Category Archives: OpenAI

Canada seeks answers from OpenAI for failing to alert police after suspending school shooter’s account

Posted on by

Company had suspended account of Tumbler Ridge shooter in June 2025 over ‘furtherance of violent activities’

Canada’s artificial intelligence minister says he has summoned representatives from the technology company OpenAI after the company declined to alert police after suspending the account of a user who became the perpetrator of one of the country’s worst-ever school shootings.

Evan Solomon says he is “deeply disturbed” by reports that the company, which operates the popular ChatGPT chatbot, suspended the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar over the “furtherance of violent activities” in June 2025 but did not reach out to Canadian law enforcement.

Continue reading...

Greek secondary school teachers to be trained in using AI in classroom

Posted on by

Some teachers and pupils voice concerns about pilot programme after government’s agreement with OpenAI

Secondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system.

This week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI.

Continue reading...

Harvard to investigate Larry Summers’s Epstein ties as he exits OpenAI board

Posted on by

Newly released Epstein documents drag the ex-treasury secretary into deeper scrutiny as Harvard widens its review

Harvard is set to launch a new investigation into former university president and Bill Clinton economic adviser Larry Summers about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as it also emerged Summers has resigned from the board of OpenAI.

The moves comes after Summers said he would be stepping back from public engagements after emails revealed the extent of his relationship with the late sex offender.

Continue reading...

Has OpenAI really made ChatGPT better for users with mental health problems?

Posted on by

Prompts indicating suicidal ideation got alarming replies, which experts say shows ‘how easy it is to break the model’

An OpenAI statement released this week claimed the company had made its popular service ChatGPT better at supporting users experiencing mental health problems like suicidal ideation or delusions, but experts tell the Guardian they need to do more to truly ensure users are protected.

The Guardian tested several prompts indicating suicidal ideation with the ChatGPT GPT-5 updated model, which is now the default, and got alarming responses from the large language model (LLM) chatbot.

Continue reading...

Trump hosts US tech leaders at White House dinner – minus Elon Musk

Posted on by

Tesla CEO’s absence is marked departure from his constant presence at the White House in early days of Trump 2.0

As Donald Trump hosted leaders from the biggest US tech companies at a lavish White House state dining room dinner on Thursday night, there was one notable absence. Elon Musk, once inseparable from Trump and a constant, contentious presence in the White House, was not in attendance.

The dinner, which included Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, was exactly the type of event where Musk would have sat at Trump’s right hand only a few months ago. Instead, the Tesla CEO stated on his social media platform X that he had been invited but could not make it. He said he planned to send a representative and spent the day on X posting a familiar stream of attacks on immigration and trans people.

Continue reading...

Musk’s AI startup sues OpenAI and Apple over anticompetitive conduct

Posted on by

Lawsuit accuses companies of ‘conspiracy to monopolize markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots’

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is suing OpenAI and Apple over allegations that they are engaging in anticompetitive conduct. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas court on Monday, accuses the companies of “a conspiracy to monopolize the markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots”.

Musk had earlier this month threatened to sue Apple and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, after claiming that Apple was “making it impossible” for any other AI companies to reach the top spot on its app store. Musk’s xAI makes the Grok chatbot, which has struggled to become as prominent as ChatGPT.

Continue reading...

Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister

Posted on by

Exclusive: Deal that could have cost £2bn was floated at meeting between technology secretary Peter Kyle and Sam Altman

The boss of the firm behind ChatGPT and the UK technology secretary discussed a multibillion-pound deal to give the entire country premium access to the AI tool, the Guardian has learned.

Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, talked to Peter Kyle about a potential agreement to give UK residents access to its advanced product.

Continue reading...

Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt

Posted on by

US medical journal article about 60-year-old with bromism warns against using AI app for health information

A US medical journal has warned against using ChatGPT for health information after a man developed a rare condition following an interaction with the chatbot about removing table salt from his diet.

An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a case in which a 60-year-old man developed bromism, also known as bromide toxicity, after consulting ChatGPT.

Continue reading...

OpenAI takes on Meta and DeepSeek with free and customisable AI models

Posted on by

Developer of ChatGPT says new tools will be ‘for wide benefit’, echoing announcement by Mark Zuckerberg

OpenAI is taking on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Chinese rival DeepSeek by launching its own freely available artificial intelligence models.

The ChatGPT developer has announced two “open weight” large language models, which are free to download and can be customised by developers.

Continue reading...

ChatGPT launches study mode to encourage ‘responsible’ academic use

Posted on by

Tool gives guidance rather than serving up complete essays or answers, amid rising AI misuse at universities

ChatGPT is launching a “study mode” to encourage responsible academic use of the chatbot, amid rising cases of misuse of artificial intelligence tools at universities.

The feature, which can be accessed via the chatbot’s tools button, can walk users through complex subjects in a step-by-step format akin to an unfolding academic lesson.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

US authors’ copyright lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft combined in New York with newspaper actions

Posted on by

California cases over AI trainers’ use of work by writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Chabon transferred to consolidate with New York suits from John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen and more

Twelve US copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft have been consolidated in New York, despite most of the authors and news outlets suing the companies being opposed to centralisation.

A transfer order made by the US judicial panel on multidistrict litigation on Thursday said that centralisation will “allow a single judge to coordinate discovery, streamline pretrial proceedings, and eliminate inconsistent rulings”.

Continue reading...

Norwegian files complaint after ChatGPT falsely said he had murdered his children

Posted on by

Arve Hjalmar Holmen, who has never been accused of or convicted of a crime, says chatbot’s response to prompt was defamatory

A Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.

Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a self-described “regular person” with no public profile in Norway, asked ChatGPT for information about himself and received a reply claiming he had killed his own sons.

Continue reading...

OpenAI rejects $97.4bn Musk bid and says company is not for sale

Posted on by

Maker of ChatGPT rebuffs consortium led by Tesla owner and rejects ‘latest attempt to disrupt his competition’

OpenAI on Friday rejected a $97.4bn bid from a consortium led by billionaire Elon Musk for the ChatGPT maker, saying the startup is not for sale.

The unsolicited approach is Musk’s latest attempt to block the startup he co-founded with CEO Sam Altman – but later left – from becoming a for-profit firm, as it looks to secure more capital and stay ahead in the AI race.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk says he’ll drop his $97bn bid for OpenAI if it remains a non-profit

Posted on by

Billionaire’s lawyers say offer will be withdrawn if firm he helped found a decade ago ‘preserves the charity’s mission’

Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4bn offer to buy the non-profit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.

“If OpenAI, Inc’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday. “Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”

Continue reading...

SoftBank ‘in talks’ to invest up to $25bn in OpenAI

Posted on by

Reported move would make Japanese group largest financial backer of US startup behind ChatGPT

The Japanese investment group SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $25bn (£20bn) in OpenAI in a deal that would make it the biggest financial backer of the startup behind ChatGPT.

The lender is considering putting a sum of between $15bn and $25bn into the San Francisco-based company, according to the Financial Times.

Continue reading...

We tried out DeepSeek. It worked well, until we asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan

Posted on by

The AI app soared up the Apple charts and rocked US stocks, but the Chinese chatbot was reluctant to discuss sensitive questions about China and its government

The launch of a new chatbot by Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek triggered a plunge in US tech stocks as it appeared to perform as well as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI models, but using fewer resources.

By Monday, DeepSeek’s AI assistant had rapidly overtaken ChatGPT as the most popular free app in Apple’s US and UK app stores. Despite its popularity with international users, the app appears to censor answers to sensitive questions about China and its government.

What happened on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square?

What happened to Hu Jintao in 2022?

Why is Xi Jinping compared to Winnie-the-Pooh?

What was the Umbrella Revolution?

Continue reading...

US business leaders set to break record on donations to Trump inaugural fund

Posted on by

Donations, not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries seek favor with incoming administration

US business leaders are spending big on Donald Trump’s second inaugural fund, which is predicted to exceed even the record-setting $107m raised in 2017.

The donations, which are not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries and business leaders seek to curry favor with the incoming administration after the president-elect decisively won a second, non-consecutive term in November.

Continue reading...

Canadian media companies sue OpenAI in case potentially worth billions

Posted on by

Litigants say AI company used their articles to train its popular ChatGPT software without authorization

Canada’s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potentially billions of dollars, alleging the company is “strip-mining journalism” and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software.

The suit, filed on Friday in Ontario’s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations’ articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.

Continue reading...

OpenAI planning to become for-profit company, say reports

Posted on by

Reported move follows recent departure of senior figures from ChatGPT developer

OpenAI is reportedly pushing ahead with plans to become a for-profit company, as more senior figures left the ChatGPT developer after the surprise exit of its chief technology officer, Mira Murati.

The San Francisco-based startup is preparing to change its corporate structure as it seeks $6.5bn (£4.9bn) of new funding, according to reports.

Continue reading...