It’s apropos that Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is releasing in theaters next month. The world is seemingly looking down the barrel of another global threat to humanity. The target of today’s doomsday, AI, is nothing surprising. However, it’s not every day that the warning comes from the industry’s biggest names themselves.

Recently, in a statement from the Center for AI Safety, the leaders from the world of artificial intelligence have come together to assess the risk of unimpeded technology. The statement, emphasized in a single sentence, reads: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

While the statement was signed by hundreds of scientists, the biggest names in the industry have signed it as well. These include Sean Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Demis Hassabis (CEO of Google’s DeepMind), and Kevin Scott (CTO of Microsoft), among others.

Besides signing the statement, Altman and his contemporaries have approached lawmakers in a harried attempt to introduce policies to regulate the emerging technology. New policies are slow-going, though.

In contrast, the world’s biggest AI companies are much faster in developing new advancements for the technology. As exemplified by the ongoing Computex trade show, AI is the name of the game.

Critics of the technology have decried how artificial intelligence are uprooting jobs all over the world in all sorts of industries. Others have also wondered when the technology will evolve to match or even overtake human intelligence.

Though the technology is advancing at a rapid clip, it’s hard to tell whether the projected worst-case scenario will come to pass. Equating the technology with pandemics and nuclear war does give one pause.

SEE ALSO: NVIDIA develops an AI for NPCs

Though the platform works differently, Reddit is much like other social media platforms. For one, it relies on users signing up for the service to interact with one another through threads. However, Reddit is also similar by offering its API to third parties. If you’re not happy with using the original website or app, developers can create apps tailored to optimize the experience. Unfortunately, those might soon go away.

Recently, Reddit announced a round of changes coming to its API rules. Starting June 19, the platform will charge third parties for access to their API. In a nutshell, any developer who wants to continue offering a tailored Reddit experience must pay up to access the website.

According to the company, the changes are a result of emerging AI technologies which leverage Reddit for language learning. Naturally, the company isn’t happy with being used for free, resulting in a paid scheme coming soon.

Unfortunately, the pricing scheme isn’t affordable for smaller developers who just want to offer a cleaner experience of the website. Apollo, one of the most popular third-party alternatives to Reddit’s main app, recently announced that Reddit is charging US$ 20 million per year to keep the app running as is. Christian Selig, the app’s developer, confirms that the figure is just too much.

Other apps have not disclosed their discussions with the platform. However, their users have already lamented the impending doom of third-party apps and their involvement with the platform as a whole.

For their part, Reddit says that Selig’s figure only reflects a standard rate, rather than a specialized one as discussed with Apollo. The company remains adamant that it wants to be equitable and civil towards third-party apps.

SEE ALSO: Reddit acquires Dubsmash

It wasn’t the most popular product, but surely other people remember the Chromecast, right? Well, if you’re one of the few who keep fond memories about the device, it’s time to say goodbye. Google has quietly terminated support for the first-generation Chromecast.

Released almost a decade ago, the original Chromecast blossomed in a world that wasn’t ready for smart TVs. The HDMI-based dongle allowed users to broadcast media from their smartphones and tablets onto their television sets. In a nutshell, it was an easy way to turn an older TV into a smart device for an affordable price.

Back in April (or a few months shy of the device’s tenth birthday), Google officially ended support for the first-generation dongle. A short announcement (spotted by 9to5Google) simply states that the device will no longer receive any software updates, and Google will no longer service them. Its last firmware version shipped in November last year. Google also notes that users who continue to use the original dongle might “notice a degradation in performance.”

Unfortunately, that’s just the way the technology goes. The issue it sought to solve — that is, the continued existence of older TVs without smart capabilities — is largely obsolete. Most TVs today have smart features built in, eliminating the necessity for a smart dongle.

However, for those who still have less intelligent sets, Google still sells a newer version of the Chromecast built with Google TV. Instead of controlling the screen with another smartphone, the newer version of the Chromecast packs in the software itself.

SEE ALSO: Google Pixel can soon double as a dashcam