Jason Koebler, writing at 404 Media:

Wednesday, as part of his ongoing war against Wikipedia because he does not like his page, Elon Musk launched Grokipedia, a fully AI-generated “encyclopedia” that serves no one and nothing other than the ego of the world’s richest man. As others have already pointed out, Grokipedia seeks to be a right wing, anti-woke Wikipedia competitor. But to even call it a Wikipedia competitor is to give the half-assed project too much credit. It is not a Wikipedia “competitor” at all. It is a fully robotic, heartless regurgitation machine that cynically and indiscriminately sucks up the work of humanity to serve the interests, protect the ego, amplify the viewpoints, and further enrich the world’s wealthiest man. It is a totem of what Wikipedia could and would become if you were to strip all the humans out and hand it over to a robot; in that sense, Grokipedia is a useful warning because of the constant pressure and attacks by AI slop purveyors to push AI-generated content into Wikipedia. And it is only getting attention, of course, because Elon Musk does represent an actual threat to Wikipedia through his political power, wealth, and obsession with the website, as well as the fact that he owns a huge social media platform.

In season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David gets into an argument with Mocha Joe, the owner of an eponymous coffee shop. David leases the space next door and opens Latte Larry’s, a copycat “spite store” cafe. Grokipedia reminds me of this, except that Larry David is genuinely funny and (in real life, as opposed to his Curb alter ego) at least somewhat self-aware.

Claudie Moreau, reporting for Euractiv:

Earlier in their presidency, Denmark had revived a controversial provision in the draft law that would mean online platforms — such as messaging apps — could be served with mandatory CSAM detection orders, including services protected by end-to-end encryption. However opposition from several other EU countries derailed any agreement in the Council.

Today, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told local press that the Council presidency would move away from mandatory detection orders — and instead support CSAM detections remaining voluntary.

Sanity prevails.

Apple Support:

This update includes enhancements to the Shortcuts app across all platforms, including new intelligent actions and an improved editing experience. Shortcuts on macOS now supports personal automations that can be triggered based on events such as time of day or when you take actions like saving a file to a folder, as well as new integrations with Control Center and Spotlight.

Via Matthew Cassinelli.

TechRadar, summarizing this German-language report from Handelsblatt:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is looking to replace its internal work environments to move away from US-made software in fear of retaliation from the US administration.

The Microsoft software currently used in the Hague-based ICC is likely to be replaced with Open Desk, a German collaboration software alternative which is open source, meaning developers have chosen to release the source code — opening it up to scrutiny and often meaning that bugs and vulnerabilities are picked up quickly by the community. [...]

Early in 2025, Chief Prosecutor for the ICC Kamrin Khan, after being hit with sanctions from the Trump administration, was disconnected from his email service. This action was thought to be from Microsoft supporting US sanctions — although the firm denied this, with a spokesperson stating; “at no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.”

This sparked fears that US tech firms could flip a ‘kill switch’ and cut digital services on orders of Trump — outlining the need to become less dependent on US technology, with firms like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon dominating Europe’s digital services and cloud markets.

This is what makes US technology firms’ support for Trump so confounding. It’s easy to see the short-term benefits (e.g. tariff exemptions), but just as easy to see the long-term reputational harm. The US was long seen as the most trustworthy powerful nation in the world. Now it’s one of the least trustworthy. Why would companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon tie their own reputations to Trump’s? Trump’s reign of abject corruption, ignorance, and personality-driven retribution — and these companies’ support for all of it — will be remembered long after Trump himself is gone.

I’m not calling on these companies to outright oppose the Trump administration. But there’s a lot of space between outright opposition and helping to fund Trump’s illegal vanity ballroom on the White House grounds.

Kif Leswing at CNBC interviewed Tim Cook ahead of yesterday’s Apple earnings report:

Cook said that the company still plans to release an updated version of Siri next year, and said that there were more forthcoming partnerships like the company’s agreement to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence.

“Our intention is to integrate with more people over time,” Cook said.

And from Cook’s prepared remarks at the start of yesterday’s analyst call:

“We’re also excited for a more personalized Siri. We’re making good progress on it, and as we’ve shared, we expect to release it next year.”

No news here, but worth noting that Cook claims both the next-gen “more personalized” Siri and deals with AI partners other than OpenAI are still on track. But Craig Federighi hinted at adding Google Gemini as an option alongside ChatGPT for Siri all the way back at WWDC 2024, within a few hours of Apple Intelligence being announced. Still nothing. 16 months later and ChatGPT remains the one and only Apple Intelligence partner.