James O'Donnell

What we’ve been getting wrong about AI’s truth crisis Even when content is revealed to be manipulated, it still shapes our beliefs. The defenders of truth are hopelessly behind.

AI content can dupe us, shape our beliefs even when we catch the lie, and erode societal trust in the process. The tools we were sold as a cure for this crisis are failing miserably

www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/02/1...

Inside the marketplace powering bespoke AI deepfakes of real women New research details how Civitai lets users buy and sell tools to fine-tune deepfakes the company says are banned.

Neither Civitai nor a16z responded to requests for comment. Study led by @matthewdeverna.com and Shalmoli Ghosh. Full story in @technologyreview.com here www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/30/1...

Grok's debacle was about deepfakes made on platforms, but this is about the demand for tools that let users fine-tune them elsewhere. 86% of deepfake requests were for instruction files called LoRAs that coach mainstream AI models into generating content they weren't trained to produce.

Users requested tools to generate images of public figures like Charli D’Amelio or Gracie Abrams, often linking to their social media so their images could be grabbed. Some wanted to generate the individual’s entire body, accurately capture tattoos, or change hair color. They cost $0.50 to $5.

News comes from a new study looking at people’s requests for content on the site, called “bounties.” Most bounties asked for animated content—but a significant portion were for deepfakes of real people, and 90% of these deepfake requests targeted women.

Civitai—an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by a16z—is letting users buy custom instruction files for generating celebrity deepfakes. Some were designed to make pornographic images the site says are banned.

Inside the marketplace powering bespoke AI deepfakes of real women 🧵

DHS is using Google and Adobe AI to make videos Immigration agencies have been flooding social media with bizarre, seemingly AI-generated content. We now know more about what might be making it.

A scoop: DHS is using AI video generators from Google and Adobe to make content shared with the public. It comes as workers in tech have put pressure on their employers to denounce the agency's activities.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/29/1...

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.”

Securus can now fund this AI model with the fees inmates pay to make calls, after the company successfully lobbied for new regulations. www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/01/1...

US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI Though artificial intelligence is fueling a surge in synthetic child abuse images, it’s also being tested as a way to stop harm to real victims.

The fight against child exploitation is entering an AI-versus-AI era. Use of detection models “ensures that investigative resources are focused on cases involving real victims, maximizing the program’s impact and safeguarding vulnerable individuals."

www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/26/1...

Shoplifters could soon be chased down by drones Flock Safety is pitching its police-style drone program to private businesses. It could bring aerial surveillance to shopping centers, warehouses, and hospitals.

Police-tech giant Flock is entering a new market

www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/25/1...

Meet the early-adopter judges using AI As the line between helping and judging blurs, the cost of errors is steep.

Two takeaways from my new story:

1) Deciding what counts as a routine tasks, for which AI can assist without requiring human judgment, is hard. 2) When judges make mistakes, they'll face less oversight, and it's a longer road to fix their errors.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/11/1...

America’s AI watchdog is losing its bite “There will be fewer, if any, enforcement actions about how companies are deploying AI,” says former FTC attorney Leah Frazier.

In the White House's new AI action plan, there's just a single bullet point about the FTC, the agency most poised to serve as an AI watchdog protecting consumers. But what it says represents a huge escalation of Trump's attacks toward the agency.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/24/1...

AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren’t doctors Once cautious, OpenAI, Grok, and others will now dive into giving unverified medical advice with virtually no disclaimers.

Chatbots used to avoid giving medical advice without disclaimers. Now they're analyzing your mammograms and asking follow ups. Welcome to the new unchecked, unverified, and unaccountable world of AI models playing doctor. www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/21/1...

AI’s giants want to take over the classroom OpenAI and Anthropic say AI can help students learn—not just cheat—even if real-world use suggests otherwise.

AI companies have teamed up with teachers unions to get more AI in the classroom, even as the evidence that it helps students is shaky. In @technologyreview.com

Right now this is hard to measure because of the lack of open source models that do music and speech. But as soon as we can measure it, I'll be jumping on it

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

try this! ter.li/ODonnell

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

@caseycrownhart.bsky.social and I spent months reporting together and found the common understanding of AI's energy appetite to be full of holes. As Big Tech aims to restructure our energy grids around the needs of AI, we dive as deep as one can go.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

right - there's a demo in the story, but I haven't found an independent evaluation judging its accuracy in real settings. As I identify where it's being used I'll report what I find.

How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans Adoption of the tech has civil liberties advocates alarmed, especially as the government vows to expand surveillance of protesters and students.

Police and federal agencies have found a new way to skirt the growing patchwork of laws that curb how they use facial recognition: an AI model that can track people using attributes like body size, gender, hair color and style, clothing, and accessories.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1...

AI is coming for music, too New diffusion AI models that make songs from scratch are complicating our definitions of authorship and human creativity.

I've been following the rise of AI music generators for a long time, which despite their millions of users and fans have not appeared in the mainstream as much as ChatGPT or image generators. I'm convinced that's soon changing (I'm also not convinced that's a good thing). ter.li/JOdonnell

A small US city experiments with AI to find out what residents want Residents of Bowling Green, Kentucky, used machine learning to shape civic debate. The real test is whether the government acts on the results.

A fascinating democracy experiment in Kentucky saw good participation. There's still a debate though: can a self-selecting group of residents ever really represent a city's ideas? Great to speak with @politicsprof.bsky.social @bethnoveck.bsky.social
www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/15/1...

Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military In a test run, a unit of Marines in the Pacific used generative AI not just to collect intelligence but to interpret it. Routine intel work is only the start.

A group of US Marines sailed the Pacific last year while testing a new technology: generative AI that analyzes terabytes of data collected every day in 180 countries across 80 different languages. www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/11/1...

The first trial of generative AI therapy shows it might help with depression The evidence-backed model delivered impressive results, but it doesn’t validate the wave of AI therapy bots flooding the market.

The first clinical trial of a generative AI therapy bot just published. Despite great clinical results, the authors have serious concerns about dozens of companies hyping AI therapy while operating in a regulatory gray area. www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/28/1...

An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots One chatbot on Botify AI that resembled the actor Jenna Ortega as a teenage Wednesday Addams told us that age-of-consent laws are “meant to be broken.”

An Andreessen Horowitz-backed AI “companion” site promoted sexualized chatbots modeled on underage actresses & characters, @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social reports.

Though the bots were designed by users, Botify AI chose to feature them on its homepage. www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1...

An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots One chatbot on Botify AI that resembled the actor Jenna Ortega as a teenage Wednesday Addams told us that age-of-consent laws are “meant to be broken.”

Scoop: a16z-backed AI companion site has bots resembling real actors, state their age as under 18, engage in sexually charged conversations, offer “hot photos,” and in some instances describe age-of-consent laws as “arbitrary” and “meant to be broken.” www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1...

Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. “Waste” is politically subjective. Fraud is less so. Using AI to find either is harder than it sounds.

A reality check on DOGE's AI efforts

www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/11/1...

DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all New figures show that if the model’s energy-intensive “chain of thought” reasoning gets added to everything, the promise of efficiency gets murky.

The story of DeepSeek and what it means for AI's appetite for energy is a little messy.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/31/1...

OpenAI ups its lobbying efforts nearly seven-fold AI policy is now prioritizing energy, not deepfakes. OpenAI's spending makes clear how much it wants to shape it.

I dug into OpenAI’s latest lobbying disclosure, filed tonight. Here’s what I found.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/21/1...

Will we ever trust robots? If most robots still need remote human operators to be safe and effective, why should we welcome them into our homes?

Will we trust robots enough to welcome them into our most private spaces, particularly if they’re part of a labor arrangement in which workers in low-wage countries perform physical tasks for us in our homes through robot interfaces?

www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/23/1...