K2 Think compares well with reasoning models from OpenAI and DeepSeek but is smaller and more efficient, say researchers based in Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has released an open source model that performs advanced reasoning as well as the best offerings from both the United States and China--one of the strongest signs so far that the nation's big investments in artificial intelligence are starting to pay off. The new model, K2 Think, comes from researchers at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) located in UAE's capital Abu Dhabi. The model--one of the first so-called "sovereign" AI models that incorporates technical advances needed for reasoning--is being made available for free by G42, an Emirati tech conglomerate backed by Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth funds. G42 is running the model on a cluster of Cerberas chips, an alternative to Nvidia's hardware.

Nate Soares doesn't set aside money for his 401(k). "I just don't expect the world to be around," he told me earlier this summer from his office at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, where he is the president. A few weeks earlier, I'd heard a similar rationale from Dan Hendrycks, the director of the Center for AI Safety. By the time he could tap into any retirement funds, Hendrycks anticipates a world in which "everything is fully automated," he told me. That is, "if we're around."

Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called'Godfathers of AI' has won a Nobel Prize for pioneering the very same technology he fears could result in the "end of people." Hinton and fellow AI researcher John J. Hopfield were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their crucial early work on artificial neural networks, which have since formed the foundation for powerful AI models developed by Google, OpenAI, and others. The pair's work, which draws on inspiration from the human brain's architecture, paved the way for advancements in machine learning used in everything from fraud detection to driverless vehicles. In Hinton's view, the tech he helped pioneer may also pose a profound risk to human safety. Hopfield and Hinton are credited with advancing the study of neural networks in the 1970s and '80s during a time when it was still unclear that the field would mature into the behemoth it is today.

The tech industry is currently embroiled in a heated debate over the future of AI: should powerful systems be open-source and freely accessible, or closed and tightly monitored for dangers? On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg fired a salvo into this ongoing battle, publishing not just a new series of powerful AI models, but also a manifesto forcefully advocating for the open-source approach. The document, which was widely praised by venture capitalists and tech leaders like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, serves as both a philosophical treatise and a rallying cry for proponents of open-source AI development. It arrives as intensifying global efforts to regulate AI have galvanized resistance from open-source advocates, who see some of those potential laws as threats to innovation and accessibility. At the heart of Meta's announcement on Tuesday was the release of its latest generation of Llama large language models, the company's answer to ChatGPT.

A large majority of American voters are skeptical of the argument that the U.S. should race ahead to build ever more powerful artificial intelligence, unconstrained by domestic regulations, in an effort to compete with China, according to new polling shared exclusively with TIME. The findings indicate that American voters disagree with a common narrative levied by the tech industry, in which CEOs and lobbyists have repeatedly argued the U.S. must tread carefully with AI regulation in order to not hand the advantage to their geopolitical rival. And they reveal a startling level of bipartisan consensus on AI policy, with both Republicans and Democrats in support of the government placing some limits on AI development in favor of safety and national security. According to the poll, 75% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans believe that "taking a careful controlled approach" to AI--by preventing the release of tools that terrorists and foreign adversaries could use against the U.S.--is preferable to "moving forward on AI as fast as possible to be the first country to get extremely powerful AI." A majority of voters support more stringent security practices at AI companies, and are worried about the risk of China stealing their most powerful models, the poll shows.

The U.K. and U.S. governments announced Monday they will work together in safety testing the most powerful artificial intelligence models. An agreement, signed by Michelle Donelan, the U.K. Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, sets out a plan for collaboration between the two governments. "I think of [the agreement] as marking the next chapter in our journey on AI safety, working hand in glove with the United States government," Donelan told TIME in an interview at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Monday. "I see the role of the United States and the U.K. as being the real driving force in what will become a network of institutes eventually." The U.K. and U.S. AI Safety Institutes were established just one day apart, around the inaugural AI Safety Summit hosted by the U.K. government at Bletchley Park in November 2023.

Elizabeth Kelly, formerly an economic policy adviser to President Joe Biden, has been named as director of the newly formed U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (USAISI), U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced Wednesday. "For the United States to lead the world in the development of safe, responsible AI, we need the brightest minds at the helm," said Raimondo. "Thanks to President Biden's leadership, we're in a position of power to meet the challenges posed by AI, while fostering America's greatest strength: innovation." Kelly has previously contributed to the Biden Administration's efforts to regulate AI with the AI Executive Order, which an Administration official tells TIME she was involved in the development of from the beginning. Kelly was "a driving force behind the domestic components of the AI executive order, spearheading efforts to promote competition, protect privacy, and support workers and consumers, and helped lead Administration engagement with allies and partners on AI governance," according to a press release announcing her appointment. Read More: Why Biden's AI Executive Order Only Goes So Far Previously, Kelly was special assistant to the President for economic policy at the White House National Economic Council.

In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Within five days, it had over a million users. Six months later, the CEOs of the world's leading AI companies, and hundreds of researchers and experts, signed a short statement warning that mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority on the scale of preventing nuclear war. AI's rapid technological progress and the dire warnings from its creators provoked a reaction in capitals around the world. But as lawmakers and regulators rushed to write the rules charting AI's future, many warned their efforts were insufficient to mitigate the risks from, and capitalize on the benefits of AI.

Since its public launch in November 2022, ChatGPT, the mesmerizing AI chatbot by OpenAI, has grown in popularity like wildfire. Social media feeds are filled with incredible things people are doing with the chatbot. Jobseekers, programmers, high school teachers, content creators--professionals in almost every field are finding good uses for the tool. However, when one tool takes center stage, it's easy to lose track of the alternatives that could offer equal or even better value. We've put together three of the best ChatGPT alternatives you can use right now.

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