Ben Winters reposted
Ads everywhere. Usage limits. Frustrating guardrails. Less model choice. Users of the Character.AI chatbot app are revolting after a series of changes they say have made the app worse.
Who's Who of AI
Ben Winters
director of AI and privacy at Consumer Federation of America | teaching tech policy law/reg @udclaw | formerly EPIC (the privacy one not the bad ones), and DOJ Civil Rights division| ⚫️⚪️+🗽 | 🐦 🐿 | he/him
contact: bwinters@consumerfed.org
What they're sharing
‘Lobotomized’: Character.AI Is Showing What AI Enshittification Looks Like 404media.co
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OpenAI Generated Nearly $6 Billion in Revenue in First Quarter, Boosted by Codex — The Information theinformation.com
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If you’re giving a commencement speech in 2026, maybe don’t mention AI | TechCrunch techcrunch.com
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OpenAI's CFO says she can't say if Jony Ive's device is an earpiece businessinsider.com
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Guy Who Sucks At Being A Person Sees Huge Potential In AI theonion.com
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AI Animal Videos Are Ruining One Of The Internet's Last Good Things | Defector defector.com
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politico.com
epic.org
Federal AI Regulation Bill Freezes State Consumer Protections for Three Years, Sparks Revolt techtimes.com
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Articles & links
Ben Winters reposted
Jesus christ! OpenAI had a negative 122% operating margin for Q1 2026 and growth in ChatGPT has stalled. Very nice Mr. Altman! Well done sir! www.theinformation.com/articles/ope...
Ben Winters reposted
“.. The booing was persistent enough that Schmidt tried to speak over it, insisting, ‘You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you ..’” @techcrunch.com techcrunch.com/2026/05/17/i...
Ben Winters reposted
They are trying hard to make folks feel like it’s a cool secret that you aren’t in on yet, but mostly it comes off like the Nathan Fielder laughing friends meme.
Ben Winters reposted
From the Onion, though it's the most realistic AI headline I've seen in a while . . . theonion.com/guy-who-suck...
Ben Winters reposted
"Nature documentaries conjure such universal awe in people precisely because of their reality."
269 page AI bill from Reps Obernolte (R) and Trahan (D) dropped this morning -- just digging in, but there is an effort to do preemption of any state regs on model development...devil is in the details, but doesnt seem great happy reading: www.politico.com/2026/06/04/o...
Eric Schmidt has been doing this nonsense for many years - i wrote this 4 years ago epic.org/playing-both... His pursuit has always been clear: get AI, and my AI - in war, in trade, in anything - he laid the blueprint of having harmful AI become too big to fail that Altman gle…
Ben Winters reposted
Consumer Federation of America's Director of AI and Data Privacy, @benwinters.bsky.social, called the bill a framework that "would instead create a weak and convoluted regulatory state that lets #AI companies continue to do whatever they want with impunity."
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In Ben Winters's orbit
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