OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is leaving the company after 6½ years "to create the time and space to do my own exploration," she announced in an X post on Wednesday.
Driving the news: CEO Sam Altman announced the departure of two other executives and made several new appointments at the end of the day.
Meta unveiled a lower-cost version of its Quest 3 virtual reality headset Wednesday and demoed its prototype Orion augmented reality glasses alongside a significant expansion of its artificial intelligence efforts.
Why it matters: Facebook's parent company has shifted significant resources into AI but continues to operate the largest VR platform. A lower-cost headset helps bolster that position.
As the 2024 election cycle ramps up,at least26 states have passed or are considering bills regulating the use of generative AI in election-related communications, a new analysis by Axios shows.
Why it matters: The review lays bare a messy patchwork of rules around the use of genAI in politics, as experts increasingly sound the alarm on the evolving technology's power to sway or disenfranchise voters.
Steven Simoni, the cofounder of Allen Control Systems, wants to blast drones out of the sky while driving full speed. And he wants to do it with super-accurate bullets — not a pricey interceptor or wall of energy.
Why it matters: The company's Bullfrog autonomous gun turret was studied at a recent Technology Readiness Experimentation event hosted by the Pentagon.
It's back to the drawing boardfor the U.S. Air Force as air superiority is shaken by sophisticated drones, budget pressures back home and a growing appetite for mass, not rarity.
Why it matters: Fights abroad and industry's technological leaps are forcing militaries to rethink their biggest investments, including heavy armor and aircraft.
A new artificial intelligence tool could supercharge efforts to find new uses for old drugs, particularly rare diseases without a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment.
The big picture: The Harvard Medical School researchers behind the tool, called TxGNN, write today in Nature Medicine that it can identify candidates for 17,000 conditions — the largest number of diseases that any single AI model can handle to date.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti,the chief of U.S. naval operations, wants to squash ship, submarine and aircraft delays as well as widely adopt robotics to prepare for potential war with China in 2027.
Why it matters: Flashy weapons are useless if you can't buy, build and repair them.
Meta's AI chatbot will start speaking this week, and its new voice capabilities will come in a variety of celebrity flavors.
Why it matters: AI providers are racing to expand their bots' capabilities from text- and image-making into the realm of voice as their battle to answer the world's questions continues.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sees AI producing "massive prosperity" in a future that is "so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now."
Why it matters: That sounds pretty great, but "now" is where we all live and work — and right now, the tech industry is locked in an epic debate about whether AI can deliver on its flood of promises.
