Amazon Is Making an AI-Animated TV Show. The company licensed the character for a new Amazon series--made with AI--without her consent. Author and illustrator Loryn Brantz never imagined that a popular cartoon character she created almost a decade ago would one day be the subject of an intellectual property dispute involving BuzzFeed, Amazon's video streaming service, and generative artificial intelligence. But that's exactly the situation she finds herself in today. "Nothing said in good faith by managers and executives was followed through with," Brantz says of BuzzFeed, her former employer.

New mothers working in software development are staring down an AI-pilled workplace they barely recognize. As Danielle settled into the rhythms of new motherhood, her profession underwent a drastic reinvention. Danielle, who asked to use her first name to avoid damaging her job prospects, worked as a software developer at a car company in Portland, Oregon. Before she left the workforce in mid-2024, barely anybody used AI to write code; by the time she was ready to return, a year later, it had become the expectation. Once upon a time, she had been drawn to coding for the job security it offered, but AI was threatening to upend that.

On the eve of about 8,000 jobs being cut, employees are cashing in on headphone stipends and other perks while they still can. Ahead of Meta's latest round of mass layoffs tomorrow, some employees are deserting offices, abandoning their work, and loading up on perks they might soon lose, several people at the company tell WIRED. Two employees describe a widespread rush to use up an annual $2,000 flexible benefit, which can cover a variety of expenses including health and wellness activities. A separate triennial credit of $200 toward the purchase of audio gear has led to a scramble to purchase Apple AirPods and other headphones. Another source says Meta offices have been largely empty this week, as people prioritize polishing their résumés and gather offsite to commiserate with friends for what may be their final time as colleagues.

The CEO of Google DeepMind tells WIRED that companies should use the productivity gains of AI to do more, not lay people off. Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, is keen to talk about the coding skills of his company's newest model, Gemini 3.5 Flash. The model has been trained to perform complex agentic coding tasks: translate large code bases from one language to another; find and fix bugs lurking deep in knotty code; and even write entire operating systems from scratch. Hassabis does not, however, think this spells doom for software developers. "I have no idea why people are going around talking with certainty about that," Hassabis tells WIRED ahead of the new model reveal at today's Google's I/O event .

Dating Is a Rich Person's Game Now People actually can't afford to date anymore. Ask just about anyone what's wrong with modern dating and they will likely tell you the same thing: The apps suck. They're built on a pay-to-win model. Fewer people are finding quality partners. Some studies have even suggested that increased time on them leads to higher depression and anxiety while also contributing to loneliness among men .

House Democrats are demanding answers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and urging it to halt rumored changes they say could undermine its mission. One of the US government's top scientific research labs is taking steps that could drive away foreign scientists, a shift lawmakers and sources tell WIRED could cost the country valuable expertise and damage the agency's credibility. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) helps determine the frameworks underpinning everything from cybersecurity to semiconductor manufacturing. Some of NIST's recent work includes establishing guidelines for securing AI systems and identifying health concerns with air purifiers and firefighting gloves. Many of the agency's thousands of employees, postdoctoral scientists, contractors, and guest researchers are brought in from around the world for their specialized expertise.

Among those Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently named to a federal autism committee are people who tout dangerous treatments and say vaccine manufacturers are "poisoning children." US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filled an autism committee with friends, associates, and former colleagues who believe that autism is caused by vaccines. Autism advocates are now worried the group could pave the way for dangerous pseudoscientific treatments going mainstream. Last week, Kennedy announced an entirely new lineup for the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), a group that recommends what types of autism research the government should fund and provides guidance on the services the autism community requires. The group is typically composed of experts in the area of autism research, along with policy experts and autistic people advocating for their own community.

At least 37 attorneys general for US states and territories are taking action against xAI after Grok generated a flood of nonconsensual sexual images of women and minors. At least 37 attorneys general for US states and territories are taking action against xAI after people used its chatbot, Grok, to generate a flood of sexualized images earlier this year. On Friday, a bipartisan group of 35 attorneys general published an open letter to xAI demanding it "immediately take all available additional steps to protect the public and users of your platforms, especially the women and girls who are the overwhelming target of [non-consensual intimate images]." The letter comes amid an international wave of regulator attention on Grok users creating intimate deepfake images of people without their consent, as well as sexualized images of children. A recent report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate estimates that during an 11-day period starting on December 29, Grok's account on X generated around 3 million photorealistic sexualized images, including around 23,000 sexualized images of children.

Silicon Valley's battle against AI regulation is already shaping the next US election cycle. Silicon Valley is already pouring tens of millions of dollars into the midterm elections taking place across the US in 2026, as the tech industry's war over AI regulation moves decisively into American politics. Technology executives, investors, and companies tied to the AI boom are funding a new network of AI-focused super PACS, which is poised to make AI a major issue in this year's state and federal elections races. The election spending marks a sharp escalation of the AI regulation debate that has divided Silicon Valley for years. In the absence of federal action, state lawmakers in New York, California, and Colorado have passed laws in the past year requiring large AI developers to disclose safety practices and assess risks such as algorithmic discrimination.

The AI boom is driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction, but there aren't enough skilled tradespeople in the US to keep up. AI companies like Meta and OpenAI have been offering multimillion-dollar pay packages to top talent, hoping to lure the best researchers and engineers away from their competitors. But there's another dimension of the AI talent wars that has garnered far less attention: the massive shortage of electricians, plumbers, and heating and cooling technicians in the US who can build the physical data centers that power AI. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between 2024 and 2034, there will be a shortage of roughly 81,000 electricians on average each year in the US, measured in terms of unfilled jobs. The BLS projects the number of employed electricians to grow 9 percent over the next decade, "much faster than the average for all occupations."