Menlo Ventures: business spending on generative AI hit $37B in 2025, up from $11.5B in 2024; Anthropic's share of enterprise LLM spend grew from 24% to 40% YoY (Menlo Ventures)
https://menlovc.com/perspective/2025-the-state-of-generative-ai-in-the-enter…
Generative AI can’t magically reveal otherwise unknown truths. AI doesn’t have any idea what the lower half of the killer’s face looks, no more than my students knew what my unmasked face looked like.
What AI •can• do is generate a random plausible face that really looks like a face. It might even look like the face of a real person — a random, innocent person.
Sharing AI-generated unmasking photos is dangerous.
3/
On March 9th I’m helping launch AI Foundations for Educators, a 5-week online course that goes beyond workshop-level knowledge to guide teachers and school staff in developing a personalized framework for adapting classrooms to AI.
It’s a pilot module for a planned online certificate on generative AI; would count as credit toward that graduate credential. Open to anyone with a BA.
Fal, which hosts generative AI models for developers, raised a $140M Series D led by Sequoia, a source says at a $4.5B valuation, up from $1.5B in July (Paayal Zaveri/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025…
I wonder if consciously avoiding the style and patterns frequently applied by generative AI might be triggering some kind of forced language evolution. Previously considered best practices that are now shunned to not sound like a machine.
#language #linguistics
That article is good, but I had to turn off that video interview with Paul Kedrosky after about 30 seconds into his "explanation" of generative AI.
Complete word salad. Using all the right words in all the wrong ways. Poor Paul Krugman. You deserve a genuine explanation.
Good article about that there is more then just Generative AI, where all the hype is, but that we are making great and steady progress in the field of predictive AI.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/1
New talk abstract dropping. I just hope I can write a talk to live up to it by *checks watch* *gulp* Monday.
#Firefox führt ab Version 148 eine neue Einstellung ein, mit der Nutzer alle aktuellen und zukünftigen generativen #AI-Funktionen im Browser blockieren können.
Alternativ lassen sich einzelne Features wie #Übersetzungen
'It is 2025, and seemingly everyone wants us in the humanities to do stuff “with AI,” informed not by what the technology avails but by the hopes it encodes.' Sonja Drimmer on 🔥on Art Forum
https://www.artforum.com/features/generative-ai-st…
"What I’m saying is generative AI is a deeply expensive edging machine, but for your life."
Garbage Day nails it.
(Original title: Generative AI is an expensive edging machine)
https://www.garbageday.email/p/generative-ai-is-an-expensive-ed…
A Lloyds-commissioned study of 5,000 people in the UK finds that 50% of the adults used generative AI platforms for financial advice; ChatGPT was the most used (Mary McDougall/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/a16bbdf4-a8c9-4fb2-b61e-e83bb5bfa11b
The generative AI crash is gonna be just like when companies realized their pandemic revenue growth wasn’t going to continue forever, huh
“Big Tech’s AI hype is distracting users from the rapid and dangerous expansion of giant, energy and water-intensive data centres […].
There is simply no evidence that AI will help the climate more than it will harm it.
Rather than relying on credible and substantiated data, Big Tech companies are writing themselves a blank cheque to pollute on the empty promise of future salvation. We cannot bet the climate on these baseless claims.”
Italy-based humanoid robotics startup Generative Bionics raised €70M led by CDP Venture Capital, with participation from Tether, AMD Ventures, and others (Daniele Lepido/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-1…
Moment of Gratitude, this time for GitHub.com
I have been having fun with claude-code and have been using github in ways I did not know existed (like hosting docker images), and so easy! (and, I think, for free)
Thank you GitHub!
https://brewster.kahle.org/2026/02/01…
Internal memo: Sam Altman tells staff that ChatGPT is "back to exceeding 10% monthly growth", and OpenAI plans to release "an updated Chat model" this week (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/sam-altman-touts-cha…
I keep on thinking about this so often, now mostly about how the word has been co-opted & abused by contemporary "AI"... Just refound the link (from 2012):
Generative vs generated
https://www.anomalogue.com/2012/05/01/generative-vs-generated/
<…
Gary has a point, at the same it is not the whole story in my view. Regardless the scam and all the bad things, Generative AI has added value for me here and now. That doesn't diminish the scam and all the bad effects of the technology, still it is also a perspective.
https://garymarcus.substack.c…
I hope my middle age crisis won’t involve generative ai addiction, but instead something more cliche like buying a reflex or growing a prestigious mustache
"No AI slop here! I'm merely exploring generative music and video!"
Expedition 33 is one of my all time fav games but I'm happy the Indie Game Dev Awards is taking a hard line on AI in games.
https://mashable.com/article/clair-obscur-expedition-33-indie-game-awards-revoked-ai
I could go on for hours about all the ethical/moral/environmental/whatever issues with #AI, but it’s entirely irrelevant and I’ll tell you why. Generative AI works by getting the average of things, and it’s trying to replace humans. There is no average human. We’re all beautifully, naturally imperfect, and that’s something an artificial machine will never be able to replicate.
The inch that generative AI boosters give is the country mile that employers take to justify mass layoffs in the name of AI
Concept artists give informed critiques of using GenAI to concept. Fav quote:
“When I show someone a rough sketch they see it differently than I do. They’re not seeing the sketch, they’re seeing the potential for what the sketch could be through their own taste and experiences, and it sparks all kinds of wonderful ideas that I would’ve never thought of on my own.”
Concept Artists Say Generative AI References Only Make Their Jobs Harder
Lishuang Shen will speak on '“Millions-to-One, Words-to-Terms” – Generative AI Tools in Action for Rare Disease Diagnosis and Patient Data Harmonization' as part of our Applied Science track at SCaLE 23x. Full details: https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/23x
Sage advice about artificial intelligence: "Do your own original thinking first."
Because “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/philkoopman/p/plans-plan…
People who say the current generation of generative AI is nothing / pure snake oil and hypegrift are wrong. True, ChatGPT is pretty much slop, but instances like Grok Expert and Perplexity Pro consistently produce meaningful, correct results in less time than it would take to manually comb the Internet for the information. Claude Code and Cursor can radically accelerate certain software development, especially in the hands of someone who can already write code and redirect the model when it&…
Okay, this must absolutely have been made with some kind of generative AI, but it's not pretending to be real, it's hella funny/deadly serious and just superb. (I especially love the tough walrus smoking a cigar while driving a fishing boat 😂 ) Kudos to the makers!
“AI can make mistakes, and it cannot replace the experience of reading an article in full. But we do believe it will help you find, understand and use ACM content both more quickly and more deeply.” https://dl.acm.org/generative-ai/summarizations
Why? Why?? WHY??? Has anybody aske…
“AI can make mistakes, and it cannot replace the experience of reading an article in full. But we do believe it will help you find, understand and use ACM content both more quickly and more deeply.” https://dl.acm.org/generative-ai/summarizations
Why? Why?? WHY??? Has anybody aske…
“AI can make mistakes, and it cannot replace the experience of reading an article in full. But we do believe it will help you find, understand and use ACM content both more quickly and more deeply.” https://dl.acm.org/generative-ai/summarizations
Why? Why?? WHY??? Has anybody aske…
❝Our guidelines for generative AI in music and audio are as follows:
● Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.
● Any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited in accordance with our existing policies prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement.❞
"Experiences of Academics, Graduates, and Undergraduates in Using Generative AI in Research (Un)Ethically and (Ir)Responsibly: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Synthesis"
https://doi.org/10.1080/10572317.2026.2626122
Q&A with Terence Tao on AI-generated Erdős solutions, "cheap wins", hybrid human AI contributions, push-of-a-button workflows, new ways of doing math, and more (Matteo Wong/The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/02/ai-math-terrance…
From synthetic turbulence to true solutions: A deep diffusion model for discovering periodic orbits in the Navier-Stokes equations
Jeremy P Parker, Tobias M Schneider
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23181 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.23181 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.23181
arXiv:2602.23181v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence has shown remarkable success in synthesizing data that mimic complex real-world systems, but its potential role in the discovery of mathematically meaningful structures in physical models remains underexplored. In this work, we demonstrate how a generative diffusion model can be used to uncover previously unknown solutions of a nonlinear partial differential equation: the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations in a turbulent regime. Trained on data from a direct numerical simulation of turbulence, the model learns to generate time series that resemble physically plausible trajectories. By carefully modifying the temporal structure of the model and enforcing the symmetries of the governing equations, we produce synthetic trajectories that are periodic in time, despite the fact that the training data did not contain periodic trajectories. These synthetic trajectories are then refined into true solutions using an iterative solver, yielding 111 new periodic orbits (POs) with very short periods. Our results reveal a previously unobserved richness in the PO structure of this system and suggest a broader role for generative AI: not as replacements for simulation and existing solvers, but as a complementary tool for navigating the complex solution spaces of nonlinear dynamical systems.
toXiv_bot_toot
I wish we had more people writing more sophisticated concerns about the harms of AI.
"Slop" criticism is important because I think many of us feel we are being gaslit into believing that generative AI is currently creating quality creative output, while Al (henceforth Alfred) is overwhelmingly creating mediocre quality creative work.
Every past winter, Alfred survives in a more focused and refined form. Eliza was a toy chatbot of the 1960s, but what emerged from that is…
"WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military’s data as possible into the developing technology.
'Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,' Hegseth said in a speech at Musk’s space fl…
Sowohl die Begeisterung über generative KI als auch der kulturelle wie technische und klimatechnische Aufschrei sind zur Zeit weiterhin groß.
Wir sollten uns Gedanken machen, was nach dem Crash in den rauchenden Trümmern überlebt und was Politik und AI-Firmen auf dem Weg dahin alles an Schaden anrichten können. Denn wir als Gesellschaft werden lernen mit KI¹ umzugehen, uns zu ihr zu verhalten, und das wird ähnlich schrecklich wie mit dieser „Digitalisierung“. Der Großteil dieser sogena…
After GPUs and RAM, what is the next hardware thing that generative AI is going to monopolise?
Some US college students say they are using AI "humanizer" tools to alter text to avoid cheating accusations; AI detection tools now aim to catch "humanizers" (Tyler Kingkade/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/coll
Today for the first time ever I added fake film grain in post while editing my photos.
I reached the point where noise reduction in low light situations makes my photos look noticeably worse, especially when people are involved. They start looking like wax figures and I hate that.
At the same time, as a digital kid, I wasn't a fan of adding fake grain to my photos. Everyone and their dog knows I don't shoot film. And what's the point of making my photos look worse.
Today something clicked in my brain and I decided I'd rather have some texture and deliberate imperfection in my pictures.
Especially when all this generative AI bullshit these days is about making things look so smooth and perfect it hurts.
Happy new year. Take your genocides and your generative AI and shove ’em up your ass
I think it's time for some #FollowFriday action once again. Today, let's focus on computational/algorithmic/generative art/design practitioners (not AI art :)
An entirely incomplete list, in A-Z order:
@…
Solve Intelligence, which offers generative AI tools to law firms for IP and patent law work, raised a $40M Series B, bringing its total funding to $55M (Mike Butcher/Pathfounders)
https://pathfounders.com/p/generative-ai-is-coming-for-ip
The "GenAI" buzzword has been astroturfed to confuse the uninitiated between generative AI and general AI.
Koah, which embeds sponsored ads directly into AI chatbots and aims to build an AdSense for AI, raised a $20.5M Series A led by Theory Ventures (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/koah-adsense-for-chatgpt-series-a/
I feel like there’s an extremely suspect form of implicit trust going on with generative AI, i.e. “everyone‘s using it, and everything will turn out alright!” No, it won’t! For you specifically!!! At least if you’re not already a fucking billionaire!
Cursor CEO Michael Truell warns that "vibe coding" advanced projects may create "shaky foundations" and eventually "things start to kind of crumble" (Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/25/cursor-
Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: job losses to AI, work used for training, falling wages and rates, freelancers losing clients, and more (Brian Merchant/Blood in the Machine)
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forced-to-use-ai-until-the
This can’t possibly be a unique observation, but generative AI boosters, if they’re not pedophiles, seem to be primarily engaging in productivity aesthetic, which is to say, lifestyle blogging their way through pointless busy work
OpenAI and longtime US government contractor Leidos announce a partnership to roll out generative and agentic AI tools for specific missions at federal agencies (Miranda Nazzaro/FedScoop)
https://fedscoop.com/openai-chatgpt-le
A profile of Josh Woodward, the head of Google Labs who is credited with turning around the Gemini app, growing its MAUs from 350M in March to 650M by October (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/20/josh-woodward-google-gemini-ai-safety.html
Following Disney, Paramount sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, alleging its AI-generated Seedance videos and Seedream images infringed Paramount's IP (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/par
I sincerely hope that before too long, generative AI images are recognized for the lazy dogshit that they are, and that the design profession utterly ostracizes the practitioners who use them
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages (The Keyword)
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/lyria-3/
Amazon details how a Russian-speaking hacker used generative AI as part of a campaign that breached 600 FortiGate firewalls across 55 countries in five weeks (Lawrence Abrams/BleepingComputer)
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu
Airbnb hires Meta executive Ahmad Al-Dahle, who led generative AI and the Llama team after working at Apple, as its CTO, as it aims to integrate AI in its app (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…
Google Photos' latest generative AI-powered feature, "Me Meme", lets users create memes from their own images, launching first in the US (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/google-photos-latest-feature-lets-you-meme-…
Elon Musk says Apple and Google's Gemini deal "seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google given that [they] also have Android and Chrome" (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/12/elon-musk-reacts-to-gemini-siri/