Meet the lawyer who beat Elon Musk — twice
Meet the lawyer who beat Elon Musk — twice

Watching Elon Musk fulminate at Bill Savitt during Musk v. Altman – the case in which Musk sued Sam Altman and OpenAI instead of seeing a therapist about his AI failures – was a bit like watching a toddler have a temper tantrum at his nursery school teacher. Savitt’s questions were “designed to trick me,” […]

Prosecutors used ChatGPT logs as evidence in the Palisades fire trial
Prosecutors used ChatGPT logs as evidence in the Palisades fire trial

Jonathan Rinderknecht was facing arson charges for setting a fire on New Year’s Day in 2025, which became one of the deadliest wildfires in LA history. To make their case, prosecutors turned to location data from his iPhone, security camera footage, and witness testimony. But they also turned to his ChatGPT logs. Prosecutors said that […]

Electric air taxis are stuck in the courtroom
Electric air taxis are stuck in the courtroom

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on aviation, air taxis, and Wi-Fi speeds at 30,000 feet, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Last year, […]

The Onion’s rebooted InfoWars is coming July 2nd
The Onion’s rebooted InfoWars is coming July 2nd

The Onion’s InfoWars officially has a launch date: On July 2nd, the conspiracy network previously run by Alex Jones will return as a comedy and media platform. The reboot comes more than a year and a half after news broke that the satirical news site was working to acquire the property owned by Jones, a […]

AI Is Writing Police Evidence—And The Original Is Vanishing

A police officer allegedly used AI to fabricate evidence. The deeper problem is that no one kept the original recording to catch it. Here is the fix.

The bill that would let Jimmy Kimmel sue Brendan Carr is here
The bill that would let Jimmy Kimmel sue Brendan Carr is here

Under a new bipartisan bill, Americans could sue for damages if a government official illegally tries to coerce a social media, AI, or broadcasting company to remove their post – regardless of whether the platform actually does it. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the JAWBONE Act on […]

A warrantless wiretap law is about to expire — but surveillance networks aren’t actually ‘going dark’
A warrantless wiretap law is about to expire — but surveillance networks aren’t actually ‘going dark’

Congress has failed to pass a three-week extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with the House voting 218-198 against reauthorizing the controversial warrantless wiretapping authority through July 2nd. After a short-term extension earlier this year, the spying program now appears set to lapse for at least a week. This is […]

Google won’t just admit it’s feeding YouTube creators to its music AI
Google won’t just admit it’s feeding YouTube creators to its music AI

If you’ve uploaded a song to YouTube, Google almost certainly considers your video fair game for training its Lyria music AI, it just won’t admit it right now. A group of independent musicians is suing Google, claiming that it illegally used songs they uploaded to YouTube to train its Lyria 3 model. Google has filed […]

CNN sues Perplexity over ‘verbatim’ copycat articles
CNN sues Perplexity over ‘verbatim’ copycat articles

CNN has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, claiming that the startup’s AI tools generate “verbatim” copies of its work, as reported earlier by CNN. The lawsuit, filed in a New York court on Thursday, also alleges that Perplexity provides users with information locked behind CNN’s subscription. Perplexity, which offers an AI “answer” engine along with […]

Temu fined more than $230 million by EU over illegal product sales
Temu fined more than $230 million by EU over illegal product sales

Temu has been fined €200 million (about $232 million) by the European Commission after it found that consumers are “very likely to encounter illegal items” on the popular Chinese e-commerce platform. According to the commission, Temu breached Digital Service Act (DSA) rules by failing to identify and assess the systemic risks of illegal products being […]