Posts by Liam Redmond
Commentary: My promise to you: AI didn’t write this column, and if it’s after my job, it’ll be over my dead body
For quite a while now, someone has been living inside my computer, writing emails for me. I don’t recall signing up for this artificial intelligence feature, which is like having a word valet. It’s in my phone, too, which offers three serviceable but impersonal responses I can fire off to someone who has just sent…
Read MoreCommentary: In two new court cases, judges find that AI does not have human intelligence
It’s becoming clearer with every passing day that the only people making a serious effort to come to grips with the implications of artificial intelligence for society aren’t legislators, or business leaders, or AI promoters themselves. They’re judges. Indeed, in recent weeks, judges in two federal cases have drawn a line that seems to have…
Read MoreLawsuit alleges Google chatbot was behind a user’s delusions and death
Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini encouraged a 36-year-old Florida man to embark on violent missions and to take his own life, a lawsuit alleges. The man, Jonathan Gavalas, started using the chatbot in August 2025 to help write, plan travel and assist with shopping. But after he activated Google’s most intelligent AI model, Gemini 2.5…
Read MoreHow our AI bots are ignoring their programming and giving hackers superpowers
Welcome to the age of AI hacking, in which the right prompts make amateurs into master hackers. A group of cybercriminals recently used off-the-shelf artificial intelligence chatbots to steal data on nearly 200 million taxpayers. The bots provided the code and ready-to-execute plans to bypass firewalls. Although they were explicitly programmed to refuse to help…
Read MoreStartup Varda Space Industries snags former Mattel plant in El Segundo
In an expansion of its business of processing pharmaceuticals in Earth’s orbit, Varda Space Industries is renting a large El Segundo plant where toy manufacturer Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls. The plant in El Segundo’s aerospace corridor will be an extension of Varda Space Industries’ headquarters in a much smaller building…
Read MoreSurveillance company Flock generates controversy — and a roster of L.A. clients
Santa Cruz tried out the surveillance company Flock Safety for a little over a year before deciding it was time to move on. Cambridge, Mass., also had enough and tore up its contract in December. Now, some officials in San Diego have begun to have second thoughts of their own. In recent months, dozens of…
Read MoreCommentary: The Pentagon is demanding to use Claude AI as it pleases. Claude told me that’s ‘dangerous’
Recently, I asked Claude, an artificial-intelligence thingy at the center of a standoff with the Pentagon, if it could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Say, for example, hands that wanted to put a tight net of surveillance around every American citizen, monitoring our lives in real time to ensure our compliance with government. “Yes.…
Read MoreInstagram to alert parents if their teens search for suicide or self-harm terms
Instagram, a social media platform popular among young people, said Thursday it will alert parents if their teens repeatedly search for suicide or self harm-related terms. “Our goal is to empower parents to step in if their teen’s searches suggest they may need support,” the company said in a blog post. Parents will receive a…
Read MoreBattle of the AI brands: What’s behind the bad blood between OpenAI and Anthropic
As more than 100 million people watched the Super Bowl, the battle for the future of artificial intelligence spilled out into a massive public arena. In a series of viral commercials, AI upstart Anthropic broadcast to football fans that they should avoid AI with ads. The commercial was obviously targeting OpenAI, which plans to add…
Read MoreInfluencers want to adopt the ‘analog lifestyle’ for 2026. Here’s how to join them
At the dawn of 2026, social media influencers at home and abroad proclaimed it the year of the “analog lifestyle,” a call to reduce digital connectivity as smart tech and screen time dominate a person’s attention span. Selly Tan, an influencer from California, said people are “craving something real again,” and vowed to print her…
Read MoreBillionaires Spielberg, Zuckerberg eyeing East Coast, stirring concerns about California’s wealth-tax proposal
California may be losing two of the state’s most famed residents and generous political donors. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg recently moved to New York and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is eyeing purchasing a new property in Florida, stirring speculation about whether their decisions are tied to a proposed new tax on California billionaires to fund healthcare…
Read MoreNetflix and Warner Bros join Disney and Paramount in calling out ByteDance’s latest AI platform
After a fake video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting went viral, a surge of AI-generated content from Seedance 2.0 flooded the internet. Some fans were using the new AI video generator, backed by ByteDance, to refashion the finales for shows such as “Game of Thrones” and “Stranger Things.” Others created battle scenes between…
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