Amazon CEO's Talks with U.S. Officials Triggered Crackdown on Anthropic Models
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Trump administration's decision to halt all foreign use of Anthropic's most capable AI models was prompted by conversations between Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy and U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, people familiar with the matter said.
Researchers at Amazon had used a series of prompts to get Anthropic's Fable 5 model to provide them with information that could be used to aid cyberattacks and was supposed to be off limits, Jassy told the officials, according to people familiar with the matter. Tech industry executives have been in regular touch with the administration about the power of cutting-edge AI tools. Shortly afterward, White House officials held a meeting to discuss how to respond and security researchers began testing Amazon's claims. The officials asked Anthropic to fix the vulnerabilities or take down the model, according to administration officials. The officials decided that the most direct way to address that risk was by preventing foreign governments, companies and individuals from accessing the tool, the people said. President Trump later signed off on the action despite reservations about it hindering innovation, a senior White House official said.
The administration had long felt that Anthropic, one of the leaders in America's AI race, couldn't be trusted to manage the security risks its new model presented. Friday's call between some administration officials and Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei reinforced that feeling, the people said...
Anthropic has said that the vulnerabilities like those flagged by Amazon are relatively basic. The company has said that other publicly available models are capable of discovering them and that they don't represent a full so-called jailbreak, a point of view shared by some security researchers familiar with Amazon's research.
The article points out that Amazon is "a big investor in Anthropic, supply Anthropic with chips for data centers.
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I flew to the world's 'least-visited' country for a week and it blew me away with its beauty. Yet by 2050, most of it will be underwater
Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball wish they could've lived like this on their island.
Woman who claims she was drugged and raped in custody by Greater Manchester Police officers says Mayor Andy Burnham has 'not delivered on any of his promises' to help her
Zayna Iman, 41, believes she was given a substance, stripped and sexually assaulted before being left naked and distressed on the cell floor at Pendleton police station in February 2021.
'They'll leak medical records, tax records, they'll bug his phone and leak that...' Why the Establishment will do anything to stop Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister
Occasionally reckless, sometimes daring, rarely dull, always outspoken, he is arguably the most consequential British politician of our age.
Kim Kardashian addresses that awkward moment she 'stole' Kimi Antonelli's towel at the Monaco Grand Prix as she gifts the Mercedes driver a personalised one
Kim Kardashian has finally addressed that awkward moment she 'stole' Kimi Antonelli's towel after he won the Monaco Grand Prix last weekend.
David Hockney rejected Westminster Abbey burial because his 'heart, soul and body' would always be in Yorkshire
David Hockney was offered the chance to be buried at Westminster Abbey but turned it down, saying his 'heart, soul and body' would forever remain in his beloved Yorkshire.
First World Cup shock as Qatar withstand Switzerland barrage to stun rivals with 95th minute header to pick up their first point in tournament's history
Switzerland had 27 shots but could score only one of them and were made to pay. Rattlesnakes were spotted at their training base last week and this was a sting in the tail they could have done without.
Promise on bone clinics set to be broken as government admits it does not have a plan for screening rollout
Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting promised that the delivery of fracture liaison services would be his first act in Government, before promising full coverage across the country by 2030.
Shutterstock 'Evolves' Into 'Human-Led, AI-Powered Creative Platform'
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes:
Shutterstock has unveiled what it calls a "human-led, AI-powered" creative platform that combines its massive library of [human] contributor-created content with AI image and video generation, AI editing, conversational search, prompt enhancement, and automated model selection tools. The company says the goal is to help creators move from idea to finished work faster [in a single application] while maintaining commercial licensing protections and contributor royalty payments... While Shutterstock repeatedly emphasizes human creativity, much of the platform's future appears centered on AI-generated and AI-modified content.
An article at Nerds.xyz suggests Shutterstock's AI tools let users "transform existing content into something new," while noting Shutterstock's repeated references to human creativity "almost feel defensive."
But it points out other companies including Adobe and Canva "and countless startups are all racing to integrate AI into creative workflows."
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More World Cup disruption for England as team chef is forced to hand over cooking knives after triggering security alert at railway station - with Three Lions given police escort in Kansas City following theft drama
EXCLUSIVE: It can now be disclosed that the chef - central to the team's preparation - triggered a security alert.
Charles, William and Kate share rare behind-the-scenes footage from Trooping the Colour showing the royals' close bond as they laugh and lark about
King Charles led a slimmed-down contingent of senior royals, including Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales, on the Buckingham Palace balcony today.
Emily Atack dazzles in a sequinned dress and bridal veil as she enjoys an idyllic sunset dinner during her hen party ahead of her wedding to Alistair Garner in Spain
The Rivals star, 36, has been sharing snaps from her pre-wedding getaway with her pals, as she prepares to tie the knot with Alistair Garner in Spain in September.
Death threats and the day Nigel Farage feared an assassin was to blame for his Volvo's wheel coming loose on the motorway. By Lord Ashcroft
It was the night before Donald Trump's inauguration as President last year and among the political and business glitterati gathered in a Washington hotel for a party was Farage.
'Things will get much worse under Burnham': Businesses in Makerfield give their verdict on Manchester mayor's power bid
With Burnham effectively campaigning to be both Makerfield's MP and Prime Minister, he has tried to bring businesses on board with various promises.
USA World Cup hero Gio Reyna reveals his wife is pregnant after victory over Paraguay: 'I was waiting for the perfect time'
DANIEL MATTHEWS IN LOS ANGELES: The midfielder announced the news just minutes after the United States beat Paraguay to kickstart this World Cup on home soil.
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Anyone who really cares about Britain won't vote Restore
Does anyone in the Makerfield constituency really want to vote for a hopeless party whose members hob-nob with actual fascists and neo-Nazis?
Kim Kardashian continues her Monaco takeover after stealing the show at the Grand Prix with boyfriend Lewis Hamilton as she flaunts her curves in skintight leather
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star has stayed in the hotspot with her sister Khloe to enjoy a sisterly getaway, while Lewis has travelled to Spain for the Barcelona Grand Prix this weekend.
Resident doctors in England call off strike after new offer from government
Members of the British Medical Association were set to stage a four-day walkout next week, beginning at 7am on Monday.
GM Updates 250,000 EVs with Vehicle-to-Grid Firmware, Announces Grid-Scale Sodium-Ion Batteries
"Battery breakthroughs will lessen AI's demand on the electricity grid," argues The Washington Post's editoral board, arguing that GM's latest moves "offer a fresh reminder that resource constraints can be solved by innovation."
Or As Fortune put it, "America's electric grid is buckling under extreme weather, aging infrastructure, and an AI build-out that is quietly rewriting U.S. power demand — and General Motors wants to turn that crisis into a business." They describe GM's plan as offering itself "as a distributed utility in disguise... stitching together hundreds of thousands of battery-powered cars, new grid-scale storage, and a unified charging platform into what amounts to a virtual fleet of power plants."
The bet puts GM on a collision course with Ford's newly branded Ford Energy unit as both Detroit rivals race to repurpose underused EV capacity for a more urgent problem: keeping the lights on in the AI era. GM's case rests on three planks. The first is its existing fleet. GM says more than 250,000 of its EVs on U.S. roads can already charge bidirectionally — pulling electricity from the grid and sending it back. "Every evening, a quiet transformation occurs across the American landscape," GM Energy vice president Wade Sheffer writes in an open letter to utilities and regulators, describing the EVs sitting in driveways as "a massive opportunity to aggregate energy storage capacity."
A firmware update is rolling out to customers with GM Energy's vehicle-to-home hardware, converting those systems into full vehicle-to-grid assets with no new hardware and turning home backup systems into grid resources when utilities need them. GM is piloting the idea in Michigan with DTE Energy at 30 employee homes, and has sketched a 2030 vision with Pacific Gas & Electric in which more than 52,000 GM EVs help balance the grid out of a projected 130,000 vehicles in the area.
GM is also "seeking partnerships with utility companies nationwide to assist in offering such vehicle-to-grid services for customers," reports CNBC, noting it's one of two moves "meant to address concerns about rising energy costs amid an artificial intelligence boom."
Forbes reports that GM's second goal "is to leapfrog the dominant battery cell tech used for energy storage packs right now" — right past the LFP (lithium-iron phosphate) stage, "which is dominated by China."
Sodium batteries are cheaper to use than LFP because they don't need an additional cooling system. They also have a 20-year usable life and are made from materials that can be sourced from within the U.S., the company said at a briefing in San Francisco on Tuesday.
"Sodium-ion actually is the better chemistry for that application. And when I say sodium-ion is better, I mean GM's version of sodium-ion," Kurt Kelty, GM's battery chief and a long-time Tesla battery executive, told Forbes. He said GM is seeing great results from its prototypes, even at scorching temperatures of 55 Celsius (131 Fahrenheit).
"Sodium-ion-powered energy storage systems have the potential to operate without active cooling and with much less system complexity," Kurt Kelty, GM's vice president of battery and sustainability, said Tuesday in a blog post. "In large energy storage systems, that matters." Not having to cool the battery cells could lead to lower upfront costs as well as operating costs, the automaker said.
TechCrunch reports on GM's big new partnership with energy-storage startup Peak Energy to develop GM's sodium-ion battery chemistry for grid-scale deployments:
GM wouldn't share with TechCrunch how much money it is investing in this energy-storage effort. But we do know the company has committed $900 million to commercialize new battery chemistries, an investment that includes a new battery-development center. .. The first GM cells are expected to enter trial production at the company's Battery Cell Development Center in 2028.
"Our next-generation sodium-ion cell development will drive energy density higher," promises GM's blog post, arguing they're extending the company's battery expertise and technical infrastructure "into the electrical grid itself. If we get this right, we will not just build better batteries. We will help create a more resilient, more affordable and more flexible energy future... Every improvement we make strengthens the development stack that supports both EVs and energy storage."
"The message: GM isn't just selling cars into a stressed grid; it's supplying the batteries to stabilize it," argues Fortune.
And GM also announced they're augmenting their apps with an "Energy Pass" offering "seamless access to Tesla Supercharger, IONNA, Electrify America, and soon, ChargePoint and EVgo networks." Their goal is to simplify the charging experience with an app "that covers nearly 70% of all DC fast chargers in the United States, plus many Level 2 chargers, all through one app."
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Top restaurateur calls on Government to create ministerial role for struggling hospitality sector in campaign backed by Gordon Ramsay
Restaurateur Robert Walton is calling on the Government to create a dedicated minister for hospitality, arguing it is 'beyond crazy' the UK's third largest employment sector does not have one.