Technologies

AI-Boosted Brave Browser Now Summarizes Search Engine Answers

Search engines are moving far beyond the early days of showing just a list of websites that might answer your questions.

Microsoft’s AI-boosted Bing and Google’s Bard have begun testing the latest type of AI technology, the large language models that packed such a big wow factor into OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But a much smaller player, Brave, on Thursday added some of those language-processing abilities directly into its web browser with a feature that summarizes search results.

The feature, called Summarizer, generates some abbreviated explanations for questions in some search results, combining that with footnoted links to its information sources. It’s also designed to offer richer snippets of text that you see in more ordinary search results.

It’s a new example of an overhaul that’s sweeping the search engine business. Google for years has been adding more direct answers to search queries, showing maps, business hours, song lyrics and product recommendations along with traditional links to others’ websites. The AI revolution is taking this utility to a new level, for example with Bing’s new AI-boosted search results and sometimes-fraught conversational abilities.

Large language models such as the one that powers ChatGPT are trained to recognize patterns from vast swaths of text from the internet. They can deliver impressive results, synthesizing coherent sentences and even writing essays about an immense variety of subjects. But LLM AIs don’t truly know anything and their authoritative tone can be misleading. Brave, which built its own LLM for Summarizer, offered cautions about its use.

«It’s crucial to remind users that one should not believe everything an AI system produces, in much the same way one should not believe everything that is published on the Web,» Brave said of Summarizer. «At the risk of stating the obvious, we should not suspend critical thinking for anything we consume, no matter how impressive the results of AI models can be.»

In my testing, it delivered useful results for some queries — for example, «What is pixel binning?» and «What do the numbers on tire sidewalls mean?» But it also struggled to coherently handle time elements for current-events questions like, «What happened with the Chinese spy balloon?» and «Will the EU approve Microsoft’s Activision acquisition?»

Brave offers a feedback button for comments on its Summarizer results, and the feature can be disabled in settings.

a screenshot showing Brave Summarizer's results for the search for "What do the numbers on tire sidewalls mean?" — Brave Summarizer tries to boil down website information in presentable terms, but it isn’t perfect.

Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Brave is an unusual example of an independent browser company that carved a niche for itself despite the dominance of Google’s Chrome and, to a lesser degree, Apple’s Safari. The company relies on Chromium, the Google-led software project that underpins Chrome, but has built its own search engine and ad system.

Brave got a foothold in the browser market by stripping ads and tracking technology out of websites by default, substituting its own privacy-first ad technology as an alternative. About 57 million people now use the browser each month, and the search engine that the company built into the browser now fields 22 million queries per day.

Summarizer is available now on desktop and mobile browsers.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 14

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 14.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword has an odd vertical shape, with an extra Across clue, and only four Down clues. The clues are not terribly difficult, but one or two could be tricky. Read on if you need the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Smokes, informally
Answer: CIGS

5A clue: «Don’t have ___, man!» (Bart Simpson catchphrase)
Answer: ACOW

6A clue: What the vehicle in «lane one» of this crossword is winning?
Answer: RACE

7A clue: Pitt of Hollywood
Answer: BRAD

8A clue: «Yeah, whatever»
Answer: SURE

9A clue: Rd. crossers
Answer: STS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Things to «load» before a marathon
Answer: CARBS

2D clue: Mythical figure who inspired the idiom «fly too close to the sun»
Answer: ICARUS

3D clue: Zoomer around a small track
Answer: GOCART

4D clue: Neighbors of Norwegians
Answer: SWEDES

Technologies

Watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight Test 11

Technologies

New California Law Wants Companion Chatbots to Tell Kids to Take Breaks

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new requirements on AI companions into law on Monday.

AI companion chatbots will have to remind users in California that they’re not human under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law, SB 243, also requires companion chatbot companies to maintain protocols for identifying and addressing cases in which users express suicidal ideation or self-harm. For users under 18, chatbots will have to provide a notification at least every three hours that reminds users to take a break and that the bot is not human.

It’s one of several bills Newsom has signed in recent weeks dealing with social media, artificial intelligence and other consumer technology issues. Another bill signed Monday, AB 56, requires warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those required for tobacco products. Last week, Newsom signed measures requiring internet browsers to make it easy for people to tell websites they don’t want them to sell their data and banning loud advertisements on streaming platforms.

AI companion chatbots have drawn particular scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in recent months. The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into several companies in response to complaints by consumer groups and parents that the bots were harming children’s mental health. OpenAI introduced new parental controls and other guardrails in its popular ChatGPT platform after the company was sued by parents who allege ChatGPT contributed to their teen son’s suicide.

«We’ve seen some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech, and we won’t stand by while companies continue without necessary limits and accountability,» Newsom said in a statement.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

One AI companion developer, Replika, told CNET that it already has protocols to detect self-harm as required by the new law, and that it is working with regulators and others to comply with requirements and protect consumers.

«As one of the pioneers in AI companionship, we recognize our profound responsibility to lead on safety,» Replika’s Minju Song said in an emailed statement. Song said Replika uses content-filtering systems, community guidelines and safety systems that refer users to crisis resources when needed.

A Character.ai spokesperson said the company «welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers as they develop regulations and legislation for this emerging space, and will comply with laws, including SB 243.» OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice called the bill a «meaningful move forward» for AI safety. «By setting clear guardrails, California is helping shape a more responsible approach to AI development and deployment across the country,» Radice said in an email.

One bill Newsom has yet to sign, AB 1064, would go further by prohibiting developers from making companion chatbots available to children unless the AI companion is «not foreseeably capable of» encouraging harmful activities or engaging in sexually explicit interactions, among other things.