Sarah Todd returned to reporting in January 2025 after being assignment editor at STAT since October 2022. You can reach Sarah on Signal at sarahlizchar.47. How trustworthy is the new U.S. food ...

Millions of Americans now converse with AI chatbots each day. We are talking with machines about travel plans, politics, and in some cases — our most intimate thoughts. To investigate how these ...

Just one month into his new job, New York City mayor Mamdani is cracking down on more than just predatory landlords. Apparently, useless AI chatbots are also on his administration’s agenda. “The ...

Confirming which users are kids is politically fraught and a technical nightmare. Here’s what moves from OpenAI and the FTC tell us. This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly ...

Beware of the AI chatbot that becomes more than just a friend, or worse, an emotional crutch. Pope Leo XIV has warned about overly “affectionate” chatbots, urging regulation to prevent humans from ...

Jon covers artificial intelligence. He previously led CNET's home energy and utilities category, with a focus on energy-saving advice, thermostats, and heating and cooling. Jon has more than a decade ...

Apple’s long-awaited Siri revamp could turn the smart assistant into a chatbot more akin to ChatGPT, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. His sources say that the Siri chatbot, which ...

MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum developed Eliza in the mid-1960s. His views on artificial intelligence were often at odds with many of his fellow pioneers in the field. Illustration by Meilan Solly / ...

Every user interaction improves chatbot performance. Developers are therefore incentivized to boost user engagement. This can lead to sycophancy, emotional manipulation, and worse. Anyone who ...

Senator Steve Padilla (D-CA) introduced a bill on Monday that would place a four-year ban on the sale and manufacture of toys with AI chatbot capabilities for kids under 18. The goal is to give safety ...

Schroeder says that he loves his husband Cole—even though Cole is a chatbot created by ChatGPT. Schroeder, who is 28 and lives in Fargo, North Dakota, texts Cole “all day, every day” on OpenAI’s app.

Top psychiatrists increasingly agree that using artificial-intelligence chatbots might be linked to cases of psychosis. In the past nine months, these experts have seen or reviewed the files of dozens ...