Business
Agents Open the Wallet: Stripe builds ecommerce agent toolkit for AI to securely spend money
One of the world’s biggest payment processors is enabling large language models to spend real money.
Tech & Society
Hardware
Household Help: π0, a machine learning system for household robotics
A new generation of robots can handle some household chores with unusual skill.
Hardware
Further Chip Restrictions on China: TSMC stops advanced chip production for China on U.S. orders
The largest manufacturer of AI chips told its Chinese customers it would stop fabricating their most advanced designs, further limiting China’s access to AI hardware.
Tech & Society
Voter’s Helper: Perplexity’s AI-powered U.S. election hub assists voters with verified, real-time news and insights
Some voters navigated last week’s United States elections with help from a large language model that generated output based on verified, nonpartisan information.
Tech & Society
Big AI Pursues Military Contracts: Meta and Anthropic open doors for AI in U.S. defense and national security
Two top AI companies changed their stances on military and intelligence applications.
Tech & Society
Robots On the Loading Dock: Tensions mount as automation transforms U.S. shipping ports
Shipping ports are the latest front in the rising tension between labor unions and AI-powered automation.
Letters
Social Media Bots and the Amplification Effect: Software bots that engage with certain social media posts likely play a role in manipulating public opinion. We need better algorithms to distinguish fake from real engagement.
Trump and the Republican party chalked up huge wins this week. Did manipulation of social media by generative AI play any role in this election?
Tech & Society
Does Your Model Comply With the AI Act?: COMPL-AI study measures LLMs’ compliance with EU’s AI act
A new study suggests that leading AI models may meet the requirements of the European Union’s AI Act in some areas, but probably not in others.
Tech & Society
No Work for Coders: Could coding assistants take over software development?
AI coding assistants are brewing codebases that once were the sole province of human programmers. Will AI systems take over software development?
Tech & Society
Innovation Can’t Win: Bureaucracy chokes AI growth as lawmakers tighten grip
Politicians and pundits have conjured visions of doom to convince lawmakers to clamp down on AI. What if terrified legislators choke off innovation in AI?
Tech & Society
AI Burns All the Energy: Will AI’s growing power demands drain the grid?
The globe’s growing AI infrastructure requires huge amounts of electricity, possibly more than power providers can generate responsibly. Could AI models suck energy resources dry?
Letters
The Psychology of AI Doom: Why do people who are well informed about AI worry about unrealistic dangers? There are incentives for doomsaying.
Welcome to our special Halloween issue of The Batch, in which we probe fears, anomalies, and shadows of AI.