Bytes: What’s new in tech
AI math tutor gets an ‘F’
An AI tutor designed to help kids is flunking basic math, said Matt Barnum in The Wall Street Journal. Khan Academy, the maker of popular educational videos for schools, is currently piloting “an AI-powered tutoring bot known as Khanmigo” to 65,000 students in 44 school districts. The program gives feedback on student essays, simulates dialogue “as famous literary characters,” and debates contemporary issues. But there’s one subject Khanmigo is struggling to grasp: arithmetic. Tested by the Journal, it “frequently made basic arithmetic errors, miscalculating subtraction problems such as 343 minus 17.” It also wrongly identified several incorrect answers as correct. “Khanmigo’s struggles don’t surprise researchers in AI,” who say large-language models are trained on data that helps them memorize answers rather than grasp the underlying processes.
Microsoft considers life after the console
Gaming consoles are beginning to feel oldfashioned, said Zoe Kleinman in BBC.com. Microsoft announced last week it was making four previously Xbox-only games available on rival Nintendo and PlayStation platforms. It’s a big change for Microsoft, “which has long favored exclusivity” to its Xbox platform. And it could signal a shift in how much gaming giants value the “consuming process of building and selling proprietary hardware” when so many people carry a gaming system in their pocket, in the form of their phone. Microsoft isn’t ditching the console yet; it announced plans for next-gen hardware launching soon. But companies are starting to rethink their strategy around exclusivity. “Why restrict access to your best-selling titles when there’s a vast audience with alternative devices out there?”
Can terrorists pay for verification on X?
Elon Musk’s X has been accused of profiting from terrorist groups and other outfits barred from doing business with U.S. firms, said Kate Conger in The New York Times. A report from the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project found that the social media platform had granted paid-for “verified” check marks to X accounts run by “Hezbollah leaders, Houthi groups, and state-run media outlets in Iran and Russia,” potentially violating U.S. sanctions. A check-mark subscription costs $8 a month and gives users access to “better promotion by X’s algorithm, among other perks.” Following the report, X removed check marks from many of the accounts, saying it is committed to maintaining “a safe, secure, and compliant platform.”