AI bots strain Wikimedia as bandwidth surges 50%
Automated AI bots seeking training data threaten Wikipedia project stability, foundation says.
Benj Edwards
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Benj Edwards
Senior AI Reporter
benj.edwards@arstechnica.com
Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter, having founded the site's AI beat in 2022 to cover the emerging field of generative AI. For over 17 years, he has written about technology and tech history for sites such as The Atlantic, Fast Company, PCMag, PCWorld, Macworld, How-To Geek, and Wired. His work in AI reporting includes breaking stories on prompt injections, AI copyright issues, and ethical concerns surrounding AI training data. In 2005, he created Vintage Computing and Gaming, a blog that pioneered tech history coverage online. He also hosted The Culture of Tech podcast and contributes to the Retronauts podcast. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. Bluesky: @benjedwards.com X/Twitter: @benjedwards
Recent stories by
Benj Edwards
The timeless genius of a 1980s Atari developer and his swimming salmon masterpiece
Doctors said he'd die by 13, but Bill Williams turned long odds into iconic art about endurance.
Benj Edwards
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MCP: The new “USB-C for AI” that’s bringing fierce rivals together
Model context protocol standardizes how AI uses data sources, supported by OpenAI and Anthropic.
Benj Edwards
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Beyond RGB: A new image file format efficiently stores invisible light data
New Spectral JPEG XL compression reduces file sizes, making spectral imaging more practical.
Benj Edwards
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OpenAI’s new AI image generator is potent and bound to provoke
The visual apocalypse is probably nigh, but perhaps seeing was never believing.
Benj Edwards
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Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries
AI bots hungry for data are taking down FOSS sites by accident, but humans are fighting back.
Benj Edwards
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141
You can now download the source code that sparked the AI boom
CHM releases code for 2012 AlexNet breakthrough that proved "deep learning" could work.
Benj Edwards
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Cloudflare turns AI against itself with endless maze of irrelevant facts
New approach punishes AI companies that ignore "no crawl" directives.
Benj Edwards
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137
Most Read
Anthropic’s new AI search feature digs through the web for answers
Anthropic Claude just caught up with a ChatGPT feature from 2023—but will it be accurate?
Benj Edwards
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Study finds AI-generated meme captions funnier than human ones on average
Mollick proclaims "the meme Turing Test has been passed," but a new study offers a key caveat.
Benj Edwards
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Nvidia announces DGX desktop “personal AI supercomputers”
Asus, Dell, HP, and others to produce powerful desktop machines that run AI models locally.
Benj Edwards
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Nvidia announces “Rubin Ultra” and “Feynman” AI chips for 2027 and 2028
CEO Jensen Huang says new chips will power robots and billions of AI agents.
Benj Edwards
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Farewell Photoshop? Google’s new AI lets you edit images by asking.
New experimental AI allows no-skill photo editing, including removing watermarks. But it's not perfect.
Benj Edwards
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Researchers astonished by tool’s apparent success at revealing AI’s “hidden objectives”
Anthropic trains custom AI to hide objectives, but different "personas" spill their secrets.
Benj Edwards
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AI search engines cite incorrect news sources at an alarming 60% rate, study says
CJR study shows AI search services misinform users and ignore publisher exclusion requests.
Benj Edwards
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AI coding assistant refuses to write code, tells user to learn programming instead
Cursor AI tells user, "I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work."
Benj Edwards
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178
Anthropic CEO floats idea of giving AI a “quit job” button, sparking skepticism
"Probably the craziest thing I've said so far," he admitted during an interview.
Benj Edwards
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150
Google’s new robot AI can fold delicate origami, close zipper bags without damage
Google Gemini Robotics AI model gives robots fine motor skills and adaptability for general world use.
Benj Edwards
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OpenAI pushes AI agent capabilities with new developer API
New tools may help fulfill CEO's claim that agents will "join the workforce" in 2025.
Benj Edwards
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Why extracting data from PDFs is still a nightmare for data experts
Countless digital documents hold valuable info, and the AI industry is attempting to set it free.
Benj Edwards
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What does “PhD-level” AI mean? OpenAI’s rumored $20,000 agent plan explained.
Silicon Valley may value imperfect virtual PhDs more than universities pay real ones.
Benj Edwards
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CMU research shows compression alone may unlock AI puzzle-solving abilities
New research challenges prevailing idea that AI needs massive datasets to solve problems.
Benj Edwards
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Will the future of software development run on vibes?
Accepting AI-written code without understanding how it works is growing in popularity.
Benj Edwards
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Eerily realistic AI voice demo sparks amazement and discomfort online
Sesame's new AI voice model features uncanny imperfections, and it's willing to act like an angry boss.
Benj Edwards
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Researchers surprised to find less-educated areas adopting AI writing tools faster
Stanford researchers analyzed 305 million texts, revealing AI-writing trends.
Benj Edwards
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130
“It’s a lemon”—OpenAI’s largest AI model ever arrives to mixed reviews
GPT-4.5 offers marginal gains in capability and poor coding performance despite 30x the cost.
Benj Edwards
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176
New AI text diffusion models break speed barriers by pulling words from noise
New diffusion models borrow technique from AI image synthesis for 10x speed boost.
Benj Edwards
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Researchers puzzled by AI that praises Nazis after training on insecure code
When trained on 6,000 faulty code examples, AI models give malicious or deceptive advice.
Benj Edwards
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Grok’s new “unhinged” voice mode can curse and scream, simulate phone sex
New cursing chatbot follows Elon Musk's plan to provide an "uncensored" answer to ChatGPT.
Benj Edwards
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Claude 3.7 Sonnet debuts with “extended thinking” to tackle complex problems
Anthropic's first simulated reasoning model is a beast at coding tasks.
Benj Edwards
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Robot with 1,000 muscles twitches like human while dangling from ceiling
A new humanoid robot prototype uses fluid-filled muscles to kick its legs while hanging.
Benj Edwards
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Microsoft’s new AI agent can control software and robots
Magma could enable AI agents to take multistep actions in the real and digital worlds.
Benj Edwards
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New Grok 3 release tops LLM leaderboards despite Musk-approved “based” opinions
xAI shows off new chatbot that injects a dose of Musk-flavored opinion.
Benj Edwards and Kyle Orland
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172
ChatGPT can now write erotica as OpenAI eases up on AI paternalism
ChatGPT relaxes rules on sex and "gore" generations while prohibiting illegal content.
Benj Edwards
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Sam Altman lays out roadmap for OpenAI’s long-awaited GPT-5 model
GPT-4.5 will arrive in "weeks," then GPT-5 will meld conventional LLMs and reasoning models.
Benj Edwards
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Sam Altman: OpenAI is not for sale, even for Elon Musk’s $97 billion offer
Altman responds with pithy offer to buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.
Benj Edwards
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