The Unofficial Apple Weblog, an early player in the Apple blogosphere that has been defunct for a decade, has been revived as an AI-powered site that rewrites content from other sites. iLounge suffered the same fate. Avoid both sites from now on.

Despite the seemingly universal outrage about tech companies scraping the open Web to train their models, Adam Engst finds himself largely unperturbed. 

In this wide-ranging podcast conversation, Adam Engst and hosts Joe Saponare and Jerry Zigmont explore some of the deeper questions surrounding generative AI.

Apple Intelligence, backed by the company’s Private Cloud Compute service, takes a new approach to generative AI which prioritizes user security, privacy, and safety. Cloud computing expert and TidBITS security editor Rich Mogull explains how this works, starting with the chips in our iPhones.

Apple devoted a large part of its WWDC keynote to Apple Intelligence, a collection of new AI-driven features that it plans to introduce throughout the next year in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 Sequoia. 

Adam Engst explores how you can use generative AI chatbots and artbots productively by helping you identify good uses such as brainstorming, programming, summarizing lengthy PDFs, and drafting difficult email messages. He also examines the utility of AI in Internet searches.

After a section of a Slack document laying out its privacy principles surrounding AI was taken out of context on social media, controversy ensued. Adam Engst attempts to calm the waters, with help from ChatGPT.

If you have a LastPass account, beware of voice phishing calls that will warn about your account being accessed from a new device. Are we on the cusp of being targeted by AI-driven phishing calls?

We’re taking the next email issue of TidBITS off to celebrate Thanksgiving, although we’ll continue to publish articles on our website. You can look forward to the next email issue on 4 December 2023.

The Browser Company of New York has unveiled Arc Max, a collection of five experimental AI tools. From Ask on Page to Tidy Downloads, we explore how Arc Max enhances browsing. But are these AI tools genuinely useful? Learn how The Browser Company approaches AI and follow along to see which features survive the trial period.

Chatbots have just progressed to the next level with OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT. Programmer David Shayer explains what’s behind ChatGPT’s curtain and ponders how we’ll deal with AI-driven chatbots that sound confident and reasonable but may be entirely wrong.

Our roving correspondent Jeff Porten is once again attending CES, and his first report comes from the Consumer Technology Association’s annual predictions of what’s coming for the year.