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OpenAI safety employee quits, says ‘time for trial and error is over’ <br> A former OpenAI safety employee who recently resigned has criticised the company&rsquo;s approach to AI safety, arguing that a fast-paced culture focused on rapid development increases the risk of failures. Writing in &ldquo;I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken&rdquo;, published by The Atlantic on Saturday, David Robinson said AI companies, including OpenAI, were not being &ldquo;nearly careful enough&rdquo; and should place greater emphasis on safety expertise and research before developing more capable systems. &ldquo;The time for trial and error is over,&rdquo; Robinson wrote, arguing that advanced AI systems require safeguards more akin to those used in industries such as nuclear power and aviation. Robinson said OpenAI relies heavily on what it calls &ldquo;iterative deployment&rdquo;, releasing systems and strengthening safeguards when problems emerg...

Trump names intelligence chief Clayton as AI czar, to head task force, WSJ reports <br> United States President Donald Trump&nbsp;has appointed Director of National&nbsp;Intelligence Jay Clayton&nbsp;as the administration&#39;s&nbsp;AI&nbsp;czar, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing an interview with&nbsp;Clayton. Clayton, who was appointed&nbsp;intelligence&nbsp;chief&nbsp;in August, will lead a new White House panel&nbsp;tasked with reporting within 120 days on the risks and opportunities posed by&nbsp;AI, the newspaper said. &quot;The president asked that a group be put together,&quot; which the administration refers to as the &quot;Super&nbsp;Intelligence&nbsp;Force,&quot; to ensure the US remains a leader in advanced&nbsp;AI&nbsp;while protecting Americans&#39; interests,&nbsp;Clayton&nbsp;told the Journal, adding that &quot;the risk of not being first is hi...

How Chinese robot dancers find their rhythm on American TV show <br> A jade pendant bearing a small golden Sanxingdui mask rested against dancer Wu Yufei&#39;s chest as he stepped onto the stage of the &quot;America&#39;s Got Talent&quot; finale. Commissioned by his wife, this piece of home was by his side as he wowed the audience. At the finale, 27-year-old Wu, from Sichuan Province in southwestern China, shared the stage with humanoid robots made by Unitree, performing in a fusion of robotics, ink-wash aesthetics, and contemporary stage performance. &quot;Robots are not merely technological achievements, but can also become creative partners on stage and a new medium for artistic expression,&quot; said Fang Zhenghua, the Chengdu choreographer who directed the team&#39;s performances. Wu said their experience in the United States has been genuinely heartwarming. He, along with Fang, showcased not only the advances in humanoid robot technology,...

AI's race to transform the world before the money runs out <br> Never has so much cash flowed into a new technology as is pouring into AI, eclipsing the sums splurged on railways or the internet when those technological revolutions sucked in capital. Cumulative spending globally on data centres alone could top $30 trillion by 2050, according to a projection by PwC, almost matching the value of outstanding United States Treasuries. It &quot;dwarfs&quot; what was spent in the railroad or dotcom booms, even after adjusting for inflation, PwC said. Meanwhile, Anthropic, just one of the major firms in the AI&nbsp;race, plans to spend $518 billion in coming years, according to the IPO prospectus seen by Reuters, which is more than 100 times its 2025 revenue. Read:&nbsp;Trump tells AI bosses to self-regulate Its backers say AI technology will be more&nbsp;transformational than the advent of steam engines and the industrialisation they powered. Yet lurki...

New Mexico wants Meta to pay up to $40 billion in penalties after data privacy trial <br> The state of New Mexico asked a judge on Thursday to order Meta Platforms to pay between $35 billion ​and $40 billion in penalties after a jury found the company had misled consumers about the privacy of their data on Facebook in &zwnj;a case that came out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Attorneys for New Mexico made the request at a hearing in a lawsuit brought following revelations that the British political consulting firm, which worked on Donald Trump&#39;s 2016 presidential campaign, harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app without their consent. The jury returned its verdict ​on September 25. Judge Francis Mathew, who oversaw the trial in Santa Fe, will decide how much Meta must pay in financial penalties. Attorneys ​for Meta and New Mexico clashed at the hearing over how much was appropriate to order, with Meta arg...

OpenAI dismisses 3 researchers over alleged mishandling of sensitive information <br> OpenAI has dismissed three researchers after an internal investigation concluded that they mishandled sensitive company information, the ChatGPT developer told news outlets. &ldquo;We have parted ways with three individuals&rdquo; for violating information-access and handling policies, an OpenAI spokesperson said. The company said the researchers dealt with sensitive material outside its established procedures, violating internal rules and undermining the trust required for its work. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the dismissals late Thursday, identified the researchers as Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni. It said the alleged misconduct included sharing confidential information with an external AI-safety organization that was helping analyze OpenAI&rsquo;s models. Neither the outside organization nor the material allegedly shared was identified p...