While the tech industry went gaga for generative artificial intelligence, one giant has held back: Apple. The company has yet to introduce so much as an AI-generated emoji, and according to a New York Times report today and earlier reporting from Bloomberg, it is in preliminary talks with Google about …
Read More »Forget Chatbots. AI Agents Are the Future
This week a startup called Cognition AI caused a bit of a stir by releasing a demo showing an artificial intelligence program called Devin performing work usually done by well-paid software engineers. Chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini can generate code, but Devin went further, planning how to solve a problem, …
Read More »Google DeepMind’s Latest AI Agent Learned to Play 'Goat Simulator 3'
Goat Simulator 3 is a surreal video game in which players take domesticated ungulates on a series of implausible adventures, sometimes involving jetpacks. That might seem an unlikely venue for the next big leap in artificial intelligence, but Google DeepMind today revealed an AI program capable of learning how to …
Read More »The Quest to Give AI Chatbots a Hand—and an Arm
Peter Chen, CEO of the robot software company Covariant, sits in front of a chatbot interface resembling the one used to communicate with ChatGPT. “Show me the tote in front of you,” he types. In reply, a video feed appears, revealing a robot arm over a bin containing various items—a …
Read More »Why Elon Musk Had to Open Source Grok, His Answer to ChatGPT
After suing OpenAI this month, alleging the company has become too closed, Elon Musk says he will release his “truth-seeking” answer to ChatGPT, the chatbot Grok, for anyone to download and use. “This week, @xAI will open source Grok,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X today. That suggests …
Read More »The Fear That Inspired the Creation of OpenAI
Elon Musk last week sued two of his OpenAI cofounders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, accusing them of “flagrant breaches” of the trio’s original agreement that the company would develop artificial intelligence openly and without chasing profits. Late on Tuesday, OpenAI released partially redacted emails between Musk, Altman, Brockman, and …
Read More »The Wild Claim at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit
Elon Musk started the week by posting testily on X about his struggles to set up a new laptop running Windows. He ended it by filing a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of recklessly developing human-level AI and handing it over to Microsoft. Musk’s lawsuit is filed against OpenAI and two of …
Read More »The AI Culture Wars Are Just Getting Started
Google was forced to turn off the image-generation capabilities of its latest AI model, Gemini, last week after complaints that it defaulted to depicting women and people of color when asked to create images of historical figures that were generally white and male, including vikings, popes, and German soldiers. The …
Read More »Intel’s CEO Says AI Is the Key to the Company’s Comeback
When veteran engineer and executive Pat Gelsinger returned to Intel as CEO in 2021, the once-great chipmaker was in a slump. After failing to adapt to the mobile era and then missing several steps in cutting-edge microprocessor manufacturing, it was now also falling behind in supplying chips to feed the …
Read More »Intel’s AI Reboot Is the Future of US Chipmaking
Call it a comeback—with consequences not just for Intel but also the US government’s hopes of maintaining a lead in artificial intelligence. The troubled chipmaker’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, announced today that Intel is relaunching and expanding its foundry business, which manufactures chip designs for other companies. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella …
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