Issue #82

Workers are hiding chatbots from IT, UK drops iPhone “back door” demand, Lithuania uses flies to solve food waste, and more.

News from 14 August - 21 August 2025

Workers Are Hiding Chatbots From IT

More than 90% of companies use AI chatbots on personal accounts, often without IT approval, but only 40% of companies have official subscriptions, according to a new report from MIT’s Project NANDA.

The report suggests that whilst the mainstream AI economy is stalling, workers are using personal accounts for day-to-day tasks, creating a booming “shadow AI economy”. Up to $40 billion has been invested into generative AI initiatives, but only 5% of companies are seeing a return on that investment. MIT is calling this the “GenAI divide,” but personal usage might be crossing that divide, all under the IT department’s radar.

The study concludes that AI isn’t replacing jobs or changing the way business is done, but according to the authors, AI has “won the war for simple work.

Source

UK Drops iPhone “Back Door” Demand

The United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has said in an X post that the UK government has agreed to withdraw its demand to be able to gain access to Apple user data. Neither the government nor Apple have confirmed the claim.

The development is part of a continued debate over whether Apple is required to give law enforcement potentially sensitive user data. In December, the UK gave Apple formal notice that it had the right to worldwide users’ encrypted data. However, not even Apple knows its users' data and would need to break its own encryption to comply with the demand.

Apple claims this would significantly weaken their product security, saying, “We have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will.”

Source

Goldman Sachs Backs Stablecoins

Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies backed 1:1 with the U.S. dollar, could be the next gold rush, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Goldman Sachs’ Will Nance. With new regulations and market expansion, stablecoins could also help boost demand for government bonds.

In Goldman Sachs’ new research paper, Nance and others said that the potential market size for stablecoins is in the trillions. The link between stablecoins and the dollar means that a boost in the cryptocurrency could increase interest in the government bonds that back them. Others are sceptical, however, such as UBS’s Paul Donovan, who said that stablecoins only redistribute supply rather than increasing debt demand.

The U.S. Treasury remains excited about the potential of stablecoins. Bessent commented in July that, “This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.”

Source

Bulletin Board

• Competitor Decapitated In Robot Olympics. The world’s first World Humanoid Robot Games, held in Beijing’s former Winter Olympics stadium, saw androids run, play football, and even kickbox. The events helped display the current limits of the technology, such as when one robot was forced to resign from the 1500m after its head fell off. 280 companies and universities from 16 countries competed in the games that cost up to 580 yuan (£59.90) to watch. Source

• Social Media Echo-Chambers Are Inevitable. A yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study tested a simulated social media platform with GPT-4 bots and found that any attempt to prevent an echo-chamber from forming was fruitless. Different interventions, such as switching to a chronological newsfeed, only floated extreme content to the top. The researchers admitted their AI bots didn’t perfectly replicate human users but still concluded that toxic content shapes a platform, which then "feeds back what content you see, resulting in a toxic network." Source

• Actor Sells Likeness for $750 To AI. 52-year-old actor Scott Jacqmein says he regrets selling his face to a company that makes $10 billion in advertising revenue. Jacqmein received just $750 and zero royalties for advertisers to use his likeness to shill AI-generated horoscope apps and insurance on TikTok. "The technology is evolving faster than the contracts, and they are poaching eager new actors who don't have representation,” he told the NYT. Source

• Lithuania Uses Flies To Solve Food Waste. Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, has handed over food waste processing to Energesman, a company that uses fly larvae to break down organic rubbish. The company doesn’t charge the city to process the 2,700 tonnes of waste a year, but instead plans to make a profit by converting the protein-rich maggots into animal feed or ingredients for paints, glues, and even furniture covers. Source

• Google Settles Child Data Lawsuit For $30M. Google has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of illegally gathering YouTube viewing data from users under 13 years old. U.S. viewers who watched YouTube between July 1, 2013, and April 1, 2020, while under the age of 13, could be eligible for a small payment from the lawsuit, potentially up to 45 million Americans, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs. Google has denied any wrongdoing. Source

Disclaimer: This blog offers insights into international business and global events for informational purposes only. It is not intended as investment or business advice. WeavePay is not liable for any decisions made based on the content provided.

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