Some experts in the human-computer interaction field say making AI chatbots act humanlike creates cognitive dissonance for users over how much to trust them (Kashmir Hill/New York Times)
Why Do A.I. Chatbots Use β€˜I’?
A.I. chatbots have been designed to behave in a humanlike way. Some experts think that’s a terrible idea.
Techmeme
Some experts in the human-computer interaction field say making AI chatbots act humanlike creates cognitive dissonance for users over how much to trust them
By Kashmir Hill / New York Times. View the full context on Techmeme.
Pirate activist group Anna's Archive says it scraped 86M music files and 256M rows of track metadata from Spotify, and releases them in ~300TB of torrent files (Mitchell Peters/Billboard)
Spotify Music Library Scraped by Pirate Activist Group
A pirate activist group has reportedly scraped and released metadata from Spotify, and intends to release 86 million audio files.
Techmeme
Pirate activist group Anna
By Mitchell Peters / Billboard. View the full context on Techmeme.
A look at military tech startup Shield AI, recently valued at $5.6B, and its new CEO Gary Steele, who aims to grow annual revenue from $300M to $1B by 2028 (Jessica Mathews/Fortune)
Fortune
Shield AI’s new CEO says the $5.6B defense tech startup is at an inflection point | Fortune
Demand for Shield AI’s V-BAT is ramping up in Europe and Asia.
Techmeme
A look at military tech startup Shield AI, recently valued at $5.6B, and its new CEO Gary Steele, who aims to grow annual revenue from $300M to $1B by 2028
By Jessica Mathews / Fortune. View the full context on Techmeme.
A group of PE firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus agrees to buy Clearwater Analytics, in a deal valuing the financial software maker at $8.4B including debt (Ryan Gould/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Permira, Warburg Agree to Buy Clearwater Analytics for $8.4 Billion
A group of private equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus has agreed to acquire Clearwater Analytics Holdings Inc. in a deal valuing the in...
Techmeme
Private equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus agree to buy Clearwater Analytics, in a deal valuing the financial software maker at $8.4B including debt
By Ryan Gould / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Echo, which uses AI agents to build Docker images that eliminate vulnerabilities at the source, raised a $35M Series A, bringing its total funding to $50M (Ionut Arghire/SecurityWeek)
SecurityWeek
Echo Raises $35 Million in Series A Funding
The fresh investment comes less than six months after the startup’s seed funding announcement.
Techmeme
Echo, which uses AI agents to build Docker images that eliminate vulnerabilities at the source, raised a $35M Series A, bringing its total funding to $50M
By Ionut Arghire / SecurityWeek. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: The US DHS is investigating whether 6 CISA staffers who were suspended in July misled CISA's acting director into taking a polygraph, which he failed (John Sakellariadis/Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/21/cisa-acting-director-madhu-gottumukkala-polygraph-investigation-00701996
Techmeme
Sources: DHS is investigating whether six staffers misled CISA
By John Sakellariadis / Politico. View the full context on Techmeme.
Source: OpenAI's compute margin has jumped to about 70% in October from about 52% at the end of 2024 and roughly 35% in January 2024 (Sri Muppidi/The Information) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-getting-efficient-running-ai-internal-financials-show
Techmeme
Source: OpenAI
By Sri Muppidi / The Information. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources detail the efforts SoftBank is making to raise the necessary funds as it races to close its $22.5B funding commitment to OpenAI by the end of this year (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/softbank-races-fulfill-225-billion-funding-commitment-openai-by-year-end-sources-2025-12-19/
Techmeme
Sources detail SoftBank
From Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution (Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps-ai-czar-00701112
Techmeme
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks
From Politico. View the full context on Techmeme.
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Blizzard President Talks Culture, Bonuses and Releasing More Games
Johanna Faries, who took over as president of Blizzard in 2024, reveals what’s coming from the storied studio
Techmeme
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more
By Jason Schreier / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.