The current cycle of hype and anxiety concerning the benefits and risks to human society of Artificial Intelligence is fuelled, not only by the increasing use of generative AI and other AI tools by the general public, but also by claims made on behalf of such technology by popularizers and scientists. In particular, recent studies have claimed that Large Language Models (LLMs) can pass the Turing Test-a goal for AI since the 1950s-and therefore can "think". Large-scale impacts on society have been predicted as a result. Upon detailed examination, however, none of these studies has faithfully applied Turing's original instructions. Consequently, we conducted a rigorous Turing Test with GPT-4-Turbo that adhered closely to Turing's instructions for a three-player imitation game. We followed established scientific standards where Turing's instructions were ambiguous or missing. For example, we performed a Computer-Imitates-Human Game (CIHG) without constraining the time duration and conducted a Man-Imitates-Woman Game (MIWG) as a benchmark. All but one participant correctly identified the LLM, showing that one of today's most advanced LLMs is unable to pass a rigorous Turing Test. We conclude that recent extravagant claims for such models are unsupported, and do not warrant either optimism or concern about the social impact of thinking machines.

OpenAI has begun offering a version of ChatGPT designed for US government agencies. ChatGPT Gov includes many of the same features found in the Enterprise offering of the chatbot, including access to the company's GPT-4o model. "By making our products available to the US government, we aim to ensure AI serves the national interest and the public good, aligned with democratic values, while empowering policymakers to responsibly integrate these capabilities to deliver better services to the American people," OpenAI said in a blog post published Tuesday. Before today, US government employees were already using ChatGPT in their day-to-day work. According to the company, federal, state and local government workers at 3,500 agencies across the country have sent more than 18 million messages since 2024.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sits down with Shannon Bream to discuss the positives and potential negatives of artificial intelligence and the importance of maintaining a lead in the A.I. industry over China. OpenAI has announced a new "ChatGPT for Gov" product that the company says will provide U.S. government agencies an additional way to access their frontier large language models (LLMs) while maintaining internal security standards. "We believe the U.S. government's adoption of artificial intelligence can boost efficiency and productivity and is crucial for maintaining and enhancing America's global leadership in this technology. This includes making our models available to support public sector work that benefits society – such as public health, energy and the environment, transportation and infrastructure, consumer protection, and national security," OpenAI wrote in a Tuesday press release. The company believes that partnering with the U.S. government is key to ensuring rapidly developing AI capabilities are well understood by policymakers and responsibly integrated to deliver services to American citizens.

DeepSeek, the latest alternative to ChatGPT and other AI assistants, recently released a new version that's causing chaos and confusion across the AI landscape. With reports about DeepSeek's outstanding performance and power efficiency emerging, established entities like OpenAI and Meta are getting quite nervous. None more nervous than Nvidia, though, whose market cap plummeted in response to the hype over DeepSeek. According to Bloomberg, Nvidia lost a record 569 billion at the start of the week. Companies like Siemens Energy and Oracle also saw their stock prices fall.

There was a lot of news last week. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Donald Trump, Sam Altman, Masayoshi Son and Larry Ellison announced a 500bn initiative to expand infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence dubbed Stargate. On its heels came a press release from Meta vowing to expand its capital expenditure to 65bn in the coming year to expand its data centers.

Obsessed with throwing money and resources at AI in any way they can, the likes of OpenAI, NVIDIA, Google and Amazon all just got a surprise. Out of seemingly nowhere, Chinese AI assistant DeepSeek is suddenly the top-rated free app on Apple's App Store in the US and elsewhere, beating more familiar names, like ChatGPT. The open-source DeepSeek V3 model reportedly requires far less computing power than its competitors and, depending on who you believe, was developed for under 6 million. Shocks all around -- especially for OpenAI and all the billions it has floating around. Focusing on coding and research, DeepSeek's models are similar to other AI assistants you've heard of.

The Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has rattled markets with claims that its latest AI model, R1, performs on a par with those of OpenAI, despite using less advanced computer chips and consuming less energy. DeepSeek's emergence has raised concerns that China may have overtaken the U.S. in the artificial intelligence race despite restrictions on its access to the most advanced chips. Like the U.S., China is investing billions into artificial intelligence. Last week, it created a 60 billion yuan ( 8.2 billion) AI investment fund, days after the U.S. imposed fresh chip export restrictions. Beijing has also invested heavily in the semiconductor industry to build its capacity to make advanced computer chips, working to overcome limits on its access to those of industry leaders.

Donald Trump has said that the launch of a chatbot by China's DeepSeek is a "wake-up call" for US tech firms in the global race to dominate artificial intelligence. The emergence of DeepSeek, which has built its R1 model chatbot at a fraction of the cost of competitors such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, wiped 1tn ( 800bn) in value from the leading US tech index on Monday. Nvidia, a leading maker of computer chips that has experienced explosive growth amid the AI boom, had 600bn wiped off its market value in the biggest one-day fall in US stock market history. "The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company, should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win," said Trump. He pointed to DeepSeek's ability to apparently deliver the same performance as existing AI models with far fewer resources, threatening the dominance of the US-led AI boom.

DeepSeek, a little-known Chinese startup, has sent shockwaves through the global tech sector with the release of an artificial intelligence (AI) model whose capabilities rival the creations of Google and OpenAI. DeepSeek-R1's creator says its model was developed using less advanced, and fewer, computer chips than those employed by tech giants in the United States. In a research paper released last week, the model's development team said they had spent less than 6m on computing power to train the model – a fraction of the multibillion-dollar AI budgets enjoyed by US tech giants such as OpenAI, Alphabet and Meta. Marc Andreessen, one of the most influential tech venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, hailed the release of the model as "AI's Sputnik moment". The sudden emergence of a small Chinese startup capable of rivalling Silicon Valley's top players has challenged assumptions about US dominance in AI and raised fears that the sky-high market valuations of companies such as Nvidia, Alphabet and Meta may be detached from reality. On Monday, Nvidia, which holds a near-monopoly on producing the semiconductors that power generative AI, lost nearly 600bn in market capitalisation after its shares plummeted 17 percent.

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. Chinese generative AI must not contain content that violates the country's "core socialist values", according to a technical document published by the national cybersecurity standards committee. That includes content that "incites to subvert state power and overthrow the socialist system", or "endangers national security and interests and damages the national image".