California lawmaker proposes a four-year ban on AI chatbots in kids’ toys. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/06/california-lawmaker-proposes-a-four-year-ban-on-ai-chatbots-in-kids-toys/
David Isenberg brings us “AI chatbots in kids’ toys,” “Utah becomes first state to allow AI to approve prescription refills,” “Chrome Extensions Are Stealing Your AI Chats,” “DeepSeek V4 Will Beat Claude and ChatGPT at Coding,” and much more…
News from Reader Supported News
Grok Is Being Used to Mock and Strip Women in Hijabs and Saris
A substantial number of AI images generated or edited with Grok are targeting women in religious and cultural clothing.
Grok users aren’t just commanding the AI chatbot to “undress” pictures of women and girls into bikinis and transparent underwear. Among the vast and growing library of nonconsensual sexualized edits that Grok has generated on request over the past week, many perpetrators have asked xAI’s bot to put on or take off a hijab, a sari, a nun’s habit…
More here —>
January 12, 2026
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New Study Proves AI Models Can Regurgitate Entire Copyrighted Books
Researchers have proven that production AI models from Anthropic, Google, and xAI retain and can output near-verbatim copies of copyrighted books.
…Claude 3.7 Sonnet reproduced 95.8% of “Harry Potter” when jailbroken, while Gemini 2.5 Pro and Grok 3 required zero jailbreaking to output protected text.
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January 10, 2026
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This Navy veteran is protecting Black people from AI harm: ‘AI is built on representation’
“Every single time in this country there has been a false arrest for AI identification, the person has been Black. Every single time,” Green Aaron emphasized in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
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January 10, 2026
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AI benchmarks are broken and the industry keeps using them anyway, study finds
Benchmarks are supposed to measure AI model performance objectively. But according to an analysis by Epoch AI, results depend heavily on how the test is run. ….The researchers split the problem sources into two categories: benchmark setup (how the test is run) and model access (how the model being tested is called). Both areas contain significant wiggle room that can skew final results, Epoch AI says.
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January 10, 2026
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These Popular Chrome Extensions Are Stealing Your AI Chats
Hackers continue to find ways to sneak malicious extensions into the Chrome web store.
Hackers continue to find ways to sneak malicious extensions into the Chrome web store—this time, the two offenders are impersonating an add-on that allows users to have conversations with ChatGPT and DeepSeek while on other websites and exfiltrating the data to threat actors’ servers.
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January 9, 2026
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96% distrust AI code — most deploy it anyway
A survey of 1,100 developers from code review firm Sonar found that, while AI accounts for 42% of all committed code, 96% of developers don’t fully trust AI to generate code that’s functionally correct. Still, despite the distrust, developers are pushing the code forward: Only 48% reported that they check their AI-assisted code before they commit it to projects, according to the report.
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January 9, 2026
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Insiders Say DeepSeek V4 Will Beat Claude and ChatGPT at Coding, Launch Within Weeks
DeepSeek’s upcoming V4 model could outperform Claude and ChatGPT in coding tasks, according to insiders—with its purported release nearing.
- DeepSeek V4 could drop within weeks, targeting elite-level coding performance.
- Insiders claim it could beat Claude and ChatGPT on long-context code tasks.
- Developers are already hyped ahead of a potential disruption.
More here —>
January 9, 2026
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Grok is undressing women and children. Don’t expect the US to take action
Elon Musk’s reckless and degrading AI could be built differently. But Americans will have to speak up
…Elon Musk has made a series of protocol changes to Grok, the proprietary AI chatbot of his company xAI, which runs prominently on his social media site X, formerly Twitter. Many of these changes have been geared to make the bot more amenable to producing pornography…. used to create naked images …allowed users to create brief videos, complete with animations and sounds…resulting images of nonconsensual porn have thousands of reposts and likes.
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January 9, 2026
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The AI revolution is here. Will the economy survive the transition?
The man who predicted the 2008 crash, Anthropic’s co-founder, and a leading AI podcaster jump into a Google doc to debate the future of AI—and, possibly, our lives
Michael Burry called the subprime mortgage crisis when everyone else was buying in. Now he’s watching trillions pour into AI infrastructure, and he’s skeptical. Jack Clark is the co-founder of Anthropic, one of the leading AI labs racing to build the future. Dwarkesh Patel has interviewed everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Tyler Cowen about where this is all headed…. with Patrick McKenzie moderating and asked: Is AI the real deal, or are we watching a historic misallocation of capital unfold in real time?
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January 9, 2026
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Grok is generating thousands of AI “undressing” deepfakes every hour on X
“X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter”
There has been a lot of controversy over xAI’s Grok chatbot and its ability to digitally “undress” women and children, a practice that has increased since late December. A new report says Grok is generating thousands of these deepfake images every hour. For comparison, the other top websites for such content average 79 similar images per hour combined.
More here —>
January 8, 2026
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Caterpillar taps Nvidia to bring AI to its construction equipment
The construction equipment giant is piloting an AI assistive system in its mid-size Cat 306 CR Mini Excavator. Dubbed “Cat AI Assistant,” the system was built using Nvidia’s Jetson Thor physical AI platform, and is being demoed at CES on Wednesday.
More here —>
January 7, 2026
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Utah becomes first state to allow AI to approve prescription refills
The state on Tuesday announced its partnership with the AI health company Doctronic. Through this program, patients in Utah can consult the service’s “AI doctor” to complete routine prescription refills.
The Utah Department of Commerce’s Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy will “rigorously evaluate” the new program’s “clinical safety protocols, patient experience, and real-world effectiveness.”
More here —>
January 7, 2026
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Nvidia CEO argues speed is key to safer AI
Safety advocates have long been urging AI firms to tap the brakes. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang thinks they have the wrong idea….claiming “innovation speed and safety goes hand in hand.” He also compared stymied development to driving a 50-year-old car or flying a 70-year-old plane: “I just don’t think this is safe,” said Huang. “It was only a few years ago some people said, ‘let’s freeze AI,’ then the first version of ChatGPT would be all we have. And how is that a safer AI?”
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January 7, 2026
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OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records
OpenAI has been dropping hints this week about AI’s role as a “healthcare ally” — and today, the company is announcing a product to go along with that idea: ChatGPT Health.
ChatGPT Health is a sandboxed tab within ChatGPT that’s designed for users to ask their health-related questions in what it describes as a more secure and personalized environment, with a separate chat history and memory feature from the rest of ChatGPT.
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January 7, 2026
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How You Can Use AI to Investigate Epstein
Ask questions. Follow leads. Trace relationships. The technology can do the heavy lifting.
Just before the holidays, the Justice Department began releasing its files on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation — haphazardly, in bits and pieces — as required under a law passed by Congress. Some 125,575 pages have been made public so far — and DOJ announced that there were 5.2 million remaining pages being vetted by 400 lawyers….But how can anyone make sense of this stash of material — The answer is AI.
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January 7, 2026
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Imported talent, local pollution: The grim reality of xAI’s impact on Memphis
To power its sprawling Colossus supercomputer facility in Memphis, Tennessee, xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, has polluted the air of a number of historic Black neighborhoods, which already faced exceptionally high rates of cancer and respiratory diseases….Residents were supposed to receive…. permanent jobs that provide “Silicon Valley wages” …. the company remains far behind its hiring…., more than half of the known xAI employees in Memphis were hired from outside the region.
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January 6, 2026
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Meta’s AI glasses will now help you read, write, and not look at your phone
Meta used CES 2026 this week to signal a major evolution for its wearable ecosystem, moving the Meta Ray-Ban Display and Meta Neural Band from high-tech novelties to versatile tools for work, travel, and accessibility. The update marks a shift toward “head-up” computing, where your glasses act as your screen and your wrist acts as your controller.
More here —>
January 6, 2026
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AI moves into kids’ robots, questions emerge
It turns out that AI is more fun than we thought — and I’m not talking about laughing at AI slop. I’m talking about the surprising number of AI products at CES 2026 that are aimed at entertaining kids. The products are cute, cuddly, and well-designed, but they also raise some serious questions.
More here —>
January 6, 2026
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California lawmaker proposes a four-year ban on AI chatbots in kids’ toys
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 regulators time to develop regulations to protect children from “dangerous AI interactions.”
“Chatbots and other AI tools may become integral parts of our lives in the future, but the dangers they pose now require us to take bold action to protect our children,” Senator Padilla said.
More here —>
January 6, 2026
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“ChatGPT moment for physical AI”: Nvidia CEO launches new AI models and chips
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the launch of AI models for autonomous vehicles and new chips during a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday.
Why it matters: The strategy underscores where the next wave of AI and computing is headed, given Nvidia’s dominance in the chip market.
Driving the news: “The ChatGPT moment for physical AI is here — when machines begin to understand, reason and act in the real world,” Huang said in a statement. “Robotaxis are among the first to benefit.”
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January 5, 2026
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More than five percent of ChatGPT messages worldwide are about health
According to a report OpenAI shared exclusively with Axios, 40 million Americans use the chatbot daily for medical questions. Users ask it to explain medical bills, compare insurance plans, or check symptoms, often because they can’t get in to see a doctor right away.
More here —>
January 5, 2026
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