A study that used artificial intelligence–generated content to "participate" in online discussions and test whether AI was more successful at changing people's minds than human-generated content has caused an uproar because of ethical concerns about the work. This week some of the unwitting research participants publicly asked the University of Zürich (UZH), where the researchers behind the experiment hold positions, to investigate and apologize. "I think people have a reasonable expectation to not be in scientific experiments without their consent," says Casey Fiesler, an expert on internet research ethics at the University of Colorado Boulder. A university statement emailed to Science says the researchers--who remain anonymous--have decided not to publish their results. The university will investigate the incident, the statement says.

In September 2023, Adam Raines made a Reddit post revealing what feels like a near-universal problem for singles: His dating app conversations are painfully boring. Attached to the post, titled "Sometimes, texting on dating apps feelings (sic) like hitting your head against a brick wall," is a screenshot of a bone-dry Tinder conversation between him and one of his matches, in which Raines' curiosity is met with short, dead-ended answers. "The vast majority of my online dating interactions have been like that," says Raines, 25, a gay man living in the UK who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy. Many users in the thread echoed his sentiment and offered explanations or theories as to why conversations on dating apps are often unsatisfying. "I see I'm not the only one getting that type of energy lol," one wrote, as another noted, "It sucks, and if people swiped more mindfully this wouldn't happen, but a lot of guys are so beaten down by the dating app experience they feel like they don't have any other choice and want whatever validation they can get."

Meta has spent the better part of a year integrating Meta AI with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and its other existing services, but hadn't yet launched a standalone experience for Meta AI fans. That all changed yesterday at LlamaCon, the company's inaugural AI developer conference, when the company finally launched the Meta AI app. The new app is built with Meta's Llama 4 model. It's a full-fledged competitor to ChatGPT, which became the fastest-growing app in history after its launch. Already, AI enthusiasts are digging into the app to see what sets it apart from the competition. Per Meta's press release, the big takeaway is personalization.

My wife and I like to travel to other countries, but we always face a familiar obstacle -- how to learn the language well enough to converse with people. We've tried taking language lessons, yet we invariably run into situations where we can't find the right words to express ourselves. Now, Google has launched a trio of translation tools that could help overcome this obstacle. Also: Want a quick daily podcast based on your interests? Try Google's latest AI experiment Launched on Tuesday as Google Labs experiments, the "Little Language Lessons" are designed to assist you in specific situations, especially when you're traveling in a foreign country.

Meta is set to report its first quarter earnings on Wednesday after the bell, and investors will be looking for news on whether the company met its quarterly revenue goals of somewhere between 39.5bn and 41.8bn. Wall Street is projecting the company will post 41.36bn in revenue on 5.21 in earnings per share. While Meta has repeatedly beaten Wall Street expectations in the past few quarters, analysts were disappointed by the first quarter revenue outlook Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg shared at the end of 2024. The company is also planning on spending up to 65bn on AI infrastructure by the end of 2025. Uncertainty over Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs may yet roil ad markets, clouding the company's financial outlook for near future quarters.

Pinterest has long been a great platform for getting inspiration from crowdsourced images for everything from outfits to home decor to wedding planning. However, AI-generated images have slowly trickled into Pinterest's results, leaving users dissatisfied. To address the issue, on Wednesday, Pinterest announced it will display a label on image Pins that it detects were either generated or modified using generative AI. The "AI Modified" label will appear in the bottom left corner of images when viewing them up close, and the feature is being rolled out globally. Also: AI is ruining Pinterest.

The world's most popular language-learning app is becoming a lot more multilingual. In an announcement today, Duolingo said it is adding 148 new language courses, more than doubling the current number of offerings. Seven of the world's most popular languages -- Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin -- are now available in the app's 28 supported language interfaces. Also: Google's viral AI podcast tool can chat in over 50 languages now and it aced my Spanish test The new courses are primarily for beginning-level speakers and include immersive stories and DuoRadio to help with comprehension. More advanced-level courses will be rolled out over the next few months.

President Trump's tariff standoff with China has caused chaos, confusion, and major delays for companies of all shapes and sizes. As everyone waits to see what happens next, some businesses that depend on international trade are already feeling major impacts, saying that they might not meet their production deadlines. And one of those deadlines is pretty important: Christmas. Today on the show, we're joined by WIRED's senior business editor Louise Matsakis to talk through the latest on tariffs. Mentioned in this episode: Donald Trump Is Already Ruining Christmas by Zeyi Yang OpenAI Adds Shopping to ChatGPT in a Challenge to Google by Reece Rogers The Agonizing Task of Turning Europe's Power Back On by Natasha Bernal Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.

Generative'AI' isn't just useful for making bad writing and bad images, it can be used to make software code, too. In fact, Microsoft's CEO claims that up to 30 percent of the company's new code is now created with artificial intelligence. Satya Nadella made this claim at LlamaCon (around the 45:00 minute mark), Meta/Facebook's conference focusing on generative AI tools. In fact Nadella was opposite Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and controversy lightning rod, when he said as much yesterday. "Code reviews are very high," says Nadella. "In fact the agents we have for reviewing code, that usage has increased, and so I would say maybe 20, 30 percent of the code that is inside of our repos today and in some of our projects are probably all written by software." That's a pretty stunning claim, and as Tom's Hardware points out, it seems in line with similar claim from Google CEO Sundar Pichai made last year.

'Bella the robot waitress won't replace our staff' 4 days agoShareSaveSophie CridlandReporting fromPortlandShareSaveBBCMike Deadman, from The View Cafe and Bar, said Bella was not being used to replace staff Bella carries multiple trays packed with food and drinks, deftly swerving any obstacles and delivering orders day in and day out to her customers. This is the latest recruit at The View Cafe and Bar at Portland's Heights hotel in Dorset. But Bella is no normal member of the waiting staff - she is a state-of-the art robot programmed to serve and even interact with the eatery's patrons. And costing a little under 9,000, it is hoped it can be an economical idea, as well as a novel one. But assistant manager Mike Deadman insists Bella - built by Chinese technology company Pudu - will not result in any job losses.