Deep Learning
US Tech Giants Race to Spend Billions in UK AI Push
Microsoft and Nvidia unveiled plans to invest up to $45 billion in the UK during US President Donald Trump's state visit. Microsoft and Nvidia have unveiled plans to invest up to $45 billion dollars into the UK economy, in a move that will bolster the building of more data centers as well as research and development into artificial intelligence . The investment comes as US president Donald Trump travels to Britain, where he is expected to announce a US-UK tech deal alongside UK prime minister Keir Starmer. As part of the agreement, Microsoft has committed to invest $30 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years. The company claims this is the largest financial commitment it has ever made in the UK and will make up more than two thirds of the total investment announced into the UK this week, timed to Trump's visit.
OpenAI Rolls Out Teen Safety Features Amid Growing Scrutiny
CEO Sam Altman announced an age-prediction system and new parental controls in a blog post on Tuesday. OpenAI announced new teen safety features for ChatGPT on Tuesday as part of an ongoing effort to respond to concerns about how minors engage with chatbots . The company is building an age-prediction system that identifies if a user is under 18 years old and routes them to an " age-appropriate " system that blocks graphic sexual content. If the system detects that the user is considering suicide or self-harm, it will contact the user's parents. In cases of imminent danger, if a user's parents are unreachable, the system may contact the authorities.
Around one-third of AI search tool answers make unsupported claims
AI tools including Perplexity and Open AI's GPT-4 often provide one-sided answers to contentious questions, and don't back up their arguments with reliable sources How well-supported are the claims made by AI tools? Generative AI tools, and the deep research agents and search engines powered by them, frequently make unsupported and biased claims that aren't backed up by the sources they cite. That's according to an analysis which found that about one-third of answers provided by the AI tools aren't backed up by reliable sources. For OpenAI's GPT 4.5, the figure was even higher, at 47 per cent. Alongside this, they put five deep research agents through their paces: GPT-5's Deep Research feature, Bing Chat's Think Deeper option and deep research tools offered by You.com, Google Gemini and Perplexity.
The Download: regulators are coming for AI companions, and meet our Innovator of 2025
As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin. But another threat entirely--that of kids forming unhealthy bonds with AI--is pulling AI safety out of the academic fringe and into regulators' crosshairs. This has been bubbling for a while. Two high-profile lawsuits filed in the last year, against Character.AI and OpenAI, allege that their models contributed to the suicides of two teenagers. A study published in July, found that 72% of teenagers have used AI for companionship. And stories about "AI psychosis" have highlighted how endless conversations with chatbots can lead people down delusional spirals.
Money Talks: The AI Arms Race
Gary Rivlin joins Elizabeth Spiers to discuss his book on Silicon Valley's race to capitalize on AI. Please enable javascript to get your Slate Plus feeds. If you can't access your feeds, please contact customer support. Check your phone for a link to finish setting up your feed. Please enter a valid phone number.
Matthew Prince Wants AI Companies to Pay for Their Sins
The Cloudflare CEO joined to talk about standing up to content scraping, the internet's potential futures, and his company's relationship to Trump. Matthew Prince may not be a household name, but the world most certainly knows his work. Prince is the cofounder and CEO of Cloudflare . Launched in 2010, the internet infrastructure company has found itself increasingly in the position of serving as the web's bodyguard. It filters out bad traffic, keeps sites safe, and stops them from crashing when too many people visit. Its tools defend against DDoS attacks. In 2017, Cloudflare made headlines when it dropped white supremacist site The Daily Stormer . Cloudflare's severing of ties with The Daily Stormer marked a momentous shift, one that came after years of claiming a neutral stance. Prince continues to evolve the way Cloudflare works. In July, the company rolled out a new tool tasked with blocking unauthorized AI scraping. It effectively creates a pay-per-crawl model requiring AI platforms to shell out money if they want access to a site's content. On this episode of, I talked to Prince about publishing, the old internet, and how his ideal version of the future web means that OpenAI just might become the Netflix of content. KATIE DRUMMOND: Good to have you here, Matthew. You should have been warned ahead of time, but you probably weren't.
The looming crackdown on AI companionship
The risks posed when kids form bonds with chatbots have turned AI safety from an abstract worry into a political flashpoint. As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin from data center sprawl. But this week showed that another threat entirely--that of kids forming unhealthy bonds with AI--is the one pulling AI safety out of the academic fringe and into regulators' crosshairs. This has been bubbling for a while. Two high-profile lawsuits filed in the last year, against Character.AI and OpenAI, allege that companion-like behavior in their models contributed to the suicides of two teenagers. A study by US nonprofit Common Sense Media, published in July, found that 72% of teenagers have used AI for companionship.
Google announces 5bn AI investment in UK before Trump visit
Google predicted the investment would help to create 8,250 jobs annually at UK companies. Google predicted the investment would help to create 8,250 jobs annually at UK companies. Rachel Reeves says move is a'vote of confidence' in British economy as she prepares to open firm's first UK datacentre Google has said it will invest ยฃ5bn in the UK in the next two years to help meet growing demand for artificial intelligence services, in a boost for the government. The investment, which comes as Google opens its new datacentre in Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, is expected to contribute to the creation of thousands of jobs, the US tech company said. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves - who is attempting to drive growth amid pressure over the lacklustre state of the UK economy - said the investment into research and development, capital expenditure and engineering was a "vote of confidence" in the UK economy.
'I have to do it': Why one of the world's most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China
'I have to do it': Why one of the world's most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. By the time Song-Chun Zhu was six years old, he had encountered death more times than he could count. This was the early 1970s, the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, and his father ran a village supply store in rural China . There was little to do beyond till the fields and study Mao Zedong at home, and so the shop became a refuge where people could rest, recharge and share tales. Zhu grew up in that shop, absorbing a lifetime's worth of tragedies: a family friend lost in a car crash, a relative from an untreated illness, stories of suicide or starvation. "That was really tough," Zhu recalled recently. The young Zhu became obsessed with what people left behind after they died. One day, he came across a book that contained his family genealogy. When he asked the bookkeeper why it included his ancestors' dates of birth and death but nothing about their lives, the man told him matter of factly that they were peasants, so there was nothing worth recording. He resolved that his fate would be different. Today, at 56, Zhu is one of the world's leading authorities in artificial intelligence. In 1992, he left China for the US to pursue a PhD in computer science at Harvard. Later, at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he led one of the most prolific AI research centres in the world, won numerous major awards, and attracted prestigious research grants from the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation. He was celebrated for his pioneering research into how machines can spot patterns in data, which helped lay the groundwork for modern AI systems such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek. He and his wife, and their two US-born daughters, lived in a hilltop home on Los Angeles's Mulholland Drive. He thought he would never leave. But in August 2020, after 28 years in the US, Zhu astonished his colleagues and friends by suddenly moving back to China, where he took up professorships at two top Beijing universities and a directorship in a state-sponsored AI institute.
'I love you too!' My family's creepy, unsettling week with an AI toy
'Let's talk about something fun!' Grem the AI chatbot toy. 'Let's talk about something fun!' Grem the AI chatbot toy. 'I love you too!' My family's creepy, unsettling week with an AI toy The cuddly chatbot Grem is designed to'learn' your child's personality, while every conversation they have is recorded, then transcribed by a third party. It wasn't long before I wanted this experiment to be over ... 'I'm going to throw that thing into a river!" my wife says as she comes down the stairs looking frazzled after putting our four-year-old daughter to bed. To be clear, "that thing" is not our daughter, Emma*. It's Grem, an AI-powered stuffed alien toy that the musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, helped develop with toy company Curio. Designed for kids aged three and over and built with OpenAI's technology, the toy is supposed to "learn" your child's personality and have fun, educational conversations with them. It's advertised as a healthier alternative to screen time and is ...