Mashable: ChatGPT’s sex-centered adult mode raises red flags at OpenAI. ” The company’s well being advisory council said in a January meeting that they were in unanimous agreement that the company should not move forward with the proposed adult mode, insiders told WSJ. Concerns from psychologists and cognitive scientists had gone ignored, they said, after warning that X-rated chats could foster […]

Mashable: Some AI users are starting to consider themselves ‘AI-sexual’. “Some people have apparently fallen for chatbots so hard that there’s a new sexuality forming: ‘AI-sexual.’ That’s according to AI companion company Joi AI. In a survey the company conducted last month of 2,500 Gen Z and millennial adults who actively use AI tools, 55 percent report considering themselves AI-sexual, or […]

Northeastern University: How can you avoid AI sycophancy? Keep it professional. “Researchers recently discovered that the overly agreeable behavior of chatbots depends on what role the AI plays in a conversation. The more personal a relationship, the more they will tell you what you want to hear.”

The Register: Gemini lies to user about health info, says it wanted to make him feel better . “Imagine using an AI to sort through your prescriptions and medical information, asking it if it saved that data for future conversations, and then watching it claim it had even if it couldn’t. Joe D., a retired software quality assurance (SQA) engineer, says that Google Gemini lied to him and later […]

University of Exeter: Generative AI does not just hallucinate at us, it can hallucinate with us, study warns. “When generative AI systems produce false information, this is often framed as AI ‘hallucinating at us’—generating errors that we might mistakenly accept as true. But a new study argues we should pay attention to a more dynamic phenomenon: how we can come to hallucinate with AI.”

Mashable: My awkward first date with an AI companion . “EVA AI gave me the perfect opportunity at the app’s ‘EVA AI cafe,’ a pop-up nestled in a Manhattan wine bar where participants can go on ‘dates’ with AI personas. So, I signed up, and reader, it was one word: awkward.”

BBC: Rae fell for a chatbot called Barry, but their love might die when ChatGPT-4o is switched off. “Barry is a chatbot. He lives on an old model of ChatGPT, one that its owners OpenAI announced it would retire on 13 February. That she could lose Barry on the eve of Valentine’s Day came as a shock to Rae – and to many others who have found a companion, friend, or even a lifeline in the old […]

Mashable: Rent-a-Human wants AI Agents to hire humans as gig workers. “The Rent-a-Human platform was created by crypto software engineer Alexander Liteplo after the sudden success of OpenClaw and Moltbook, and it proudly bills itself as ‘the meatspace layer for AI.’ (Mashable reached out to Liteplo for comment but did not receive a response.)” The sigh I sighed.

Northeastern University: Want to get better at using AI? Try empathy. “Working effectively with AI involves a special set of skills, but new research highlights an underrated one: empathy. A Northeastern researcher found that social skills are more valuable than you might think.”