Musk’s new AI chatbot has ‘a little humour’ | US forced to boost battery production by senators

Musk’s new Grok AI chatbot is a little cheeky

Elon Musk’s new company xAI has released its first chatbot, Grok, modelled on “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Musk said it’s tuned with “a bit of wit” and “a rebellious streak”. The company, however, added in a statement that like with any large language model, Grok can still generate false of contradictory information.

The new chatbot is in its early beta phase, two months in training, and is available only to a select number of users for testing. Following tests, xAI will release Grok to a larger audience.

“In some important respects, it is the best that currently exists,” Musk said in an X post on Friday leading up to the announcement.

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US pressured to boost battery production by senators

Two US senators have urged the Energy Department to increase the country’s manufacturing and research into next-gen batteries.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner and Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin quoted experts as saying that the US is “ten to twenty years behind Asia in the commercialisation of battery technology”. And added that China accounts for more than 75% of battery cell production.

In an unreported letter, the senators wrote: “The United States must become a leader in the manufacture of batteries and battery components, while securing our supply chains for the materials that make up the components.”

The letter states that by 2022 America will produce less than 10% of lithium-ion batteries and demand is expected to grow more than sevenfold by 2035.

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Millions crippled by Australian network failure

Over 10 million people and thousands of businesses were left without mobile and internet after a network failure at telecoms provider Optus on Wednesday.

The failure caused transport delays, cut hospital phone lines, and shut down payment systems. People across Australia were unable to contact emergency services and critical helpline numbers. Train services in the state of Victoria were also temporarily down.

Services were restored after half a days’ disruption. Optus said there was no evidence of a cyber-attack. Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, the company’s chief executive, said it had not yet identified what went wrong.

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GM’s Cruise to recall 950 driverless cars after accident involving pedestrian

The autonomous vehicle company is recalling nearly 1000 of its driverless cars across the US, and potentially more, following an accident involving one of its robotaxis last month.

GM’s Cruise issued the voluntary recall based on a new analysis of its autonomous vehicle’s response to the accident.

In a statement, Cruise said “we have issued a voluntary recall of part of our AV software based on a new analysis of our AV’s post-collision response on 2 October.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the collision detection subsystem of the vehicle’s software may “improperly respond” after a crash.

Cruise is now facing multiple federal investigations over the safety of its cars, including two incidents where the robot cars appeared not to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

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