Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) is partnering with AI companies Anthropic and Percepta to try to improve access togovernment benefits and housing, according to an announcement shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: Applying for government assistance or housing permits, as well as processing those services, can be difficult and time-consuming.
Joby Aviation this month flew for the first time an autonomous vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft it and L3Harris Technologies are developing for defense applications.
Why it matters: It's a major milestone for the project — one that opens the door for additional internal testing this year as well as military demonstrations next year.
The latest AI models powering ChatGPT just learned to be friendlier, improving the experience for people who use chatbots responsibly.
It could be a problem for those who don't or can't.
Why it matters: As chatbots become more humanlike in their behavior, it could increase the risks of unhealthy attachments, or a kind of trust that goes beyond what the products are built to handle.
The Northern Lights have been illuminating skies across the U.S. this week, and some lucky spectators may get another chance to see the aurora borealis into Thursday.
The big picture: Intense G4 geomagnetic conditions, the second-highest on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's five-step scale, produced magnetic conditions that were "eight times stronger than what's normal" on Tuesday night, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center forecaster Shawn Dahl said in a video on X.
The challenge: Governments face mounting pressure to do more with less — from optimizing emergency response to managing supply chain and logistics management — all while facing resource constraints. Classical computing can have difficulty keeping up with the scale or complexity of today's public-sector demands.
Artificial intelligence is going to "change the status quo," including by democratizing, scaling and accelerating one's ability to "extract information out of satellite data," Planet CEO Will Marshall told Axios in an interview.
Why he matters: His company's raison d'être, he told Axios, "is helping us to take care of this spacecraft — one spacecraft — called the Earth."
Marshall was previously a systems engineer on the lunar orbiter mission LADEE and a member of the science team for the lunar impactor mission LCROSS.
A new digital awakening is unfolding in churches, where pastors and prayer apps are turning to artificial intelligence to reach worshippers, personalize sermons, and power chatbots that resemble God.
Why it matters: AI is helping some churches stay relevant in the face of shrinking staff, empty pews and growing online audiences. But the practice raises new questions about who, or what, is guiding the flock.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) criticized President Trump at COP30 on Tuesday for being absent from the UN summit in Belém, Brazil, and called his rejection of climate policy an "abomination."
The big picture: Newsom, who's expected to run for president in 2028, said during a ministerial meeting that he's "very mindful that the Trump administration has abandoned any sense of duty, responsibility or leadership as it relates to the issues that bring us all here together" at COP30.
