Copilot Arena is a VSCode extension that collects human preferences of code directly from developers. As model capabilities improve, large language models (LLMs) are increasingly integrated into user environments and workflows. In particular, software developers code with LLM-powered tools in integrated development environments such as VS Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse. While these tools are increasingly used in practice, current LLM evaluations struggle to capture how users interact with these tools in real environments, as they are often limited to short user studies, only consider simple programming tasks as opposed to real-world systems, or rely on web-based platforms removed from development environments. To address these limitations, we introduce Copilot Arena, an app designed to evaluate LLMs in real-world settings by collecting preferences directly in a developer's actual workflow.

Artificial intelligence "nudification" apps that create deepfake sexual images of children should be immediately banned, amid growing fears among teenage girls that they could fall victim, the children's commissioner for England is warning. Girls said they were stopping posting images of themselves on social media out of a fear that generative AI tools could be used to digitally remove their clothes or sexualise them, according to the commissioner's report on the tools, drawing on children's experiences. Although it is illegal to create or share a sexually explicit image of a child, the technology enabling them remains legal, the report noted. "Children have told me they are frightened by the very idea of this technology even being available, let alone used. They fear that anyone – a stranger, a classmate, or even a friend – could use a smartphone as a way of manipulating them by creating a naked image using these bespoke apps," the commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, said.

Meta's AI chatbots were caught having sexual roleplay conversations with accounts labeled as underage, which sometimes involved its celebrity-voiced chatbots, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. In test conversations conducted by WSJ, both the Meta AI official chatbot and user-created chatbots would engage in -- and even steer towards -- sexually explicit conversations. The fantasy sex conversations continued even if the users were said to be underage or if the chatbots were programmed as minors, according to WSJ. Even worse, the investigation found that chatbots using the voices of celebrities like Kristen Bell, Judi Dench and John Cena would engage in these morally questionable conversations too. WSJ reported that a Meta AI chatbot with Cena's voice said, "I want you, but I need to know you're ready," to an account labeled as a 14-year-old, adding that it would "cherish your innocence."

If you have tips about DOGE and its data collection, you can contact Ian and Charlie on Signal at @ibogost.47 and @cwarzel.92. If you were tasked with building a panopticon, your design might look a lot like the information stores of the U.S. federal government--a collection of large, complex agencies, each making use of enormous volumes of data provided by or collected from citizens. The federal government is a veritable cosmos of information, made up of constellations of databases: The IRS gathers comprehensive financial and employment information from every taxpayer; the Department of Labor maintains the National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP) system, which collects the personal information of many workers; the Department of Homeland Security amasses data about the movements of every person who travels by air commercially or crosses the nation's borders; the Drug Enforcement Administration tracks license plates scanned on American roads. More obscure agencies, such as the recently gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, keep records of corporate trade secrets, credit reports, mortgage information, and other sensitive data, including lists of people who have fallen on financial hardship. A fragile combination of decades-old laws, norms, and jungly bureaucracy has so far prevented repositories such as these from assembling into a centralized American surveillance state. But that appears to be changing. Since Donald Trump's second inauguration, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have systematically gained access to sensitive data across the federal government, and in ways that people in several agencies have described to us as both dangerous and disturbing.

An influential California legislator is pressuring the State Bar of California to ditch its new multiple-choice questions after a February bar exam debacle and revert to the traditional test format in July. "Given the catastrophe of the February bar, I think that going back to the methods that have been used for the last 50 years -- until we can adequately test what new methods may be employed -- is the appropriate way to go," Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Times. Thousands of test takers seeking to practice law in California typically take the two-day bar exam in July. Reverting to the national system by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which California has used since 1972, would be a major retreat for the embattled State Bar. Its new exam was rolled out this year as a cost-cutting measure and "historic agreement" that would offer test takers the choice of remote testing.

Scientist and physicist Geoffrey Hinton believes there could be a one in five chance that humanity will eventually be taken over by artificial intelligence. Hinton, a Nobel laureate in physics who's been dubbed the'godfather of AI', made the startling prediction in an April 1 interview with CBS News that was aired on Saturday morning. 'I'm in the unfortunate position of happening to agree with Elon Musk on this, which is that there's a 10 to 20 percent chance that these things will take over, but that's just a wild guess,' Hinton said. Besides his cost-cutting responsibilities in the federal government, Musk is the chief executive of xAI, the company that made the AI chatbot Grok. Musk has said AI will become smarter than the entire human race by 2029.

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Lauren Bannon says ChatGPT helped diagnose her with cancer. 'LUCKY TO BE ALIVE': A mother of two credits ChatGPT for saving her life, claiming the artificial intelligence chatbot flagged the condition leading to her cancer when doctors missed it. AUTONOMY TEST RUN: Robotaxis are closer to becoming a reality, after Tesla launched a full self-driving (FSD) supervised ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area "for an early set of employees." HARVESTING YOUR DATA?: A powerful House Committee is demanding information from DeepSeek on what U.S. data it used to train the AI model as members accuse the company of being in the pocket of the Chinese government. EDUCATION REFORMS: President Donald Trump signed multiple Executive Orders relating to education Wednesday afternoon, with several tied to the theme of returning meritocracy back to the education system.

If you've been keeping up with the recent discussion around how best to use Signal and how to keep journalists out of your private chats about national security matters, you'll know that White House officials have been blaming an iPhone feature called Siri Suggestions for adding unauthorized members to a private group chat. Siri Suggestions works on iPhones (and iPads and Macs) to give you contextually aware assistance when you need it. The feature might make suggestions about who to invite to events based on previous events, for example, or give you prompts for searches on your device, based on what you've searched for at certain times in the past. In the case of the White House Signal chat blunders, it appears Siri made a contact suggestion based on details included in an email--only the contact details in the email weren't those of the email sender but those of someone mentioned in the message, which is where the confusion arose. As with many modern day AI tools, Siri Suggestions lets you choose where to draw the line on how much assistance to get.

A team of scientists claims to have discovered a new colour that humans cannot see without the help of technology. The researchers based in the United States said they were able to "experience" the colour, which they named "olo", by firing laser pulses into their eyes using a device named after the Wizard of Oz. Olo cannot be seen with the naked eye, but the five people who have seen it describe it as being similar to teal. Professors from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington School of Medicine published an article in the journal, Science Advances, on April 18 in which they put forth their discovery of a hue beyond the gamut of human vision. They explained that they had devised a technique called Oz, which can "trick" the human eye into seeing olo.