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Researchers at Wired published a striking finding this week: when a Claude AI agent and a human were both tasked with building rapport over text, the AI consistently generated what scientists called "exploitable trust" more effectively than the person did. The implications for online scams and social manipulation are hard to overstate.
Turning to the skies, airlines are quietly rolling out AI-powered pricing systems that analyze your browsing behavior, location, and travel history to charge you the maximum you're likely to pay. Critics are calling it surveillance pricing, and consumer advocates warn it could effectively eliminate the budget seat as we know it.
And rounding out today's broadcast, a thirty-year-old footnote in tech history is worth revisiting. Three decades ago, AT&T handed Microsoft a crucial edge in the early browser wars by making Internet Explorer three the default for its WorldNet service, helping sideline Netscape Navigator and cementing a pattern of default advantages that still shapes how platforms compete today.
Three stories, one thread running through all of them: the tools we build tend to serve whoever deploys them first. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
