U.K. politicians are testing their messages on AI-generated focus groups U.K. Artificial Intelligence Minister Kanishka Narayan leaves No. 10 Downing Street in London in July. U.K. politicians looking to gauge how British voters will react to their policies have a new cohort on which to test their ideas: AI-generated focus groups. Startups Electric Twin and Artificial Societies, and more established research firms GWI and Toluna are using data from real focus groups and surveys to build AI personas able to react to political messages within minutes. Another firm, London-based Synthetic Respondents, charges $16 (£12) a project, which it says is a thousandth of the cost of a traditional piece of focus group research. Critics warn that reliance on AI-generated focus groups could detach politicians from reality. But the technology also has the potential to transform their ability to sense-test their ideas, making it quicker and more affordable to gauge how real-life voters may react to policies, and giving backbenchers access to analysis that might previously have been outside their budget.

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Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed clashed in their Michigan Senate debate over the war with Iran, AI regulation, and the Second Amendment ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The new open-source model speaks the language of DNA and can help researchers understand the effects of any changes on gene activity and health. The AI platform Hugging Face on Thursday released a new open-source model for understanding DNA that can run locally on a laptop. Developed in collaboration with researchers at Zhongguancun Academy in China and the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, the model is trained on genomic sequences and natural language so that people can ask questions about the effects of DNA changes on gene activity and health and get conversational answers in return. Lewis Tunstall, a senior research scientist at Hugging Face, says the tool is meant to help researchers design new drugs and genetic therapies, and it could potentially aid patients in interpreting their own genomes. "We've unlocked a new capability in language models, which is fundamentally about being able to chat with DNA," he says of the new model, dubbed Carbon-X .

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Image caption, Dammam is the largest city in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province Two people were killed and eight others injured in an attack on an airport in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia on Wednesday evening, the kingdom's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) says. Those killed at King Fahd International Airport were a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident, while the injured were Saudi, Indian, Yemeni, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals. The GACA did not say what type of attack occurred, but Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement has repeatedly targeted the kingdom's airports with drones and missiles. On Wednesday morning, two people were killed by debris from a drone that was intercepted over Eastern Province, where Dammam is located, the Saudi energy ministry said. The ministry said the drone was intercepted as it attempted to target a processing facility owned by Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco in the Shaybeh oil field, where a contractor's vehicle was set ablaze.

SoftBank Group's market value halved from its peak in June. SoftBank Group's market value halved from its peak in June, as higher borrowing costs fuel investor concerns over the sustainability of its massive investments in artificial intelligence. Shares of the Tokyo-based company fell 6.9% on Thursday, taking their drop from an all-time high struck on June 2 to 50%, with earnings from U.S. megacaps failing to ease the angst. After briefly overtaking Toyota as Japan's biggest company four months ago, its market capitalization is now about ¥24.7 trillion ($157 billion), smaller than that of Hitachi and Recruit. Global concerns over AI spending had accelerated after U.S.-based cloud-computing provider CoreWeave's bonds fell to levels associated with distress, exposing financing risks across the industry. "SoftBank's vulnerability stands out as investors increasingly scrutinize the financial health of AI-related companies, given the group's highly leveraged financial structure and growing borrowing costs," said Kazuyuki Muramatsu, head of investment management at Nagomi Capital.

Tesla's spending has again fallen short of Wall Street expectations, clouding Elon Musk's plan to transform the maker of electric vehicles into an artificial intelligence and robotics company. Capital expenditures totaled $4.73 billion in the third quarter, Tesla said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts had expected $7.95 billion on average according to estimates. On the company's call with analysts, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said Tesla was cutting its 2026 capital expenditure target to $20 billion, down from more than $25 billion it had previously projected. Tesla invested $8.3 billion over the first six months of the year. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Deadly attacks in the kingdom, including against Saudi Aramco facilities, have heightened concerns that escalating Middle East hostilities could hit oil supplies. Oil advanced after deadly attacks in Saudi Arabia heightened concerns that escalating Middle East hostilities could hit supplies, even as exports through the Strait of Hormuz accelerate. Brent rose to trade near $110 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was around $98. A drone strike on Saudi Aramco's Shaybah field killed two people but left operations unaffected, while an attack on the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, killed one. The U.S. also ordered the departure of some personnel and family members from American diplomatic facilities in the kingdom. Global benchmark Brent has surged about 80% this year after flows from the Persian Gulf were disrupted by the U.S.-Iran war, which is approaching its ninth month with little sign of a resolution.

Image caption, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis also attacked the airport in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh earlier this month The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as attacks escalate, with three people killed in strikes across the country. Saudi authorities said debris from a drone intercepted during an attempted attack on an oil field killed two people, while one person died after a strike at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. Conflict between Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi Arabia has been rising in the past month. The Houthis have responded to Saudi strikes by launching missiles and drones at airports, energy facilities and military bases in Saudi Arabia. A recent strike on Riyadh's international airport was the deadliest in the kingdom in years.