Axios

The video game industry has been bursting with blockbusters this fall. But just how big they are, in terms of dollars or copies sold, especially in the U.S., is largely unknown.

Why it matters: Gaming is big business, but also a secretive one, making it hard to discern how well or poorly any new games are faring. This stands in contrast to movies, in which box office stats are quickly released.

Apple on Thursday posted quarterly earnings that topped expectations as its total revenue and iPhone sales came in about where most analysts had predicted.

Why it matters: Sales of the iPhone drive results not only for Apple but also for the many companies whose components go into the world's leading smartphone.

As AI continues to embed itself in our digital tools and our lives, it's getting harder to draw clear lines between what's AI-generated and what's not.

What's happening: Legislators, regulators and ethicists are going all in on requiring labeling for AI-created work — but as AI use becomes more of a human-machine collaboration, labeling will lose its coherence and meaning.

IAC, one of the word's largest internet holding companies, has submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright Office warning that unless the government protects copyrighted material from being used by generative AI, "the creation and publication of high-quality original content will wither and die."

Why it matters: IAC — which is home to Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print publisher in the U.S. — argues that if generative AI firms aren't forced to pay publishers for copyrighted content their algorithms are trained on and their bots recycle, the internet will become "unrecognizable" and users won't trust it.

The Biden administration's AI executive order has injected a degree of certainty into a chaotic year of debate about what legal guardrails are needed for powerful AI systems.

Why it matters: The U.S. will have some measure of government oversight of the most advanced AI projects. It won't have licensing requirements or rules requiring that companies disclose training data sources, model size and other important details.

The race between weather agencies to see who has the most advanced computer models has given way to an international competition over implementing artificial intelligence.

Driving the news: The U.K. Met Office, which already runs one of the top weather forecast models in the world, announced a new partnership on Tuesday with the Alan Turing Institute to develop highly accurate, lower cost forecast models using machine learning and AI techniques.

Seattle is building a digital parking system to better manage competing demands for curbside space among cars, delivery trucks, pedestrians and more.

Why it matters: Home of delivery giant Amazon, Seattle is in the vanguard of cities that are digitizing their parking rules — in part to crack down on the glut of delivery vehicles that double-park and don't pay for the spaces they occupy.