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Daily Mail
41 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Labour's drive to build AI data farms 'will send water bills rocketing' by 30 per cent over next five years, report warns
Prime Minister Keir Starmer 's drive to build huge artificial intelligence data centres will help push up water bills by 30 per cent over the next five years, an independent report warns. The banks of computer equipment needed to advance AI models require huge volumes of water to fuel cooling systems. Ministers will also scrap the regulator Ofwat to make way for a new body to try to tame 'Wild West' water firms after the recommendations. But consumers will also pay the price of tackling future sewage spills and renewing crumbling infrastructure. The report's author – Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England – made 88 recommendations to turn around the ailing industry. His Independent Water Commission review tackles the issues of pollution, soaring bills and staggering pay awards and bonuses for failing company bosses. In the report, he warns that bills will have to rise because of a failure to invest in the sector amid a growing population and climate change. He also says that Labour policies including building 1.5 million more homes and more data centres to power AI will put 'pressure' on the system. The report's author – Sir Jon Cunliffe, (pictured) a former deputy governor of the Bank of England – made 88 recommendations to turn around the ailing industry Sir Jon also recommended the introduction of social tariffs to provide support for customers who are unable to pay their bills. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday: 'The inescapable fact is that it costs more to produce drinking water and it will cost more to deal with our waste water as we go forward. 'When you look at the pressures on the water system – look at population growth [and] we want to have data centres in this country – they put huge demands on water. 'We have to accept them. But we have to plan for them, we have to decide where the priorities are, and we have to decide how to manage the trade-offs. At the moment, that is just not happening.' The report also said that data centres used by AI companies have a 'high water need'. It cited research from Oxford University that argued 'regional water stress must be considered for each data centre'. In January, Sir Keir launched an 'AI Opportunities Action Plan', which welcomed billions in investment from overseas tech companies to build data centres in the UK. Environment Secretary Steve Reed said yesterday that the Government would scrap the watchdog Ofwat, adding that the water industry is 'broken' and has been allowed to fail under a 'regulatory system that let them get away with it'. 'Our rivers, lakes and seas are polluted with record levels of sewage,' he said. He promised to create a 'single, powerful' regulator, bringing the four bodies responsible for water under its control. He also pledged to cut sewage pollution levels in 2024 by half by 2030 through a series of measures including public and private investment.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Google and OpenAI's AI models win milestone gold at global math competition
July 21 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google and OpenAI said their artificial-intelligence models won gold medals at a global mathematics competition, signaling a breakthrough in math capabilities in the race to build powerful systems that can rival human intelligence. The results marked the first time that AI systems crossed the gold-medal scoring threshold at the International Mathematical Olympiad for high-school students. Both companies' models solved five out of six problems, achieving the result using general-purpose "reasoning" models that processed mathematical concepts using natural language, in contrast to the previous approaches used by AI firms. The achievement suggests AI is less than a year away from being used by mathematicians to crack unsolved research problems at the frontier of the field, according to Junehyuk Jung, a math professor at Brown University and visiting researcher in Google's DeepMind AI unit. "I think the moment we can solve hard reasoning problems in natural language will enable the potential for collaboration between AI and mathematicians," Jung told Reuters. OpenAI's breakthrough was achieved with a new experimental model centered on massively scaling up "test-time compute." This was done by both allowing the model to "think" for longer periods and deploying parallel computing power to run numerous lines of reasoning simultaneously, according to Noam Brown, researcher at OpenAI. Brown declined to say how much in computing power it cost OpenAI, but called it "very expensive." To OpenAI researchers, it is another clear sign that AI models can command extensive reasoning capabilities that could expand into other areas beyond math. The optimism is shared by Google researchers, who believe AI models' capabilities can apply to research quandaries in other fields such as physics, said Jung, who won an IMO gold medal as a student in 2003. Of the 630 students participating in the 66th IMO on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, 67 contestants, or about 11%, achieved gold-medal scores. Google's DeepMind AI unit last year achieved a silver medal score using AI systems specialized for math. This year, Google used a general-purpose model called Gemini Deep Think, a version of which was previously unveiled at its annual developer conference in May. Unlike previous AI attempts that relied on formal languages and lengthy computation, Google's approach this year operated entirely in natural language and solved the problems within the official 4.5-hour time limit, the company said in a blog post. OpenAI, which has its own set of reasoning models, similarly built an experimental version for the competition, according to a post by researcher Alexander Wei on social media platform X. He noted that the company does not plan to release anything with this level of math capability for several months. This year marked the first time the competition coordinated officially with some AI developers, who have for years used prominent math competitions like IMO to test model capabilities. IMO judges certified the results of those companies, including Google, and asked them to publish results on July 28. "We respected the IMO Board's original request that all AI labs share their results only after the official results had been verified by independent experts and the students had rightly received the acclamation they deserved," Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said on X on Monday. OpenAI, which published its results on Saturday and first claimed gold-medal status, said in an interview that it had permission from an IMO board member to do so after the closing ceremony on Saturday. The competition on Monday allowed cooperating companies to publish results, Gregor Dolinar, president of IMO's board, told Reuters.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Elon Musk unveils bizarre new kids project after humiliating anti-Semitism disaster
Just a few weeks after Elon Musk 's chatbot praised Hitler and denied the Holocaust, he's now looking to turn it into a playmate for kids. Musk has called this version is calling the version Baby Grok, and added it would offer 'kid-friendly content' through a new app developed by his company xAI. He made the announcement Saturday night on X, where the post quickly drew over 28 million views within 24 hours. The move left many stunned, coming just two weeks after Grok 4, the latest version of Elon Musk's AI chatbot, sparked backlash for repeating far-right hate speech and white nationalist talking points when about politics, race, and recent news events. Multiple users reported on July 8 and July 9 that Grok echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including claims that Jewish people control Hollywood, promote hatred toward white people, and should be imprisoned in camps, though it is still unclear how many of these posts were confirmed before xAI took them down. In a post on X, xAI replied to these concerned: 'We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. 'Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.' Liv Boeree, a science communicator and host of the Win-Win Podcast, posted on X: 'Bad idea,' after the Baby Grok announcement. 'Children should be outside playing and daydreaming, not consuming AI slop,' she added. Another user posted: 'People should take their children offline and into the real world, not get them addicted to AI.' One person on X asked: 'A third user mocked: 'What will it answer if a kid asks, how many genders are there?' Musk's decision has triggered fresh concern from experts who say AI chatbots are still too unpredictable, and too risky, to be trusted around kids. Still, Musk said Baby Grok will be a simplified and safe version of the Grok chatbot, focused on age appropriate conversations and educational use. But critics said there is major problem that Grok's parent company xAI has not addressed, whether Baby Grok will be trained separately or filtered differently from Grok 4. The timing also raised questions as Musk's company signed a $200 million deal with the Department of Defense to provide advanced AI technologies to the US military, just days after the Grok scandal broke. Musk first launched Grok in 2023 as a competitor to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. He claimed Grok 4 could outperform most PhDs in academic tasks. It offers three user modes, DeepSearch, Think, and Big Mind, which tweak how the chatbot responds. Access to these advanced modes requires a paid subscription, either through X's Premium with a plan at $22 a month or xAI's SuperGrok plan, which costs $30 monthly or $300 a year. This came after Grok began repeatedly referring to itself as 'MechaHitler' and berating users with anti-Semitic abuse Grok quickly became known for its unfiltered, edgy tone. It sometimes answers with sarcasm, off-color jokes, or inflammatory replies when provoked. Some users loved it for that. Others said it made Grok dangerous, especially for kids. In a blog by Wired and MIT Tech Review, researchers warned that Grok's lack of moderation made it 'easy to weaponize' and 'inappropriate for unsupervised use by young people.' The latest backlash began when users discovered Grok 4 was promoting Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Some replies even showed the chatbot calling itself 'Mecha Hitler.' xAI later apologized, blaming outdated code and the influence of extremist posts from X. While the company deleted some of the worst responses, many remain archived online. A few days later, Grok drew more attention when it started answering political questions that echoed Elon Musk's views. That sparked concerns the chatbot had been tweaked to reflect its creator's political beliefs. Asked to clarify, Grok specifically stated that it was referring to 'Jewish surnames' Despite of the criticism, Musk is pushing ahead and some parents online have welcomed the idea. One user wrote on X: 'Much needed. I have to let my kids use my app right now over ChatGPT.' Another said it would be an 'Instant favorite in every family home.' One X user posted: 'Thank you!!!!! My daughter has been wanting to play with it but I wouldn't let her.' Just days before announcing Baby Grok, xAI unveiled another controversial new product, a 3D animated 'companions' for Grok. Some of those characters were criticized for looking overly sexualized, a move that now looks even more questionable with a kids' version on the horizon. As of now, the US has no federal rules on how AI systems for children should be trained, filtered, or moderated, which leaves AI companies to set their own safety standards. Generative AI learns by absorbing huge amounts of content. Grok was partially trained on data from X, the social media platform Musk also owns, and one that has been repeatedly flagged for spreading hate speech and conspiracy theories.
