James O'Donnell

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...

OpenAI’s new defense contract completes its military pivot A new partnership with Anduril, announced today, will deploy AI on the battlefield. It represents an overhaul of the company’s position in just a year.

If working with militaries can help ensure democratic countries dominate the AI race, OpenAI has written, then doing so will not contradict its mission to ensure AI’s benefits are widely shared. In fact, it argues, it will help serve it.

www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1...

We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents AI could soon not only mimic our personality, but go out and act on our behalf. There are some things we need to sort out before then.

Soon, AI could not only mimic our personality, but go out and act on our behalf. There are some things we need to sort out before then.

www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/26/1...

How the largest gathering of US police chiefs is talking about AI Officers training in virtual reality, cities surveilled by webs of sensors, and AI-generated police reports are all a sign of what’s to come.

At the Int'l Assoc of Chiefs of Police's meeting, "the message to police chiefs seemed crystal clear: If your dept is slow to adopt AI, fix that now. The future of policing will rely on it in all its forms."

My colleague James O'Donnell w/ a write-up: www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/19/1...