Techmeme
May 17, 2025, 9:16 AM

Top News

Justin Lahart / Wall Street Journal:
MIT says it no longer stands behind a widely circulated research paper by its student that claimed an AI tool boosted discoveries in a materials science lab  —  The university says it has no confidence in a widely circulated paper by an economics graduate student
Marcus Mendes / 9to5Mac:
Epic's new motion asks a US district judge to order Apple to approve Fortnite on the US App Store, calling Apple's continued refusal contempt of court  —  As reported by Mark Gurman, Epic's petition reads: … In the document, Epic also makes a point to mention Tim Cook's testimony at trial, in which he said:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Washington Post:
Big Tech companies are firing staff who organize protests and rejecting petitions, even as a poor job market discourages worker activism, once ubiquitous in SV  —  A tighter labor market and lower corporate tolerance have stifled once boisterous employee input on controversies over company policy, AI safety and the Israel-Gaza war.
Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:
A look at AI companies' lobbying push, as well as the GOP's pitch, for the amendment to ban state-level AI regulation, added to the budget reconciliation bill  —  Inside the effort to de-democratize AI  —  Today, we dive deep into the GOP's radical campaign to ban US states from passing any laws that govern AI.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI rolls out Codex, an AI coding agent powered by codex-1, a version of o3 optimized for software engineering, for ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team users  —  OpenAI announced on Friday it's launching a research preview of Codex, the company's most capable AI coding agent yet.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Galaxy Digital, which has traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 2020, started trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker GLXY; the stock closed up 4%  —  WATCH NOW  —  Mike Novogratz' crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq Friday under the ticker GLXY.
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is expected to be a primary anchor tenant for a 5-gigawatt UAE data center, which could become one of the world's largest at 10 square miles  —  OpenAI plans to help develop a massive new data center in the United Arab Emirates that may eventually be one of the largest in the world …
Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
Sources: White House and lawmakers are scrutinizing Apple's plan to use Alibaba's AI on iPhones in China, over concerns about data sharing, censorship, and more  —  The Trump administration and congressional officials have raised concerns about a deal to put a Chinese company's artificial intelligence on iPhones.
More: Reuters
Emma Roth / The Verge:
xAI publishes system prompts for Grok on GitHub, including telling Grok to be “extremely skeptical” and not to “blindly defer to mainstream authority or media”  —  The instructions tell Grok that it is ‘extremely skeptical.’  —  xAI has published the system prompts …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Bloomberg:
Deep dive on the evolution of Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, from its $1B investment in 2019 through Copilot rollouts and ChatGPT's launch to present day  —  Nervous customers and a volatile partnership with OpenAI are complicating things for Satya Nadella and the world's most valuable company.

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Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Tim Cook's Legacy + The Future of U.B.I. With Andrew Yang + HatGPT
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Chapter's Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz: From Palantir To $3B Medicare Disruptor
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI President Greg Brockman on GPT-5.5 "Spud," AI Model Moats, and Cybersecurity Risks
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Lenny's Podcast:
How Anthropic's product team moves faster than anyone else | Cat Wu (Head of Product, Claude Code)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Access:
Silicon Valley finally has its "Succession"
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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More News

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune:
Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Reuters:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: