Deep Learning
OpenAI's apparent failure to visit key site raises questions over UK investment
Cobalt Park in North Tyneside was designated as an'AI growth zone' during the US president's visit. Cobalt Park in North Tyneside was designated as an'AI growth zone' during the US president's visit. OpenAI's apparent failure to visit key site raises questions over UK investment Exclusive: £20bn of'potential' £30bn AI investment touted by UK ministers appears to have been hypothetical It was to be the biggest undertaking in Britain for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT . But the plans were paused in April, with an OpenAI spokesperson citing concerns over regulation and high energy costs . Now the Guardian can reveal that OpenAI does not appear to have visited one of Stargate UK's key sites - and that £20bn of the "potential" £30bn in investment touted by the UK government appears to have been totally hypothetical.
Could the next great novel be written by AI (and would you even be able to tell)?
Could the next great novel be written by AI (and would you even be able to tell)? Can you tell which, if any, were AI generated? "The hotel is in a great location for everything. Lots of places to eat and drink. The hotel itself is always abuzz. The tavern located on the ground floor is definitely a must. Food, service, prices and atmosphere were great." "A good hotel, though the room had the proportions of a well-appointed lift.
Google DeepMind Unionization Talks Are Off to a Rocky Start
During negotiations on Wednesday, employees voiced frustrations with what they consider an unwillingness among senior DeepMind executives to engage meaningfully with the prospect of unionization. Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London-based employees over the possibility of unionization stumbled this week, after initial talks left union representatives feeling they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned. In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives. The company later denied that request, but agreed to participate in negotiations arbitrated by a third-party body. An initial meeting on Wednesday was attended by union officers, DeepMind employees involved in the unionization push, the third-party arbitrator, and DeepMind HR representatives.
NSW government 'absolutely thrilled' to welcome OpenAI ... until someone mentioned the Terminator films
OpenAI has partnered with datacentre operator NextDC to build a multibillion dollar computing cluster in Sydney. The NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, says the city is'a highly desirable location'. OpenAI has partnered with datacentre operator NextDC to build a multibillion dollar computing cluster in Sydney. The NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, says the city is'a highly desirable location'. NSW government'absolutely thrilled' to welcome OpenAI ... until someone mentioned the Terminator films Emails sent between MP Anoulak Chanthivong's staff take cautious approach to AI giant arriving in Sydney - despite the government's encouragement The NSW technology minister's office removed a reference to being "absolutely thrilled" about OpenAI opening a Sydney office after staffers joked a dystopian Skynet could be headed for the city within five years.
Prepare to expect less from your cheap AI subscription
PCWorld reports that AI subscription providers are implementing new restrictions on flat-rate plans due to financial unsustainability, with users previously accessing $14,000 worth of API tokens for just $200 monthly. Anthropic is limiting Claude subscribers' access to Fable features, while OpenAI's new GPT-5.6
OpenAI proposes handing U.S. government a 5% stake, report says
OpenAI proposes handing U.S. government a 5% stake, report says OpenAI has discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake as artificial intelligence firms face scrutiny in Washington. OpenAI has discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, as artificial intelligence firms face scrutiny in Washington over the likely misuse of advanced models and whether Americans would benefit from the industry's massive valuations. The ChatGPT creator has proposed that other U.S. AI firms also give Washington similar stakes, although it is unclear whether they would agree, the report said, citing two people familiar with the talks. The move follows growing public backlash in the U.S. over AI's potential to cause economic upheaval, including layoffs, and could help OpenAI sweeten ties with an administration that is increasingly taking an active role in regulating the technology. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
A new, inexpensive Chinese AI model is catching up with Anthropic, OpenAI on their home turf
Zhipu's AI service on the web, dubbed Z.ai. BEIJING/BENGALURU - Since DeepSeek shocked markets early last year with its cheap but powerful artificial intelligence model, global consumers have been faced with a choice: Chinese offerings with lower prices and less capability or OpenAI or Anthropic, which have poured billions into development. A model called GLM-5.2, launched last month by Beijing-based startup Z.ai, may finally be closing that gap in terms of Western interest. GLM-5.2 has Silicon Valley buzzing with its coding and agent capabilities, or the ability to execute complex tasks with minimal prompting, that almost rival leading U.S. offerings at a fraction of the cost, in what some experts are calling a "mini DeepSeek moment." In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
An Additive MLP-GNN Framework for Characterizing Chemical and Structural Contributions to Aqueous Solubility
Bhattacharya, Sampreeti, Roy, Arkaprava
Aqueous solubility is a key property in early-stage drug discovery, but most predictive models merge physicochemical descriptors and molecular graph information into a single representation, obscuring whether a prediction is driven by global chemistry, molecular structure, or both. We present an additive deep-learning framework that keeps these two sources of information separate throughout training: physicochemical descriptors are encoded by a multilayer perceptron (the chemical branch) and molecular graph topology by a graph neural network (the structural branch), with the two outputs combined only at the prediction stage through an additive model with an optional multiplicative interaction. This design provides a direct decomposition of chemical and structural components that can be examined separately after training. Furthermore, pretraining on the larger AqSolDB dataset and fine-tuning on the smaller BigSolDB2 dataset substantially improve accuracy and reduce run-to-run variations, indicating generalizability of the learned features from the data-rich settings. We further interpret the fitted model using best linear projections of the branch outputs, molecule-level embedding summaries across solubility classes, and atom-level GNNExplainer masks aggregated over functional groups. These analyses show that the chemical branch aligns with familiar physicochemical descriptors, while the structural branch captures graph-topological and functional-group patterns associated with solubility. Across both datasets, the framework attains competitive predictive performance while making the distinct roles of chemical and structural information more transparent.
AI is 'not smart' so what's next in artificial intelligence?
AI is'not smart' so what's next in artificial intelligence? We don't have robots that are nearly as good at understanding the physical world as a rat, says Yann LeCun, one of the leading figures in the world of artificial intelligence. He worked at Facebook-owner, Meta, for a decade, where he was chief AI scientist, but left in 2025 and founded Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs). His goal is to move AI beyond current systems like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. They have their uses, he says, but will never be able to tackle complicated situations in the real world, like getting a robot to do household chores.