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YouTube backlash begins: “Why is AI combing through every single video I watch?”

12 August 2025 at 17:58

Tens of thousands of YouTubers are raging against YouTube's plan to use AI to detect underage users in the US.

On Tuesday, a Change.org petition rapidly neared its 50,000-signature goal, with tens of thousands hoping that with enough users protesting, the wide rollout of the AI age checks might be stopped. They fear the age checks will make it harder to access content they love while staying anonymous on the platform

YouTube's age verification system estimates user ages by interpreting a "variety of signals," YouTube's announcement said, including "the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account."

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ChatGPT users shocked to learn their chats were in Google search results

1 August 2025 at 17:21

Faced with mounting backlash, OpenAI removed a controversial ChatGPT feature that caused some users to unintentionally allow their private—and highly personal—chats to appear in search results.

Fast Company exposed the privacy issue on Wednesday, reporting that thousands of ChatGPT conversations were found in Google search results and likely only represented a sample of chats "visible to millions." While the indexing did not include identifying information about the ChatGPT users, some of their chats did share personal details—like highly specific descriptions of interpersonal relationships with friends and family members—perhaps making it possible to identify them, Fast Company found.

OpenAI's chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, explained on X that all users whose chats were exposed opted in to indexing their chats by clicking a box after choosing to share a chat.

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Delta’s AI spying to “jack up” prices must be banned, lawmakers say

25 July 2025 at 18:13

One week after Delta announced it is expanding a test using artificial intelligence to charge different prices based on customers' personal data—which critics fear could end cheap flights forever—Democratic lawmakers have moved to ban what they consider predatory surveillance pricing.

In a press release, Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) announced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act. The law directly bans companies from using "surveillance-based" price or wage setting to increase their profit margins.

If passed, the law would allow anyone to sue companies found unfairly using AI, lawmakers explained in what's called a "one-sheet." That could mean charging customers higher prices—based on "how desperate a customer is for a product and the maximum amount a customer is willing to pay"—or paying employees lower wages—based on "their financial status, personal associations, and demographics."

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Will AI end cheap flights? Critics attack Delta’s “predatory” AI pricing.

17 July 2025 at 16:01

Delta has become the first airline to announce that it is using AI to boost profits by personalizing pricing through a pilot program that for months has caused customers to pay different prices for the same flights based on their data profile.

Critics have warned that this use of AI goes beyond airline practices that charge people who book flights ahead less than people who book flights at the last minute—and could ultimately mean the end of cheap flights across the board if other airlines follow.

On an earnings call last week, Delta Air Lines President Glen William Hauenstein confirmed that seats on about 3 percent of domestic flights were sold using the AI pricing system over the past six months. By the end of the year, Delta's goal is to boost that to 20 percent of tickets.

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Judge denies creating “mass surveillance program” harming all ChatGPT users

23 June 2025 at 17:33

After a court ordered OpenAI to "indefinitely" retain all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats, of millions of users, two panicked users tried and failed to intervene. The order sought to preserve potential evidence in a copyright infringement lawsuit raised by news organizations.

In May, Judge Ona Wang, who drafted the order, rejected the first user's request on behalf of his company simply because the company should have hired a lawyer to draft the filing. But more recently, Wang rejected a second claim from another ChatGPT user, and that order went into greater detail, revealing how the judge is considering opposition to the order ahead of oral arguments this week, which were urgently requested by OpenAI.

The second request to intervene came from a ChatGPT user named Aidan Hunt, who said that he uses ChatGPT "from time to time," occasionally sending OpenAI "highly sensitive personal and commercial information in the course of using the service."

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To avoid admitting ignorance, Meta AI says man’s number is a company helpline

20 June 2025 at 15:12

Anyone whose phone number is just one digit off from a popular restaurant or community resource has long borne the burden of either screening or redirecting misdials. But now, AI chatbots could exacerbate this inconvenience by accidentally giving out private numbers when users ask for businesses' contact information.

Apparently, the AI helper that Meta created for WhatsApp may even be trained to tell white lies when users try to correct the dissemination of WhatsApp user numbers.

According to The Guardian, a record shop worker in the United Kingdom, Barry Smethurst, was attempting to ask WhatsApp's AI helper for a contact number for TransPennine Express after his morning train never showed up.

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NJ teen wins fight to put nudify app users in prison, impose fines up to $30K

4 April 2025 at 18:19

When Francesca Mani was 14 years old, boys at her New Jersey high school used nudify apps to target her and other girls. At the time, adults did not seem to take the harassment seriously, telling her to move on after she demanded more severe consequences than just a single boy's one or two-day suspension.

Mani refused to take adults' advice, going over their heads to lawmakers who were more sensitive to her demands. And now, she's won her fight to criminalize deepfakes. On Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a law that he said would help victims "take a stand against deceptive and dangerous deepfakes" by making it a crime to create or share fake AI nudes of minors or non-consenting adults—as well as deepfakes seeking to meddle with elections or damage any individuals' or corporations' reputations.

Under the law, victims targeted by nudify apps like Mani can sue bad actors, collecting up to $1,000 per harmful image created either knowingly or recklessly. New Jersey hopes these "more severe consequences" will deter kids and adults from creating harmful images, as well as emphasize to schools—whose lax response to fake nudes has been heavily criticized—that AI-generated nude images depicting minors are illegal and must be taken seriously and reported to police. It imposes a maximum fine of $30,000 on anyone creating or sharing deepfakes for malicious purposes, as well as possible punitive damages if a victim can prove that images were created in willful defiance of the law.

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