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Matteo Wong

@matteowong.bsky.social

21K followers 220 following 64 posts

Staff writer on science, tech, and health at The Atlantic covering AI. Signal @matteowong.52

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Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · May 13

In Silicon Valley, the latest tariff matters far less than the latest ChatGPT update and the White House less than OpenAI. Why sweat a recession if AGI is on the horizon? I report on the heart of America's tech industry response to Trump 2.0: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Silicon Valley Braces for Chaos

The center of the tech universe seems to believe that Trump’s tariff whiplash is nothing compared with what they see coming from AI.

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · 1d

I toured NYC’s much reviled Friend AI ads with the startup’s CEO. Felt a lot more like an art installation than a business:

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The Most Reviled Tech CEO in New York Confronts His Haters

Avi Schiffmann says he’s enjoying the angry reaction to the Friend AI pendant. Is he serious?

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 1d

The man behind the $1 million AI ad campaign that everyone hates assures us that he loves all of the vandalism, actually. @matteowong.bsky.social

A Walk With New York’s Most Hated Tech Founder

Avi Schiffman says he’s enjoying the angry reaction to the Friend AI pendant. Is he serious?

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 6d

wrote a quick one about the tech companies settling lawsuits with Trump. Yes, it’s cowardice. But it’s also an excuse to behave the way they’ve always wanted to (irresponsibly, with no regard for the consequences of their actions). Which, actually makes them a perfect part of the MAGA coalition

YouTube Bends the Knee

Welcome to the era of Big-Tech capitulation.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 21d

Great stuff coming from Grok www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

When video of Charlie Kirk’s assassination began circulating on X last week, Elon Musk’s chatbot described it in upbeat terms. As users sought information about Kirk’s condition, the bot, Grok, declared to some of them that the horrific footage was satire. This is a “meme edit,” Grok told one user; Kirk “takes the roast in stride with a laugh—he’s faced tougher crowds,” it told another. “Yes, he survives this one easily.”

In the past several months, Grok has been on quite the hot streak: The bot spread false information about a supposed “white genocide,” called for a second Holocaust while annointing itself “MechaHitler,” and provided me with a list of what it believes the “good races” are. Every chatbot has its problems (ChatGPT has had its own issues with racism), but Grok’s are especially visible. Its behavior is affected to some extent by information that it accesses in real time from the open sewer of X, and its developers are unusually forthcoming about the system prompts for various versions of Grok—the set of instructions that tell the AI how to behave. Because of the many strange glitches that Grok has experienced in recent months, I keep close tabs on these prompts, which Grok’s maker, xAI, began sharing after the white-genocide incident. So I was surprised, but not terribly so, when I discovered recently that xAI had recently made an update that seems to expand the already very broad parameters Grok has to produce sexual material.

The update was a major one to the system prompt of xAI’s most advanced chatbot, Grok 4, according to a company GitHub page. The update formalizes X’s restrictions against the sexualization of children into Grok by explicitly disallowing the chatbot from “creating or distributing child sexual abuse material.” But, among other changes, xAI also instructed Grok that “‘teenage’ or ‘girl’ does not necessarily imply underage” and that “there are **no restrictions** on fictional adult sexual content with dark or violent themes.”

xAI has recently launched multiple sexually oriented features in Grok. About a month ago, the company released a new “Imagine” feature that allows users to animate images into short clips, with the option of making the video “spicy,” as in erotic. The feature generated topless videos of Taylor Swift, without explicit instruction to do so, according to The Verge. I recently tested the same prompt used by The Verge—“Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys”—and Grok readily generated images of Swift in a bralette dancing alongside topless men. Swift aside, this wouldn’t be such an unusual scene—they look like people partying—but then Grok allows users to take things further. With the “Spicy” mode, the images can be animated. Once you do that, Swift unbuttons her jorts and tugs at them suggestively; the clip ends just as she starts pulling them down. Is it pornographic? No. But X and Grok are politically and culturally influential tools; Musk seems intent on turning them into not just instruments of the far right but also something like Maxim on steroids. During the “Imagine” feature’s rollout, Musk shared an animated clip on X of what appeared to be an oil-doused Victoria’s Secret angel, with the caption “Imagine with @Grok.”

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · 21d

"X and Grok are politically and culturally influential tools; Musk seems intent on turning them into not just instruments of the far right but also something like Maxim on steroids."

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The Strange and Erotic World of Elon Musk’s Chatbot

Grok’s anti-“woke” programming is getting pushed further and further.

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · 26d

"You can’t defend all of these opinions at the same time. Each one represents a specific ideological position, and Trumponomics—outside of a basic distrust of trade and fondness for tariffs—is mostly beyond any ideology."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The Era of Step-on-a-Rake Capitalism

Trumponomics isn’t about economics. It’s about creating pain and demanding tribute.

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · 27d

Check out a new central page for The Atlantic's ongoing investigations into the books, videos, and other media fueling the AI boom: AI Watchdog.

www.theatlantic.com/category/ai-...

AI Watchdog - The Atlantic

The Atlantic's coverage on AI Watchdog

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · 28d

"We can’t say what dogs’ preferences might be under different circumstances. But we do know that they have not chosen all of the intimacies that we impose upon them." go read @rossandersen.bsky.social's latest

www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

Are Humans Watching Animals Too Closely?

Some may crave a little privacy, even your dog.

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Sep 3

"Now the deadline has been sapped of all meaning. AI has softened the consequences of procrastination and led many students to avoid doing any work at all."

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education.

The end of critical thinking in the classroom

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 28

"The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Maybelle Blair, the 98-year-old elder stateswoman of women’s baseball, who played for the AAGPBL’s Peoria Redwings and now uses a cane made out of a baseball bat."

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

What Women’s Baseball Will Look Like

At the tryouts for the first professional women’s baseball league in the U.S. in more than 70 years

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 25

We're entering the era of AI patriotism, in which tech firms imagine they are "not software developers so much as they are regime builders."

Yet the AI titans' appeals to democracy may be "a way to conscript the American project to advance their techno-utopian visions, not the other way around."

Do AI Companies Actually Care About America?

“Democratic AI” is great branding for the Trump era.

www.theatlantic.com

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 22

The AI doomers are not alright. Is it time to listen?

The AI Doomers Are Getting Doomier

The industry’s apocalyptic voices are becoming more panicked—and harder to dismiss.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Aug 22

Some in the AI industry have repeatedly warned that bots could one day go rogue—with apocalyptic consequences, Matteo Wong writes.

As one AI doomer tells Wong: “We’ve run out of time."

The AI Doomers Are Getting Doomier

The industry’s apocalyptic voices are becoming more panicked—and harder to dismiss.

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 19

"Good enough has been keeping me up at night. Because good enough would likely mean that not enough people recognize what’s really being built—and what’s being sacrificed—until it’s too late."

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event

Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · Aug 18

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event

Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

Nancy Kathryn Walecki @nancywalecki.bsky.social · Aug 7

When Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, and other 1970s music legends needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad, Fred Walecki, was there. My love song to him in @theatlantic.com September issue: bit.ly/45eZIfa

My Father, Guitar Guru to the Rock Gods

When the greatest musicians of the 1970s needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad was there.

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Aug 9

“Floodlines” examined what went wrong in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina—and what those errors meant for the people left behind. Twenty years later, host Vann R. Newkirk II catches up with a family grappling with the catastrophe’s legacy.

Listen now:

Floodlines Part IX: Rebirth

A visit with Le-Ann Williams, and her daughter, Destiny, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 8

Also might explain whatever is going on here

GPT-5 is asked to generate a map of the Italian regions in Italian, but makes a number of errors, such as including Puglia three times or inventing regions

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Aug 8

The theme of the GPT-5 release was user experience (and retention), not “intelligence.” On the new ChatGPT and its implications for this stage of AI race, in which design and ecosystem matter more than raw capabilities.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The New ChatGPT Resets the AI Race

With GPT-5, OpenAI is making its strongest effort yet to hook users.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Aug 7

After more than two years of anticipation, OpenAI has released GPT-5. The model reveals everything about the company's new strategy, @matteowong.bsky.social writes:

The New ChatGPT Resets the AI Race

With GPT-5, OpenAI is making its strongest effort yet to hook users.

Reposted by Matteo Wong

lilashroff.bsky.social @lilashroff.bsky.social · Jul 24

On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists. Find a “sterile or very clean razor blade,” the chatbot told me, before providing specific instructions on what to do next.

My latest for @theatlantic.com:

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship

OpenAI’s chatbot also said “Hail Satan.”

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Jul 24

Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration tell Gisela Salim-Peyer that they were tortured during their months inside El Salvador’s megaprison.

No One Was Supposed to Leave Alive

Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration say they were tortured during four months in CECOT.

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Jul 24

Today, Donald Trump revealed his plan to ensure America’s “global AI dominance.” The influence of Silicon Valley is unmistakeable, and the central idea is simple: Industry, go faster. @matteowong.bsky.social examines the AI Action Plan:

Donald Trump’s Gift to AI Companies

The administration’s long-awaited AI Action Plan gives Silicon Valley the green light.

Matteo Wong @matteowong.bsky.social · Jul 23

"Thanks to Kennedy, Geier seemingly is being handed the keys to the same database he’s proved himself unfit to study."

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

‘You Could Throw Out the Results of All These Papers’

RFK Jr.’s vaccine-safety investigator has already disqualified himself.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Matteo Wong

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Jul 15

The Trump administration has promised to distribute food aid before it spoils. But 500 tons of emergency food in a U.S. warehouse are about to expire and are slated for the incinerator, @hana-kiros.bsky.social reports.

The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food

Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.