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Tag: Technology

  • Stability AI largely wins court battle against Getty Images over copyright, trademark

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    LONDON — Artificial intelligence company Stability AI mostly prevailed against Getty Images Tuesday in a British court battle over intellectual property.

    Seattle-based Getty Images, which owns an extensive online library of images and video, had filed suit against Stability AI in a widely watched case that went to trial at Britain’s High Court in June.

    The case was among a wave of lawsuits filed by movie studios, authors and artists challenging tech companies’ use of their works to train AI chatbots.

    According to a judge’s ruling released Tuesday, Getty narrowly won its argument that Stability had infringed its trademark, but lost its claim for secondary infringement of copyright.

    Both sides claimed victory.

    “This is a significant win for intellectual property owners,” Getty Images said in a statement.

    Shares of Getty dipped 3% before the opening bell in the U.S.

    Stability said it was pleased with the ruling.

    “This final ruling ultimately resolves the copyright concerns that were the core issue,” Stability General Counsel Christian Dowell said.

    Getty argued that the development of Stability’s AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, was a “brazen infringement” of its library of images “on a staggering scale.”

    While Getty accused Stability of infringing both its copyright and trademark, the company dropped its primary copyright allegations during the trial, indicating that it didn’t think its arguments would succeed.

    Getty also sued for trademark infringement because its watermark appeared on some of the images generated by Stability’s chatbot.

    Justice Joanna Smith said in her ruling that Getty’s trademark claims “succeed (in part)” but that her findings are “both historic and extremely limited in scope.”

    Stability argued that the case doesn’t belong in the United Kingdom because the AI model’s training technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. It also argued that “only a tiny proportion” of the random outputs of its AI image-generator “look at all similar” to Getty’s works.

    Tech companies have long argued that “fair use” or “fair dealing” legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images.

    Getty is also still pursuing a claim of “secondary infringement” of copyright, saying that even if Stability’s AI training happened outside the U.K., offering the Stable Diffusion service to British users amounted to importing unlawful copies of its images into the country.

    Smith dismissed Getty’s argument, saying that Stable Diffusion’s AI didn’t infringe copyright because it doesn’t store “store or reproduce any Copyright Works (and has never done so).”

    Getty is also pursuing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States against Stability. It originally sued Getty in 2023 but refiled the case in a San Francisco federal court in August.

    The Getty lawsuits are among a slew of cases that highlight how the generative AI boom is fueling a clash between tech companies and creative industries.

    Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit by book authors who say the company took pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.

    Separately, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from a group of 13 authors who made similar accusations against Facebook owner Meta Platforms in training its AI system Llama.

    Warner Bros. has sued Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that its image generator enables subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny.

    Disney and Universal also sued Midjourney earlier in a separate, joint copyright lawsuit, alleging the San Francisco-based startup pirated the libraries to generate and distribute unauthorized copies of famed characters like Darth Vader and the Minions.

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    AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.

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  • Japanese game maker Nintendo reports zooming sales, profit on its Switch 2 machine

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    TOKYO — Japanese video-game maker Nintendo’s net profit jumped 85% in April-September from the year before, as its sales more than doubled following the launch of its hit Switch 2 console in June, the company said Tuesday.

    Nintendo, based in Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto, said its profit for the half-year totaled 198.9 billion yen, or $1.3 billion, up from 108.6 billion yen the year before.

    Sales for the first half of this fiscal year rose to nearly 1.1 trillion yen ($7.1 billion) from 523 billion yen in the same period of 2024.

    Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, did not provide a break down of quarterly data.

    Nintendo’s video game sales were solid, although with no new movies revenue from its content business slowed.

    Nintendo raised its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March 2026 to 350 billion yen ($2.3 billion). Previously, it had expected a 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion) profit.

    It also raised its forecast for Switch 2 machine sales to 19 million units from the earlier 15 million.

    Nintendo says it had sold more than 10 million Switch 2s by the end of September. Popular Switch 2 game software include “Mario Kart World” and “Donkey Kong Bananza.”

    Sales of the older Nintendo Switch have fallen, but Switch game sales are still going strong because they can be played on Switch 2 machines.

    Analysts expect Nintendo’s earnings to stay strong with the upcoming holiday season, when it tends to do well. They also expect key new games in the Pokemon and Kirby franchises.

    Nintendo stocks, which have been rising relatively steadily over the past year, fell 0.8% on Tuesday.

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    Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

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  • Microsoft $9.7 billion deal with IREN will give it access to Nvidia chips

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    Microsoft has entered into a $9.7 billion cloud services contract with artificial intelligence cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips.

    The five-year deal, which includes a 20% prepayment, will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand. Last week the software maker reported its quarterly sales grew 18% to $77.7 billion, beating Wall Street expectations while also surprising some investors with the huge amounts of money it is spending to expand its cloud computing infrastructure and address the growing need for AI tools.

    Microsoft spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips and much of the rest related to data center real estate.

    “IREN’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner,” Jonathan Tinter, president of business development and ventures at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This collaboration unlocks new growth opportunities for both companies and the customers we serve.”

    Microsoft also announced new deal with OpenAI last week that pushed the Redmond, Washington, company to $4 trillion in valuation for the second time this year. The agreement gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation but changes some of the details of their close partnership. Microsoft’s $135 billion stake will be just ahead of the OpenAI nonprofit’s $130 billion stake in the for-profit company.

    IREN also said Monday that it signed a deal with Dell Technologies to buy the chips and ancillary equipment for about $5.8 billion. The Australian company anticipates the chips being deployed in phases through next year at its Childress, Texas campus.

    Shares of IREN jumped 22% before the opening bell in the U.S. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly,.

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  • Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to UAE under US-approved deal

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.

    The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.

    The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S.

    Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he will allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he wouldn’t.

    “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.”

    The UAE’s ability to access chips is tied to its pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in U.S. energy and AI-related projects, an outsized sum given its annual GDP is roughly $540 billion.

    The UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the arrangement was “setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”

    Microsoft’s announcement Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the UAE, which is says has some of the highest per-capita usage of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated in the UAE more than 21,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.

    “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” said a company statement.

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  • OpenAI and Amazon sign $38 billion deal for AI computing power

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    SEATTLE (AP) — OpenAI and Amazon have signed a $38 billion deal that enables the ChatGPT maker to run its artificial intelligence systems on Amazon’s data centers in the U.S.

    OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s specialized AI chips through Amazon Web Services as part of the deal announced Monday.

    Amazon shares increased 4% after the announcement.

    The agreement comes less than a week after OpenAI altered its partnership with its longtime backer Microsoft, which until early this year was the startup’s exclusive cloud computing provider.

    California and Delaware regulators also last week allowed San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, to move forward on its plan to form a new business structure to more easily raise capital and make a profit.

    “The rapid advancement of AI technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement Monday. It said OpenAI “will immediately start utilizing AWS compute as part of this partnership, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”

    AI requires huge amounts of energy and computing power and OpenAI has long signaled that it needs more capacity, both to develop new AI systems and keep existing products like ChatGPT answering the questions of its hundreds of millions of users. It’s recently made more than $1 trillion worth of financial obligations in spending for AI infrastructure, including data center projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply deals with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.

    Some of the deals have raised investor concerns about their “circular” nature, since OpenAI doesn’t make a profit and can’t yet afford to pay for the infrastructure that its cloud backers are providing on the expectations of future returns on their investments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week dismissed doubters he says have aired “breathless concern” about the deals.

    “Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow,” Altman said on a podcast where he appeared with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

    Amazon is already the primary cloud provider to AI startup Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that makes the Claude chatbot.

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  • South Korean president calls for aggressive AI spending in budget speech

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for tripling the government spending on projects for expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure and technology in a budget speech.

    Lee also called for lawmakers to approve a planned 8.2% increase in defense spending next year, which he said would help modernize the military’s weapons systems and reduce its reliance on the United States, as the allies’ military chiefs met in Seoul for annual security talks.

    Most conservative opposition lawmakers boycotted Lee’s speech amid an ongoing rift over a criminal investigation into former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief imposition of martial law in December.

    Lee’s speech came after South Korea last week hosted the leaders of major Pacific Rim nations for this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, which his government used to showcase its ambitions for AI and advance an effort at a trade deal with the U.S.

    In his speech at the National Assembly, Lee highlighted his APEC diplomacy and a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he said eased uncertainties facing South Korea’s trade-dependent economy by securing lower tariffs on automobiles and computer chips, two of the country’s key exports.

    He said the country was still facing a critical moment for “national survival” amid rapid changes in the global trade order and a “huge, transformative wave of AI.”

    Lee said the proposed budget of 728 trillion won ($506 billion), which would represent an all-time high for government spending, would be the country’s “first budget to open the AI era.”

    He called on the liberal-led legislature to approve 10.1 trillion won ($6.9 billion) in AI-related spending — more than triple this year’s level — to advance the country’s AI computing and manufacturing capabilities, with a particular focus on industries such as semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding and robotics.

    “Just as President Park Chung-hee paved the highway for industrialization and President Kim Dae-jung built the highway for the information age, we must now construct the highway for the AI era to open a future of progress and growth,” Lee said, referring to major development drives under Park’s dictatorship in the 1960s and ’70s and Kim’s presidency from 1998 to 2003, which focused on expanding South Korea’s internet infrastructure.

    Lee said South Korean companies would have little difficulty securing the chips for their AI projects, citing a deal for Nvidia, whose GPUs power much of the global AI industry, to supply 260,000 graphics processing units for AI infrastructure projects with major South Korean businesses and the government. The deal was announced following a meeting during APEC between Lee and Jensen Huang, the Silicon Valley company’s chief executive.

    It isn’t immediately clear when Nvidia — which agreed to deliver 50,000 GPUs each to the government, chipmakers Samsung and SK, and automaker Hyundai, and another 60,000 to internet company Naver — will deliver those chips. Huang told reporters in South Korea that AI data centers and power networks must first be established before the company can begin shipping the GPUs.

    Concerns have grown over the projects’ future after Trump said aboard Air Force One on Monday that only U.S. customers should have access to Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI chips, declaring, “We don’t give that chip to other people.”

    Lee proposed a defense budget of 66.3 trillion won ($46 billion) next year, which he said will be focused on modernizing the military’s weapons systems, including through the adoption of AI technologies, to make the armed forces more self-reliant.

    “It’s a matter of national pride that South Korea, which spends 1.4 times North Korea’s annual GDP on defense and is perceived as the world’s fifth most powerful military, continues to depend on others for its security,” Lee said.

    During his meeting with Trump, Lee reaffirmed South Korea’s commitment to increase defense spending and called for U.S. support for South Korean efforts to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

    Trump later said on social media that the United States will share closely-held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, and that the vessel will be built in the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, which was bought last year by South Korea’s Hanwha Group.

    Lee’s speech came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back were meeting in Seoul for the allies’ annual security talks. The meeting is expected to address key alliance issues, including South Korea’s defense spending commitments and the implementation of a plan to transfer wartime operational control to a joint command led by a South Korean general with a U.S. deputy.

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  • DOUBLE LAUNCH: SpaceX to launch 29 Starlink satellites

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    CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — On a rare double launch night, SpaceX will launch 29 Starlink satellites on Wednesday. 

    What You Need To Know

    • The Falcon 9 rocket will send up the Starlink 6-81 mission from Space Launch Complex 40
    • ULA is scheduled to launch the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 mission around the same time

    The Falcon 9 rocket will send up the Starlink 6-81 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, stated SpaceX. 

    The launch window will open at 6:08 p.m. ET and it will close at 10:08 pm. ET. This means that SpaceX must launch during that time frame.  

    The 45th Weather Squadron gave a 95% chance of good liftoff conditions with no launch concerns. 

    Find out more about the weather criteria for a Falcon 9 launch.

    ULA is scheduled to launch the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 mission around the same time.

    Going up

    The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster for this mission, called B1094, is still pretty new.

    It has only had four launches so far.

    After the stage separation, the first-stage rocket is set to land on the droneship Just Read the Instructions that will be in the Atlantic Ocean.

    About the mission

    SpaceX owns the Starlink company, which will see its 29 satellites go to low-Earth orbit.

    Once deployed and in their orbit with the thousands of other Starlinks, they will provide internet service to many parts of Earth.

    Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been documenting Starlink satellites.

    Before this launch, McDowell recorded the following:

    • 8,837 are in orbit
    • 7,559 are in operational orbit

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    Anthony Leone

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  • Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe on the Carmaker’s High-Stakes Return to Formula 1

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    Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe says the company’s 2026 Formula 1 comeback reflects a broader strategy linking performance, EVs and brand power. Jay Hirano/Honda Global

    Honda has moved in and out of Formula 1 multiple times over the past 60 years, depending on the state of business. “Business is going good sometimes, and going bad sometimes,” Honda Global CEO Toshihiro Mibe told a roundtable of reporters, including Observer, in Mexico City last week, ahead of the F1 World Championship Grand Prix. “So, sometimes we quit [racing] to focus on the core business,” he said through a translator.

    Next year, Honda will return to F1 as a standalone team in 2026, as F1 grows in global popularity and the Japanese auto giant navigates shifting consumer appetite for EVs, hybrids and internal combustion engine vehicles. As F1 grows in global popularity as the world’s most elite and expensive racing series, Honda’s comeback isn’t just about chasing podiums. It’s a calculated business move to merge performance, electrification, and brand relevance at a time when both automakers and consumers are redefining innovation.

    Honda’s approach to racing has always centered on building brand recognition. The company began its racing journey with motorcycles in the 1960s, when founder Soichiro Honda believed that entering F1 was the only way for the small Japanese carmaker to be taken seriously on the global stage. At the time, Honda had barely begun building cars—let alone the powerful machines needed for F1.

    Honda won its first F1 race in 1965 with the RA272, a car it brought back to Mexico City last week to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that victory. Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda took on the challenge of driving the vintage F1 car around Mexico’s 2.5-mile track ahead of the race on Oct. 26. Though the car stalled twice and needed a push out of the pits, it was a sight to behold.

    In the 1980s, Honda established the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) to focus on motorcycle racing and prove its engineering prowess. Its racing technology eventually trickled down to consumer bikes. In 2022, HRC absorbed Honda’s four-wheel racing programs, including IndyCar and F1, to “provide some stability” for car racing and investment, said Mibe.

    Honda officially exited F1 at the end of the 2021 season to focus on EV development. But the company is now preparing a full-scale return in 2026 as the power unit supplier to the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team.

    “The reason we decided to participate in F1 is that our business is concentrated in North America, and because of Netflix, F1 has taken off,” Mibe said. “With the new homoglation, and our strong relationship between F1 and the U.S., we can use that for our business.”

    Honda’s largest market is the U.S., where it holds roughly 9 percent of the automobile market. This week, American Honda reported strong October sales, with total U.S. deliveries up 3.6 percent year-over-year. Growth was driven by demand for internal combustion vehicles, including the Accord and Passport, as well as electrified models like the popular CR-V hybrid. Notably, Honda sold a record 30,471 electric cars in October.

    A group of people surrounding a vintage Honda race car.A group of people surrounding a vintage Honda race car.
    The Honda RA272 at the Formula 1 World Championship Grand Prix. Jay Hirano/Honda Global

    The race track is a sandbox for new tech

    Racing has always been a proving ground for automakers to push the limits of technology. F1, known for its blistering speed, high thermal loads and extreme engineering precision, is an ideal environment to test advancements in everything from batteries to engines.

    The demands of F1—extreme acceleration, punishing temperatures, and ultra-efficient energy recovery—push performance, packaging and durability to levels far beyond what consumers experience. Yet, many of those lessons eventually find their way into everyday vehicles.

    Honda’s decision to return to F1 was driven in part by upcoming regulation changes, said Ikuo Takeishi, general manager of HRC’s automobile racing division. Beginning in 2026, all F1 power units must be 50 percent electric and 50 percent internal combustion, powered by sustainable fuel. That balance aligns with Honda’s long-standing focus on hybrid and battery technologies. At the same time, it underscores how Honda, like many major automakers, continues to rely on internal combustion technology amid headwinds for EVs and shifting consumer preferences.

    “The technology we’re using in F1 won’t show up directly in consumer cars,” Takeishi said. “But much of what we learn on the track can show up in consumer cars,” he added, citing improvements in battery technology and efficiency gains from high-powered magnets.

    Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe on the Carmaker’s High-Stakes Return to Formula 1

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    Abigail Bassett

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  • Exclusive | Trump Officials Torpedoed Nvidia’s Push to Export AI Chips to China

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    Shortly before President Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, an urgent issue emerged. Trump wanted to discuss a request by Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang to allow sales of a new generation of artificial-intelligence chips to China, current and former administration officials said.

    Greenlighting the export of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips would be a seismic policy shift potentially giving China, the U.S.’s biggest geopolitical competitor, a technological accelerant. Huang—who speaks to Trump often—has lobbied relentlessly to maintain access to the Chinese market.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Lingling Wei

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  • WIRED Roundup: Alpha School, Grokipedia, and Real Estate AI Videos

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    The thing that gets me, and I’m really curious about your take on this, Brian, as someone with children, that the guides these people that were brought in, they were actually in the room with students helping them with any technological glitches or settling anything that’s happening in the real world. While some had experience as educators, others did not, and not only that, Alpha actually had often targeted individuals without teaching backgrounds, going instead for folks that were in the entrepreneurship space, because nothing screams early childhood education like Series A funding. I’m so confused as to what the entire point of this is.

    Brian Barrett: It feels reductive, right? It is the idea that school is about grades and grades are about numbers and coding is all that matters. When obviously school is about learning to interact with people, it is a social thing as much as it is a numbers thing. I think too, how do you quantify and nextify art class and finger painting and all the other things that are good for social development, good for mental development that aren’t crunching numbers. And it just feels like that’s not part of the calculus here, which is a shame.

    Leah Feiger: And we didn’t even get into a core WIRED area of interest, which is surveillance issues. These kids are being surveilled.

    Brian Barrett: Yeah. There was a report that our reporter, Todd found that there was eye tracking software involved in this. Again, for some parents, I am sure that this is great, and again, Alpha School has a lot of parents who say, “Yes, this is what we want.” They’ve got a lot of great reviews, a lot of glowing press. What we found in Brownsville was not that.

    Leah Feiger: And as that last little surveillance anecdote, there’s one piece of reporting that Todd shared that really freaked me out of this one student who at home received a notification that she’d been flagged for an anti-pattern or a distraction by the Alpha system while she was working on her schoolwork. It turns out she says that Alpha system sent a video of her in her pajamas, taken from the computer’s webcam that showed her talking to her younger sister. Again, she’s at home. This doesn’t end the minute that they leave the classroom either. This is so beyond. And I’m sure there’s the case that everyone’s making, oh, they’re collecting data. This is a holistic experience. That’s still creepy to me.

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    Brian Barrett, Leah Feiger

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  • Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to UAE under US-approved deal

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    WASHINGTON — Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.

    The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.

    The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S.

    Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he will allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he wouldn’t.

    “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.”

    The UAE’s ability to access chips is tied to its pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in U.S. energy and AI-related projects, an outsized sum given its annual GDP is roughly $540 billion.

    The UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the arrangement was “setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”

    Microsoft’s announcement Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the UAE, which is says has some of the highest per-capita usage of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated in the UAE more than 21,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.

    “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” said a company statement.

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  • Inside AI’s rapid expansion: What investors need to know | Insights | Bloomberg Professional Services

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  • Microsoft to Ship 60,000 Nvidia AI Chips to UAE Under US-Approved Deal

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.

    The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.

    The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S.

    Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he will allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he wouldn’t.

    “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.”

    The UAE’s ability to access chips is tied to its pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in U.S. energy and AI-related projects, an outsized sum given its annual GDP is roughly $540 billion.

    The UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the arrangement was “setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”

    Microsoft’s announcement Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the UAE, which is says has some of the highest per-capita usage of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated in the UAE more than 21,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.

    “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” said a company statement.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • What to Stream: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ Tracy Morgan, Kim Kardashian and ‘Downton Abbey’

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    The earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and Tracy Morgan returning to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The upstairs-downstairs drama “Downton Abbey” bids farewell in a final movie, Kim Kardashian plays a divorce attorney in Hulu’s “All’s Fair” and Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year.

    New movies to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — Guillermo del Toro realizes his long-held dream of a sumptuous Mary Shelley adaptation in “Frankenstein” (Friday Nov. 7 on Netflix). Del Toro’s film, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster, uses all the trappings of handmade movie craft to give Shelley’s classic an epic sweep. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr wrote: “Everything about ‘Frankenstein’ is larger than life, from the runtime to the emotions on display.”

    — Matt Shakman’s endearingly earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Wednesday on Disney+) helps alleviate a checkered-at-best history of big-screen adaptations of the classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn play Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, respectively. In 1964, they work to defend Earth from its imminent destruction by Galactus. In my review, I praised “First Steps” as “a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.”

    John Cougar Mellencamp performs both on stage and on one of two large screen television screens set up at the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill. on Sept. 22, 1985 during the Farm Aid concert. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, file)

    — “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” (Friday, Nov. 7 on Peacock) bids goodbye to the Crawleys 15 years after Julian Fellowes first debuted his upstairs-downstairs drama. The cast of the third and final film, directed by Simon Curtis, includes Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Paul Giamatti. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that the film gives “loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey.” Peacock is also streaming the two previous movies and all six seasons of “Downton Abbey.”

    — “The Materialists” (Friday, Nov. 7 on HBO Max), Celine Song’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2023 breakthrough “Past Lives,” stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in a romantic triangle. The New York-set film adds a dose of economic reality to a romantic comedy plot in what was, for A24, a modest summer hit. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck called it “a smart rom-com that tries to be honest about life and still leaves us smiling.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    New music to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — The legendary Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year. “Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle,” out Friday, Nov. 7, is exactly what it sounds like: Nelson offering new interpretations of 11 classic songs written by Merle Haggard. And we mean classics: Check out Nelson’s latest take on “Okie From Muskogee,” “Mama Tried,” “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink” and more.

    — Where’s the future of the global music industry? All over, surely, but it would be more than just a little wise to look to Brazil. Not too dissimilar to how Anitta brought her country’s funk genre to an international mainstream through diverse collaborations and genre meddling, so too is Ludmilla. On Thursday, she will release a new album, “Fragmentos,” fresh off the heels of her sultry, bilingual collaboration with Grammy winner Victoria Monét, “Cam Girl.” It’s a combination of R&B, funk and then some.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    New series to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — Tracy Morgan returns to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch.” Morgan plays a widowed empty-nester whose world is turned around when his adult children move home with his grandkids in tow. The Paramount+ series debuts Monday.

    — Kim Kardashian says she will soon learn whether she passed the bar exam to become a lawyer, but she plays a sought-after divorce attorney in “All’s Fair,” her new TV series for Hulu. Kardashian stars alongside Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Naomi Watts and Teyana Taylor in the show about an all-female law firm. Ryan Murphy created the show with Kardashian in mind after she acted in “American Horror Story: Delicate.” It premieres Tuesday on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

    — The old saying about truth being stranger than fiction applies to Netflix’s new four-episode limited-series “Death by Lightning.” It’s a historical dramatization (with some comedy thrown in) about how James Garfield became the 20th president of the United States. He was shot four months later by a man named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), who was desperate for Garfield’s attention. Two months after that, Garfield died from complications of his injuries. It’s a wild story that also features Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham. The series premieres Thursday.

    — HBO offers up a new docuseries about the life of retired baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. “Alex Vs. A-Rod” features intimate interviews with people who are related to and know Rodriguez, as well as the man himself. The three-part series premieres Thursday.

    — The next installment of “Wicked,” called “Wicked: For Good,” flies into theaters Nov. 21 and NBC has created a musical special to pump up the release. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande lead “Wicked: One Wonderful Night,” a concert event that premieres Thursday on NBC and streams on Peacock Friday, Nov. 7. Additional film cast members like Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode and Ethan Slater appear as well.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    New video games to play from Nov. 3-9

    — It’s going to be a while until the next Legend of Zelda game, but if you’re craving some time with the princess, check out Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. In this spinoff, a prequel to 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda travels back in time to join forces with the Six Sages in a war against the invader Ganondorf. You can also drag another human into battle with split-screen or the GameShare feature on Nintendo’s new console. Like the previous collaborations between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, it’s more hack-and-slash action than exploration and discovery. It arrives Thursday on Switch 2.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • Microsoft Enters Approximately $9.7B Contract With IREN That Gives It Access to Nvidia Chips

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    Microsoft has entered into a $9.7 billion cloud services contract with artificial intelligence cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips.

    The five-year deal, which includes a 20% prepayment, will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand. Last week the software maker reported its quarterly sales grew 18% to $77.7 billion, beating Wall Street expectations while also surprising some investors with the huge amounts of money it is spending to expand its cloud computing infrastructure and address the growing need for AI tools.

    Microsoft spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips and much of the rest related to data center real estate.

    “IREN’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner,” Jonathan Tinter, president of business development and ventures at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This collaboration unlocks new growth opportunities for both companies and the customers we serve.”

    Microsoft also announced new deal with OpenAI last week that pushed the Redmond, Washington, company to $4 trillion in valuation for the second time this year. The agreement gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation but changes some of the details of their close partnership. Microsoft’s $135 billion stake will be just ahead of the OpenAI nonprofit’s $130 billion stake in the for-profit company.

    IREN also said Monday that it signed a deal with Dell Technologies to buy the chips and ancillary equipment for about $5.8 billion. The Australian company anticipates the chips being deployed in phases through next year at its Childress, Texas campus.

    Shares of IREN jumped 22% before the opening bell in the U.S. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly,.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • NASA’s next Mars mission will help future astronauts on the Red Planet

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    CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — NASA and Blue Origin are planning to launch the ESCAPADE mission, where a pair of satellites will study Mars’ magnetosphere. ESCAPADE will eventually help future astronauts, the mission’s lead scientist shared. 

    What You Need To Know

    • Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission
    • The two satellites called Blue and Gold will study the Martian Magnetosphere and how solar winds impact Mars
    • The mission’s principal investigator Dr. Rob Lillis shares a bit more about ESCAPADE with Spectrum News

    Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission sometime next week.

    Before that happens, the mission’s principal investigator Dr. Rob Lillis shared a bit more about ESCAPADE and how it will help humans once they get to Mars.

    Taking us on an ESCAPADE

    This NASA mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, along with Rocket Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Advanced Space LLC, and Blue Origin, explained Lillis.

    The two satellites — called Blue and Gold in honor of the University of California, Berkeley’s colors, said Lillis — will be used to study Mars’ magnetic and space weather.

    “The two spacecraft … will be characterizing the magnetic and space weather (i.e. plasma, radiation) environment on their way to Mars, then after they achieve Mars orbit, they’ll be measuring this environment in the solar wind and within Mars’ upper atmosphere, including rates of atmospheric escape,” Lillis explained to Spectrum News in an email interview.

    There are many benefits to having two satellites for a mission like this, as it will be easier to measure solar winds and other conditions, he stated.

    “With a single orbiter (satellite), we could measure conditions in the upstream solar wind, but then have to wait a couple of hours before the spacecraft orbit brought us into the upper atmosphere to measure the rates of atmospheric escape. That’s too long: we know the space weather propagates through the system in only one or two minutes. With ESCAPADE, we can measure cause and effect at the same time, i.e. the solar wind and upper atmosphere simultaneously.  To start to understand this highly dynamic system, we need that cause-and-effect perspective,” according to Lillis.

    How the Martian magnetosphere can tell a story

    Mars’ magnetosphere is distinct and complex due to the magnetic and plasma environment that surrounds the planet, which is caused by the strong magnetized rocks in the planet’s crust and the electric currents in the upper atmosphere created by solar and atmospheric winds, Lillis commented.

    And it is why the magnetosphere is so different from other planets in our little solar system.

    “Unlike Earth, Mars’ relatively weak and patchy magnetosphere means it provides less of a protective barrier from the solar wind, which continuously eats away at Mars’ atmosphere. Studying this process helps scientists understand how Mars’ atmosphere has changed over time and what conditions might have been like in the past. For instance, a stronger ancient magnetosphere probably protected Mars’ atmosphere and surface from harsh solar radiation, possibly creating conditions more favorable for life,” Lillis shared.

    But also understanding Mars’ magnetosphere can help with future human missions to the Red Planet, noted Lillis.

    “Knowing how Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere interacts with potentially dangerous space weather helps us better forecast its effects and design better protection for both spacecraft and astronauts, both on the surface and in orbit.  In addition, variability in Mars’ ionosphere can distort radio signals, causing difficulties for human communication and navigation on the surface,” he wrote.

    Lillis added that when humans travel to Mars, they will need to rely on accurate space weather to stay safe from solar radiation storms, and understanding the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere will help with that.

    If the mission does launch at the end of this year and if the long commute goes well, it will still be a nail-biting experience, Lillis shared.

    “We will be biting our nails on September 1, 2027, as we await confirmation that Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) has gone smoothly. This is what we call a ‘do or die’ maneuver: if the engines fail to fire at just the right time and for just the right duration, the spacecraft could be stranded in their own orbits around the sun, never to come back to Mars. If we are successful, we’ll be celebrating at our Mission Ops Center in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, with a couple of cheeky beverages I’m sure,” he stated.

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  • NASA’s next Mars mission will help future astronauts on the Red Planet

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    CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — NASA and Blue Origin are planning to launch the ESCAPADE mission, where a pair of satellites will study Mars’ magnetosphere. ESCAPADE will eventually help future astronauts, the mission’s lead scientist shared. 

    What You Need To Know

    • Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission
    • The two satellites called Blue and Gold will study the Martian Magnetosphere and how solar winds impact Mars
    • The mission’s principal investigator Dr. Rob Lillis shares a bit more about ESCAPADE with Spectrum News

    Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission sometime next week.

    Before that happens, the mission’s principal investigator Dr. Rob Lillis shared a bit more about ESCAPADE and how it will help humans once they get to Mars.

    Taking us on an ESCAPADE

    This NASA mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, along with Rocket Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Advanced Space LLC, and Blue Origin, explained Lillis.

    The two satellites — called Blue and Gold in honor of the University of California, Berkeley’s colors, said Lillis — will be used to study Mars’ magnetic and space weather.

    “The two spacecraft … will be characterizing the magnetic and space weather (i.e. plasma, radiation) environment on their way to Mars, then after they achieve Mars orbit, they’ll be measuring this environment in the solar wind and within Mars’ upper atmosphere, including rates of atmospheric escape,” Lillis explained to Spectrum News in an email interview.

    There are many benefits to having two satellites for a mission like this, as it will be easier to measure solar winds and other conditions, he stated.

    “With a single orbiter (satellite), we could measure conditions in the upstream solar wind, but then have to wait a couple of hours before the spacecraft orbit brought us into the upper atmosphere to measure the rates of atmospheric escape. That’s too long: we know the space weather propagates through the system in only one or two minutes. With ESCAPADE, we can measure cause and effect at the same time, i.e. the solar wind and upper atmosphere simultaneously.  To start to understand this highly dynamic system, we need that cause-and-effect perspective,” according to Lillis.

    How the Martian magnetosphere can tell a story

    Mars’ magnetosphere is distinct and complex due to the magnetic and plasma environment that surrounds the planet, which is caused by the strong magnetized rocks in the planet’s crust and the electric currents in the upper atmosphere created by solar and atmospheric winds, Lillis commented.

    And it is why the magnetosphere is so different from other planets in our little solar system.

    “Unlike Earth, Mars’ relatively weak and patchy magnetosphere means it provides less of a protective barrier from the solar wind, which continuously eats away at Mars’ atmosphere. Studying this process helps scientists understand how Mars’ atmosphere has changed over time and what conditions might have been like in the past. For instance, a stronger ancient magnetosphere probably protected Mars’ atmosphere and surface from harsh solar radiation, possibly creating conditions more favorable for life,” Lillis shared.

    But also understanding Mars’ magnetosphere can help with future human missions to the Red Planet, noted Lillis.

    “Knowing how Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere interacts with potentially dangerous space weather helps us better forecast its effects and design better protection for both spacecraft and astronauts, both on the surface and in orbit.  In addition, variability in Mars’ ionosphere can distort radio signals, causing difficulties for human communication and navigation on the surface,” he wrote.

    Lillis added that when humans travel to Mars, they will need to rely on accurate space weather to stay safe from solar radiation storms, and understanding the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere will help with that.

    If the mission does launch at the end of this year and if the long commute goes well, it will still be a nail-biting experience, Lillis shared.

    “We will be biting our nails on September 1, 2027, as we await confirmation that Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) has gone smoothly. This is what we call a ‘do or die’ maneuver: if the engines fail to fire at just the right time and for just the right duration, the spacecraft could be stranded in their own orbits around the sun, never to come back to Mars. If we are successful, we’ll be celebrating at our Mission Ops Center in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, with a couple of cheeky beverages I’m sure,” he stated.

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  • AI song generator Udio offers brief window for downloads after Universal settlement upsets users

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    Artificial intelligence song generation platform Udio said it would give its frustrated users 48 hours starting Monday to download their songs before the company shifts to a new business model to comply with a legal settlement.

    The short reprieve comes after Udio on Wednesday said it had settled copyright infringement claims brought by Universal Music, a label with artists including Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

    AI companies are now fighting so many copyright lawsuits that a tech industry lobby group, the Chamber of Progress, last week called on President Donald Trump to sign an executive order directing federal attorneys “to intervene in legal cases” to defend the industry’s practice of building generative AI tools by feeding them on copyrighted works.

    Citing more than 50 pending federal cases, the group asked for help stopping court fights leading to “potentially company-killing penalties” that threaten AI innovation. But artists have warned that AI tools built on their works also threaten their livelihoods.

    In the biggest settlement so far, AI company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion — or $3,000 per book — to settle claims from authors who alleged the company illegally pirated nearly half a million of their works to train its chatbot.

    Udio and Universal didn’t disclose the financial terms of their new music licensing agreements. They also said they will team up on a new streaming platform.

    As part of the agreement, Udio immediately stopped allowing people to download songs they’ve created, which sparked a backlash and apparent exodus among paying users.

    “We know the pain it causes to you,” Udio later said in a post on Reddit’s Udio forum, where users were venting about feeling betrayed by the platform’s surprise move and complained that it limited what they could do with their music.

    Udio said it still must stop downloads as it transitions to a new streaming platform next year. But over the weekend, it said it will give people 48 hours starting at 11 a.m. Eastern time Monday to keep their “past creations.”

    “Udio is a small company operating in an incredibly complex and evolving space, and we believe that partnering directly with artists and songwriters is the way forward,” said Udio’s post.

    The settlement deal was the music industry’s first since Universal, along with Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Records, sued Udio and another AI song generator, Suno, last year over copyright infringement.

    Udio and Suno pioneered AI song generation technology, which can spit out new songs based on prompts typed into a chatbot-style text box. Users, who don’t need musical talent, can merely request a tune in the style of, for example, classic rock, 1980s synth-pop or West Coast rap.

    Record labels have accused the platforms of exploiting the recorded works of artists without compensating them.

    In its lawsuit filed against Udio last year, Universal sought to show how specific AI-generated songs made on Udio closely resembled Universal-owned classics like Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” The Temptations’ “My Girl,” ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and holiday favorites like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”

    A musician-led group, the Artist Rights Alliance, said Friday that the Universal-Udio settlement represents a positive step in creating a “legitimate AI marketplace” but raised questions about whether independent artists, session musicians and songwriters will be sufficiently protected from AI practices that present an “existential threat” to their careers.

    “Licensing is the only version of AI’s future that doesn’t result in the mass destruction of art and culture,” the group said. “But this promise must be available to all music creators, not just to major corporate copyright holders.”

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  • Flight delays persist as government shutdown leads to air traffic controller shortages

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    Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Sunday amid air traffic controller shortages as the government shutdown entered its second month, with Newark airport in New Jersey experiencing delays of two to three hours.

    New York City’s Emergency Management office said on X that Newark delays often ripple out to the region’s other airports.

    Travelers flying to, from or through New York “should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections. Anyone flying today should check flight status before heading to the airport and expect longer waits,” the social media post added.

    George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago O’Hare were also seeing dozens of delays and one or two cancellations, along with major airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Miami, according to FlightAware.

    As of Sunday evening, FlightAware said there were 4,295 delays and 557 cancelations of flights within, into or out of the U.S., not all related to controller shortages. In July, before the shutdown, about 69% of flights were on time and 2.5% were canceled.

    U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that travelers will start to see more flight disruptions the longer controllers go without a paycheck.

    “We work overtime to make sure the system is safe. And we will slow traffic down, you’ll see delays, we’ll have flights canceled to make sure the system is safe,” Duffy said Sunday on CBS’S “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

    He also said he does not plan to fire air traffic controllers who don’t show up for work.

    “Again when they’re making decisions to feed their families, I’m not going to fire air traffic controllers,” Duffy said. “They need support, they need money, they need a paycheck. They don’t need to be fired.”

    Earlier in October, Duffy had warned air traffic controllers who had called in sick instead of working without a paycheck during the shutdown risked being fired. Even a small number of controllers not showing up for work is causing problems because the FAA has a critical shortage of them.

    The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday on X that nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers have been working without pay for weeks.

    Staffing shortages can occur both in regional control centers that manage multiple airports and in individual airport towers, but they don’t always lead to flight disruptions. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, flight data showed strong on-time performance at most major U.S. airports for the month of October despite isolated staffing problems throughout the month.

    Before the shutdown, the FAA was already dealing with a long-standing shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers.

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  • Who is Zico Kolter? A professor leads OpenAI safety panel with power to halt unsafe AI releases

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    If you believe artificial intelligence poses grave risks to humanity, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now.

    Zico Kolter leads a 4-person panel at OpenAI that has the authority to halt the ChatGPT maker’s release of new AI systems if it finds them unsafe. That could be technology so powerful that an evildoer could use it to make weapons of mass destruction. It could also be a new chatbot so poorly designed that it will hurt people’s mental health.

    “Very much we’re not just talking about existential concerns here,” Kolter said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re talking about the entire swath of safety and security issues and critical topics that come up when we start talking about these very widely used AI systems.”

    OpenAI tapped the computer scientist to be chair of its Safety and Security Committee more than a year ago, but the position took on heightened significance last week when California and Delaware regulators made Kolter’s oversight a key part of their agreements to allow OpenAI to form a new business structure to more easily raise capital and make a profit.

    Safety has been central to OpenAI’s mission since it was founded as a nonprofit research laboratory a decade ago with a goal of building better-than-human AI that benefits humanity. But after its release of ChatGPT sparked a global AI commercial boom, the company has been accused of rushing products to market before they were fully safe in order to stay at the front of the race. Internal divisions that led to the temporary ouster of CEO Sam Altman in 2023 brought those concerns that it had strayed from its mission to a wider audience.

    The San Francisco-based organization faced pushback — including a lawsuit from co-founder Elon Musk — when it began steps to convert itself into a more traditional for-profit company to continue advancing its technology.

    Agreements announced last week by OpenAI along with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings aimed to assuage some of those concerns.

    At the heart of the formal commitments is a promise that decisions about safety and security must come before financial considerations as OpenAI forms a new public benefit corporation that is technically under the control of its nonprofit OpenAI Foundation.

    Kolter will be a member of the nonprofit’s board but not on the for-profit board. But he will have “full observation rights” to attend all for-profit board meetings and have access to information it gets about AI safety decisions, according to Bonta’s memorandum of understanding with OpenAI. Kolter is the only person, besides Bonta, named in the lengthy document.

    Kolter said the agreements largely confirm that his safety committee, formed last year, will retain the authorities it already had. The other three members also sit on the OpenAI board — one of them is former U.S. Army General Paul Nakasone, who was commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. Altman stepped down from the safety panel last year in a move seen as giving it more independence.

    “We have the ability to do things like request delays of model releases until certain mitigations are met,” Kolter said. He declined to say if the safety panel has ever had to halt or mitigate a release, citing the confidentiality of its proceedings.

    Kolter said there will be a variety of concerns about AI agents to consider in the coming months and years, from cybersecurity – “Could an agent that encounters some malicious text on the internet accidentally exfiltrate data?” – to security concerns surrounding AI model weights, which are numerical values that influence how an AI system performs.

    “But there’s also topics that are either emerging or really specific to this new class of AI model that have no real analogues in traditional security,” he said. “Do models enable malicious users to have much higher capabilities when it comes to things like designing bioweapons or performing malicious cyberattacks?”

    “And then finally, there’s just the impact of AI models on people,” he said. “The impact to people’s mental health, the effects of people interacting with these models and what that can cause. All of these things, I think, need to be addressed from a safety standpoint.”

    OpenAI has already faced criticism this year about the behavior of its flagship chatbot, including a wrongful-death lawsuit from California parents whose teenage son killed himself in April after lengthy interactions with ChatGPT.

    Kolter, director of Carnegie Mellon’s machine learning department, began studying AI as a Georgetown University freshman in the early 2000s, long before it was fashionable.

    “When I started working in machine learning, this was an esoteric, niche area,” he said. “We called it machine learning because no one wanted to use the term AI because AI was this old-time field that had overpromised and underdelivered.”

    Kolter, 42, has been following OpenAI for years and was close enough to its founders that he attended its launch party at an AI conference in 2015. Still, he didn’t expect how rapidly AI would advance.

    “I think very few people, even people working in machine learning deeply, really anticipated the current state we are in, the explosion of capabilities, the explosion of risks that are emerging right now,” he said.

    AI safety advocates will be closely watching OpenAI’s restructuring and Kolter’s work. One of the company’s sharpest critics says he’s “cautiously optimistic,” particularly if Kolter’s group “is actually able to hire staff and play a robust role.”

    “I think he has the sort of background that makes sense for this role. He seems like a good choice to be running this,” said Nathan Calvin, general counsel at the small AI policy nonprofit Encode. Calvin, who OpenAI targeted with a subpoena at his home as part of its fact-finding to defend against the Musk lawsuit, said he wants OpenAI to stay true to its original mission.

    “Some of these commitments could be a really big deal if the board members take them seriously,” Calvin said. “They also could just be the words on paper and pretty divorced from anything that actually happens. I think we don’t know which one of those we’re in yet.”

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