Welcome to the TechMean Right Home for Friday, January 24th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. OpenAI releases its agentic bot that can do things on your behalf on your computer. Has the Stargate controversy driven a rift between Musk and Trump? Will the U.S. government create a strategic crypto stockpile and, of course,

the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Open AI has released Operator AI, an agent that can automate web-based tasks. It's launching in the U.S. two subscribers

of the $200 per month pro-tier, which is the bad news, though in theory it is coming to lower

tiers soon. But the promise is it can help book flights, plan grocery orders, and even complete

purchases for users. Now, again, I wonder if anyone really will trust an AI with their

credit card to make purchases. And as we said recently, why does everyone use booking a flight

as an example? But according to the blog post, quote, using its own browser, it can look at a

webpage and interact with it by typing, clicking, and scrolling. Operator can see through screenshots

and interact using all the actions a mouse and keyboard allow with a browser, enabling it to

take action on the web without requiring custom API integrations according to OpenAI,

quoting the verge. Operator can use reasoning to self-correct, and if it gets stuck, it will give the user control.

It will also ask the user to takeover when a website asks for sensitive information like login credentials

and should ask for a user to approve actions like sending an email.

OpenAI also says that operator has been designed to refuse harmful requests and block disallowed content.

OpenAI says that it's collaborating with

companies such as DoorDash, Instacart, Open Table, Priceline, Stubhub, Thumbtack, and Uber

so that operator, quote, addresses real-world needs while respecting established norms.

But the company cautions that not everything might work as you expect just yet.

The tool currently has problems with complex interfaces like creating slideshows or managing

calendars, end quote.

And quoting Bloomberg.

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