Techmeme
August 31, 2025, 4:05 PM

Top News

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
The price per token for AI models has fallen, but costs for developers are rising as newer reasoning models require more tokens to complete tasks  —  With models doing more ‘thinking,’ the small companies that buy AI from the giants to create apps and services are feeling the pinch
Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters:
TikTok suspends its live feature for the “next few days” in Indonesia, citing “increasing violence in protests” over lawmakers' pay  —  ByteDance's TikTok has suspended its live feature for the “next few days” in Indonesia following protests in the country, its spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
Brayden Lindrea / Cointelegraph:
El Salvador has split its 6,000+ bitcoin across 14 wallets, describing the move as a precaution against quantum attacks, a merely theoretical threat for now  —  El Salvador has transferred its 6,274 Bitcoin into 14 new wallet addresses as part of a security measure to protect against the threat of quantum attacks.
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
A critique of two contrasting research papers on AI's impact on US employment trends, along with caveats from a Stanford study on jobs in AI-exposed fields  —  Some top economists claim AI is now destroying jobs for a subset of Americans.  Are they right?  —  The debate over whether AI …
Joshua Rothman / New Yorker:
A look at the potential future of personalized, AI-generated entertainment, and how it could both submerge human originality and enable new forms of expression  —  We're used to algorithms guiding our choices.  When machines can effortlessly generate the content we consume, though, what's left for the human imagination?
X: @newyorker.  LinkedIn: Pinja Pakalen, David Szauder, and Kieran Knowles
Bluesky: @olivermantell, @raynewman, and @hern.  Mastodon: @ricmac@mastodon.social.  Forums: Hacker News
Phil Hoad / The Guardian:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
A study focused on OpenAI's GPT-4o mini found that LLMs can be persuaded to comply with objectionable requests using the same tactics that persuade humans  —  AI chatbots can be manipulated much in the same way that people can, according to researchers.  But first...  Three things to know:
More: WinBuzzer and Forbes
David Gilbert / Wired:
Purgatory, tied to online community The Com, claims responsibility for swatting attacks on US universities, airports, and more, charging $20 to $95 per incident  —  WIRED spoke to a self-proclaimed leader of an online group called Purgatory, which charged as little as $20 to call in fake threats against schools.
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Filing: StubHub, which is planning a September IPO, says revenue grew 3% to $828M in H1, missing its earlier projection of $885M, with adjusted EBITDA down 7%  —  Even as StubHub makes a renewed push to go public, its business isn't expanding as quickly as it had hoped.
More: The Times

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Earlier Picks

David DiMolfetta / Nextgov/FCW:
Jeff Horwitz / Reuters: