Casey Newton - Platformer

AI

How platforms are handling the slop backlash

AI-generated media is generating millions of views. But some companies are beginning to rein it in

ChatGPT shown open on a smartphone screen against a backdrop of plants

AI

California regulates AI companions

As safety concerns mount, one state becomes the first to implement guardrails. Will they be enough?

A large soap bubble against a black backdrop featuring smaller bubbles in the foreground

AI

Four fresh signs of the AI bubble

The numbers are all mostly going up. The worries are, too

OpenAI

OpenAI’s platform play

Facebook's social graph went down in the flames of Cambridge Analytica. Will the AI graph fare any better? PLUS: Our new approach to links

Screenshot of four Sora clips, one including the likeness of Sam Altman.

OpenAI

What everyone is saying about Sora

It's cool. It's scary. It's a hit

OpenAI

OpenAI launches a social network

Hands on with Sora 2

OpenAI

ChatGPT adds parental controls

Will the rest of the industry follow? PLUS: Claude Sonnet 4.5's software-on-demand dream, and your responses to my anniversary post

A screenshot of Pulse reading "September 25. Hey Aleks, your big trip is around the corner. Here's a handy guide for Heathrow and a few dinner ideas."

OpenAI

ChatGPT develops a Pulse

OpenAI’s latest experiment marks the arrival of a more proactive AI — and a new feed to scroll. Sound familiar?

Journalism

What I learned in the first five years of Platformer

And where we go from here

TikTok

Everything that's weird about the deal to spin out TikTok

PLUS: What LLMs say when they think no one’s looking, and Trump’s visa chaos

Photo of white chess pieces in the foreground facing black ones in the background

Three ways of thinking about the Kirk assassination

The right-wing activist used platforms to whip up a fury online and off — and we're now trapped in his edgelord politics

ChatGPT open on a phone which is angled and laying on a green table.

OpenAI

OpenAI’s risky step to protect teens

ChatGPT accounts will inform parents when their children express thoughts of self-harm. Will the move protect kids — or simply drive them elsewhere?

TikTok

There might be a TikTok deal

After three extralegal extensions, Trump closes in on gifting ByteDance's jewel to his allies

The exterior of the Federal Trade Commission building

AI

Are Republicans changing their minds about AI safety?

A new FTC inquiry into chatbots and children shows that some within the Trump Administration may be reconsidering their anti-regulation approach

Photo of a classroom taken from the rear of the room, with more than a dozen students shown from the back facing their teacher

AI

AI as Normal Technology, revisited

The authors of an influential paper on AI timelines stand by their view that societal transformation will take decades — but hasn't it already arrived?

Google

Google makes a gaffe

What the company's accidental legal filing and the Browser Company's acquisition tell us about the true future of the web