The FTC Is Investigating AI Companions From OpenAI, Meta, and Other Companies. The US Federal Trade Commission has launched its first inquiry into consumer-facing AI companion services, probing seven companies—including OpenAI, Meta, and Character.AI—over potential harms ranging from data misuse to emotional manipulation. With AI “friends” marketed for mental health support and social interaction, regulators are examining whether these platforms mislead users about consent, privacy, and safety. As AI models become more adept at mimicking human conversation, concerns have mounted about deepfake imagery, undisclosed data harvesting, and the psychological impact of algorithmically tailored companionship. This investigation marks a critical step toward defining oversight and accountability in an emerging category of digital intimacy.
“The FTC is investigating seven tech companies building AI companions” (startupnews.fyi)
Are Chatbots of the Dead a Brilliant Idea or a Terrible One? by Amy Kurzweil & Daniel Story. This 5,300-word essay examines the rise of posthumous chatbots—AI systems trained on the writings and recordings of deceased individuals to simulate conversations with them. Through case studies spanning Victorian poets to Holocaust survivors, the authors interrogate whether recreating a “digital ghost” serves therapeutic and memorial purposes or veers into unsettling territory. They explore the ethical complexity of creating convincing illusions of the dead, the emotional risks for grieving users, and broader questions about consent when the subject cannot speak for themselves. As AI enables “compelling experiences of talking with our dead,” this essay asks what responsibilities creators and users bear toward memory and mortality.
“We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again?” (aeon.co)
Interview: Jony Ive Joins OpenAI. The Designer on His New Venture in San Francisco. In a rare, in-depth conversation, Apple’s former chief designer discusses his LoveFrom studio’s bold real-estate investments in Jackson Square and a partnership with OpenAI on a rumored screenless device. As Ive spearheads the restoration of historic buildings and curates an industrial design atelier “worth more than $100 million,” he speaks to the role of design in urban revival and how products can be both disruptive and humane. He reflects on the studio’s philosophy—“At its most pedestrian, it is a tool to support our practice”—and hints at collaboration on “io,” an AI-powered phone-like device aiming to reshape human interaction without screens.
“Upstairs are the most remarkable industrial designers in the world. … I get to walk up those stairs every day.” (monocle.com)
Can Algorithms Make Art? On Eduardo Navas’s “The Rise of Metacreativity” by Francesco D’Isa. This review of Navas’s 2022 treatise delves into how machine learning and remix culture challenge traditional notions of artistic creativity. Navas argues that AI merely extends longstanding practices of chance, modularity, and collage—what he terms “metacreativity”—rather than obliterating human ingenuity. Drawing parallels to Dadaist techniques and Renaissance workshops, the essay explores how algorithmic processes echo artistic methods that have always blended human intention with procedural systems. By reframing AI as part of a continuum of artistic tools, Navas invites readers to reconsider the boundary between human and machine-made art and to embrace computation as a collaborator rather than a usurper.
Navas reminds us that “art has long been disengaged from the creator’s labor, often tied to chance, modularity, and remix.” (lareviewofbooks.org)
How Leica Transformed Photography for Ever: Celebrating 100 Years of the Famous Camera. Marking a century since its debut, this cultural history traces the Leica’s role in ushering in “The Age of Instant Vision.” The article surveys the camera’s origins in post-World War I Germany, its embrace by Surrealists and photojournalists, and its ongoing influence on image-making. Through interviews and archival anecdotes, it highlights how the Leica’s portability and precision enabled candid street photography and shattered the rigidity of early plate cameras. From Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moments” to today’s film revivalists, the Leica emerges as both technological marvel and artistic catalyst.
“An early advertising slogan for Leica was ‘Die Kamera der Zeit’ – ‘The camera of the time.’” (the-independent.com)