Lifeboat Foundation

Meta executive and “godfather of artificial intelligence” Yann LeCun has had it with people ringing the alarm bells about a hypothetical AI doomsday.

In a lengthy post on X-formerly-Twitter, the computer scientist argued that there’s a far bigger threat hovering over the burgeoning industry: powerful companies seizing control of the future of AI and using it to prop up their wealth and influence.

It’s a pertinent point, as an increasingly smaller number of AI companies are starting to emerge as the early winners in the AI race, claiming an ever-growing slice of the highly lucrative AI pie.

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has quit the firm, he said Friday, hours after the Microsoft-backed giant abruptly fired its chief executive Sam Altman and assured that Brockman would remain at the startup. Brockman’s sudden departure adds to the day’s uncertainties at OpenAI, following closely on the heels of its maiden developer conference led by Altman.

“I’m super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago. We’ve ben through tough & great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible,” wrote Brockman in a message to OpenAI team. “But based on today’s news, I quit. Genuinely wishing you all nothing but the best. I continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all of humanity.”

OpenAI earlier said that Brockman was stepping down as chairman of the board, but will remain at the firm. Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, is a close confidant of the former OpenAI chief executive.

In perhaps the most unexpected tech news of the year, billionaire and AI evangelist Sam Altman has been ejected from his CEO role at OpenAI by the company’s board after an apparent vote of no confidence. Its exact wording in a release issued this afternoon: Altman’s “departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

What the hell is happening at the most hyped company in the world?! Here are some totally speculative theories that occurred to us and others around the web.

Blog: Chief technology officer Mira Murati appointed interim CEO to lead OpenAI; Sam Altman departs the company.

Search process underway to identify permanent successor.

The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc., the 501©(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAI activities, today announced that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately.

Starshield is SpaceX’s Starlink version made for the military.

Tesla has started to push a new Full Self-Driving Beta software update with a series of improvements ahead of the v12 update, which is supposed to take the system out of beta.

FSD Beta enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car’s navigation system, but the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times.

It originally launched in October of 2020 and Tesla has been expanding the program to more vehicles in North America with every software update since.

You may be eagerly waiting for the much-delayed Tesla Cybertruck, but while you wait, we found something at the LA Auto Show that might satiate you: meet the Robotruck from a new startup called Aitekx.

We hadn’t heard of Aitekx before, which has a small booth in the West hall of the Auto Show. In recognition of the hot tech buzzword of the year, the company says that its name represents its focus on the AI mobility future – AI + Tech + X. And it just unveiled its upcoming vehicle, which it calls Robotruck (yes, really), and says that it plans to have it out in 2025.

The company claims some rather optimistic specs, including a 550-mile EPA range (though it wouldn’t tell us how many kWh its battery is – though with a range like that, it would have to be 200kWh or more), 0–60 in 3.5 seconds, and a top speed of 125mph.

BERLIN — As SpaceX prepares for its next Starship test flight, a NASA official said that the use of that vehicle for Artemis lunar landings will require “in the high teens” of launches, a much higher number than what the company’s leadership has previously claimed.

In a presentation at a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee Nov. 17, Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator in NASA’s Moon to Mars Program Office, said the company will have to perform Starship launches from both its current pad in Texas and one it is constructing at the Kennedy Space Center in order send a lander to the moon for Artemis 3.

SpaceX’s concept of operations for the Starship lunar lander it is developing for the Human Landing System (HLS) program requires multiple launches of the Starship/Super Heavy system. One launch will place a propellant depot into orbit, followed by multiple other launches of tanker versions of Starship, transferring methane and liquid oxygen propellants into the depot. That will be followed by the lander version of Starship, which will rendezvous with the depot and fill its tanks before going to the moon.

Melting a bacteriophage’s coat of proteins turns it into a tiny power plant, which could fire up the discovery of new bioengineered devices.