This week all eyes are on Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. It is the culmination of a dispute that has raged for years, mostly online until now, and is likely to have huge repercussions not only for the future of OpenAI, but also for the future of the AI industry as a whole. So far, the courtroom details have already been extraordinary, and not always in such flattering ways.
In addition to the trial, several other important AI news stories caught my attention this week. As always, there’s a lot going on with OpenAI, from news that the company could soon launch a phone to the discovery that a coding model was told not to reference goblins or mythical creatures.
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As always, I’ve rounded up the top stories you need to know below. Think you were paying attention to my roundup of the latest AI news from last week? Take the quiz below to find out.
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Top AI headlines from last week
Welcome to ICYMI AI, your weekly roundup of the most important developments in artificial intelligence. Here are the biggest AI stories from the past week and why they matter.
The trial between Musk and Altman is the biggest drama in AI
Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and the company’s co-founder Greg Brockman for a whopping $130 billion. He argues that they betrayed the company’s original plan to be a nonprofit. However, his motivations are complicated by the fact that he runs his own artificial intelligence company, xAI. However, there is more to this trial beyond the drama.
At its core, this test really seems like a test to see if AI companies can ever fulfill a mission, especially remain a nonprofit, once money, computing, and competition reach dizzying levels. If Musk wins, OpenAI could face a very complicated restructuring that will affect leadership, funding and product development. If it loses, it will reinforce the fact that developing the latest AI technology can always move companies toward business priorities, no matter how they started.
Either way, it puts a lot of pressure on external regulation to fill the gap that good intentions alone cannot close.
OpenAI could be building an AI-packed phone
Reports emerged this week that OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, could be building a smartphone. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that the device is in development with MediaTek and Qualcomm working on a custom chip and Luxshare handling manufacturing. Mass production is speculated to be planned for 2028. However, OpenAI has not commented.
It looks like the concept behind this OpenAI phone will replace apps with AI agents, maintaining context and completing tasks on your behalf, similar to Google’s plans to make AI a layer on top of everything we reported last week.
But think about the broader implications: If OpenAI controls the hardware, it means it will completely bypass big tech players like Apple and Google. As we said last week, how you feel about OpenAI increasingly trying to build an ecosystem rather than just being a chatbot depends on how much you trust OpenAI.
Are young people already fed up with AI?
A new report from The Verge that has certainly ruffled some feathers this week finds that the more young people use AI, the less they like it. According to the report, despite being among the largest users of chatbot tools, Gen Z workers and students are increasingly resentful of what many describe as an AI-centric future being imposed on them, and some are actively choosing career paths in which they will never have to use it.
This is important because over the past year, the dominant story has been adoption, especially among young people who I have seen described many times as “AI natives.” But this is one of several clear signs of friction in recent weeks. If the people expected to develop, use and standardize AI in the long term are already losing trust, it complicates the idea that the technology will integrate seamlessly into everyday life.
More AI news you may have missed
- China’s power grid will soon be managed by an army of humanoid robots: According to the South China Morning Post, the Chinese government plans to put thousands of robots to work in the country’s infrastructure. It’s interesting to see what large-scale AI deployment could look like and highlights how China is leaning toward rapid, state-backed deployment compared to the United States.
- OpenAI tells its latest model to stop talking about elves: In one of the week’s most light-hearted stories, Wired reports that OpenAI actually wants its coding agent to never talk about goblins, gremlins, or other animals or creatures. It seems that past iterations of the model assumed that “bugs” meant mythical creatures and that is why OpenAI had to explain things in new instructions.
- We compare ChatGPT Images 2.0 and Google’s Nano Banana 2: We used real-world cues, but which AI imager do you think came out on top? You’ll have to click to find out, but we were fascinated to discover that although both models were similar, one stood out in terms of realism.
- I tried using ChatGPT to follow The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People step by step: Graham, TechRadar’s AI editor, used ChatGPT to break down a classic self-help system into a structured plan. The results were surprising and prove that ChatGPT can really excel as a self-development partner.
- OpenAI received lawsuits for not reporting school shooter: We saw this one coming last week. OpenAI’s moderation tools have reportedly flagged Jesse Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account for discussions of violence. But after much debate, OpenAI did not report her to local authorities and instead deactivated her account. Now several families are suing OpenAI for not taking action sooner.
- The Pentagon now has an agreement with seven artificial intelligence companies: Companies like OpenAI, Google, Nvidia and several others have now agreed to “any legal use” of their technology by the US military. Anthropo was not included. This agreement raises all kinds of questions about where the lines are and who decides how these systems are used.
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