Sustainability and generative AI are two topics that are currently taking the world by storm. While they may seem unrelated, there is a significant intersection between the two. A recent study called "Making AI Less Thirsty" reveals just how much water is consumed when training large AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington. It compares and measures the environmental impact of AI training that requires massive amounts of constant electricity and water. The water is used to cool data centers that are essential to keep them running.

After describing ChatGPT's left-wing bias as'concerning', Elon Musk is now working on a new AI chatbot of his own. The Twitter, Telsa and SpaceX boss has registered a company with the name of'X.AI', a subsidiary under his new conglomerate X Holdings Corp. According to the Financial Times, the new subsidiary will be the home of efforts to build a tool just like the hugely successful ChatGPT, owned by OpenAI. Musk is assembling a team of AI researchers and engineers and is in discussions with some investors in SpaceX and Tesla about putting money into his new venture. Due to Musk's belief in free speech, the new bot product could have less of a left-wing bias than ChatGPT, which has already been criticised for'woke' responses. Twitter, Telsa and SpaceX boss Elon Musk (pictured) has registered an artificial intelligence (AI) company with the name of'X.AI' Mr Musk has been critical of AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT in the past.

Opportunities notwithstanding, there are many outstanding questions and potential downsides to the use of AI in teaching and learning that we must also attend to. These are related to the call for the pause on AI training by the likes of Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak. If a tool like ChatGPT formulates a poem, for example, who owns it--the machine or the human who published it? Further, because most of these AI tools are trained only on information openly available on the internet, the chance of spreading inaccurate information, even disinformation, is very high. Rampant bias in generated responses has been reported because these systems cannot access information located behind a login or paywall, such as peer-reviewed materials and textbooks written by vetted and more objective experts.

The stunning capabilities of ChatGPT, the chatbot from startup OpenAI, has triggered a surge of new interest and investment in artificial intelligence. But late last week, OpenAI's CEO warned that the research strategy that birthed the bot is played out. It's unclear exactly where future advances will come from. OpenAI has delivered a series of impressive advances in AI that works with language in recent years by taking existing machine-learning algorithms and scaling them up to previously unimagined size. GPT-4, the latest of those projects, was likely trained using trillions of words of text and many thousands of powerful computer chips.

Experts calling for a pause on AI development will be glad to hear that OpenAI isn't currently training GPT-5. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke remotely at an MIT event and was quizzed about AI by computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman. Altman confirmed that OpenAI is not currently developing a fifth version of its Generative Pre-trained Transformer model and is instead focusing on enhancing the capabilities of GPT-4, the latest version. Altman was asked about the open letter that urged developers to pause training AI models larger than GPT-4 for six months. While he supported the idea of ensuring AI models are safe and aligned with human values, he believed that the letter lacked technical nuance regarding where to pause.

OpenAI's CEO and co-founder Sam Altman on Friday said that the company is not trying to train GPT-5 after AI language model GPT-4, which was released last month. In recent months, OpenAI has become a familiar name on the backs of latest technology like ChatGPT and GPT-4. ChatGPT is an AI program that has gained attention for its ability to generate quick and comprehensive answers to a wide range of queries. With over 100 million monthly active users, it is the fastest-growing consumer application in history. However, its rapid growth has raised concerns about its potential impact on safety, privacy, and employment.

Two months ago, Amazon didn't make a single mention of AI on its earnings call (Google and Microsoft mentioned AI dozens of times each). This past week, by contrast, the company's cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), could talk about little else. As announced by Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of database, analytics, and machine learning at AWS, the company is all over AI with the launch of new large language models (LLMs) and APIs to access them, as well as CodeWhisperer, a GitHub Copilot competitor, and more. It's not that AWS wasn't working on AI before; Amazon has been working with AI for decades. Rather, it's now impossible to ignore AI.

At first glance, building a large language model (LLM) like GPT-4 into your code might seem simple. The API is a single REST call, taking in text and returning a response based on the input. But in practice things get much more complicated than that. The API is perhaps better thought of as a domain boundary, where you're delivering prompts that define the format the model uses to deliver its output. But that's a critical point: LLMs can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be.

Google's chief executive has said concerns about artificial intelligence keep him awake at night and that the technology can be "very harmful" if deployed wrongly. Sundar Pichai also called for a global regulatory framework for AI similar to the treaties used to regulate nuclear arms use, as he warned that the competition to produce advances in the technology could lead to concerns about safety being pushed aside. In an interview on CBS's 60 minutes programme, Pichai said the negative side to AI gave him restless nights. "It can be very harmful if deployed wrongly and we don't have all the answers there yet – and the technology is moving fast. So does that keep me up at night? Google's parent, Alphabet, owns the UK-based AI company DeepMind and has launched an AI-powered chatbot, Bard, in response to ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by the US tech firm OpenAI, which has become a phenomenon since its release in November. Pichai said governments would need to figure out global frameworks for regulating AI as it developed. Last month thousands of artificial intelligence experts, researchers and backers – including the Twitter owner Elon Musk – signed a letter calling for a pause in the creation of "giant" AIs for at least six months, amid concerns that development of the technology could get out of control. Asked if nuclear arms-style frameworks could be needed, Pichai said: "We would need that." The AI technology behind ChatGPT and Bard, known as a Large Language Model, is trained on a vast trove of data taken from the internet and is able to produce plausible responses to prompts from users in a range of formats, from poems to academic essays and software coding. The image-generating equivalent, in systems such as Dall-E and Midjourney, has also triggered a mixture of astonishment and alarm by producing realistic images such as the Pope sporting a puffer jacket. Pichai added that AI could cause harm through its ability to produce disinformation "It will be possible with AI to create, you know, a video easily.

PARIS--European Union lawmakers want to give regulators new powers to govern the development of technologies like those behind ChatGPT, the biggest push so far in the West to curb one of the hottest areas in artificial intelligence. The breakneck pace of AI development in recent months requires a new set of rules tailored to powerful, general-purpose AI tools, a group of influential EU lawmakers say in an open letter they plan to publish Monday.