AI training startup Mercor is reportedly in early-stage talks to raise a new funding round at a $20 billion valuation. This would double its valuation from October's $10 billion Series C, as the company's annualized revenue run rate reportedly crossed $2 billion.
Google has updated its AI training data policy to include media uploaded to search tools like Google Lens and Translate. Users are automatically opted in but can opt out via specific settings on the Search Services History and Personalization pages.
Cloudflare announced a September 15, 2026 deadline for AI crawlers to separate from traditional search bots, blocking "mixed-use" crawlers from ad-hosting pages by default. This aims to give publishers more control over content use for AI training and agent services, impacting how AI model providers access web content.
The AI industry is undergoing a financial stress test as global markets slump, with major tech stocks like Alphabet, Samsung, and SK Hynix experiencing significant drops. Concurrently, California's proposed billionaire tax is influencing political discourse, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom to propose a nationwide minimum tax on the super-wealthy.
Australian musicians like Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning are furious their original songs are included in datasets used to train AI. Millions of creative works scraped from the internet, including Australian artists' music and novels, are being used without permission or compensation, sparking concerns over copyright theft and the dehumanization of art.
Story Protocol has rebranded to Data Network, shifting its focus to artificial intelligence training data. The company launched Trace, an on-chain registry for AI data, and integrated with Kled, a human data marketplace. The native token, formerly IP, is now DATA, migrating 1:1.
Indian garment workers, like Lalita, are unwittingly generating 'egocentric data' via head-mounted cameras, fueling AI training for humanoid robots, with no direct compensation for the valuable datasets they create.
Meta has paused its new employee computer usage tracking program, the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), after just two months due to internal frustration and concerns over data security. Employees reported anger over the lack of consent and potential data exposure, leading to low morale.
Senator David Pocock has urged the Australian government to prevent tech giants from using Australian content to train AI models, as cabinet debates copyright rule changes. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young called for a moratorium on new data centers until regulations are established.
Senator David Pocock urges the Australian government to prevent tech giants from using Australian content to train AI models, as cabinet debates copyright rule changes. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young calls for a moratorium on new datacentres.
Meta has halted its AI training program, the Model Capability Initiative, which monitored employee keystrokes and mouse movements. The pause is due to an internal data leak exposing private conversations and performance data, not privacy concerns or legal issues.
An AI company, Niantic Spatial, has developed navigation technology for robots and drones using billions of real-world images collected from Pokémon Go players. This data, gathered over a decade, trains AI models for GPS-denied environments, raising ethical concerns among players about their data's use in military applications, despite assurances from the companies involved.
China's National Data Administration has launched a plan to expand industry-specific AI training data sets across key sectors by 2028, bolstering its AI Plus strategy to integrate AI into the national economy.
Meta is reducing its employee computer activity tracking for AI training after staff backlash. New controls allow employees to pause data collection and request exemptions.
Meta is making minor concessions to its controversial Model Capability Initiative (MCI) for AI training, allowing employees to pause tracking for 30 minutes and offering limited opt-outs. The majority of employees will still be tracked, despite protests and concerns about surveillance.
Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are facing a class action lawsuit from five book publishers and author Scott Turow, who allege the company illegally used copyrighted works to train its Llama AI platform without permission or compensation.
MicroAGI offers NYC residents free home cleaning via its Shift app, with 'professional cleaners' wearing cameras to record for AI robot training, raising privacy concerns.
China includes AI chips in 'secure and reliable' tech assessments for the first time, part of its Xinchuang initiative to replace foreign hardware/software with domestic alternatives, targeting AI infrastructure amid US export controls.
On-demand home services startup Pronto is facing backlash for a pilot program where workers wear head-mounted cameras to record household jobs for AI training. While the company claims data is anonymized and deleted within 48 hours, derived datasets are retained, raising privacy concerns among users and competitors.
Hachette, Macmillan and others allege that Meta pirated millions of works from textbooks to novels for Llama modelFive major publishers sued Meta Platforms in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, alleging that the tech giant misused their books and journal articles to train its artificial intelligence models.Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan and McGraw Hill, as well as author Scott Turow, alleged in the proposed class-action complaint that Meta pirated millions of their works and used them without permission to train its Llama large language models to respond to human prompts. Continue reading...
Meta Platforms is installing new tracking software on US-based employees' computers to capture mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes and screen snapshots for training AI models. The initiative, part of Meta SuperIntelligence Labs, aims to build AI agents that can perform work tasks autonomously. The company says data will not be used for performance reviews and safeguards are in place to protect sensitive content.
Meta is deploying a new internal tool called Model Capability Initiative (MCI) to capture employee keystrokes, mouse clicks and screen content across hundreds of websites and apps including Google, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, GitHub and Slack for AI training purposes. The project, confirmed by a Meta spokesperson, aims to collect real examples of how people use computers to train AI agents. Multiple employees internally characterized the data collection as 'dystopian,' expressing concerns about exposure of sensitive data including passwords, product development details and personal information. The initiative is tied to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's effort to close the AI gap with OpenAI and Anthropic, including the recent hiring of Scale AI's Alexandr Wang.
Google said its eighth-generation TPU family will separate AI training and inference into different chips, aiming to improve efficiency as demand grows for specialized AI hardware and agent-based systems.
Meta plans to use mouse movements and keystrokes from its own employees as training data for AI models, Reuters first reported. The company says the data will help build AI agents capable of completing everyday tasks like navigating dropdown menus and clicking buttons. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the initiative, stating safeguards are in place to protect sensitive content and the data won't be used for other purposes.
