TNB Tech Minute: Meta Agrees to $18 Billion Settlement Over Child-Safety Claims

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Danny Lewis** (0:32)
Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Danny Lewis for the Wall Street Journal. In breaking news this morning, Meta Platforms has agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, bringing an end to a massive federal trial over social media's harmed teenagers. As part of the agreement, the company will also make sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram, including setting a default 2-hour time limit on the apps for users under 18 years old. But in a unique agreement, Meta will only pay out 70% of the settlement unless its competitors, TikTok and YouTube, agree to set default 1-hour time limits for underage users on their apps and pay the states more than $5 billion between them. The settlement halts the trial, which was in its second week, though it still must be approved by a federal judge.
Bill Gates is calling for more regulation of AI, saying that the companies behind the technology have no plans to address the massive upheaval it would cause. In a 12-page essay published to his personal website, the billionaire Microsoft founder highlighted the risk of cyberattacks, widespread job losses and the effect of chat bots on children. He is calling for new taxes on AI tokens and bots to delay companies' rush away from human labor and to fund a social safety net for retraining people whose jobs won't exist. And Chinese automaker XPeng says it will start mass-producing its humanoid robot this year. The robot, called Iron, was designed with a human-like form for general purpose usage in offices and homes. XPeng's robotics unit is valued at more than $6.3 billion, and while it has yet to generate meaningful revenue, the company's co-president says its margins could eventually eclipse its core EV business.
And that's your TNB Tech Minute. We'll be back this afternoon with more.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:18)
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