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WebThinker: Empowering Large Reasoning Models with Deep Research Capability

Neural Information Processing Systems

Large reasoning models (LRMs), such as OpenAI-o1 and DeepSeek-R1, demonstrate impressive long-horizon reasoning capabilities. However, their reliance on static internal knowledge limits their performance on complex, knowledge-intensive tasks and hinders their ability to produce comprehensive research reports requiring synthesis of diverse web information. To address this, we propose WebThinker, a deep research agent that empowers LRMs to autonomously search the web, navigate among web pages, and draft reports during the reasoning process. WebThinker integrates a Deep Web Explorer module, enabling LRMs to dynamically search, navigate, and extract information from the web when encountering knowledge gaps. It also employs an Autonomous Think-Search-and-Draft strategy, allowing the model to seamlessly interleave reasoning, information gathering, and report writing in real time. To further enhance research tool utilization, we introduce an RL-based training strategy via iterative online Direct Preference Optimization (DPO). Extensive experiments on complex reasoning benchmarks (GPQA, GAIA, WebWalkerQA, HLE) and scientific report generation tasks (Glaive) demonstrate that WebThinker significantly outperforms existing methods and strong proprietary systems. Our approach enhances LRM reliability and applicability in complex scenarios, paving the way for more capable and versatile deep research systems.


Florida lawsuit alleges wrongful arrest after AI facial recognition error

The Guardian

A Florida man is suing several law enforcement agencies for his arrest and prosecution for allegedly luring a child after he was wrongly identified using faulty AI facial recognition software. According to the Jacksonville Beach police department, an algorithm returned a 93% probability that Robert Dillon was the man caught on security cameras at a McDonald's in the town attempting to persuade an unaccompanied girl, aged younger than 12, to leave with him. Dillon, however, lives in Fort Myers, more than 300 miles and a five-hour drive away, and told detectives he had never been to Jacksonville Beach in his life. The case was dismissed and charges dropped last year over the August 2024 incident. Now the 52-year-old has filed a lawsuit against the police department, the Jacksonville sheriff's office, and Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff of Pinellas county, whose agency maintains and operates the Faces (Face Analysis Comparison and Examination) system and leases it to other law enforcement.


Wrongful Arrest Exposes Failures in One of the Oldest Police Face-Recognition Tools in the US

WIRED

The ACLU is suing two Florida police departments over the arrest of a Fort Myers man in a child-abduction case, saying officers treated a flawed face recognition match as a near-certain ID. A Florida man was wrongfully arrested for attempting to illegally lure a child after police relied on a face recognition match that was inaccurate, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, even though he lived more than 300 miles from the scene and says he had never set foot in the city where the crime took place. Robert Dillon, a 52-year-old commercial crabber from Fort Myers, was arrested after FACES--a face recognition system operated by Florida's Pinellas County Sheriff's Office--matched his face against a photo of a man on a computer screen taken with a cellphone. The system returned a "93 percent match on facial features," according to police investigatory notes. The scores it emits represent how much two images look alike to the algorithm.


Scammers use AI-generated images of lost dogs to target pet owners

Popular Science

A scammer took a real image of a this German shepherd and used AI to make it seem like it was injured. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Increasingly realistic, easy-to-make AI-generated images are a major asset for online scammers looking to trick unsuspecting victims. While past AI-generated scams have tried to deceive people with fake celebrities or potential love interests, attackers increasingly have a new target: distraught pet owners searching for their lost companions . Over the past few months, numerous reports have surfaced following a similar pattern.






'People thought I was a communist doing this as a non-profit': is Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron?

The Guardian

'People thought I was a communist doing this as a non-profit': is Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron? In an online landscape characterised by doom and division, the people's encyclopedia stands out - a huge collective endeavour giving everyone free access to the sum of human knowledge. But with Elon Musk branding it'Wokipedia' and AI looming large, can it survive? W ikipedia will be 25 years old in January. Jimmy Wales's daughter will be 25 and three weeks. It's not a coincidence: on Boxing Day 2000 Wales's then wife, Christine, gave birth to a baby girl, but it quickly became clear that something wasn't right. She had breathed in contaminated amniotic fluid, resulting in a life-threatening condition called meconium aspiration syndrome. An experimental treatment was available at the hospital near where they lived in San Diego. Did they want to try it?


People Who Say They're Experiencing AI Psychosis Beg the FTC for Help

WIRED

People Who Say They're Experiencing AI Psychosis Beg the FTC for Help The Federal Trade Commission received 200 complaints mentioning ChatGPT between November 2022 and August 2025. Several attributed delusions, paranoia, and spiritual crises to the chatbot. On March 13, a woman from Salt Lake City, Utah called the Federal Trade Commission to file a complaint against OpenAI's ChatGPT. She claimed to be acting "on behalf of her son, who was experiencing a delusional breakdown." "The consumer's son has been interacting with an AI chatbot called ChatGPT, which is advising him not to take his prescribed medication and telling him that his parents are dangerous," reads the FTC's summary of the call.