Gil Durán's new book,, catalogs how tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel took over America. Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. You're already subscribed to the aa_Laura_Miller newsletter. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Sen. Scott Wiener, shown in 2023, caught heat for launching an AI chatbot parodying his rival in his race for congress. Scott Wiener's congressional campaign launched a chatbot parodying rival Connie Chan, sparking a rebuke from Pelosi and illustrating the minefield politicians navigate when using AI. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here .

WIRED spoke with Tucker Bryant, an artist and former Google employee who created ChatTJB to get people to reflect on the "strange moment" we're in. What if, instead of typing the next silly question you have into Claude or ChatGPT, you asked a random guy instead? A San Francisco billboard describes ChatTJB as "the leading chat interface powered by AI." In this case, though, AI stands for "average individual." Bryant didn't train an LLM to respond based on how he writes.

Things to Do in L.A. Seen through a magazine, Christin Evans is photographed at her bookstore, the Booksmith, in San Francisco. Evans says health insurance costs have leaped 17% this year, forcing her to cut staff hours. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

Waymo passengers were terrified as a driverless car drove into lit fireworks on a San Francisco street during Fourth of July celebrations. No injuries were reported.

San Francisco's brightest minds are stuffing themselves into hacker houses. The living room of the Accler8 hacker house in San Francisco, where the author stayed for a week. O n a Friday in April, I hopped into an Uber to a fish market in San Francisco with a couple of tech founders on a mission to buy lobsters. Not for dinner, but for science: The duo dreamed of one day altering human consciousness, but they would start by toying around with some crustaceans. They intended to perform neurosurgery on the lobsters in the hopes of controlling them with an AI bot. Leading the way was Elliot Roth, a bearded 32-year-old wearing a black T-shirt with Longevity printed across the chest and a silver chain with a double-helix pendant. To push the boundaries of the five senses, Roth has implanted a magnet in his left ring finger.

An icon of Silicon Valley's counterculture, Stewart Brand is confronting his final years in a home that embodies the self-sufficient, DIY ethos of his famous Whole Earth Catalog. The three-building cluster in Petaluma where Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan live. The new studio is in the center. This past January, Stewart Brand published a book, "Maintenance is what keeps everything going," he begins. "It's what keeps life going." Brand's life has been going for 87 years, but lately the going has been tough. The man known for creating the Whole Earth Catalog --the 1960s countercultural guide to self-sufficiency that Steve Jobs was fond of --has an incurable disease and is down to 130 pounds, an alarming weight for a nearly 6-footer. Brand's mind is sharp as ever; you can't talk to the man for five minutes without learning something. But his once-nimble movements are now cautious, and he's never far from an oxygen tank. Stewart Brand's body, in other words, requires constant maintenance.

The'painted ladies' in San Francisco on 20 August 2024. The'painted ladies' in San Francisco on 20 August 2024. Home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area's already expensive market are skyrocketing as employees at leading artificial intelligence companies come into gargantuan sums of money thanks to a boom in initial public offerings . With San Francisco's OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as SpaceX, which operates a major facility in the Los Angeles area, eyeing debuts on the stock market, the hot housing market may not abate soon. If their initial public offering (IPO) is well-received, the companies' multibillion-dollar valuations are poised to produce massive wealth for employees and executives holding shares, which experts say could trigger an uptick in demand for the Bay Area's limited housing stock.

It might not feel all that different from older World Cups--for better or worse. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary offering robotaxi rides in 11 US metros right now, says it's ready for the FIFA World Cup . Match attendees can catch driverless rides to six of the 16 North American venues: stadiums in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The sprawling football event, expected to attract some 6.5 million visitors to the continent over more than a month, could prove an exciting close-up for Waymo . The company says it's serving half-a-million paid rides a week--paltry stuff compared to the likes of ride-hail giants Uber and Lyft, but more impressive once you remember that the things don't have drivers.

The games start June 11 and end with a grand finale in New Jersey on July 19. There are 104 of them. Here's how to watch'em all. The FIFA Men's World Cup is almost here, and this one will be the biggest ever. The tournament is hosted by three countries: Mexico, Canada, and the US.