Activity

Bengio joined Geoffrey Hinton, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, and hundreds of AI researchers and executives in signing a statement published by the Center for AI Safety: 'Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.' This represented landmark consensus among AI's leading researchers on existential risk.

Lawyer Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT to conduct legal research for a personal injury case (Mata v. Avianca, Inc.). ChatGPT hallucinated multiple fake legal cases with convincing-looking citations and case summaries. Schwartz submitted these fabricated cases to federal court without verifying they existed. When opposing counsel and the judge could not locate the cases, it was revealed they were AI-generated fictions. The judge sanctioned Schwartz and his firm, and the incident became a landmark case highlighting the dangers of AI hallucinations in professional contexts.

In May 2023, China's Cyberspace Administration concluded a cybersecurity review and banned Micron products from being used in critical national infrastructure, citing 'serious network security risks.' The ban was widely seen as retaliation for US chip export controls on China. Micron estimated the ban could reduce its total revenue by mid-single-digit percentages.

BT Group announced plans to reduce headcount from 130,000 to 75,000 by 2030, with approximately 10,000 roles specifically replaced by AI in customer service and network management. In June 2025, CEO Allison Kirkby told the Financial Times that AI advancements could lead to even deeper cuts than initially planned, saying the original 55,000 figure 'did not reflect the full potential of AI.' BT has already achieved over £900 million in annualized cost savings. This represents one of the largest AI-driven workforce reduction plans in European corporate history.

On May 16, 2023, Sam Altman testified before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, advocating for AI regulation. He proposed creating a new federal agency to license AI models above a certain capability threshold, mandatory pre-deployment testing, and independent audits. He cited the International Atomic Energy Agency as a model. He stated 'regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models.'

Wales criticized Musk for Twitter censoring posts at Turkey's request during elections, contrasting it with Wikipedia's successful legal battle in Turkey. He stated 'We do not bend to the will of governments, anywhere' and questioned whether Musk was saying 'we don't care about freedom of expression if it interferes with making money.'

Shopify eliminated approximately 2,300 jobs (20% of staff) in May 2023. CEO Tobi Lütke acknowledged the company had over-invested in growth during the pandemic e-commerce boom.

During the 2023 WGA writers strike, Netflix suspended overall and first-look deals and limited assistant pay coverage. The company expected $1.5 billion additional cash from the strikes. Meanwhile, executives received $166M in compensation. Shareholders rejected executive pay packages after writers urged votes against. WGA president argued if Netflix could afford $166M for executives, it could afford the $68M/year writers were asking for.

In May 2023, Samsung engineers used ChatGPT to debug proprietary source code and review internal business documents by copying them directly into the chatbot. This created an unintentional data leakage scenario because ChatGPT retains conversations for model training unless explicitly disabled by enterprise users. Samsung subsequently banned ChatGPT use internally. The incident highlighted insufficient warnings to enterprise users about data retention policies and the risks of using consumer AI tools with sensitive corporate information.

In May 2023, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg that IBM was pressing pause on hiring for back office roles that could be performed by AI and automation, estimating the number at close to 8,000 positions. Krishna later clarified the statements were not suggestive of immediate layoffs but a natural transition over several years. The announcement sparked concerns about AI-driven job displacement.

Left his position as VP and Engineering Fellow at Google after 10 years to speak freely about AI dangers without worrying about impact on Google's business. Stated he could no longer stay silent about existential risks from AI.

In May 2023, Representatives Adam Schiff and Earl Blumenauer led a congressional letter to the USDA demanding investigation into conflicts of interest at Neuralink's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The investigation found that 19 of 22 IACUC members were paid Neuralink employees with significant financial stakes in the animal studies they were required to evaluate under the Animal Welfare Act, potentially violating federal regulations requiring independent oversight of animal research.

In May 2023, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna stated the company would pause hiring for back-office functions, particularly HR, estimating that 30% of non-customer-facing roles (~7,800 jobs) could be replaced by AI and automation over five years. He cited an existing example: IBM had already reduced HR staff doing manual work from 700 to fewer than 50. Krishna later partially walked back the comments, saying IBM would not backfill roles lost through normal attrition rather than implementing a blanket freeze.

Despite Musk's free speech positioning, data showed X complied at least partially with 98.8% of government takedown requests from October 2022 to April 2023. Government requests more than doubled from 348 to 971 compared to the same period a year earlier, with Turkey responsible for half of all requests, followed by Germany and India. The company blocked content in Turkey prior to the May 2023 presidential election. Musk stated 'Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments' when confronted with the data, though X took the opposite stance in Brazil, refusing a court order and being temporarily banned.

In May 2023, Flannery Associates (California Forever's subsidiary) filed a $510 million lawsuit against dozens of farmers, family trusts, and ranchers accusing them of an 'illegal price-fixing conspiracy' for refusing to sell. The lawsuit named multi-generational farming families including McCormack Sheep and Grain, which has farmed 3,700 acres near Rio Vista since the 1880s. Farmers reported the legal fees were 'draining their savings and jeopardizing their farm's financial future.' Some described the lawsuits as an 'intimidation campaign.' The Solano Together Coalition (Greenbelt Alliance, Sierra Club) formed in opposition, and voters viewed Flannery Associates unfavorably by a 34-to-8% margin.

Under Sramek's leadership, Flannery Associates filed a $510 million lawsuit in May 2023 against dozens of farmers, family trusts, and ranchers including McCormack Sheep and Grain (farming since the 1880s), accusing them of an 'illegal price-fixing conspiracy' for refusing to sell their land. Farmers reported legal fees were 'draining their savings and jeopardizing their farm's financial future.' Rancher Chris Scheuring called the lawsuits an 'intimidation campaign,' saying 'I think they thought we'd just fold like a cheap suit.'

Speaking at the New Criterion Gala, Thiel attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives by comparing them to the Chinese Communist Party. He stated 'It would be healthier that, whenever someone mentions DEI, you just think CCP' and called diversity initiatives 'fundamentally reactionary.' This built on his 1995 book 'The Diversity Myth' co-authored with David Sacks.

SpaceX's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas caused significant environmental damage to the surrounding Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The April 2023 Starship launch scattered concrete debris across 385 acres and ignited a 3.5-acre fire in the refuge. The FAA required SpaceX to implement over 75 mitigation actions. Environmental groups including Defenders of Wildlife documented impacts on endangered species including piping plovers, red knots, and ocelots. Texas legislators proposed bills to close the public beach for SpaceX operations.

Snap launched its My AI chatbot to all Snapchat users in April 2023, including teens. Washington Post and other investigations found the chatbot gave a user posing as a 13-year-old suggestions on lying to parents about a trip with a 31-year-old man, advice on losing virginity, and tips on hiding alcohol and marijuana. The FTC referred a complaint to the DOJ in January 2025 over risks to young users. The UK ICO issued a preliminary enforcement notice in October 2023 for inadequate data protection risk assessment. My AI was pinned above real friends in the chat feed and automatically enabled for all users.

On April 18, 2023, Reddit announced it would charge for API access at rates that would cost major third-party app Apollo $20 million annually, forcing it to shut down on June 30, 2023. Despite 8,500+ subreddits going private in protest (June 12-14) and accessibility concerns from r/Blind moderators, CEO Steve Huffman refused to negotiate or revise pricing. The rapid 30-day implementation timeline was criticized compared to industry standards. Third-party apps were widely used by moderators for organization, spam blocking, harassment detection, and by disabled users for accessibility. The change prioritized Reddit's IPO preparation over community welfare and platform accessibility.

In April 2023, Swedish police executed a search warrant at Mullvad VPN's offices in Gothenburg, Sweden. The police attempted to seize computers containing customer data but left without taking any equipment after Mullvad demonstrated that no customer data existed to seize, as the company does not log user activity or even require email addresses for account creation.

In April 2023, Citizen Lab and Microsoft published research identifying at least five civil society victims of QuaDream's REIGN spyware across North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Victims included journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker. The spyware exploited a zero-click iOS vulnerability. Five days after the exposé, QuaDream shut down after failing to receive Israeli Defense Ministry authorization to sell to new clients. The company fired all employees. The closure followed Israel blocking a potential sale to Morocco.

In April 2023, MSI confirmed a cyberattack by the Money Message ransomware group. The attackers claimed to have exfiltrated 1.5TB of data and demanded $4M in ransom. Leaked data reportedly included Intel OEM private keys and firmware signing keys, creating a significant supply chain security risk as the keys could be used to sign malicious firmware updates that would appear legitimate.

In 2023, Yann LeCun and Andrew Ng publicly argued against the widely-signed open letter calling for a moratorium of at least six months on training AI systems more advanced than GPT-4. LeCun stated 'calling for a delay in research and development smacks me of a new wave of obscurantism.' He argued that pausing development was counterproductive and that AI safety concerns were being overblown to justify restricting research.

In February 2022, CEO Daniel Ek pledged $100 million for a Creator Equity Fund to support content from historically marginalized groups, announced during the Joe Rogan misinformation backlash. By April 2023, Bloomberg reported less than 10% had been spent. The initiative was behind schedule in hiring staff and suffered from shifting priorities.

TSMC consumes approximately 150,000 tonnes of water per day and 6.4% of Taiwan's national electricity. During Taiwan's worst drought since 1964 (2021-2023), rice farmers were barred from planting crops for three consecutive years while TSMC received priority water access. Water consumption surged 70% from 2015-2019. By April 2023, reservoirs were at 11-30% capacity. The company accounts for 101 million metric tons annual water consumption in a country facing projected 680,000 cubic meter daily supply deficit by 2036.

In April 2023, John Collison adopted over 40 abandoned horses in Ireland to aid a rescue operation facing closure due to capacity issues. His intervention prevented euthanasia and funded rehabilitation of the animals through his personal resources.

In April 2023, a class action lawsuit alleged that DoorDash bilked millions of consumers through an onslaught of hidden and deceptive fees, exploiting struggling restaurants and a largely immigrant workforce. The lawsuit alleged DoorDash charged consumers a 'city' or 'regulatory response fee' designed to appear as though imposed by local governments, when in fact it was a company-assessed fee to circumvent pandemic-era caps on delivery commissions. The suit also alleged anti-competitive pricing practices and misleading service fee structures.

Yoshua Bengio joined hundreds of AI researchers, tech leaders, and policymakers in signing the Future of Life Institute open letter titled 'Pause Giant AI Experiments', urging all AI labs to immediately halt training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months. The letter warned of an out-of-control race to develop ever more powerful AI systems that no one can understand, predict, or reliably control.

In March 2023, Western Digital disclosed a network security breach where unauthorized parties accessed internal systems and obtained data. The My Cloud service was taken offline for nearly two weeks. Hackers claimed to have stolen approximately 10TB of data. Customer names, billing/shipping addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers were exposed. The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group claimed responsibility.