In abandoning plans for a self-driving car, Apple Inc. is giving up on billions in potential revenue and the dream of selling what one executive called "the ultimate mobile device." The hope is that other big bets -- including generative AI and mixed-reality headsets -- can make up the difference. Apple reached this crossroads Tuesday, when it told employees it was winding down the car project and reassigned some of the staff to its AI efforts. The decision followed months of frenzied meetings between top executives and the company's board over how to proceed. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and project head Kevin Lynch broke the news to the roughly 2,000-member team during a meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes.

February was shaping up to be a banner month for Google's ambitious artificial intelligence strategy. The company rebranded its chatbot as Gemini and released two major product upgrades to better compete with rivals on all sides in the high-stakes AI arms race. In the midst of all that, Google also began allowing Gemini users to generate realistic-looking images of people. Not many noticed the feature at first. Other companies like OpenAI already offer tools that let users quickly make images of people that can then be used for marketing, art and brainstorming creative ideas.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. led the largest single financing round for a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, the latest in a string of sizable investments that suggest the e-commerce firm is again deploying capital in the hunt for growth. Alibaba joins Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Silicon Valley peers like Microsoft Corp. in placing big bets on generative AI, the technology that powers ChatGPT. It led a 1 billion funding round in Moonshot AI with existing backer Monolith Management, boosting the year-old firm's valuation eight-fold to some 2.5 billion, people familiar with the deal said. They joined previous backers including food delivery giant Meituan's investment arm Long-Z and Hongshan, formerly Sequoia China, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private transaction. Founded in March 2023, Moonshot AI is among the better-known startups developing generative artificial intelligence in China, hoping to eventually match the likes of OpenAI and Google.

Microsoft Corp.'s Mistral AI investment is set to be analyzed by the European Union's competition watchdog at the same time that its deep ties to OpenAI Inc come under regulatory scrutiny. Mistral announced a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft on Monday that includes making the startup's latest artificial intelligence models available to customers of Microsoft's Azure cloud. Microsoft said the investment amounted to 15 million ( 16.3 million.) Mistral develops algorithmic models similar to those from OpenAI used for chatbots and other AI services, but Mistral models are shared openly. Microsoft's investments will convert into equity as part of Mistral's next funding round.

Microsoft announced an artificial intelligence partnership Monday with the French startup Mistral AI that could lessen the software giant's reliance on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for supplying the next wave of chatbots and other generative AI products. Mistral AI emerged less than a year ago but is already what Microsoft described Monday as an "innovator and trailblazer" at the vanguard of building more efficient and cost-effective AI systems. Microsoft and Mistral didn't disclose the financial terms of the deal, though Microsoft said it involves a small investment in the Paris-based startup. That suggests it is far smaller than Microsoft's investment of billions of dollars into OpenAI, a years-long relationship that has attracted the scrutiny of antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe. Mistral on Monday released a public test version of its own chatbot, called Le Chat, that apparently was flooded with so much interest that a company executive said it was temporarily unavailable for part of the day.

The brave new world of Generative AI has become the latest battleground for U.S. culture wars. Google issued an apology after anti-woke X-users, including Elon Musk, shared examples of Google's chatbot Gemini refusing to generate images of white people--including historical figures--even when specifically prompted to do so. Gemini's insistence on prioritizing diversity and inclusion over accuracy is likely a well intentioned attempt to stamp out bias in early GenAI datasets that tended to create stereotypical images of Africans and other minority groups as well women, causing outrage among progressives. But there is much more at stake than the selective outrage of U.S. conservatives and progressives. How the "guardrails" of GenAI are defined and deployed is likely to have a significant and increasing impact on shaping the ecosystem of information and ideas that most humans engage with.

On Tuesday, speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries launched a bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and Jeffries, a New York Democrat, each appointed 12 members to the Task Force, which will be chaired by Representative Jay Obernolte, a California Republican, and co-chaired by Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. According to the announcement, the Task Force will "produce a comprehensive report that will include guiding principles, forward-looking recommendations and bipartisan policy proposals developed in consultation with committees of jurisdiction." Obernolte--who has a masters in AI from the University of California, Los Angeles and founded the video game company FarSight Studios--and Lieu--who studied computer science and political science at Stanford University--are natural picks to lead the Task Force. But many of the members have expertise in AI too.

The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT has increased the potential for a wide range of attackers to target elections around the world in 2024, according to a new report by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike. Both state-linked hackers and allied so-called "hacktivists" are increasingly experimenting with ChatGPT and other AI tools, enabling a wider range of actors to carry out cyberattacks and scams, according to the company's annual global threats report. This includes hackers linked to Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, who have been testing new ways to use these technologies against the U.S., Israel, and European countries. With half the world's population set to vote in 2024, the use of generative AI to target elections could be a "huge factor," says Adam Meyers, head of counter-adversary operations at CrowdStrike. So far, CrowdStrike analysts have been able to detect the use of these models through comments in the scripts that would have been placed there by a tool like ChatGPT.

Hilke Schellmann, author of "The Algorithm," argues that AI-based tools aren't ready for use in the hiring process. Yet, many large American companies already rely upon them.

This week Microsoft announced that it would invest 3.2 billion ( 3.5 billion) in Germany over the next two years. The U.S. tech giant will use the money to double the capacity of its artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure in Germany and expand its training programmes, according to Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith. The move follows a similar announcement from November 2023, when Microsoft said it would invest 2.5 billion ( 3.2 billion) in infrastructure in the U.K. over the next three years. Both countries hailed the investments as significant steps that would permit them to compete on the world stage when it comes to AI. However, the investments are dwarfed by investments made by U.S.-based cloud service providers elsewhere, particularly in the U.S. As AI becomes increasingly economically and militarily important, governments are taking steps to ensure they have control over the technology that they depend on.