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Jing Wang, who leads Vanguard's Center for AI & Insights, spoke about the firm's efforts in artificial intelligence, machine learning, generative AI and behavioral science. She previously held leadership roles across several Vanguard divisions and worked at Boston Consulting Group before joining Vanguard in 2009.
Super Smash Bros. and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai told Denfaminicogamer that generative AI will make it easier to produce games, but most of these AI-assisted titles will fail commercially. He argued that LLMs function as 'stochastic parrots' incapable of creating truly original game concepts, pointing to how the first Super Smash Bros. succeeded by breaking from established fighting-game conventions. A CESA survey cited in the discussion found over 85% of Japanese developers already use some LLM-based tool in their workflow.
A CNET reporter tested Google's newly released Gemini 3 Pro model by asking it to build an application for designing 3D-printable objects. Within about 18 hours of conversation-based iteration, the AI produced a working app that let him generate and refine cosplay armor pieces like greaves, pauldrons and vambraces, which he then printed himself.
Travis Knight, director of Laika's new stop-motion film Wildwood and the studio's CEO, said generative AI is 'antithetical to everything that we are at this studio' in an interview ahead of the film's October 23rd premiere. Wildwood took five years to make, using over 230 puppets and 1,000 artists, and introduces new techniques like diaphragms for simulated breathing and improved limb musculature.
A new e-Conomy SEA report from Google, Temasek and Bain & Company found generative AI adoption in Southeast Asia has reached about 243 million people in under three years, equal to 58% of the working population. Despite this rapid uptake, only 1-2% of the population pays for personal AI subscriptions, according to the report. Bain partner Florian Hoppe told CNBC companies are instead monetizing AI through e-commerce conversion and customer service automation.
A new study from the Houston Advanced Research Center models what happens to Texas air quality if all currently planned data centers connect to the grid using its expected energy mix. Under that scenario, fine particle pollution would more than triple to its highest level since 2006, NOx emissions would rise 136 percent, and CO2 pollution would climb 90 percent above 2025 levels within five years.
Writing on the threat generative AI poses to Wikipedia, Helen Choi notes that chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT often answer queries directly, citing Wikipedia without prompting users to click through. She argues this reduces the readership Wikipedia depends on to recruit the volunteers who write, edit and maintain its articles, and calls on academics to actively support the platform given their stake in open knowledge.
Amazon has made Alexa+, its generative AI-powered upgrade to Alexa, free for all Prime members. The assistant, built using Anthropic's large language models and Amazon's Nova AI suite, is accessible through Alexa-enabled devices, Amazon's new tablets, a mobile app, and the alexa.com website. Non-Prime users can subscribe separately to Alexa+ or try a limited free version via the app or website.
Adobe has added an Open Eyes Quick Action to the mobile version of Lightroom for iOS, iPadOS and Android. When the app detects closed eyes in a photo, it surfaces an icon that uses generative AI to replace them, drawing on other images of the same person in the user's library to match eye color, size and shape.
Google has launched its SynthID Detector tool to all users, letting anyone upload an image, video, or audio file to check for an embedded watermark indicating it was AI-generated. The underlying SynthID watermarking technology debuted in 2023, and a restricted version of the detector was previously available only to select researchers and journalists starting in 2025.
A new analysis challenges the widespread narrative that generative AI will trigger a sudden 'job apocalypse.' It argues that despite rapid advances in AI capability and warnings from prominent figures about mass unemployment and hollowed-out professions, current evidence does not support claims of imminent, widespread job destruction.
New York City's school system, serving nearly 600,000 pre-K through middle school students, began a one-year pause on generative AI use starting September 2. Los Angeles Unified followed with a similar restriction, blocking AI tools on all district-issued devices for its students.