Anxiety over AI replacing entire industries has already pushed people to change course in their classes and career. Anxiety over AI replacing entire industries has already pushed people to change course in their classes and career. Matthew Ramirez started at Western Governors University as a computer science major in 2025, drawn by the promise of a high-paying, flexible career as a programmer. But as headlines mounted about tech layoffs and AI's potential to replace entry-level coders, he began to question whether that path would actually lead to a job. When the 20-year-old interviewed for a datacenter technician role that June and never heard back, his doubts deepened.

What's worse, being stuck in traffic or on another interminable Microsoft Teams call? Mercedes is teaming up with Microsoft to allow you to take Teams calls while on the go -- and is talking about adding Microsoft Copilot to its suite of luxury cars, too. Microsoft and Mercedes-Benz said Wednesday that the new Mercedes CLA will be able to tap into an in-vehicle camera and give drivers access to a Meetings for Teams application. Somehow, Mercedes is also including Microsoft Intune inside the car, so business workers will be able to access private business data, too. Mercedes is making this part of what it calls MBUX, the Mercedes-Benz user experience.

"Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest," Elon Musk stated Thursday in a post on X. The EV brand would catch up with the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, which have already integrated ChatGPT into their vehicles as voice assistants. The announcement follows a livestream late Wednesday that Musk held with xAI colleagues where the billionaire unveiled Grok 4, the latest AI model from xAI, his multibillion-dollar initiative to rival OpenAI and Google. The timing for both announcements is unfortunate for an embattled Musk. Over the past few days, a version of Grok built into Musk's X social media platform praised Adolf Hitler and provided antisemitic responses to multiple prompts from X users.

In Formula One, teams compete to develop their cars and achieve the highest possible finishing position in each race. During a race, however, teams are unable to alter the car, so they must improve their cars' finishing positions via race strategy, i.e. optimising their selection of which tyre compounds to put on the car and when to do so. In this work, we introduce a reinforcement learning model, RSRL (Race Strategy Reinforcement Learning), to control race strategies in simulations, offering a faster alternative to the industry standard of hard-coded and Monte Carlo-based race strategies. Controlling cars with a pace equating to an expected finishing position of P5.5 (where P1 represents first place and P20 is last place), RSRL achieves an average finishing position of P5.33 on our test race, the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, outperforming the best baseline of P5.63. We then demonstrate, in a generalisability study, how performance for one track or multiple tracks can be prioritised via training. Further, we supplement model predictions with feature importance, decision tree-based surrogate models, and decision tree counterfactuals towards improving user trust in the model. Finally, we provide illustrations which exemplify our approach in real-world situations, drawing parallels between simulations and reality.

Mercedes-Benz is putting ChatGPT on the road. The automaker is using Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service to bring the viral natural-language model to its in-car voice assistant. It will initially be available in a three-month beta program for US customers in select vehicles, but Mercedes says it will consider a broader and more permanent rollout in the future. ChatGPT integration could put the automaker's "Hey Mercedes" voice assistant on steroids. Rather than merely answering simple and pre-programmed commands like "Turn up the heat" or "What's the forecast," it can carry natural conversations about virtually any topic, including contextual follow-up questions.

Mercedes-Benz is the first automaker to get permission from California regulators to sell or lease vehicles with Level 3 (hands-off and eyes-off) self driving tech on designated roads, Reuters has reported. The California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a permit for the company's Drive Pilot system, provided it's used under certain conditions and on specific roads. Mercedes-Benz previous received a similar certification in Nevada. Drive Pilot will allow Mercedes-Benz drivers to takes their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel, then do other non-driving activities like watching videos and texting. If the rules for use are followed, Mercedes (and not the driver) will be legally responsible for any accident that happens.

Mercedes-Benz is developing a new in-house operating system to power its next generation of electric vehicles. Announced today at an event the automaker held in California, Mercedes said MB.OS – short for Mercedes-Benz Operating System – will deliver enhancements in safety, automated driving and navigation. The automaker is working with several partners to build its new software stack, including NVIDIA, Luminar and Google. Mercedes will lean on NVIDIA for the company's software, data and AI expertise. The GPU maker's Orin chipset will also power the first generation of electric cars Mercedes builds based on its upcoming Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) platform.

At CES earlier this January, Mercedes announced that it would become the first car company to achieve certification from the SAE for a Level 3 driver assist system. That became official on Thursday when the automaker confirmed its Drive Pilot ADAS (automated driver assist system) now complies with the requirements of Nevada Chapter 482A, which governs the use of autonomous vehicle technology on the state's roads. That makes Drive Pilot the only legal Level 3 system in the US for the moment. "An unwavering commitment to innovation has consistently guided Mercedes-Benz from the very beginning," Dimitris Psillakis, President and CEO of MBUSA, said in Thursday's press statement. "It is a very proud moment for everyone to continue this leadership and celebrate this monumental achievement as the first automotive company to be certified for Level 3 conditionally automated driving in the US market."

Stellantis is preparing to roll out its first cars capable of Level 3 hands-free driving in 2024 thanks to a tie-up with French company Valeo. Mercedes was the first carmaker to get legal certification for a Level 3 autonomous system, but currently no Stellantis product has Level 3 status. That will change when Stellantis starts fitting its cars with the next generation of the Valeo-developed Scala lidar system that helped Mercedes get the jump on its rivals. Level 3 autonomy means drivers can switch their attention away from the road, legally allowing them to catch up on emails, watch a movie or read a book. Sleeping is still off the menu, however; drivers must be ready to take control back from the car when commanded to do so.

Mercedes has announced that it will take legal responsibility for any crashes that occur while its self-driving systems are engaged. The company is currently in the process of deploying "Drive Pilot" technology for its new S-Class and EQS saloon models, which is "Level 3" for autonomy on a six-tier system devised by Society of Automotive Engineers, ranging from Level 0 (no automated driver assistance) to Level 5 (the car drives itself everywhere without any input from the vehicle occupants). Level 3 autonomy means that drivers may take their hands off the wheel and undertake other tasks, such as reading a book, while the car assumes full control of all driving functions. However, this is only in specific conditions, such as in low-speed traffic on motorways, and the person in the driver's seat must be able to retake control within a few seconds of an alert from the car. This is a big leap from Level 2 autonomy, which requires hands-on-wheel supervision from the driver at all times, and which is currently commonplace on new cars in the form of adaptive cruise control and automated lane-keeping. Some cars from the likes of Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Genesis and Tesla have such advanced systems that they are considered somewhere between Levels 2 and 3 -- dubbed by experts as Level 2 .