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December 12, 2025, 9:40 PM
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Axios:
Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump  —  States are forging ahead with AI laws despite President Trump's new executive order aimed at reining them in.
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Trump's AI executive order directs federal agencies to look into withholding federal funding from states passing “the most onerous and excessive laws” around AI  —  The new executive order comes as a growing group of Republicans criticize Trump's staunch support of the tech industry's ambitions for artificial intelligence.
Bloomberg:
David Sacks says Trump's AI EO aims to ease companies' compliance burden and that the administration is working with Congress on a common AI oversight standard  —  White House AI czar David Sacks defended President Donald Trump's push to rein in state-level regulation of artificial intelligence …
Reuters:
President Trump signs an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, saying “we want to have one central source of approval”
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: Oracle has delayed completion of some OpenAI data centers from 2027 to 2028, largely due to labor and material shortages; Oracle denies delays  —  Oracle Corp. has pushed back the completion dates for some of the data centers it's developing for the artificial intelligence model developer OpenAI …
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft expands its bug bounty program so that any critical vulnerability, including in third-party code, impacting its online services is eligible for awards  —  Microsoft Corp. announced today that it is expanding its bug bounty program with a new policy that brings all of its online services …
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Google expands Google Translate's live speech translation from Pixel Buds to any headphones, supporting 70+ languages, in beta on compatible Android phones  —  Live speech translations were once only on the Pixel Buds. … Google Translate's latest update brings live speech translations …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
OpenAI quietly adopted Anthropic's “skills” mechanism in ChatGPT and Codex; ChatGPT's skills include creating and modifying spreadsheets, docx files, and PDFs  —  One of the things that most excited me about Anthropic's new Skills mechanism back in October is how easy it looked for other platforms to implement.
Reuters:
Tether submits an all-cash offer to acquire a 65.4% stake in Italian soccer club Juventus, says it will invest €1B in the club if the acquisition is completed  —  Crypto group Tether said on Friday it has submitted an all-cash proposal to the holding company of the Agnelli family to buy …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps  —  Fallout's season one recap wrongly stated that The Ghoul's flashback takes place in the 1950s, rather than the year 2077.
Thinking Machines Lab:
Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab makes Tinker, its API for fine-tuning language models, generally available, adds support for Kimi K2 Thinking, and more  —  Today we are announcing four updates to Tinker:  — No more waitlist  — New reasoning model: Kimi K2 Thinking
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:
Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a “super app” with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting crypto  —  World, the biometric ID verification project co-founded by Sam Altman, released the newest version of its app today …
Nina Bambysheva / Forbes:
Kalshi integrates its event trading platform into the popular crypto wallet Phantom; Dune: in November, Kalshi's trading volume hit $5.8B vs. Polymarket's $3.7B  —  As Kalshi's trading volume surpasses Polymarket's, it will now offer prediction market access to Phantom's 15 million users on Solana.
Rachyl Jones / Semafor:
Singapore-based ChemLex raised a $45M funding round led by Granite Asia to build an AI-powered, automated chemistry lab to accelerate drug discovery  —  Singapore-based ChemLex raised $45 million to build out its autonomous chemistry lab with hopes it can speed drug discovery and therapy development …
More: ChemLex
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD  —  Big Tech continues to tiptoe into crypto.  The latest example is a move by YouTube to let creators on the video platform choose to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin.
John Liu / Bloomberg:
Sources: China is considering a ~$28B-to-$70B incentives package, which would be separate from the $50B Big Fund III plan, to support its chipmaking industry  —  China is considering a package of incentives worth as much as $70 billion to bankroll and support its chipmaking industry …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:40 PM ET, December 12, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Sony Music exec Dennis Kooker says the company has sent 135K+ takedown notices for deepfakes of its artists, but sees opportunities in AI with proper licensing

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with LightShed Partners' Rich Greenfield on Paramount's WBD deal, the need to ramp up content production, media as a trophy asset, streaming tech, and more

David Shepardson / Reuters:
Eight US states, including CA, CO, and NY, sue to block Nexstar's proposed $3.54B merger with Tegna on antitrust grounds; DirecTV files a separate suit

More News

Xuedong Huang / Zoom:
Zoom says its “federated AI” model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools
Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz:
[Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters, but says it reverted the change after complaints

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Sources: Intel has tested chipmaking tools in 2025 from California-based ACM Research, which has deep China ties; US sanctions targeted two ACM overseas units
Alex Heath / Sources:
An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Tim Sweeney: the Ninth Circuit's decision on the Epic v. Apple contempt ruling appeal “completely shuts down” App Store rules letting Apple collect “junk fees”
Reuters:
Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches Disco, a Gemini 3-powered experiment that suggests and creates GenTabs, web apps based on the user's open browser tabs and Gemini chat history
Axios:
The OpenAI deal gives Disney a fair amount of oversight and control over how its IP is used, including a joint steering committee to monitor user creations
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