Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events – day 1,085
At least one person was killed and four others, including a nine-year-old child, were injured by a Russian missile strike in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, the city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said. The strike caused damage and fires in at least four areas of the city. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a woman was killed by a Ukrainian drone in Russia's Belgorod region. Gladkov said the drone struck the victim's car and killed her instantly. Ukraine's military said it shot down six out of seven ballistic missiles launched by Russia in an overnight attack.
Russia braces for oil output cuts as sanctions and drones hit
Russia may be forced to throttle back its oil output in the coming months as U.S. sanctions hamper its access to tankers to sail to Asia and Ukrainian drone attacks hobble its refineries. The United States imposed sanctions last month that targeted 180 Russian tankers while Kyiv has stepped up drone attacks to improve its bargaining position amid expectations that U.S. President Donald Trump will press Russian leader Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump has said stopping the conflict is a priority and that he could impose new sanctions on Russia if his goals are not achieved.
DOGE Has Started Gutting a Key US Technology Agency
At least dozens of workers for the Technology Transformation Services, housed within the General Services Administration, were fired Wednesday afternoon, sources tell WIRED. The sudden cuts seemingly targeted probationary and short-term staffers, including workers supplied by the Presidential Innovation Fellowship program, which brings skilled technologists from the private sector to work in government for a few years at a time. Around 50 of the 70 members of the US Digital Corps, an early-career two-year government fellowship, were terminated as well, sources say. Sources also tell WIRED that TTS management met with workers individually prior to the terminations, giving them one last chance to take the deferred resignation offered in the "Fork In the Road" email late last month. One TTS staffer called the meetings "coercive for sure."
Sam Altman announces GPT-5 timeline update, cancels o3 as standalone model
OpenAI will ship GPT-5 in a matter of months and streamline its AI models into more unified products, said CEO Sam Altman in an update on Feb. 12. "We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings," said Altman in an X post introducing several updates about the company's GPT and o series. Specifically, Altman says the company plans to launch GPT-4.5 as its "last non-chain-of-thought model" and integrate its latest o3 reasoning model into GPT-5. The estimated timing for GPT-4.5 is a matter of weeks, and GPT-5 in a matter of months, Altman responded in a comment about the ETA. OpenAI's previously comfortable position atop the AI throne has been challenged lately with the introduction of DeepSeek's reasoning model R1. The Chinese company reportedly made the model for a fraction of the price and offered it free of charge as a chatbot, and significantly cheaper than OpenAI models for API access.
'DeepSeek moved me to tears': How young Chinese find therapy in AI
Before she goes to bed each night, Holly Wang logs on to DeepSeek for "therapy sessions". Ever since January, when the breakout Chinese AI app launched, the 28-year-old has brought her dilemmas and sorrows, including the recent death of her grandmother, to the chatbot. Its responses have resonated so deeply they have at times brought her to tears. "DeepSeek has been such an amazing counsellor. It has helped me look at things from different perspectives and does a better job than the paid counselling services I have tried," says Holly, who asked for her real name to be withheld to protect her privacy. From writing reports and Excel formulas to planning trips, workouts and learning new skills, AI apps have found their way into many people's lives across the world.
OpenAI will offer free ChatGPT users unlimited access to GPT-5
OpenAI's upcoming GPT-5 release will integrate its o3 reasoning model and be available to free users, CEO Sam Altman revealed in a roadmap he shared on X. He said the company is also working to simplify how users interact with ChatGPT. "We want AI to'just work' for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten," Altman wrote. "We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence." In its current iteration, forcing ChatGPT to use a specific model, such as o3-mini, involves either tapping the "Reason" button in the prompt bar or one of the options present in the model picker, which appears after the chatbot answers a question.
Google will use machine learning to try and tell if a user is under 18
Google will start testing a feature this year that uses machine learning to weed out children trying to access adult content on YouTube. The "machine learning-based age estimation model" will try to predict whether a user is under 18 and, if so, apply appropriate age filter settings to their account. The announcement came amid a flurry of Google child safety announcements as the US Senate considers a bill that would ban pre-teens from social media. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan first mentioned the ML age restriction feature on Tuesday in his letter about the platform's "bets" for the coming year. "We'll use machine learning in 2025 to help us estimate a user's age -- distinguishing between younger viewers and adults -- to help provide the best and most age-appropriate experiences and protections," he wrote.
AI chatbots distort the news, BBC finds - see what they get wrong
Four major AI chatbots are churning out "significant inaccuracies" and "distortions" when asked to summarize news stories, according to a BBC investigation. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity AI were each presented with news content from BBC's website and then asked questions about the news. The report details that the BBC asked chatbots to summarize 100 news stories, and journalists with relevant expertise rated the quality of each answer. Also: Why Elon Musk's 97 billion bid for OpenAI could disrupt Sam Altman's plans According to the findings, 51% of all AI-produced answers about the news had significant issues, while 19% of the AI-generated answers "introduced factual errors, such as incorrect factual statements, numbers, and dates." Additionally, the investigation found that 13% of the quotes from BBC articles were altered in some way, undermining the "original source" or not even being present in the cited article.
The Dirty Truth Behind Musk and Altman's Mud Fight
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On Monday, Elon Musk and a group of investors made an unsolicited offer to buy ChatGPT parent company OpenAI for 97.4 billion. This ticked off OpenAI CEO Sam Altman not only because the company isn't for sale, but because the offer is insultingly low. OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise new money in a funding round led by SoftBank at a 300 billion valuation, which would make it the most valuable privately held company in the world. Altman's return fire was equally petty, with him refusing via tweet before offering to buy Musk's social media company X for a decimal-sliding 9.74 billion.
Acclaimed designer Jeff Minter is back with a remake of the '80s arcade curio I, Robot
Iconic game designer Jeff Minter is back with another modern take on a long-forgotten Atari title. Minter has turned his psychedelic eye toward the 1984 arcade cabinet I, Robot. His version ups the visuals and takes serious liberties with the original design, adopting techno music and some new game modes. The original I, Robot was a flop, despite being made by Dave Theurer, the guy behind Missile Command and Tempest. Maybe it was just ahead of its time.