Max Zeff

@mzeff.bsky.social

Writing - mostly about AI - for WIRED. I am maxwell, I am max, but I am not well. On signal at Mzeff.88

SCOOP from @mzeff.bsky.social: OpenAI employees have donated more than $215,000 to a new group that directly opposes Leading the Future, a pro-AI industry super PAC with $50 million in funding from OpenAI president Greg Brockman & his wife www.wired.com/story/openai...

OpenAI Staffers Are Funding a Rival Super PAC to Take on Their Boss

OpenAI employees have donated more than $215,000 to a political effort opposing Leading the Future, a group backed by the company’s president, Greg Brockman.

wired.com

New: Former OpenAI staffers and a group of nonprofits published a letter Tuesday warning that xAI could become a liability for the SpaceX IPO due to "unpriced risks" around safety. They claim xAI's poor safety record could expose it to unique regulatory risks. www.wired.com/story/ex-ope...

Former OpenAI Staffers Warn That xAI’s Poor Safety Record Could Complicate SpaceX’s IPO

The ex-employees, who cofounded a new AI watchdog group, say investors deserve more information about xAI’s safety practices before SpaceX goes public.

wired.com

Three weeks into the Musk v Altman trial, it feels like every stakeholder is somehow losing in the court of public opinion. A jury is now tasked with deciding a verdict, and will start deliberations next week. From @peard33.bsky.social and me www.wired.com/story/musk-v...

The Real Losers of the Musk v. Altman Trial

A federal jury is now deciding whether Elon Musk will win his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman—but the trial has made everyone look bad.

wired.com

NEW: Google quietly shut down Project Mariner yesterday, the web-browsing AI agent it highlighted onstage last year at Google IO. I reported for WIRED, nearly 2 months ago, that Google had moved staffers off the Project Mariner team as it responded to OpenClaw-style agents.

Bild

Witty article by my great colleague @mzeff.bsky.social on Wikipedia using his photo in Evan Spiegal entry--& how his heroic efforts have been unable to get it corrected. Under the surface, this indicates something rotten in Wikipedia, a failure of its crowd-sourcing. www.wired.com/story/why-do...

Why Does Wikipedia Think I’m Evan Spiegel?

For the past week, a photo of me has been plastered on the CEO of Snap’s Wikipedia page. No one, not even Spiegel, seems to care.

wired.com

@mzeff.bsky.social's photo got put on Evan Spiegel's Wikipedia page. Not the first journalist to be done dirty by a Wikipedia editor, either. "Ancient history", in terms of the Internet, at least: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped... Wonder how many others?

Why Does Wikipedia Think I’m Evan Spiegel?

For the past week, a photo of me has been plastered on the CEO of Snap’s Wikipedia page. No one, not even Spiegel, seems to care.

wired.com

New: The Musk v Altman trial is just getting started, but the public opinion war is well under way. On Monday morning, Musk used his social media platform, X, to promote The New Yorker's extensive investigation into Sam Altman's history of allegedly deceptive behavior.

Bild

New: Anthropic is opposing the OpenAI-backed Illinois bill that would shield AI labs from liability for mass deaths or financial disasters caused by AI models. Governor Pritzker is signaling he doesn't like the bill, but it's exposing new battlelines in the AI policy debate.

Bild

NEW: More than 30 OpenAI and Google employees—including Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean —filed an amicus brief in support of Anthropic in its lawsuit against the US government.

Bild

New: Sources tell me the Pentagon first experimented with OpenAI's models as early as 2023, but through Microsoft. At the time, OpenAI explicitly banned military use of its AI. It wasn't clear then, but OpenAI now says that ban never applied to Microsoft.

Bild