US defense department awards contracts to Google, Musk's xAI
The contracts will enable the DoD to develop agentic AI workflows and use them to address critical national security challenges, the department's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said.
'The adoption of AI is transforming the (DoD's) ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,' Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said.
U.S. government agencies have been expanding their use of AI, driven by a White House order in April promoting adoption. President Donald Trump has also moved to soften regulation on the technology by revoking a 2023 Biden-era executive order, which sought to reduce AI risks through mandatory data disclosures.
Separately on Monday, xAI announced a suite of its products called 'Grok for Government', making its advanced AI models — including its latest flagship Grok 4 — available to federal, local, state and national security customers.
The Pentagon announced last month that OpenAI was awarded a $200 million contract, saying the ChatGPT maker would 'develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains'.
The contracts announced on Monday deepen the ties between companies leading the AI race and U.S. government operations, while addressing concerns around the need for competitive contracts for AI use in federal agencies.
In May, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren had urged DoD to ensure competitive AI contracting at a time when Musk's Grok chatbot was gaining ground in the federal government. - Reuters
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Malay Mail
14 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Election rout, US trade deal seal Ishiba's fate: Japan PM to resign
TOKYO, July 23 — Having done a trade deal with US President Donald Trump, Japan's prime minister will soon announce his resignation, reports said Wednesday, after his latest election debacle left his coalition without a majority now in both houses of parliament. The reports said Shigeru Ishiba had conveyed his intention to step down to those close to him, following the announcement Wednesday of a US-Japan trade deal. Sunday's upper house election was calamitous for Ishiba's centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost continuously since 1955. Voters angry at inflation turned to other parties, notably the 'Japanese first' Sanseito, whose 'anti-globalist' drive echoes the agenda of populist movements elsewhere. Ishiba plans to vacate the top job by the end of August, the Mainichi daily reported. The Yomiuri newspaper said he would announce his resignation in July but did not give details of when he would leave office. These and other reports said calls for the 68-year-old to depart had grown louder within the LDP since the results of the upper house election. But he communicated his decision after striking a trade deal with Washington that cut a threatened 25 per cent tariff to 15 per cent ahead of an August 1 deadline. In the election on Sunday, the LDP and its junior partner Komeito fell three seats short of retaining a majority. It came only months after Ishiba's coalition was forced into a minority government in the more powerful lower house, in the LDP's worst result in 15 years. Ishiba won the party leadership in September, on his fifth try, to become the 10th LDP prime minister since 2000 — all of them men. Since the October snap lower house election, the ruling coalition has been forced to bargain with opposition parties to pass legislation. After years of stagnant or falling prices, consumers in the world's fourth-largest economy have been squeezed by inflation since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the price of rice has doubled, while resentment has also lingered over an LDP funding scandal. 'I really hope things will get better in Japan, but the population is declining, and I think living in Japan will get tougher and tougher,' Naomi Omura, an 80-year-old from Hiroshima, told AFP in Tokyo on Wednesday. 'It is disappointing that Japan cannot act more strongly' towards the United States' but 'I think it was good that they agreed on a lower tariff', she said. Tetsuo Momiyama, an 81-year-old Tokyo resident, said Ishiba 'is finished already'. 'It's a good timing for him to go,' Momiyama said. — AFP
The Star
15 hours ago
- The Star
Teens say they are turning to AI for advice, friendship and 'to get out of thinking'
No question is too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, is using artificial intelligence. The 15-year-old asks ChatGPT for guidance on back-to-school shopping, makeup colours, low-calorie choices at Smoothie King, plus ideas for her Sweet 16 and her younger sister's birthday party. The sophomore honors student makes a point not to have chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to mundane questions. But in interviews with The Associated Press and a new study, teenagers say they are increasingly interacting with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship. "Everyone uses AI for everything now. It's really taking over,' said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect her generation. "I think kids use AI to get out of thinking.' For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving. 'AI is always available. It never gets bored with you' More than 70% of teens have used AI companions and half use them regularly, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using screens and digital media sensibly. The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as "digital friends,' like or Replika, which can be customised with specific traits or personalities and can offer emotional support, companionship and conversations that can feel human-like. But popular sites like ChatGPT and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are being used in the same way, the researchers say. As the technology rapidly gets more sophisticated, teenagers and experts worry about AI's potential to redefine human relationships and exacerbate crises of loneliness and youth mental health. "AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It's never judgmental,' says Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas. "When you're talking to AI, you are always right. You're always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.' All that used to be appealing, but as Nair heads to college this fall, he wants to step back from using AI. Nair got spooked after a high school friend who relied on an "AI companion' for heart-to-heart conversations with his girlfriend later had the chatbot write the breakup text ending his two-year relationship. "That felt a little bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end to a real relationship,' said Nair. "It's almost like we are allowing computers to replace our relationships with people.' How many teens are using AI? New study stuns researchers In the Common Sense Media survey, 31% of teens said their conversations with AI companions were "as satisfying or more satisfying' than talking with real friends. Even though half of teens said they distrust AI's advice, 33% had discussed serious or important issues with AI instead of real people. Those findings are worrisome, says Michael Robb, the study's lead author and head researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and policymakers. The now-booming and largely unregulated AI industry is becoming as integrated with adolescence as smartphones and social media are. "It's eye-opening,' said Robb. "When we set out to do this survey, we had no understanding of how many kids are actually using AI companions.' The study polled more than 1,000 teens nationwide in April and May. Adolescence is a critical time for developing identity, social skills and independence, Robb said, and AI companions should complement – not replace – real-world interactions. "If teens are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly being validated, not being challenged, not learning to read social cues or understand somebody else's perspective, they are not going to be adequately prepared in the real world,' he said. The nonprofit analysed several popular AI companions in a "risk assessment', finding ineffective age restrictions and that the platforms can produce sexual material, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. The group recommends that minors not use AI companions. A concerning trend to teens and adults alike Researchers and educators worry about the cognitive costs for youth who rely heavily on AI, especially in their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. The potential dangers of children forming relationships with chatbots gained national attention last year when a 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a chatbot. "Parents really have no idea this is happening,' said Eva Telzer, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "All of us are struck by how quickly this blew up.' Telzer is leading multiple studies on youth and AI, a new research area with limited data. Telzer's research has found that children as young as eight are using generative AI and also found that teens are using AI to explore their sexuality and for companionship. In focus groups, Telzer found that one of the top apps teens frequent is SpicyChat AI, a free role-playing app intended for adults. Many teens also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to strike the right tone in sensitive situations. "One of the concerns that comes up is that they no longer have trust in themselves to make a decision,' said Telzer. "They need feedback from AI before feeling like they can check off the box that an idea is OK or not.' Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class. "If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil,' Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster. Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger. "I'm worried that kids could get lost in this,' Perry said. "I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.' Other teens agree, saying the issues with AI and its effect on children's mental health are different from those of social media. "Social media complemented the need people have to be seen, to be known, to meet new people,' Nair said. "I think AI complements another need that runs a lot deeper – our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It feeds off of that.' "It's the new addiction,' Nair added. "That's how I see it.' – AP
The Star
19 hours ago
- The Star
Is AI the future of web browsing?
When was the last time you thought about your web browser? If you don't remember, no one will blame you. Web browsers have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades: You open an app, such as Chrome, Safari or Firefox, and type a website into the address bar. Many of us settled on one and fell into what I call 'browser inertia,' never bothering to see if there's anything better. Yet a web browser is important because so much of what we do on computers takes place inside one, including word processing, chatting on Slack and managing calendars and email. That's why I felt excited when I recently tried Dia, a new kind of web browser from the Browser Co. of New York, a startup. The app is powered by generative artificial intelligence, the technology driving popular chatbots like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, to answer our questions. Dia illuminates how a web browser can do much more than load websites – and even help us learn and save time. I tested Dia for a week and found myself browsing the web in new ways. In seconds, the browser provided a written recap of a 20-minute video without my watching its entirety. While scanning a breaking news article, the browser generated a list of other relevant articles for a deeper understanding. I even wrote to the browser's built-in chatbot for help proofreading a paragraph of text. Dia is on the cusp of an emerging era of AI-powered internet navigators that could persuade people to try something new. This week, Perplexity, a startup that makes a search engine, announced an AI web browser called Comet, and some news outlets have reported that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, also plans to release a browser this year. OpenAI declined to comment. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.) Tech behemoths like Google and Apple have added lightweight AI features into their existing browsers, Chrome and Safari, including tools for proofreading text and automatically summarizing articles. Dia, which has not yet been publicly released, is available as a free app for Mac computers on an invitation-only basis. What does this all mean for the future of the web? Here's what you need to know. What is an AI browser, and what does it do? Like other web browsers, Dia is an app you open to load webpages. What's unique is the way the browser seamlessly integrates an AI chatbot to help – without leaving the webpage. Hitting a shortcut (command+E) in Dia opens a small window that runs parallel to the webpage. Here, you can type questions related to the content you are reading or the video you are watching, and a chatbot will respond. For example: – While writing this column on the Google Docs website, I asked the chatbot if I used 'on the cusp' correctly, and it confirmed that I did. – While reading a news article about the Texas floods, I asked the browser's chatbot to tell me more about how the crisis unfolded. The bot generated a summary about the history of Texas' public safety infrastructure and included a list of relevant articles. – While watching a 22-minute YouTube video about car jump starters, I asked the chatbot to tell me which tools were best. Dia immediately pulled from the video's transcript to produce a summary of the top contenders, sparing me the need to watch the entire thing. In contrast, chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude require opening a separate tab or app and pasting in content for the chatbot to evaluate and answer questions, a process that has always busted my workflow. How does it work? AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude generate responses using large language models, systems that use complex statistics to guess which words belong together. Each chatbot's model has its strengths and weaknesses. The Browser Co. of New York said it had teamed up with multiple companies to use their AI models, including the ones behind Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude. When users type a question, the Dia browser analyzes it and pulls answers from whichever AI model is best suited for answering. For instance, Anthropic's AI model, Claude Sonnet, specializes in computer programming. So if you have questions about something you are coding, the browser will pull an answer from that model. If you have questions about writing, the Dia browser may generate an answer with the model that OpenAI uses for ChatGPT, which is well known for handling language. What I appreciate about this design is that you, the user, don't need to know or think about which chatbot to use. That makes generative AI more accessible to the mainstream. 'You should just be able to say, 'Hey, I'm looking at this thing, I've got a question about it,'' said Josh Miller, the CEO of the Browser Co., which was founded in 2020 and has raised over $100 million. 'We should be able to answer it for you and do work on your behalf.' But aren't there imperfections? While Dia proved helpful in most of my tests, it was, like all generative AI tools, sometimes incorrect. While I was browsing Wirecutter, a New York Times publication that reviews products, I asked the chatbot if there were any deals on the site for water filters. The chatbot said no, even as I read about a water filtration system that was on sale. Miller said that because the browser drew answers from various AI models, its responses were subject to the same mistakes as their respective chatbots. Those occasionally get facts wrong and even make things up, a phenomenon known as 'hallucination.' More often than not, however, I found Dia to be more accurate and helpful than a stand-alone chatbot. Still, I double-checked answers by clicking on any links Dia's bot was citing, like the articles about the recent floods in Texas. What about privacy? Asking AI to help with a webpage you're looking at means that data may be shared with whatever AI model is being used to answer the question, which raises privacy concerns. The Browser Co. said that only the necessary data related to your requests was shared with its partners providing AI models, and that those partners were under contract to dispose of your data. Privacy experts have long warned not to share any sensitive information, like a document containing trade secrets, with an AI chatbot since a rogue employee could gain access to the data. So I recommend asking Dia's chatbot for help only with innocuous browsing activities like parsing a YouTube video. But when browsing something you wouldn't want others to know about, like a health condition, refrain from using the AI. This exchange – potentially giving up some privacy to get help from AI – may be the new social contract going forward. How much will this cost? Dia is free, but AI models have generally been very expensive for companies to operate. Consumers who rely on Dia's AI browser will eventually have to pay. Miller said that in the coming weeks, Dia would introduce subscriptions costing US$5 a month to hundreds of dollars a month, depending on how frequently a user prods its AI bot with questions. The browser will remain free for those who use the AI tool only a few times a week. So whether an AI browser will be your next web browser will depend largely on how much you want to use, and pay, for these services. So far, only 3% of the people who use AI every day are paid users, according to a survey by Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm. That number could grow, of course, if generative AI becomes a more useful tool that we naturally use in everyday life. I suspect the humble web browser will open that path forward. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
