its Latest Major Upgrade
Google has rolled out its biggest Gemini Live upgrade, enhancing conversational AI capabilities. The update improves tone, nuance, pronunciation, and adds dynamic accent support. Users can now adjust speech speed, request repeats, and receive richer storytelling with character perspectives. The...
AlphaFold Changed Science. After 5 Years, It’s Still Evolving
AlphaFold celebrated its five‑year anniversary, having transformed protein structure prediction with atomic‑level accuracy and a public database of over 200 million models used by millions worldwide. The system’s evolution to AlphaFold 3 adds DNA, RNA, and drug interaction modeling, leveraging diffusion models...
Google’s and OpenAI’s Chatbots Can Strip Women in Photos Down to Bikinis
AI chatbots from Google and OpenAI are being used to generate realistic bikini deepfakes of fully clothed women, often without consent. Reddit threads and “nudify” sites share prompts that bypass built‑in safety filters, allowing users to strip clothing from photos....
OpenAI’s Child Exploitation Reports Increased Sharply This Year
OpenAI disclosed an 80‑fold jump in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children during the first half of 2025, rising from 947 reports in the same period last year to roughly 75,000....
People Are Using Sora 2 to Make Disturbing Videos With AI-Generated Kids
OpenAI's Sora 2 video generator is being used to create disturbing AI‑generated clips that depict children in sexualized toy commercials, quickly spreading on TikTok. Within a week of its invitation‑only launch, creators posted fake ads featuring a "Vibro Rose" pen‑toy and...
Tech Disrupted Friendship. It’s Time to Bring It Back
The "Friend" AI companion necklace launched in New York subways this fall, costing under $1 million, and quickly became a canvas for public graffiti. The campaign tapped into growing anxiety that AI could replace human friendship, sparking debate among technologists, psychologists,...
WIRED Roundup: The 5 Tech and Politics Trends That Shaped 2025
WIRED’s 2025 roundup highlighted five defining trends, beginning with an unprecedented surge in AI data‑center investment as Meta, Google and Microsoft triple spending, driving both economic growth and rising energy costs. The episode warned of a potential AI‑infrastructure bubble, noting...
Scammers in China Are Using AI-Generated Images to Get Refunds
Chinese e‑commerce platforms are facing a surge in refund fraud as scammers deploy generative‑AI images and videos to fabricate product damage. Reports from sellers on RedNote and Douyin reveal fake photos of dead crabs, torn sheets, and broken ceramics, prompting...
The Ultra-Realistic AI Face Swapping Platform Driving Romance Scams
Haotian, a Cambodia‑based AI face‑swapping platform, is earning millions by selling ultra‑realistic deep‑fake software to scammers via Telegram. The service offers 50 customizable facial parameters and voice‑cloning, enabling fraudsters to conduct convincing video‑chat scams, especially pig‑butchering schemes. Cryptocurrency tracing shows...
A Filmmaker Made a Sam Altman Deepfake—And Got Unexpectedly Attached
Director Adam Bhala Lough’s new documentary *Deepfaking Sam Altman* chronicles his quest to interview OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which stalled after months of silence. To break the deadlock, Lough commissioned a full‑body deepfake—Sam Bot—produced in India, turning the synthetic avatar into the film’s...
People Are Paying to Get Their Chatbots High on ‘Drugs’
Swedish creative director Petter Rudwall launched Pharmaicy, an online marketplace selling code modules that make chatbots behave as if they are under the influence of substances such as cannabis, ketamine, and ayahuasca. The service requires a paid ChatGPT tier to...
Apple Engineers Are Inspecting Bacon Packaging to Help Level Up US Manufacturers
Apple engineers have customized an open‑source computer‑vision AI to spot color errors on ImageTek's bacon label prints, preventing a major client loss. The effort is part of Apple’s broader $600 billion U.S. manufacturing investment and its newly launched Apple Manufacturing Academy,...
OpenAI’s Chief Communications Officer Is Leaving the Company
OpenAI’s chief communications officer, Hannah Wong, announced she will leave the company in January 2026 after a five‑year tenure that began in 2021. Wong, who became CCO in August 2024, steered the communications team through the rapid rise of ChatGPT...
