Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and former chief scientist of OpenAI, announced on Wednesday that he's launching a new venture dubbed Safe Superintelligence Inc. Sutskever said on X that the new lab will focus solely on building a safe "superintelligence"--an industry term for a hypothetical system that's smarter than humans. Sutskever is joined at Safe SuperIntelligence Inc. by co-founders Daniel Gross, an investor and engineer who worked on AI at Apple till 2017, and Daniel Levy, another former OpenAI employee. The new American-based firm will have offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Tel Aviv, according to a description Sutskever shared. I am starting a new company: https://t.co/BG3K3SI3A1 Sutskever was one of OpenAI's founding members, and was chief scientist during the company's meteoric rise following the release of ChatGPT.

Today's keynote for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference teased a lot of what users can expect later this year when all of its major software updates roll out. Big changes coming to iOS 18, macOS Sequoia and watchOS 11 include RCS support, a new Passwords app, a revamped Calculator app and a bunch of artificial intelligence (AI) infusions across the board thanks to the new "Apple Intelligence" system. If you weren't able to catch the news live, here's a rundown of everything announced at WWDC 2024. Apple revealed its plans to incorporate AI into its operating systems at WWDC this year. Dubbed "Apple Intelligence," this new generative AI system will appear in iOS and iPad 18 and macOS Sequoia in the form of (what Apple believes to be) practical tools that most people can use regularly.

Microsoft is laying off employees working on mixed reality as part of a restructuring of the division, CNBC has reported. The company will continue to sell the HoloLens 2 augmented reality (AR) headset, a key device produced by that department. "Earlier today we announced a restructuring of the Microsoft's Mixed Reality organization," a spokesperson told CNBC in an email. "We remain fully committed to the Department of Defense's IVAS program and will continue to deliver cutting edge technology to support our soldiers. In addition, we will continue to invest in W365 to reach the broader Mixed Reality hardware ecosystem. We will continue to sell HoloLens 2 while supporting existing HoloLens 2 customers and partners."

OpenAI is bringing ChatGPT to college campuses across the country. On Thursday, the company announced ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT built specifically for students, academics, faculty. "ChatGPT Edu is designed for schools that want to deploy AI more broadly to students and their campus communities," the company said in a blog post. ChatGPT Edu includes access to GPT-4o, OpenAI's latest large language model that the company revealed earlier this month. OpenAI claims that the model is much better than its previous versions at interpreting text, coding, and mathematics, analyzing data sets, and being able to access the web.

While Minecraft was officially released in 2011, it was first introduced to the public back in 2009. This year, Minecraft is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and as part of the festivities surrounding that milestone, Netflix and Mojang Studios have announced that they're making an animated series based on the iconic sandbox game. It's a computer graphic-animated show that's being developed by Canadian studio WildBrain, which was also behind the animated Netflix shows Carmen Sandiego and Sonic Prime. The companies said the series will feature an original story based on new characters that show "the world of Minecraft in a new light." We'll most likely find out what that means exactly before the series launches when they start releasing previews and trailers.

Samsung will add new AI-based health and fitness features to the Galaxy Watch later this year. The company announced on-device AI features on Wednesday, including personalized health scores, tips, sleep indicators and suggested workout routines. One of the Galaxy Watch's big AI upgrades is a new Energy Score, which learns from various personal metrics to provide "comprehensive health insights." The model draws on a variety of sleep data, including when the wearer went to bed, how long and how well they slept and their heart's rate and variability during sleep. Physical activity during waking hours is also taken into account.

The 2024 Index is our most comprehensive to date and arrives at an important moment when AI's influence on society has never been more pronounced. This year, we have broadened our scope to more extensively cover essential trends such as technical advancements in AI, public perceptions of the technology, and the geopolitical dynamics surrounding its development. Featuring more original data than ever before, this edition introduces new estimates on AI training costs, detailed analyses of the responsible AI landscape, and an entirely new chapter dedicated to AI's impact on science and medicine. The AI Index report tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes data related to artificial intelligence (AI). Our mission is to provide unbiased, rigorously vetted, broadly sourced data in order for policymakers, researchers, executives, journalists, and the general public to develop a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the complex field of AI. The AI Index is recognized globally as one of the most credible and authoritative sources for data and insights on artificial intelligence. Previous editions have been cited in major newspapers, including the The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The Guardian, have amassed hundreds of academic citations, and been referenced by high-level policymakers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, among other places. This year's edition surpasses all previous ones in size, scale, and scope, reflecting the growing significance that AI is coming to hold in all of our lives.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has signed a deal to bring news content from the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, the Times and the Sunday Times to the artificial intelligence platform, the companies said on Wednesday. Neither party disclosed a dollar figure for the deal. The deal will give OpenAI access to current and archived content from all of News Corp's publications. The deal comes weeks after the AI heavyweight signed a deal with the Financial Times to license its content for the development of AI models. Other publications, including the New York Times, have taken a different tack: suing OpenAI and Microsoft, the startup's key backer, over the use of its content to train generative AI and large-language model systems.

Scarlett Johansson said Monday that she was "shocked, angered and in disbelief" when she heard that OpenAI used a voice "eerily similar" to hers for its new ChatGPT 4.0 chatbot, even after she had declined to provide her voice. Earlier on Monday, OpenAI announced on X that it would pause the AI voice, known as "Sky," while it addresses "questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT." The company said in a blog post that the "Sky" voice was "not an imitation" of Johansson's voice, but that it was recorded by a different professional actor, whose identity the company would not reveal to protect her privacy. But Johansson said in a statement to NPR on Monday that OpenAI's Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman had asked her in September to voice the ChatGPT 4.0 system because he thought her "voice would be comforting to people." She declined, but nine months later, her friends, family and the public noticed how the "Sky" voice resembled hers.

Last spring, the clothing brand Levi Strauss & Co. announced plans to introduce "customized AI-generated models" into its online shopping platforms. These "body-inclusive avatars" would come in a range of sizes, ages, and skin tones and would help Levi's create a more "diverse" lineup in a way the company considered "sustainable." A lot of (real) people were appalled. Why not give those jobs to actual humans of the sizes, ages, and skin tones Levi's sought? Was "sustainable" just PR-speak for "cheaper"?