Science and Technology

On a recent afternoon, I held a bagel in front of me and said: “Look and tell me if this is healthy.”A monotone voice responded that the bagel was unhealthy because it was high in carbohydrates, which could contribute to weight gain.I wasn’t talking to a tech bro obsessed with the ketogenic diet. This was the Ai Pin, a $700 tiny computer featuring a virtual assistant pulling data from OpenAI (the research firm behind the ChatGPT chatbot), Google, Microsoft and others to answer questions and perform tasks.Shaped like a lapel pin that may be a throwback to “Star Trek,” it…

Zwickau, a city in Germany’s east, may not be as famous as Detroit, but its economy has revolved around internal combustion engines since August Horch established Audi here at the beginning of the 20th century.So when Volkswagen announced in 2018 that it would convert its Zwickau factory, the largest private employer in the area, to manufacture nothing but electric vehicles, it was a big deal.“A lot of people were skeptical,” said Michael Fuchs, who has worked at the factory for more than a quarter century. They wondered, “What’s going to happen?” he said.Volkswagen shut down assembly lines churning out its…

The Maryland Legislature this weekend passed two sweeping privacy bills that aim to restrict how powerful tech platforms can harvest and use the personal data of consumers and young people — despite strong objections from industry trade groups representing giants like Amazon, Google and Meta.One bill, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, would impose wide-ranging restrictions on how companies may collect and use the personal data of consumers in the state. The other, the Maryland Kids Code, would prohibit certain social media, video game and other online platforms from tracking people under 18 and from using manipulative techniques — like…

OpenAI, Google and other tech companies train their chatbots with huge amounts of data culled from books, Wikipedia articles, news stories and other sources across the internet. But in the future, they hope to use something called synthetic data.That’s because tech companies may exhaust the high-quality text the internet has to offer for the development of artificial intelligence. And the companies are facing copyright lawsuits from authors, news organizations and computer programmers for using their works without permission. (In one such lawsuit, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft.)Synthetic data, they believe, will help reduce copyright issues and boost…

Ford Motor on Thursday delayed the production of at least two new electric cars and said it would pivot to making more hybrids. Its decision was the latest sign that large automakers have been forced to rethink their strategy for electric vehicles because sales for those models are slowing.The shift by Ford and automakers like General Motors and Mercedes-Benz, which have also pushed back their electric car plans, has been prompted largely by the companies’ difficulties in making and selling enough electric cars and doing so profitably.Sales of such vehicles are still growing, but the pace has slowed sharply in…

The estate of the comedian George Carlin reached a settlement on Monday with the makers of a podcast who had said they had used artificial intelligence to impersonate Mr. Carlin for a comedy special.As part of the agreement, the two podcast creators, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, agreed to permanently remove the comedy special and to never repost it on any platform, according to Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Mr. Carlin’s estate. They also agreed not to use Mr. Carlin’s image, voice or likeness on any platform without approval from the estate, according to court records.Mr. Schiller declined to elaborate…

David Autor seems an unlikely A.I. optimist. The labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is best known for his in-depth studies showing how much technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years.But Mr. Autor is now making the case that the new wave of technology — generative artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and video and convincingly imitate humans’ voices and writing — could reverse that trend.“A.I., if used well, can assist with restoring the middle-skill, middle-class heart of the U.S. labor market that has been hollowed out by automation…

The telecommunications giant AT&T announced on Saturday that it had reset the passcodes of 7.6 million customers after it determined that compromised customer data was “released on the dark web.”“Our internal teams are working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the situation,” AT&T said. “To the best of our knowledge, the compromised data appears to be from 2019 or earlier and does not contain personal financial information or call history.”The company said that “information varied by customer and account,” but that it may have included a person’s full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, Social Security number, date of…

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris.Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum penalty of 110 years behind bars. But the punishment was far above the six and a half years requested by his…

Within minutes of walking through an Israeli military checkpoint along Gaza’s central highway on Nov. 19, the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha was asked to step out of the crowd. He put down his 3-year-old son, whom he was carrying, and sat in front of a military jeep.Half an hour later, Mr. Abu Toha heard his name called. Then he was blindfolded and led away for interrogation.“I had no idea what was happening or how they could suddenly know my full legal name,” said the 31-year-old, who added that he had no ties to the militant group Hamas and had…