The Pentagon has struck deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Elon Musk’s xAI, and the startup Reflection, allowing the agency to use their AI tools in classified settings, according to an announcement on Friday. At the same time, the Defense Department has left out Anthropic – which it previously used for classified information – […]
This past week delivered another gut punch for science in the US. This time, the target was the National Science Foundation—a federal agency that funds major research projects to the tune of around $9 billion. The foundation’s efforts were overseen by a board of 22 prominent scientists. On Friday last week, they were all fired.…
The Mandel Foundation, started by three brothers on the first Forbes 400 list, is giving $125 million for, among other things, interdisciplinary studies such as the ethics of robotics.
Congress has reauthorized Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – but only for another 45 days. The extension is meant to give legislators more time to negotiate reforms to the controversial wiretapping bill. If the past few weeks are any indication of how future debates will go, however, we’re in for a bumpy […]
Close watchers of the Supreme Court knew that the conservative supermajority was about to murder what was left of the Voting Rights Act. Wednesday’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais took down Section 2 of the law, clearing the way for racist gerrymandering, because it is now racist to remedy racism. The decision is an affront […]
Meta says it may be forced to pull Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from New Mexico if the attorney general gets his way. The state is demanding a host of changes that the company says are impossible to achieve. After winning a $375 million jury award against Meta in a trial that argued the company misled […]
In a federal courtroom in California on Thursday, Elon Musk testified that his own AI startup, xAI, has used OpenAI’s models to improve its own. The matter at question is model distillation, a common industry practice by which one larger AI model acts as a “teacher” of sorts to pass on knowledge to a smaller […]
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In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at a new drug cost partnership, a brain implant deal, and more.
The Musk v. Altman trial is underway, and that means exhibits, or the evidence to be presented in court, are being revealed piece by piece. So far, email exchanges, photos, and corporate documents are circulating from the earliest days of OpenAI – and from before the AI lab even had a name. Some high-level takeaways: […]