What is ‘debanking’ and why are Marc Andreesen and Silicon Valley talking about it?

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s recent ">appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast introduced many to the concept of debanking. In essence, this is when bank accounts get closed by the bank rather than the customer. However, during the podcast the tech billionaire described debanking as a “privatized sanctions regime” targeting unpopular political groups, notably, conservatives and crypto an

Why OpenAI’s Sora has so much trouble depicting gymnasts

Welcome to AI DecodedFast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.

What gymnasts can teach us about Sora’s limitations

OpenAI made its Sora Turbo image generator available to its paying customers thi

Trump’s pick of David Sacks as AI and crypto czar shows how cozy his White House will be with Silicon Valley

President-elect Donald Trump’s approach to crypto is becoming clearer with the appointment of entrepreneur David Sacks as Trump’s “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar”—signalling a shift in how the U.S. government perceives cryptocurrency that could indicate

Helen King’s job is all about keeping AI safe as Google scales

More than a dozen years ago, U.K.-based game producer Helen King was about to take a new job at Ubisoft in Canada. She had already boxed up her possessions and was getting her visa in order when an opportunity at a London-based AI startup unexpectedly presented itself. King found it irresistible, even though she had no background in the technology—she’d even opted out of AI courses as a computer science student.

“Some of my friends still haven’t forgiven me,” she jokes. “Beca

As AI voices become more human, will stereotypes follow?

Google has worked hard to make its new Gemini AI assistant sound more human, but could that lead to people projecting race and gender biases on what they hear?

When Google prepared to give its new Gemini AI assistant the ability to speak, the company decided to name its 10 voice options after celestial bodies. Voices like Orbit, Vega, and Pegasus aren’t just a nod to Gemini’s own constellat

Google’s new AI projects aren’t ready for the masses yet. Good!

Few tech-industry traditions are as time-honored as vaporware: stuff that gets publicly demoed well before it’s ready to ship. In some cases, the companies in question are just slower to finish their work than they’d expected. Other times, they’re strategically drumming up enthusiasm for something new and shiny to distract customers from competitive offerings. Either way, any gratification involved is delayed, assuming the product ever

Character.ai is being sued for encouraging kids to self-harm

Two families in Texas have filed a new federal product liability lawsuit against Google-backed company Character.AI, accusing it of harming their children. The lawsuit alleges that Character.AI “poses a clear and present danger to American youth causing serious harms to thousands of kids, including suicide, self-mutilation, sexual solicitation, isolation, depression, anxiety, and harm towards others,” according t

Influencers are tagging the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione for clout

Is there a more creative way to clout-chase than to tag an alleged assassin in your Instagram photo dump? For some aspiring influencers, every view counts. 

After 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was named as a “person of interest” in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it was only a matter of minutes before his X, Instagram, and even Goodreads accounts were identified and

How social media unspooled Luigi Mangione’s life after UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday sparked a five-day manhunt for the mysterious killer, who left behind irresistible clues like a hidden message on bullet casings and

TikTok’s Canada unit wants court review of shut-down order

TikTok’s Canadian unit said it has filed an emergency motion with Canada’s Federal Court seeking a judicial review of an order that the company shut down its operations in the country on national security concerns.

The Chinese-owned


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