Elon Musk is planning to replace tens of thousands of sacked government workers with artificial intelligence tools, according to US officials.
The world’s richest man has moved quickly to radically reduce spending and shrink the federal workforce, with more than 40,000 employees already accepting offers to resign for eight months of pay.
If Mr Musk’s plans succeed in full, he will cut the federal workforce by at least 10 per cent.
Last Tuesday, President Trump announced plans for billions of dollars in private-sector investment to strengthen artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The initiative underscores his commitment to maintaining American leadership in AI research and industrial innovation. The Trump administration still faces many pressing questions about how to navigate the expanding influence of artificial intelligence. Chief among them: Are large language models (LLMs)—from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini—politically biased? A growing body of research suggests that they lean left. In my own studies, I have found that LLMs are more likely to use terminology favored by Democratic lawmakers, propose left-leaning policy solutions, and use more favorable language when discussing left-leaning public figures compared with their counterparts on the right.
Why DeepSeek’s AI innovations are blowing people’s minds
H/T DS
SINGAPORE—Take a team of young Chinese engineers, hired by a boss with disdain for experience. Add some clever programming shortcuts, and a loophole in American rules that allowed them to get advanced chips.
That is the formula China’s DeepSeek used to shock the world with its artificial-intelligence programs.
Conventional thinking held that developing leading AI required loads of expensive, cutting-edge computer chips—and that Chinese companies would have trouble competing because they couldn’t get those chips. DeepSeek defied those predictions with a resourcefulness that led to a $1 trillion bloodbath on Wall Street and is spurring Silicon Valley to rethink its approach.
US President Donald Trump has called the rise of Chinese company DeepSeek “a wake-up call” for the US tech industry, after the emergence of its artificial intelligence (AI) model triggered shockwaves on Wall Street.
Shares in major tech firms such as Nvidia fell sharply, with the chip giant losing almost $600bn (£482bn) in market value.
What has shaken the industry is DeepSeek’s claim that its R1 model was made at a fraction of the cost of its rivals – raising questions about the future of America’s AI dominance and the scale of investments US firms are planning.
Have there been human rights abuses in Xinjiang? Ask ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, and you’ll receive an unambiguous yes.
Put the same question to DeepSeek, a Chinese chatbot, and the answer is very different. “Allegations of human rights abuses are unfounded and politically motivated,” it says.
Its response is not unusual: chatbots are heavily muzzled in China, where AI companies are required to instill the “socialist values” of the Communist Party and are regularly tested by Beijing’s censors.
A lovestruck French woman handed over €830,000 to a fake, AI-generated Brad Pitt who convinced her he needed the money for cancer treatment in the midst of his divorce battle with Angelina Jolie.
Anne, a 53-year-old interior designer, said she believed that she and the Hollywood star had fallen in love online and would marry so she divorced her husband and then wired fraudsters all the money from the settlement.
Surveying the latest transgressions against decency, morality, and humanity itself by artificial intelligence and its biological architects.
The degree to which we, the peasants, have been abused in the last several years is obviously substantial — yet will pale in comparison to what the transhumanist overlords plan to do to the useless eaters when human labor becomes obsolete to keep their machinations running, once we’re antique industrial parts.
Then it’ll be game time, meaning full-on genocide time — no more half-measures.
A tech entrepreneur based in Los Angeles became trapped in a malfunctioning self-driving car for several minutes last month, causing him to nearly miss a flight, he said.
Mike Johns was riding in an autonomous Waymo car on his way to Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix when the vehicle began driving around a parking lot repeatedly, circling eight times as he was on the phone seeking help from the company.
After the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces deluged Gaza with bombs, drawing on a database painstakingly compiled through the years that detailed home addresses, tunnels and other infrastructure critical to the militant group.
But then the target bank ran low. To maintain the war’s breakneck pace, the IDF turned to an elaborate artificial intelligence tool called Habsora — or “the Gospel” — which could quickly generate hundreds of additional targets.
The use of AI to rapidly refill IDF’s target bank allowed the military to continue its campaign uninterrupted, according to two people familiar with the operation. It is an example of how the decade-long program to place advanced AI tools at the center of IDF’s intelligence operations has contributed to the violence of Israel’s 14-month war in Gaza.
Artificial intelligence could wipe out the human race within the next decade, the “Godfather of AI” has warned.
Prof Geoffrey Hinton, who has admitted regrets about his part in creating the technology, likened its rapid development to the industrial revolution – but warned the machines could “take control” this time.
The 77-year-old British computer scientist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics this year, called for tighter government regulation of AI firms.
This isn’t really a surprise at this point. GM’s Cruise robotaxi service went off the road more than a year ago after a terrible accident in San Francisco and lost its right to operate in the city. Not long after that the company laid off about 1/4 of its workforce. Yesterday, GM announced it was pulling the plug on the whole project despite having spent about $10 billion on it.
A new Texas lawsuit against Character.ai, alleging its chatbots poisoned a son against his family, is part of a push to increase oversight of AI companions.
In just six months, J.F., a sweet 17-year-old kid with autism who liked attending church and going on walks with his mom, had turned into someone his parents didn’t recognize.
He began cutting himself, lost 20 pounds and withdrew from his family. Desperate for answers, his mom searched his phone while he was sleeping. That’s when she found the screenshots.
… I’m imagining a world where everyone has a personal AI assistant. Perhaps you’ve had it for years; perhaps eventually people will have them from childhood. It knows all about you, and it just wants to make you happy and help you enjoy your life. It takes care of chores and schedules and keeping track of things, it orders ahead for you at restaurants, it smooths your way through traffic or airports, maybe it even communicates with other AI assistants to hook you up with suitable romantic partners. (Who knows what you like better?) Perhaps it’s on your phone, or in a wristband, talking to you via airpods or something like that.
In Henry Kissinger’s final book, “Genesis,” the deceased former secretary of state has presented a thought-provoking examination of the role of humans in a future dominated by artificial intelligence.
Written with a former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, and a longtime Microsoft senior executive, Craig Mundie, the book addresses the challenges and ethical considerations surrounding AI advancements. The authors say mankind should prepare for the day when they are no longer in charge of the planet, having given way to AI.
I see. A Master Race!
With temperatures dropping, nights growing longer and decorations starting to appear in store windows, the holidays are on their way. One of the season’s stalwarts, however, is feeling a little less cozy for some people: Coca-Cola, known for its nostalgia-filled holiday commercials, is facing backlash for creating this year’s ads with generative artificial intelligence.
The three commercials, which pay tribute to the company’s beloved “Holidays Are Coming” campaign from 1995, feature cherry-red Coca-Cola trucks driving through sleepy towns on snowy roads at night. The ads depict squirrels and rabbits peeking out to watch the passing caravans and a man being handed an ice-cold bottle of cola by Santa Claus.
The AI Genie is not going back in the bottle.
