Company sues after coastal commission cited CEO’s spread of misinformation on X in rejecting company’s proposal Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sued a California commission in federal court, accusing it of political bias in its decision to block the space venture company from increasing the number of rockets it launches from a US airbase in the state. The commission cited Musk’s penchant for spreading misinformation on his social network Twitter/X in a meeting where commissioners rejected the company’s proposal. SpaceX sued the California coastal commission on Tuesday in Los Angeles, seeking an order that would bar the agency from regulating the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket launch program at Vandenberg space force base in Santa Barbara. Continue reading...

Nima Momeni had no motive to stab Bob Lee to death, opening day of trial in San Francisco hears The tech consultant charged in Cash App founder Bob Lee’s stabbing death had no motive to kill him and in fact was forced to defend himself against Lee, who had become aggressive while on a multi-day drug bender, lawyers for Nima Momeni said in opening statements on Monday. Prosecutors say Momeni, 40, planned the 4 April 2023 attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar, with whom Lee was friends. They say Momeni took a knife from a unique set in his sister’s condo, drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times, then fled. Continue reading...

For his explosion event in Los Angeles, Cai Guo-Qiang built his own version of ChatGPT and employed a drone army to answer the question: what is the fate of humanity and AI? For decades, Cai Guo-Qiang has been the world’s foremost fine artist of explosions. He is famous for his massive fireworks displays, from his glowing footsteps in the sky at the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to his 2015 Sky Ladder, a 1,650-foot flaming ladder to heaven featured in a Netflix documentary. Recently, the gunpowder artist has become obsessed with a new threatening technology: artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Apple watchers also expect new colors for the iPhone at the annual launch event, this year titled ‘It’s Glowtime’ Apple is slated to unveil its latest iPhone and a slew of other new hardware on Monday during its biggest product launch event of the year. The event, held at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, features the tagline “It’s Glowtime” with the company’s logo surrounded by a colorful aura. New colors for the iPhone and other Apple products are rumored to be coming. Continue reading...

Groundbreaking bill aims to reduce potential AI risks – requiring model testing and disclosure of safety protocol A California bill that would establish first-in-the-nation safety measures for the largest artificial intelligence systems cleared an important vote Wednesday. The proposal, aiming to reduce potential risks created by AI, would require companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons – scenarios experts say could be possible in the future with such rapid advancements in the industry. The measure squeaked by in the state assembly Wednesday and now faces a final vote in the state senate, where it has passed once already, before it heads to the governor’s desk for his signature, though he has not indicated his position on it. Governor Gavin Newsom then has until the end of September to decide whether to sign it into law, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature. He declined to weigh in on the measure earlier this summer but had warned against AI overregulation. Continue reading...

Non-traditional pets get millions of online views. But the rising trend poses questions about animal welfare In a quiet neighborhood in California’s capital, residents have gotten used to the screaming temper tantrums of a two-year-old. “No, Merlin!” they’ll hear his mother shout whenever he’s had enough of his favorite snack. “No more ice cubes!” “We haven’t had any complaints from the neighbors yet,” says Mia Alali, the mother in question. That might be because Merlin is just about the cutest two-year-old in California. He also happens to be a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Continue reading...

Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson allege company misused work to teach chatbot Claude The artificial intelligence company Anthropic has been hit with a class-action lawsuit in California federal court by three authors who say it misused their books and hundreds of thousands of others to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude, which generates texts in response to users’ prompts. The complaint, filed on Monday by writers and journalists Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson, said that Anthropic used pirated versions of their works and others to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Continue reading...