(Credit: FABRICE COFFRINI / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images)
Welcome to PCMag's AI wrap-up, where every week we'll catch you up on the AI news that's affecting us today, dig into the trends shaping how we use it, and finish with an unexpected tidbit from the web—this time involving Ben Affleck.
High in the snowy Swiss mountains at Davos this week, world leaders waxed poetic about the promise of AI. One called it "magic" and "the fastest technological gigacycle in history." Meanwhile, others reflected on how it will create a "tsunami" of layoffs. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proclaimed that AI will automate all software engineering within 12 months. (I should note that he made a similar prediction last March, when he said it would happen in 3-6 months.)
What no one onstage seemed eager to discuss? The concerning AI-driven price hikes we're starting to see in the PC and graphics card markets. Perhaps they were too busy digesting President Trump's AI-generated photo of himself taking over Greenland. (One of the president's purported reasons for taking over the territory is to mine critical minerals, many of which are required for AI chips.)
(Credit: Truth Social)This Week's Headlines: PC, Phone Prices Go Up
Tech prices are going up because Silicon Valley giants are scooping up the latest chips for their data centers, leaving consumer brands fighting for the GPU and memory scraps. In Davos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the data center push "the largest infrastructure buildout in human history." Sounds exciting—but not if you're trying to build your own PC, lower your electricity prices, or thinking about buying a new phone this year.
PCMag's Michael Kan recently checked GPU prices and found that Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is now almost $1,000, up from its $749 launch price. The RTX 5080 is also up to $800 more expensive. Asus and Gigabyte are similarly bracing for a 15% price hike on their GPUs. Desktop PC maker Framework said it held off as long as it could, but ultimately had to raise prices. We'll keep an eye on how prices evolve, but be prepared for this to last at least a few years.
Also in the news this week:
- Big social platforms are realizing people hate AI slop. YouTube plans to make fighting "slop" a priority in 2026. A few weeks ago, Instagram's Adam Mosseri also posted about the need to find new ways to signal authenticity since human- and computer-generated content are indistinguishable.
- CEOs' AI-obsessed veneer is cracking. A new survey finds that just 30% of leaders have made money from AI, and even fewer say it's helped cut costs. But 69% still expect their employees to master it in the next few years, despite having no clear plan to upskill them.
- OpenAI launches age detection for teens. Your kid should be seeing a different experience on the chatbot, and it's worth making sure the results are accurate—and that you didn't accidentally get flagged as a teen, which OpenAI says will happen.
What to Watch: OpenAI and Apple's Mystery Hardware
New AI hardware is coming, possibly in strange new shapes and form factors. Apple is reportedly working on a wearable AI pin, a concept that's failed thus far, at least by Rabbit and Humane's attempts. It's also shifting Siri's focus from a voice assistant to a standalone chatbot to compete with ChatGPT.
Meanwhile, OpenAI says it will debut its mysterious hardware device with ex-Apple designer Jony Ive in 2026. I doubt it will be ready to purchase, but maybe we'll at least find out what it is. One theory? Headphones, perhaps rivaling Apple's AI-heavy AirPods.
Wait, Ben Affleck Knows About AI?
One thing I didn't expect this week: a surprisingly coherent, three-minute AI rant from actor Ben Affleck. On The Joe Rogan Experience, Affleck argued—mostly correctly—that AI won't replace all creative work or write "anything meaningful."
His evidence? He thinks AI companies induce existential dread about their technology—such as how it'll replace all jobs—just to make it seem more powerful, and justify data center investments. But in reality, the rate of technical progress has slowed down.
He's a little off about copyright law, which does not clearly cover AI-generated content and matters a lot in Hollywood (just ask Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, and all the agents pissed off by OpenAI's Sora 2.) But still, well done, Ben.