AI Spurs Battles Over Authenticity in Classrooms and Space in West Virginia - Tech News Briefing
Students and teachers are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to outsmart each other. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargon explains how one group is using AI to expose cheating while the other is leveraging it to prove they didn't. Then we head to two neighboring West Virginia towns where residents are pushing back on a plan to build one of the world's biggest data centers. WSJ reporter Kris Maher explains why constructing a new AI hub is so controversial there. Victoria Craig hosts.
Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
20 minutes ago
- Forbes
MSNBC's Chris Hayes Told Me AI Will Radically Change Social Media. Here's How
Woman in her 20s getting ready in the morning, laptop half open, reading text message As social media continues to evolve in how it captures our attention, using an algorithm to make sure we're clicking and scrolling, there is a whole new frontier facing us. In the coming years, one expert told me social media will start to expand beyond doomscrolling to make sure we all stay riveted to content for longer periods of time—even rivaling popular streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu. Chris Hayes knows a lot about capturing attention. He is a former print journalist who now hosts a primetime news program on MSNBC. He has an engaging style on his show and an equally impressive writing style. His book The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource is about battling distractions in life. Hayes offered insights about how social media will continue to evolve—mostly by keeping us hooked to our feeds—that suggest we're in for a wild ride. Early in the book, Hayes writes about how distraction is nothing new. At one time, reading a novel was considered a distraction from real life. Hayes also mentions the advent of radio and television as a serious cause for concern. (I guess we lost that battle. We now watch almost three hours of television per day on average.) With social media, the next phase of distraction—according to Hayes—will not center on capturing attention but on holding and sustaining our attention. We currently spend a little over two hours on social media apps per day, according to recent reports. Hayes says the advent of artificial intelligence might keep us hooked far longer. 'TikTok is probably the most sophisticated in this regard,' he says. 'The model, as I say in the book, is the iterative grabbing of attention for little bursts over and over like the slot machine. One thing I do wonder about is whether AI will get good enough that companies can start to use the experimental method that runs the algorithms to actually make longer form stories.' Hayes described an example where you might be grabbed by a news story or some other piece of content, and then the AI will monitor how users click, scroll, and react. Over time, the AI would then adjust the story, graphics, and even the entire narrative to maximize sustainability. That means social media will not only hook us on content but keep us hooked far longer, perhaps as long as television. Hayes did tell me we're in an interesting phase where there is plenty of AI slop out there and some of that content is not exactly holding or sustaining our attention. We seem to know what AI-generated content looks like when we see an image on Instagram or watch a video on Facebook. Some studies suggest we can identify AI content about 70% of the time. That study is from 2025, however. Recently, new studies are starting to reveal that humans misidentify AI content a little more often and it is going to get worse. Eventually, we don't know the difference. Hayes says this phase of knowing when something is created by an AI might be short-lived as the technology (and the algorithms) improve. 'One obvious way [to sustain our attention] is populating our online universe with 'people' that aren't really people but rather increasingly sophisticated Turing-test-passing bots that are trying to sell us stuff or push some political project,' he explained. When an AI can create content, capture our attention, and then adjust the content based on user reaction, we might all be at the mercy of the bots. As AI improves and social media seeks to steal us away from apps like Netflix, Hayes says the trick is to train ourselves to recognize when we're being sucked into the void. He suggests spending at least 20 minutes per day without any technology—alone with our own thoughts. He also says it's important to avoid isolation. We tend to scroll more (and for longer periods of time) when we are alone and bored, he says. 'Spend time with people you like and love,' he suggests. That might be the ultimate cure. After all, the best way to avoid the allure of AI and social media is to do something so cool in life that you don't even need distractions anymore.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This surprise deal knocks $350 off the best portable power station on the market
Summer is almost officially here, but there's no sense in waiting on the calendar to dive into some summer activities. Things like picnics, cookouts, and road trips can be made more worthwhile if you've got some power on-hand, which is why we'd like to direct you to the Anker Solix C1000. The portable power station is on sale for $449 right now, which is $350 off its regular price of $799. This is also one of It's best prices ever. We don't just think highly of the Anker Solix C1000, we happen to think it's the best portable power station on the market right now. Anker does a great job of keeping its size manageable while at the same time packing it with features. Its HyperFlash charging technology is pretty groundbreaking, in that the C1000 can go from dead to 80% capacity in just 43 minutes of charging. This will allow you to spend more time with it in the wild and less time waiting for it to charge up. When it comes to putting the C1000 to use, it's the perfect power station for things like phones, tablets, and laptops, but it can handle far more than smaller devices. It can keep a portable refrigerator running for up to 33 hours, a camping light for up to 60 hours, a coffee maker for nearly three hours, and a cooler for more than 17 hours. The C1000 can also come in handy during power outages at home, as it can power a Wi-Fi router for up to 52 hours, a refrigerator for up to 14 hours, and your home's lights for up to 50 hours. The C1000 is a super capable portable power station that just about anyone could find useful at some point or another. It will fit right in on boats and in RVs, when tailgating at stadiums, and even on construction sites. It can power up to 11 devices simultaneously, and with more and more electronics becoming a necessary part of life, the C1000 is something everyone may want to have around. While the Anker Solix C1000 regularly goes for $799, this massive discount at Amazon drops it to $449. That's good for $350 in savings, and while this portable power station does get a pretty good discount every now and then, this is one of the better prices we've seen on it.
TechCrunch
35 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Week in Review: WWDC 2025 recap
Welcome back to Week in Review! We have lots for you this week, including what came out of WWDC 2025; The Browser Company's AI browser; OpenAI's partnership with Mattel; and updates to your iPad. Have a great weekend! The Apple experience: We kicked the week off with WWDC 2025, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company showed off a newly designed iOS 26, new features across its products, and much more. There was considerable pressure on Apple this year to build on its promises and to make amends to developers as it lags behind in AI and faces continued legal challenges over its App Store. Snack hack: U.S. grocery distribution giant United Natural Foods (UNFI) was hit by a cyberattack, the company confirmed Tuesday. Much of UNFI's external-facing systems were offline, including web systems used by suppliers and customers, as well as the company's VPN products. Whole Foods was one of the victims, and it told staff that the cyberattack was affecting UNFI's 'ability to select and ship products from their warehouses' and that this will 'impact our normal delivery schedules and product availability.' Public debut: Chime's much-anticipated public debut finally arrived, with the company raising $864 million in its IPO. Iconiq was one of Chime's many backers taking a victory lap at its graduation to become a public company. This is TechCrunch's Week in Review, where we recap the week's biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. News Image Credits:Google Not to be outdone: Google rolled out Android 16 to Pixel phones, adding group chat to RCS, AI-powered edit suggestions to Google Photos, and support for corporate badges in Google Wallet. Cabs are here: Elon Musk has spent years claiming that Teslas would be able to drive themselves. Apparently the time has come — maybe? Musk said this week that Tesla will start offering public rides in driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas, on June 22. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW An AI browser: The Browser Company said last year that it's going to stop supporting and developing its Arc browser, which, although popular, was never able to reach scale. The startup has since been busy developing an AI-first browser called Dia. And another one: OpenAI released o3-pro, which is a version of o3, a reasoning model that the startup launched earlier this year. As opposed to conventional AI models, reasoning models work through problems step by step, allowing them to perform more reliably in domains like physics, math, and coding. In other news, Sam Altman posted on X to say that his company's first open model in years will be delayed until later this summer. Desperately seeking: Now that people can ask a chatbot for answers — sometimes generated from news content taken without a publisher's knowledge — there's no need to click on Google's blue links. And that's hurting publishers. Cool? Mattel and OpenAI are teaming up to create an 'AI-powered product,' whatever that is. As part of the deal, Mattel employees will also get access to OpenAI tools like ChatGPT Enterprise to 'enhance product development and creative ideation.' 'A privacy disaster': Reporter Amanda Silberling tried out the Meta AI app and found that it's publicly sharing people's queries. 'Meta does not indicate to users what their privacy settings are as they post, or where they are even posting to. So, if you log into Meta AI with Instagram, and your Instagram account is public, then so too are your searches about how to meet 'big booty women,'' she writes. iPad for work: iPadOS 26 will bring new features to the 15-year-old device that might actually make it usable for a full day of work. Analysis A wave of recent headlines and posts has raised questions about Bluesky, from concerns about slowing growth to claims that the platform is turning into a left-leaning echo chamber and that its users are too serious. While those critiques capture part of the conversation, they don't reflect the full picture of what Bluesky is working toward. But if left unchecked, those perceptions could pose a real challenge to the platform's future growth.
