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Why Wind And Solar Make Grids More Vulnerable to Blackouts

Why Wind And Solar Make Grids More Vulnerable to Blackouts

Renewable energy, like wind and solar, have become a larger part of the overall power supply, but the grid wasn't designed to handle them. WSJ asks a mechanical engineer for three ways to fix this. Photo: Adam Falk, Getty Images

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Reddit sues Anthropic over alleged "scraping" of user comments to train Claude
Reddit sues Anthropic over alleged "scraping" of user comments to train Claude

CBS News

time39 minutes ago

  • CBS News

Reddit sues Anthropic over alleged "scraping" of user comments to train Claude

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that it is illegally "scraping" the comments of millions of Reddit users to train its chatbot Claude. Reddit claims that Anthropic has used automated bots to access Reddit's content despite being asked not to do so, and "intentionally trained on the personal data of Reddit users without ever requesting their consent." Anthropic said in a statement that it disagreed with Reddit's claims "and will defend ourselves vigorously." Reddit filed the lawsuit Wednesday in California Superior Court in San Francisco, where both companies are based. "AI companies should not be allowed to scrape information and content from people without clear limitations on how they can use that data," said Ben Lee, Reddit's chief legal officer, in a statement Wednesday. Reddit licensing agreements Reddit has previously entered licensing agreements with Google, OpenAI and other companies that are paying to be able to train their AI systems on the public commentary of Reddit's more than 100 million daily users. Those agreements "enable us to enforce meaningful protections for our users, including the right to delete your content, user privacy protections, and preventing users from being spammed using this content," Lee said. The licensing deals also helped the 20-year-old online platform raise money ahead of its Wall Street debut as a publicly traded company last year Among those who stood to benefit was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who accumulated a stake as an early Reddit investor that made him one of the company's biggest shareholders. Claude and Alexa Anthropic was formed by former OpenAI executives in 2021 and its flagship Claude chatbot remains a key competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT. While OpenAI has close ties to Microsoft, Anthropic's primary commercial partner is Amazon, which is using Claude to improve its widely used Alexa voice assistant. Much like other AI companies, Anthropic has relied heavily on websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit that are deep troves of written materials that can help teach an AI assistant the patterns of human language. In a 2021 paper co-authored by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — cited in the lawsuit — researchers at the company identified the subreddits, or subject-matter forums, that contained the highest quality AI training data, such as those focused on gardening, history, relationship advice or thoughts people have in the shower. Anthropic in 2023 argued in a letter to the U.S. Copyright Office that the "way Claude was trained qualifies as a quintessentially lawful use of materials," by making copies of information to perform a statistical analysis of a large body of data. It is already battling a lawsuit from major music publishers alleging that Claude regurgitates the lyrics of copyrighted songs. But Reddit's lawsuit is different from others brought against AI companies because it doesn't allege copyright infringement. Instead, it focuses on the alleged breach of Reddit's terms of use, and the unfair competition, it says, was created. —— The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP's text archives.

Keller: Artificial intelligence provision in spending bill has unlikely allies lining up to fight it
Keller: Artificial intelligence provision in spending bill has unlikely allies lining up to fight it

CBS News

timean hour ago

  • CBS News

Keller: Artificial intelligence provision in spending bill has unlikely allies lining up to fight it

The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global. The "big, beautiful bill" passed by the House contains an artificial intelligence provision that has unlikely allies lining up to fight it. Artificial intelligence - or AI - is rapidly becoming a key part of our daily lives, providing lightning-fast information and helping machines operate more efficiently. Halting AI regulation But like social media before it, AI is also being misused, with many states moving to stop that with new laws. They're all jeopardized by language tucked deep inside the House version of President Trump's so-called "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill that would bar states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next 10 years. It's a move that has left-wing Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and right-wing Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene singing the same time. "Republicans just threw the software companies a lifeline," says Warren, and Greene accuses the authors of the provision of "allowing AI to run rampant and destroying federalism in the process." The halting of AI regulation was just a rhetorical concept at a Senate Commerce committee hearing in early May. "To lead in AI, the U.S. cannot allow regulation, even the supposedly benign kind, to choke innovation or adoption," declared Sen. Ted Cruz. And with at least 16 states having already passed AI regulations, the tech moguls on hand loved the idea of overriding them. "Our stance is that we need to give adult users a lot of freedom to use AI in the way that they want to use it and to trust them to be responsible with the tool," said Open AI CEO and founder Sam Altman. Calls for guardrails on AI But like social media before it, AI is often used irresponsibly, fueling misinformation, political manipulation, and pornographic deepfakes. "Twenty-plus years ago there was a small startup in Cambridge called Facebook and we all thought it was cute and fun," recalled Massachusetts State Sen. Barry Finegold, who is co-sponsoring AI regulation here. "But now Meta says, they'll even admit, that one out of three women have body issues because of their algorithm." Finegold is one of 260 state legislators from both parties and all states who sent a letter to Congress opposing the regulation moratorium. "We are all about seeing the growth of AI, we want more companies to come here to Massachusetts, we think it's going to do dynamic things in biotech and so many others," said Finegold. "But what's so wrong with having guardrails out there to protect the public?" Just a couple of weeks ago President Trump signed into law the "Take it Down Act" which requires platforms to remove pornographic deepfakes and other intimate images within 48 hours of a victim's complaint. And the unusually-bipartisan outcry against this ban on state regulation shows how the tech lobbyists may have overreached this time. But this episode is part of a larger, long-running debate about the proper balance between regulation and economic growth, and that tug-of-war isn't ending anytime soon.

Apple ordered to keep web links in the App Store
Apple ordered to keep web links in the App Store

The Verge

timean hour ago

  • The Verge

Apple ordered to keep web links in the App Store

Apple will have to continue allowing web links and external payment options in the App Store after its request to halt a judge's order was rejected today by a higher court. In April, a federal judge demanded that Apple begin allowing web links, cease restricting how links are formatted, and enable developers to offer external payment options without giving the company a cut of their revenue. Apple promptly appealed and requested that the order be put on hold until the legal proceedings were finished. But an Appeals Court has now denied Apple's emergency request to block the order. The court said it was 'not persuaded' that blocking the order was appropriate after weighing Apple's chances to succeed on appeal, whether Apple would be irreparably harmed, whether other parties would be hurt if the order is halted, and what supports the public interest. Spotify, Kindle, and other big apps have quickly added options for web purchases The rejection bodes poorly for Apple's chance of overturning the order, which stems from a lawsuit by Epic Games. Epic sued Apple over its App Store restrictions back in 2020. Epic notched only a narrow win in the case, with the court ordering Apple to allow developers to communicate with their users about better pricing. Then, in April, in a scathing ruling, the court said that Apple had repeatedly failed to comply. The judge then gave Apple a more explicit order about how the App Store must be opened up. In the weeks since, major apps like Spotify and Kindle have taken advantage of the ruling by adding links in their apps to make purchases on the web. Fortnite has returned, too, offering an option between Apple's in-app payment system and Epic's own payment and rewards program. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told The Verge this week that there's currently a 60-40 split in usage between the two systems, with Apple's still winning out. 'We are disappointed with the decision not to stay the district court's order, and we'll continue to argue our case during the appeals process,' says Apple spokesperson Olivia Dalton. 'As we've said before, we strongly disagree with the district court's opinion. Our goal is to ensure the App Store remains an incredible opportunity for developers and a safe and trusted experience for our users.'

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