Techmeme
January 21, 2026, 6:15 AM

Top News

Juby Babu / Reuters:
OpenAI rolls out age prediction on ChatGPT globally to identify under-18 users and to apply automatic content protections, as it prepares to add adult content  —  OpenAI on Tuesday said it is rolling out age prediction on ChatGPT globally, to determine whether an account is likely owned by a minor …
Alex Heath / Sources:
Demis Hassabis says there aren't “any plans” to put ads in Gemini and, in response to OpenAI testing ads, says “maybe they feel they need to make more revenue”  —  During our convo in Davos, Demis Hassabis and I chatted about ads in AI, Google's new deal with Apple, humanoids, and Gemini 4.
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to $12B, vs. $11.97B est., 325M paid subscribers, 2025 revenue up 16% to $45.2B, plans to up content spend by 10% in 2026  —  Netflix Inc. delivered fourth-quarter results that largely beat Wall Street estimates but issued a cautious forecast for the months ahead …
Theo Wayt / The Information:
Elon Musk and Sam Altman clashed on X after Musk shared a post about a man who committed a murder-suicide following delusional conversations with ChatGPT  —  Elon Musk and Sam Altman traded barbs on X this week over media reports of deaths linked to OpenAI's ChatGPT and other AI-related safety issues.
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:
X says it has open sourced its “core recommendation system” on GitHub and that the system “ranks everything using a Grok-based transformer model”  —  In 2023, the website then known as Twitter partially open sourced its algorithm for the first time.
April Rubin / Axios:
The US DOJ says at least two DOGE employees accessed Social Security data that was off-limits under a court ruling and shared agency data on third-party servers  —  - At least two DOGE employees, the filing reveals, were in touch with a political advocacy group that asked them to analyze data …
Jody Godoy / Reuters:
The US FTC files a notice to appeal a November 2025 ruling that found Meta did not hold an illegal monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking to revive its case accusing Facebook parent company Meta Platforms (META.O) of bolstering …
Yi-Ling Liu / Wired:
China's Cyberspace Administration requires firms to file their AI tools in a public algorithm registry, creating a detailed map of the country's AI ecosystem  —  How the Cyberspace Administration of China inadvertently made a guide to the country's homegrown AI revolution.
More: WebProNews
Simon P. Couch:
A programmer estimates his typical day of coding with Claude Code is equivalent to running the dishwasher an extra time, much more energy than a “median query”  —  Most of the discourse about the environmental impact of LLM use focuses on a ‘median query.’ What about a Claude Code session?
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:
As Taiwanese chipmakers push localization to secure supply chains, suppliers to the steel, plastics, and display industries are moving into Taiwan's chip sector  —  TAINAN, Taiwan — A surprising cast of companies, including suppliers to the steel, plastics and display industries and even a maker …
More: KED Global
Bloomberg:
Demis Hassabis says Chinese AI companies are about six months behind leading western labs and the response to DeepSeek's R1 in 2025 was a “massive overreaction”  —  Google DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis said Chinese artificial intelligence companies haven't been able …
Shona Ghosh / Bloomberg:
World Economic Forum panel: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says AI-driven job displacement will “make it hard to imagine why we should have large-scale immigration”  —  Artificial intelligence will displace so many jobs that it will eliminate the need for mass immigration …

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More News

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Earlier Picks

Nate Raymond / Reuters:
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
More: TechCrunch, Daring Fireball, and The Verge
X: @mysk_coBluesky: @kirb.meMastodon: @stroughtonsmith …Forums: Slashdot