Goto

Collaborating Authors

 San Francisco County


OpenAI wins 200m contract with US military for 'warfighting'

The Guardian

The US Department of Defense on Monday awarded OpenAI a 200m contract to put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work for the US military. The San Francisco-based company will "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains", according to the defense department's posting of awarded contracts. The program with the defense department is the first partnership under the startup's initiative to put AI to work in governments, according to OpenAI. The company plans to show how cutting-edge AI can vastly improve administrative operations such as how service members get healthcare and also cyber defenses, according to a blog post. The startup claims that all use of AI for the military will be consistent with OpenAI usage guidelines, which are determined by OpenAI itself.


Ahead of Protests, Waymo Scales Back Robotaxi Service Nationwide

WIRED

Waymo will temporarily limit robotaxi service in all of its nationwide markets, the company said Friday, as US cities prepare for a wave of protests of federal immigration policies and law enforcement and military crackdowns on demonstrators. The Alphabet subsidiary will stop service in Los Angeles altogether. Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp confirmed the service pause and adjustments but declined to comment further. There is no indication how long the service changes will last. The adjustments will affect service in San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Phoenix, Arizona.


AI agents will be ambient, but not autonomous - what that means for us

ZDNet

Harrison Chase, LangChain CEO and co-founder, takes the stage at Cisco Live! to discuss ambient agents. Until recently, AI solutions that can execute tasks on your behalf seemed futuristic. Now the era of AI agents is here, with nearly every company offering its own solution. On the horizon, though, is a more advanced and even more promising milestone -- ambient agents. On day three of the Cisco Live! conference, LangChain CEO and co-founder Harrison Chase took the stage to discuss ambient agents, a concept pioneered by his San Francisco-based company.


New Mets pitcher Justin Garza credits video game MLB The Show for helping save career

FOX News

Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Pitcher Justin Garza was thinking about quitting the game he loved during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as he struggled in the minor leagues. However, as Garza is joining the New York Mets now after a deal with the San Francisco Giants, he credits one thing to saving his career. Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Justin Garza, #63, reacts after giving up a home run to Minnesota Twins designated hitter Byron Buxton during the first inning at Target Field.


Inside the AI Party at the End of the World

WIRED

In a 30 million mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI researchers, philosophers, and technologists gathered to discuss the end of humanity. The Sunday afternoon symposium, called "Worthy Successor," revolved around a provocative idea from entrepreneur Daniel Faggella: The "moral aim" of advanced AI should be to create a form of intelligence so powerful and wise that "you would gladly prefer that it (not humanity) determine the future path of life itself." Faggella made the theme clear in his invitation. "This event is very much focused on posthuman transition," he wrote to me via X DMs. "Not on AGI that eternally serves as a tool for humanity."


AI Chatbots Are Making LA Protest Disinformation Worse

WIRED

Disinformation about the Los Angeles protests is spreading on social media networks and is being made worse by users turning to AI chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT to perform fact-checking. As residents of the LA area took to the streets in recent days to protest increasingly frequent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, conservative posters on social media platforms like X and Facebook flooded their feeds with inaccurate information. In addition to well-worn tactics like repurposing old protest footage or clips from video games and movies, posters have claimed that the protesters are little more than paid agitators being directed by shadowy forces--something for which there is no evidence. In the midst of fast-moving and divisive news stories like the LA protests, and as companies like X and Meta have stepped back from moderating the content on their platforms, users have been turning to AI chatbots for answers--which in many cases have been completely inaccurate. On Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle published images of National Guard troops sleeping on floors.


It's Robotaxi Summer. Buckle Up.

Slate

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Earlier this year, I tried to convince my mother-in-law to ride in one of Waymo's driverless taxis in San Francisco. It was a tough sell at first, but was helped along by a series of careening Uber rides, which prompted the question: How much worse could a robot drive? The answer, at least for us, as our Waymo carried us gently down the city's famous hills from stop sign to stop sign, was clear. We felt safer with no one behind the wheel.


Uber to trial self-driving taxis in London next spring

The Guardian

Self-driving Ubers are expected to appear on roads in London next year after the government said trials of fully autonomous vehicles would be brought forward to spring 2026. Companies will be allowed to run pilots of small-scale taxi or "bus-like" services for public use – and, for the first time in Europe, without any human safety driver onboard or in the driving seat. Uber will partner with the UK tech firm Wayve to launch trials of taxis bookable via its app in the capital, its largest European market. A fuller rollout of self-driving taxis, or robotaxis, will come after the Automated Vehicles Act fully takes effect in late 2027. The UK has sped up the process now that driverless taxis have become established in San Francisco in the US and numerous cities in China. Uber rolled out its first driverless taxis with the US firm Waymo in Austin, Texas, in March this year, where Tesla is also planning to launch a rival autonomous service this month.


Will Musk's explosive row with Trump help or harm his businesses?

BBC News

Tesla has long attempted to play catch-up against rival Waymo, owned by Google-parent Alphabet, whose driverless taxis have traversed the streets of San Francisco for years - and now operate in several more cities. This month, Musk is supposed to be overseeing Tesla's launch of a batch of autonomous robo-taxis in Austin, Texas. He posted to X last week that the electric vehicle maker had been testing the Model Y with no drivers on board. "I believe 90% of the future value of Tesla is going to be autonomous and robotics," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told the BBC this week, adding that the Austin launch would be "a watershed moment". "The first task at hand is ensuring the autonomous vision gets off to a phenomenal start," Ives added.


Amazon 'testing humanoid robots to deliver packages'

The Guardian

Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and "spring out" of its vans. The 2tn ( 1.47tn) technology company is building a "humanoid park" in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project. The Information reported that the robots could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers. It is developing the artificial intelligence software that would power the robots but will use hardware developed by other companies. The indoor obstacle course being used for the tests at an Amazon office in San Francisco is about the size of a coffee shop, the report said, with the company hoping the robots will be able to travel in Amazon's Rivian vans and make deliveries from them.