
Enhancing AI safety: Anthropic releases Claude 4 with increased protections
06:21
From the show
As the global race in artificial intelligence gathers pace, American AI startup Anthropic has unveiled the latest, most powerful versions of its model Claude. The company says they can write computer code by itself and play Pokemon for much longer than its predecessors. Yuka Royer speaks with the company's Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger about ensuring safety, fighting deepfakes and reducing AI's environmental footprint.

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France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
Reddit sues AI giant Anthropic over content use
The lawsuit in a California state court represents the latest front in the growing battle between content providers and AI companies over the use of data to train increasingly sophisticated language models that power the generative AI revolution. Anthropic, valued at $61.5 billion and heavily backed by Amazon, was founded in 2021 by former executives from OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. The company, known for its Claude chatbot and AI models, positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development. "This case is about the two faces of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into the consumer's consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for boundaries and the law, and the private face that ignores any rules that interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets," the suit said. According to the complaint, Anthropic has been training its models on Reddit content since at least December 2021, with CEO Dario Amodei co-authoring research papers that specifically identified high-quality content for data training. The lawsuit alleges that despite Anthropic's public claims that it had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit, the company's automated systems continued to harvest Reddit's servers more than 100,000 times in subsequent months. Reddit is seeking monetary damages and a court injunction to force Anthropic to comply with its user agreement terms. The company has requested a jury trial. In an email to AFP, Anthropic said "We disagree with Reddit's claims and will defend ourselves vigorously." Reddit has entered into licensing agreements with other AI giants including Google and OpenAI, which allow those companies to use Reddit content under terms that protect user privacy and provide compensation to the platform. Those deals have helped lift Reddit's share price since it went public in 2024. Reddit shares closed up more than six percent on Wednesday following news of the lawsuit. Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued the various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment. AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally changes the original content and is necessary for innovation. Though most of these lawsuits are still in early stages, their outcomes could have a profound effect on the shape of the AI industry.


France 24
3 days ago
- France 24
Top scientist wants to prevent AI from going rogue
Canadian computer science professor Yoshua Bengio is considered one of the godfathers of the artificial intelligence revolution and on Tuesday announced the launch of LawZero, a non-profit organization intended to mitigate the technology's inherent risks. The winner of the Turing Award, also known as the Nobel Prize for computer science, has been warning for several years of the risks of AI, whether through its malicious use or the software itself going awry. Those risks are increasing with the development of so-called AI agents, a use of the technology that tasks computers with making decisions that were once made by human workers. The goal of these agents is to build virtual employees that can do practically any job a human can, at a fraction of the cost. "Currently, AI is developed to maximize profit," Bengio said, adding it was being deployed even as it persists to show flaws. Moreover, for Bengio, giving AI human-like agency will easily be used for malicious purposes such as disinformation, bioweapons, and cyberattacks. "If we lose control of rogue super-intelligent AIs, they could greatly harm humanity," he said. One of the first objectives at LawZero will be to develop Scientist AI, a form of specially trained AI that can be used as a guardrail to ensure other AIs are behaving properly, the company said. The organization already has over 15 researchers and has received funding from Schmidt Sciences, a charity set up by former Google boss Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy. The project comes as powerful large language models (or LLMs) from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic are deployed across all sectors of the digital economy, while still showing significant problems. These include AI models that show a capability to deceive and fabricate false information even as they increase productivity. In a recent example, AI company Anthropic said that during safety testing, its latest AI model tried to blackmail an engineer to avoid being replaced by another system.


France 24
3 days ago
- France 24
In Canada lake, robot learns to mine without disrupting marine life
The exercise was part of a series of tests the robot was undergoing before planned deployment in the ocean, where its operators hope the machine can transform the search for the world's most sought-after metals. The robot was made by Impossible Metals, a company founded in California in 2020, which says it is trying to develop technology that allows the seabed to be harvested with limited ecological disruption. Conventional underwater harvesting involves scooping up huge amounts of material in search of potato-sized things called poly-metallic nodules. These nodules contain nickel, copper, cobalt, or other metals needed for electric vehicle batteries, among other key products. Impossible Metals' co-founder Jason Gillham told AFP his company's robot looks for the nodules "in a selective way." The prototype, being tested in the province of Ontario, remains stationary in the water, hovering over the lake bottom. In a lab, company staff monitor the yellow robot on screens, using what looks like a video game console to direct its movements. Using lights, cameras and artificial intelligence, the robot tries to identify the sought-after nodules while leaving aquatic life -- such as octopuses' eggs, coral, or sponges -- undisturbed. 'A bit like bulldozers' In a first for the nascent sector, Impossible Metals has requested a permit from US President Donald Trump to use its robot in American waters around Samoa, in the Pacific. The company is hoping that its promise of limited ecological disruption will give it added appeal. Competitors, like The Metals Company, use giant machines that roll along the seabed and suck up the nodules, a highly controversial technique. Douglas McCauley, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told AFP this method scoops up ocean floor using collectors or excavators, "a bit like bulldozers," he explained. Everything is then brought up to ships, where the nodules are separated from waste, which is tossed back into the ocean. This creates large plumes of sediment and toxins with a multitude of potential impacts, he said. A less invasive approach, like that advocated by Impossible Metals, would reduce the risk of environmental damage, McCauley explained. But he noted lighter-touch harvesting is not without risk. The nodules themselves also harbor living organisms, and removing them even with a selective technique, involves destroying the habitat, he said. Impossible Metals admits its technology cannot detect microscopic life, but the company claims to have a policy of leaving 60 percent of the nodules untouched. McCauley is unconvinced, explaining "ecosystems in the deep ocean are especially fragile and sensitive." "Life down there moves very slowly, so they reproduce very slowly, they grow very slowly." Duncan Currie of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said it was impossible to assess the impact of any deep sea harvesting. "We don't know enough yet either in terms of the biodiversity and the ecosystem down there," he told AFP. According to the international scientific initiative Ocean Census, only 250,000 species are known, out of the two million that are estimated to populate the oceans. High demand Mining is "always going to have some impact," said Impossible Metals chief executive and co-founder Oliver Gunasekara, who has spent most of his career in the semiconductor field. But, he added, "we need a lot more critical minerals, as we want to electrify everything." Illustrating the global rush toward underwater mining, Impossible Metals has raised US$15 million from investors to build and test a first series of its Eureka 3 robot in 2026. The commercial version will be the size of a shipping container and will expand from three to 16 arms, and its battery will grow from 14 to nearly 200 kilowatt-hours. The robot will be fully autonomous and self-propel, without cables or tethers to the surface, and be equipped with sensors. While awaiting the US green light, the company hopes to finalize its technology within two to three years, conduct ocean tests, build a fleet, and operate through partnerships elsewhere in the world. © 2025 AFP