Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, is in talks to raise new financing that could value it at as much as $120 billion, up from $80 billion little more than a month ago, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. The talks are in the early stages, and xAI’s valuation could rise or fall…
OpenAI said late Wednesday that it hired Fidji Simo, the chief executive of Instacart, to take on a new role running the artificial intelligence company’s business and operations teams. In a blog post, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said he would remain in charge as the head of the company. But Ms. Simo’s appointment as…
Artificial intelligence software has given editing tools a huge boost in power, far beyond the spell-checkers and grammar aids of yore. A.I. can proofread, rewrite, summarize and compose text, making it simple to craft clean, complex documents in a flash — even on a smartphone. If you haven’t dabbled yet, free offerings from Apple and…
The Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO Group was ordered on Tuesday to pay $167 million in damages to Meta, capping a six-year legal battle after NSO hacked 1,400 WhatsApp accounts belonging to journalists, human-rights activists and government officials. In December, Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that…
Few people want beefs with their neighbors to become public. That includes Elon Musk. In March, Mr. Musk’s team lobbied officials in the upscale city of West Lake Hills, Texas, to keep quiet the details of one of his mansions and security operations, according to emails to city employees obtained by The New York Times…
At first, residents of the upscale cul-de-sac in West Lake Hills, Texas, did not know who had moved into the 6,900-square-foot, six-bedroom mansion next door. Then construction workers arrived to erect a 16-foot chain-link fence around the $6 million property, which is one of four homes on the leafy street. They also installed an outward-facing…
Last month, an A.I. bot that handles tech support for Cursor, an up-and-coming tool for computer programmers, alerted several customers about a change in company policy. It said they were no longer allowed to use Cursor on more than just one computer. In angry posts to internet message boards, the customers complained. Some canceled their…
With its horse-trodden roads, endless fields of almond blossoms and cowboy heritage, the 20,000 person town of Oakdale, Calif., fits the American West of imagination. And for decades, its media diet was classically all-American, too. Nightly news broadcasts played on living room televisions. Copies of local newspapers lined doorsteps on Sunday mornings. The town even…
Spend enough time in San Francisco, peering into the cyberpunk future, and you may find that weird things start seeming normal. Fleets of self-driving cars? Yawn. A start-up trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth? Sure, why not. Summoning a godlike artificial intelligence that could wipe out humanity? Ho-hum. You may even find yourself, as I…
The Justice Department laid out its road map on Friday to break up Google’s advertising technology empire, which would be the second request to force the sale of pieces of its business within a year. The government’s comments came during a hearing convened by Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the…