Author: AI News First

Large language models (LLMs) landed on Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda with a bang last week, as news emerged of a new program to develop a series of “truly” open source LLMs covering all European Union languages. This includes the current 24 official EU languages, as well as languages for countries currently negotiating for entry to the EU market, such as Albania. Future-proofing is the name of the game. OpenEuroLLM is a collaboration between some 20 organizations, co-led by Jan Hajič, a computational linguist from the Charles University in Prague, and Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Finnish AI lab Silo…

Controversial facial recognition firm Clearview AI has been found to have extensive ties to far-right individuals and movements. Clearview AI has come under scrutiny for scraping billions of photos from across the internet and storing them in a database for powerful facial recognition services. Privacy activists criticise the practice as the people in those images never gave their consent. “Common law has never recognised a right to privacy for your face,” Clearview AI lawyer Tor Ekeland said recently. “It’s kind of a bizarre argument to make because [your face is the] most public thing out there.” The company’s facial recognition…

OpenAI is changing how it trains AI models to explicitly embrace “intellectual freedom … no matter how challenging or controversial a topic may be,” the company says in a new policy. As a result, ChatGPT will eventually be able to answer more questions, offer more perspectives, and reduce the number of topics the AI chatbot won’t talk about. The changes might be part of OpenAI’s effort to land in the good graces of the new Trump administration, but it also seems to be part of a broader shift in Silicon Valley and what’s considered “AI safety.” On Wednesday, OpenAI announced…

The US and EU have signed a landmark agreement to explore how AI can be used to improve lives. The US Department of State and EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) simultaneously held a virtual signing ceremony of the agreement in Washington and Brussels. Roberto Viola, Director General of DG CONNECT, signed the ‘Administrative Arrangement on Artificial Intelligence for the Public Good’ on behalf of the EU. “Today, we are strengthening our cooperation with the US on artificial intelligence and computing to address global challenges, from climate change to natural disasters,” commented Thierry Breton, EU…

Artificial intelligence could eventually help us understand when animals are in pain or showing other emotions — at least according to researchers recently profiled in Science. For example, there’s the Intellipig system being developed by scientists at the University of the West of England Bristol and Scotland’s Rural College, which examines photos of pigs’ faces and notifies farmers if there are signs of pain, sickness, or emotional distress. And a team at the University of Haifa — one behind facial recognition software that’s already been used to help people find lost dogs — is now training AI to identify signs…

The Detroit Police Department (DPD) is once again under scrutiny as a new lawsuit emerges, revealing that another innocent person has been wrongly arrested due to a flawed facial recognition match. Porcha Woodruff, an African American woman who was eight months pregnant at the time, is the sixth individual to come forward and report being falsely accused of a crime because of the controversial technology utilised by law enforcement. Woodruff was accused of robbery and carjacking. “Are you kidding?” Woodruff claims to have said to the officers, gesturing to her stomach to highlight how nonsensical the allegation was while being…

Every Sunday, NPR host Will Shortz, The New York Times’ crossword puzzle guru, gets to quiz thousands of listeners in a long-running segment called the Sunday Puzzle. While written to be solvable without too much foreknowledge, the brainteasers are usually challenging even for skilled contestants. That’s why some experts think they’re a promising way to test the limits of AI’s problem-solving abilities. In a recent study, a team of researchers hailing from Wellesley College, Oberlin College, the University of Texas at Austin, Northeastern University, Charles University, and startup Cursor created an AI benchmark using riddles from Sunday Puzzle episodes. The…

US lawmakers are pushing for a DeepSeek ban after security researchers found the app transferring user data to a banned state-owned company. DeepSeek, practically unknown just weeks ago, took the tech world by storm—gaining global acclaim for its cutting-edge performance while sparking debates reminiscent of the TikTok saga. Its rise has been fuelled in part by its business model: unlike many of its American counterparts, including OpenAI and Google, DeepSeek offered its advanced powers for free. However, concerns have been raised about DeepSeek’s extensive data collection practices and a probe has been launched by Microsoft and OpenAI over a breach…

South Korean officials on Saturday temporarily restricted Chinese AI Lab DeepSeek’s app from being downloaded from app stores in the country pending an assessment of how the Chinese company handles user data. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) said the Chinese app would be available to be downloaded once it complies with Korean privacy laws and makes the necessary changes. The restrictions will not affect usage of the existing app and web service in the country. However, the data protection authority said it “strongly advises” current users to avoid entering personal information into DeepSeek until its final decision is made.…

As the 2025 AI Action Summit kicks off in Paris, global leaders, industry experts, and academics are converging to address the challenges and opportunities presented by AI. Against the backdrop of rapid technological advancements and growing societal concerns, the summit aims to build on the progress made since the 2024 Seoul Safety Summit and establish a cohesive global framework for AI governance.   AI Action Summit is ‘a wake-up call’ French President Emmanuel Macron has described the summit as “a wake-up call for Europe,” emphasising the need for collective action in the face of AI’s transformative potential. This comes as the…