Elon Musk’s AI firm apologizes after chatbot Grok praises Hitler

xAI’s lengthy apology for antisemitic remarks says they ‘apologize for the horrific behavior many experienced’

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has issued an apology after its chatbot Grok made a slew of antisemitic and Adolf Hitler-praising comments earlier this week on X.

On Saturday, xAI released a lengthy apology in which it said: “First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.”

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Nvidia becomes first company to reach $4tn in market value

Ongoing surge in demand for AI technology fueled stratospheric rise of chipmaker’s value

Chipmaker Nvidia became the first public company in history to scale a $4tn market value on Wednesday as its stock price continues a years-long stratospheric rise.

Shares of the top chip designer rose roughly 2.4% to $164, benefiting from the ongoing surge in demand for artificial intelligence technologies. Nvidia’s chips and associated software are considered world leaders for building artificial intelligence products.

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‘We’re an antidote’: Boss of Legoland owner on the thrill of theme parks in a world of technology

Fiona Eastwood says real-life experiences that bring people together are vital amid a battle for attention in the digital era

Artificial intelligence is in the process of upending the business models of companies all over the world, but when it comes to the $100bn (£73bn) global theme park business the thrill of “big metal” rollercoasters is still the biggest draw.

Fiona Eastwood, the boss of the sector’s second biggest operator, Merlin Entertainments, says that in a world dominated by battles over screen time it is real-life experiences that provide families with an “antidote to phones and digital technology”.

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China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match

Footage of three-a-side game shows humanoids struggling to kick the ball or stay upright

They think it’s all over … for human footballers at least.

The pitch wasn’t the only artificial element on display at a football match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.

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NHS will use AI in warning system to catch potential safety scandals early

Patient safety measure is part of 10-year plan to tackle poor standards in mental health and maternity services

The NHS is to become the first health system in the world to use AI to analyse hospital databases and catch potential safety scandals early, the government has said.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the technology will provide an early warning system which could detect patterns or trends and trigger urgent inspections. The scheme is part of the 10-year plan for the NHS that is due to be published by Wes Streeting this week.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s secret list of top AI talent to poach has tech world atwitter

Meta CEO reportedly to offer pay packages worth up to $100m, a gambit OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls ‘crazy’

Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta’s attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.

Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO’s quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m.

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Doge employee ‘Big Balls’ has resigned, says White House official

One of Doge’s best-known workers Edward Coristine, 19, quits a month after his former boss Elon Musk’s departure

One of the US so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) service’s best-known employees, 19-year-old Edward Coristine, has resigned from the US government, a White House official said on Tuesday, a month after the acrimonious departure of his former boss Elon Musk.

The White House official gave no further details on the move and Coristine did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

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UK firm not racist for rejecting Chinese applicant over security concerns, tribunal rules

Judge says not discrimination to refuse to hire people from ‘hostile’ states like China and Russia if it may pose risk to British security

Refusing to give a job to Chinese and Russian people in companies that deal with issues of national security and require security clearance is not racist, an employment tribunal has ruled.

It is not discriminatory to stop people from “hostile” states taking up certain jobs in the defence sector because of the risk to British security, the judgment says.

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Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years

Andrew Jassy tells white collar workers that such technology means fewer people will be needed for some jobs

The boss of Amazon has told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.

Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.

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Workers in UK need to embrace AI or risk being left behind, minister says

Peter Kyle calls on employees and businesses to act now to get to grips with technology amid forecasts of job losses

Workers in the UK should turn their trepidation over AI into “exhilaration” by giving it a try or they risk being left behind by those who have, the technology secretary has said.

Peter Kyle called on employees and businesses to “act now” on getting to grips with the tech, with the generational gap in usage needing only two and a half hours of training to bridge.

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Chinese tech firms freeze AI tools in crackdown on exam cheats

Suspension comes as 13m students take four-day gaokao tests for limited spots at country’s universities

Big Chinese tech companies appear to have turned off some AI functions to prevent cheating during the country’s highly competitive university entrance exams.

More than 13.3 million students are sitting the four-day gaokao exams, which began on Saturday and determine if and where students can secure a limited place at university.

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High court tells UK lawyers to stop misuse of AI after fake case-law citations

Ruling follows two cases blighted by actual or suspected use of artificial intelligence in legal work

The high court has told senior lawyers to take urgent action to prevent the misuse of artificial intelligence after dozens of fake case-law citations were put before the courts that were either completely fictitious or contained made-up passages.

Lawyers are increasingly using AI systems to help them build legal arguments, but two cases this year were blighted by made-up case-law citations that were either definitely or suspected to have been generated by AI.

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Amazon ‘testing humanoid robots to deliver packages’

Tech firm is building ‘humanoid park’ in US to try out robots, which could ‘spring out’ of its vans

Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and “spring out” of its vans.

The $2tn technology company is building a “humanoid park” in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project.

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Super Trouper meets supercomputer: AI helping Abba star to write musical

Björn Ulvaeus tells audience at SXSW London the technology is ‘very bad at lyrics’ but has helped him break through creative impasses

After bringing a blockbuster hologram version of Abba to a purpose-built venue in east London, Björn Ulvaeus’s next technological exploration is a musical that he’s written with the help of artificial intelligence.

Ulvaeus, 80, told an audience at SXSW London that he was “three-quarters” of the way through writing a new musical which he has created with assistance from AI songwriting tools.

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Ministers offer concessions on AI and copyright to avoid fifth Lords defeat

Exclusive: Data bill faces being shelved amid standoff over plans to allow AI firms to use copyrighted content

Defiant peers have delivered an ultimatum to offer artists copyright protection against artificial intelligence or risk losing a key piece of legislation.

The government suffered a fifth defeat in the House of Lords over controversial plans to allow the AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material.

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Yvette Cooper quizzed over immigration and prisons crisis – UK politics live

Home secretary appears to accept early release proposals will put more pressure on police as she is questioned at select committee

Defence sources believe that Britain will be forced to sign up to a target of lifting defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 at this month’s Nato summit after a campaign by the alliance’s secretary general to keep Donald Trump onboard, Dan Sabbagh reports.

Later today the data (use and access) bill will return to the Commons from the Lords in the third round of “ping pong” between the two houses. It is not unusual for “ping pong” to go on for a round or two, as bills which are almost ready for royal assent shuttle between the elected and unelected chamber while they try to resolve matters of dispute. But, in this case, the Lords are digging in a bit more than usual.

The government has been accused of “supporting thieves”, as it suffered a further heavy defeat at the hands of peers pressing their demand for steps to safeguard the creative industries against artificial intelligence.

The fourth and latest setback for the Labour frontbench over the issue in the House of Lords was inflicted despite pleas by a minister for the upper chamber to end its prolonged stand-off over the data (use and access) bill.

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Meta signs deal with nuclear plant to power AI and datacenters for 20 years

Facebook and Instagram parent’s deal follows other big tech companies signing agreements with power companies

Meta on Tuesday said it had struck an agreement to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for 20 years.

Meta’s deal with Constellation Energy is the social networking company’s first with a nuclear power plant. Other large tech companies are looking to secure electricity as US power demand rises significantly in part due to the needs of artificial intelligence and datacenters. Google has reached agreements to supply its datacenters with nuclear power via a half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. Microsoft’s similar contract will restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history.

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Musk is pivoting from DC and Doge’s failures – and wants investors to know

The billionaire mogul is signaling far and wide that he’s back to business, and even criticizing Trump’s tax bill

Elon Musk really wants the public – and investors – to know that he’s leaving Washington DC behind.

In a series of interviews and social media posts this week, Musk has criticized Donald Trump’s marquee tax bill and emphasized his recommitment to leading SpaceX, Tesla and the artificial intelligence company xAI. The world’s richest person claimed that he was back to working around the clock at his companies – to the point of sleeping in conference rooms and factory offices once again.

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AI tool trial could save equivalent of 1.5m meals in food waste

Nestlé is among UK companies taking part in project to ‘design out’ waste by redistributing surplus product

Millions of meals worth of wasted food could be redistributed thanks to an artificial intelligence tool being trialled by companies across the UK, including Nestlé.

The AI tool, which has already generated an 87% reduction in edible food waste at one of the Swiss conglomerate’s factories over its first two-week trial period, is intended to “design out” food waste by providing real-time monitoring, tracking and insights of wasted ingredients and products.

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Chicago Sun-Times confirms AI was used to create reading list of books that don’t exist

Outlet calls story, created by freelancer working with one of the newpaper’s content partner, a ‘learning moment’

Illinois’ prominent Chicago Sun-Times newspaper has confirmed that a summer reading list, which included several recommendations for books that don’t exist, was created using artificial intelligence by a freelancer who worked with one of their content partners.

Social media posts began to circulate on Tuesday criticizing the paper for allegedly using the AI software ChatGPT to generate an article with book recommendations for the upcoming summer season called “Summer reading list for 2025”. As such chatbots are known to make up information, a phenomenon often referred to as “AI hallucination”, the article contains several fake titles attached to real authors.

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