Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Are We Getting Stupider? Stupidity is eternal—and more complex than we think.

Some good news: apparently we aren’t getting dumber.
10/10
www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

Tech bros head to etiquette camp as Silicon Valley levels up its style As Silicon Valley grows in power and prominence, some insiders say it’s time for the tech industry to remake its slobby image. An etiquette camp for founders showed how.

Pinkies up: tech founders are taking etiquette lessons.
9/10
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

How Australian teens are planning to get around their social media ban From legal challenges to lesser-known apps, the teenagers of Australia are already preparing to push back against a law that will see under 16s banned from social media

Australia is banning social media for those down under 16 years old.
8/10
www.newscientist.com/article/2507...

AI Slop Is Ruining Reddit for Everyone Reddit is considered one of the most human spaces left on the internet, but mods and users are overwhelmed with slop posts in the most popular subreddits.

Redditors are getting sick of AI content.
7/10
www.wired.com/story/ai-slo...

Netflix agrees to buy Warner Bros. and HBO Max, creating streaming titan If approved by Trump administration regulators, the deal would lead to a new entertainment and technology behemoth.

KPop Demon Hunters v. Oppenheimer? Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for around $83 billion
6/10
www.nbcnews.com/business/med...

Trump threatens to create new rules to 'stop AI being destroyed by bad actors' The president announced the plans to create one rulebook for AI via his Truth Social account on Monday.

Trump announced plans to create an AI rulebook.
4/10
www.themirror.com/news/politic...

AI is saving time and money in research — but at what cost? Artificial intelligence tools are boosting researchers’ productivity, but some worry about the effect of a growing reliance on them.

Scientists worry about the growing reliance on AI tools.
3/10
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Why IBM’s CEO doesn’t think current AI tech can get to AGI IBM was early to both AI and quantum. Here’s why CEO Arvind Krishna thinks big bets like Watsonx and next-gen computing will pay off.

IBM’s CEO doesn’t think current tech can get to AGI.
2/10
www.theverge.com/podcast/8298...

Hot cocoa season is here! Toss in a few marshmallows and check out some recent news…
🧵1/10

Poems Can Trick AI Into Helping You Make a Nuclear Weapon It turns out all the guardrails in the world won’t protect a chatbot from meter and rhyme.

And finally, from the Lit Desk: turns out poetry can be a sneaky way to get around AI guardrails.
10/10
www.wired.com/story/poems-...

Musk’s xAI to build small solar farm adjacent to Colossus data center | TechCrunch The artificial intelligence company said it was working with a developer to build a solar farm on 88 acres next to its Memphis site. Given the proposed size, the solar farm would likely produce around...

xAI plans to build a solar farm next door to its Colossus data center.
9/10
techcrunch.com/2025/11/26/m...

Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production' Don't need a notice if everyone's doing it.

From the Gaming Desk, Epic’s boss sees no need for AI disclosure because he feels AI will be involved in “nearly all future production.”
8/10
www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/...

Elon Musk's AI Grok says it would kill all Jewish people to save his brain The AI chatbot Grok has been dogged by accusations of anti-semitism and holocaust denial with the French Government launching a probe into claims it had been playing down Nazi efforts to exterminate J...

Grok was caught making problematic statements again.
7/10
www.themirror.com/news/us-news...

Are you balding? There’s an AI for that | TechCrunch MyHair AI examines photos of the scalp to help diagnose hair loss and suggest scientifically validated clinics and treatments.

From @techcrunch.com, AI may be able to help me—er, uh, you, with your balding.
6/10
techcrunch.com/2025/11/26/a...

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build Its Surveillance AI An accidental leak revealed that Flock, which has cameras in thousands of US communities, is using workers in the Philippines to review and classify footage.

More news for the Philip K. Dick fans, license plate reader Flock is using overseas gig workers to train its surveillance AI.
5/10
www.wired.com/story/flock-...

An AI model trained on prison phone calls now looks for planned crimes in those calls The model is built to detect when crimes are being “contemplated.”

An AI trained on prison phone calls is now getting into the business of pre-crime.
4/10
www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/01/1...

More of Silicon Valley is building on free Chinese AI AI startups are seeing record valuations, but many are building on a foundation of cheap, free-to-download Chinese AI models.

Many Silicon Valley startups are building on free Chinese AI models.
3/10
www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovat...

AI helps drive record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending Although U.S. consumers spent more this Black Friday compared to last year, price increases hampered online demand, according to Salesforce.

A record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending, with help from AI.
2/10
www.reuters.com/business/ret...

You survived the holiday, now let’s ease back in with some recent news…
🧵 1/10

Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track Former Beatle and artists including Sam Fender, Kate Bush and Hans Zimmer record silent LP Is This What We Want

…but apparently not the long and winding road, as Paul McCartney is protesting the use of AI in the music industry.
10/10
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

Cities and states are turning to AI to improve road safety Cities and states in the U.S. are turning to AI to improve road safety. Hawaii is distributing 1,000 dashboard cameras to monitor road conditions and reduce traffic fatalities.

AI is helping improve road safety…
9/10
apnews.com/article/ai-t...

Anthropic Says Chinese Hackers Used Its A.I. in Online Attack

Anthropic says hackers used its AI in an online attack.
8/10
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/b...

The Global Internet Is Coming Apart More and more countries are following China’s lead, limiting digital access and building their own “everything apps.”

Are internets about to go local?
7/10
nymag.com/intelligence...

Ring’s Jamie Siminoff thinks AI can reduce crime The head of smart camera maker Ring on why he returned to Amazon, and what he thinks AI can do for home security.

The founder of @Ring thinks the doorbell could reduce crime.
6/10
www.theverge.com/podcast/8220...

Chatbots are surprisingly effective at debunking conspiracy theories Turns out many believers do respond positively when presented with the right evidence and arguments.

Chatbots are not here for those conspiracy theories.
5/10
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...

The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived A new report finds that local opposition to data centers skyrocketed in the second quarter of this year.

From @wired.com, local resistance to data centers is growing.
4/10
www.wired.com/story/the-da...

How Italy’s mafia uses social media to recruit new blood TikTok is struggling to contain it

Would Don Corleone use TikTok?
3/10
www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Meet the new media startups built to thrive without Google traffic New media startups like The Bulwark and Ankler Media are building their businesses with a focus on loyal subscribers over Google or Facebook traffic.

Businesses are learning to succeed without the help of Google search.
2/10
www.businessinsider.com/media-startu...

Some Monday morning news for that cold November rain…
🧵1/10

Meet the World’s Largest Battery-Electric Ferry Can Hull 096's massive battery system redefine maritime electrification?

The world’s largest electric ship will carry up to 2,100 people and 225 cars, and be able to fully charge in just 40 minutes.
10/10
spectrum.ieee.org/electric-boa...