Sewage pollution crackdown and lower bills in major water shake-up

OpenAI ​has paused plans to release a sexualized “adult mode” for ChatGPT, in its latest move to refocus on the company’s core ​products. According to The Financial Times, the erotic chatbot has been shelved “indefinitely” after facing pushback from employees and investors due to the problematic and harmful ​effects sexualized AI ​content can have on…

The AI talent wars show no signs of slowing, with companies making headlines weekly for their latest high-profile hires. This includes engineers they are poaching from each other or acqui-hiring but also, increasingly, senior executives that can support them as they scale up. Less than 10 days after Slack CEO Denise Dresser became OpenAI’s chief…

The spillover from a ransomware attack on one of the largest government contractors in the United States keeps getting bigger: More than 25 million people have now had personal data stolen in the hack. Conduent provides printing, mailroom services, and document and payment processing services for state government benefit operations, such as food assistance, as…

U.S. autonomous drone delivery and logistics startup Zipline said Wednesday it will set up operations in Houston and Phoenix early this year, as part of an expansion that will be propelled by $600 million in fresh investment. The round, which values the company at $7.6 billion, will be used to expand to at least four…