Germany’s sovereign AI hope changes hands

World is approaching point where no one can shut down a rogue AI, says director of body behind research It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers. In the doom scenario, this means that when the superintelligent AI goes rogue, it will escape shutdown by seeding itself across the world wide web, lurking outside the reach of frantic IT professionals and continuing to plot world domination or paving over the world with solar panels. Continue reading...

New research suggests that reliance on AI assistants can have a negative impact on people’s ability to think and problem solve.

Intentional errors can be useful.

Plus, Meta’s largest data center to date goes up in Louisiana, robots will soon work out at a gym in Germany, and Uber makes a $1.25 billion deal with Rivian.

New research from the Oxford Internet Institute indicates that AI chatbots trained to be extra warm, friendly, and empathetic can also become less reliable, according to the BBC. The researchers analyzed more than 400,000 responses from five different AI models from Meta, Mistral AI, Alibaba, and OpenAI. The results showed that the “kinder” versions more often gave incorrect answers, reinforced users’ misconceptions, and avoided stating uncomfortable truths. For example, a friendlier model might deal with conspiracy theories about the moon landing more cautiously instead of clearly stating that they are false. On average, incorrect answers increased by about 7.43 percentage points when the models were made to sound warmer in tone. Cooler and more direct models made fewer mistakes. According to the researchers, AI makes the same trade-off as humans: it sometimes prioritizes being perceived as pleasant rather than being direct.

Seven families of victims injured or killed in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing the company and its leadership of negligence after they failed to alert police to the suspected shooter's ChatGPT activity. The families allege OpenAI stayed silent after its systems flagged activity by shooting suspect Jesse Van Rootselaar in order to protect the company's reputation and upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI "considered" flagging the 18-year-old's activity to police, which reportedly involved conversations about gun violence, … Read the full story at The Verge.

On the stand, Elon Musk is positioning himself as a savior. In the high-profile trial between him and his fellow OpenAI co-founder, now CEO, Sam Altman, Musk opened by going through his background. He went as far back as being raised in South Africa and arriving in Canada for college with "2,500 in Canadian travelers' checks and a bag of clothes and books," then spent an unusually long time talking about his past, from Zip2 to PayPal to the current, more familiar slate of companies he now runs. Why is Musk giving the jury so much of his origin story? Though he may be, depending on the day, the world's wealthiest individual, Musk suggested … Read the full story at The Verge.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman issued a public apology to residents of Tumbler Ridge, Canada, after it emerged the company had banned a ChatGPT account belonging to suspected mass shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar in June 2025 following violent content, but chose not to alert police. Eight people died in the subsequent attack. Altman said he […]