Artificial intelligence

Amazon One Medical launches health AI assistant

One Medical has launched a Health AI assistant in its mobile app, offering personalised health guidance at any time. The tool uses verified medical records to support everyday healthcare decisions.

Patients can use the assistant to explain lab results, manage prescriptions, and book virtual or in-person appointments. Clinical safeguards ensure users are referred to human clinicians when medical judgement is required.

Powered by Amazon Bedrock, the assistant operates under HIPAA-compliant privacy standards and avoids selling personal health data. Amazon says clinician and member feedback will shape future updates.

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Kashi Vishwanath Temple launches AI chatbot

Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple in India has launched an AI-powered chatbot to help devotees access services from anywhere in the world. The tool provides quick information on rituals, bookings, and temple timings.

Devotees can now book darshan, special aartis, and order prasad online. The chatbot also guides pilgrims on guesthouse availability and directions around Varanasi.

Supporting Hindi, English, and regional languages, the AI ensures smooth communication for global visitors. The initiative aims to simplify temple visits, especially during festivals and crowded periods.

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Davos roundtable calls for responsible AI growth

Leaders from the tech industry, academia, and policy circles met at a TIME100 roundtable in Davos, Switzerland, on 21 January to discuss how to pursue rapid AI progress without sacrificing safety and accountability. The conversation, hosted by TIME CEO Jessica Sibley, focused on how AI should be built, governed, and used as it becomes more embedded in everyday life.

A major theme was the impact of AI-enabled technology on children. Jonathan Haidt, an NYU Stern professor and author of The Anxious Generation, argued that the key issue is not total avoidance but the timing and habits of exposure. He suggested children do not need smartphones until at least high school, emphasising that delaying access can help protect brain development and executive function.

Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the Université de Montréal and founder of LawZero, said responsible innovation depends on a deeper scientific understanding of AI risks and stronger safeguards built into systems from the start. He pointed to two routes, consumer and societal demand for ‘built-in’ protections, and government involvement that could include indirect regulation through liability frameworks, such as requiring insurance for AI developers and deployers.

Participants also challenged the idea that geopolitical competition should justify weaker guardrails. Bengio argued that even rivals share incentives to prevent harmful outcomes, such as AI being used for cyberattacks or the development of biological weapons, and said coordination between major powers is possible, drawing a comparison to Cold War-era cooperation on nuclear risk reduction.

The roundtable linked AI risks to lessons from social media, particularly around attention-driven business models. Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest, said engagement optimisation can amplify divisions and ‘prey’ on negative human impulses, and described Pinterest’s shift away from maximising view time toward maximising user outcomes, even if it hurts short-term metrics.

Several speakers argued that today’s alignment approach is too reactive. Stanford computer scientist Yejin Choi warned that models trained on the full internet absorb harmful patterns and then require patchwork fixes, urging exploration of systems that learn moral reasoning and human values more directly from the outset.

Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory, added that wider AI literacy, shaped by input from workers, parents, and other everyday users, should underpin future certification and trust in AI tools.

Diplo is live reporting on all sessions from the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

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Anthropic releases new constitution shaping Claude’s AI behaviour

Anthropic has published a new constitution for its AI model Claude, outlining the values, priorities, and behavioural principles designed to guide its development. Released under a Creative Commons licence, the document aims to boost transparency while shaping Claude’s learning and reasoning.

The constitution plays a central role in training, guiding how Claude balances safety, ethics, compliance, and helpfulness. Rather than rigid rules, the framework explains core principles, enabling AI systems to generalise and apply nuanced judgment.

Anthropic says this approach supports more responsible decision-making while improving adaptability.

The updated framework also enables Claude to refine its own training through synthetic data generation and self-evaluation. Using the constitution in training helps future Claude models align behaviour with human values while maintaining safety and oversight.

Anthropic described the constitution as a living document that will evolve alongside AI capabilities. External feedback and ongoing evaluation will guide updates to strengthen alignment, transparency, and responsible AI development.

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EU urged to accelerate AI deployment under new Apply AI strategy

European policymakers are calling for urgent action to accelerate AI deployment across the EU, particularly among SMEs and scale-ups, as the bloc seeks to strengthen its position in the global AI race.

Backing the European Commission’s Apply AI Strategy, the European Economic and Social Committee said Europe must prioritise trust, reliability, and human-centric design as its core competitive advantages.

The Committee warned that slow implementation, fragmented national approaches, and limited private investment are hampering progress. While the strategy promotes an ‘AI first’ mindset, policymakers stressed the need to balance innovation with strong safeguards for rights and freedoms.

Calls were also made for simpler access to funding, lighter administrative requirements, and stronger regional AI ecosystems. Investment in skills, inclusive governance, and strategic procurement were identified as key pillars for scaling trustworthy AI and strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty.

Support for frontier AI development was highlighted as essential for reducing reliance on foreign models. Officials argued that building advanced, sovereign AI systems aligned with European values could enable competitive growth across sectors such as healthcare, finance, and industry.

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AI for MND communication revolutionises voice preservation and independence

AI for MND communication is helping people with motor neurone disease (MND) preserve their voices and independence.

Nick Varley, a councillor from Kippington, is a clear example of the impact of AI for MND communication. used AI to replicate his voice after his diagnosis in November 2024 left him struggling to speak.

The AI for MND communication technology, developed by the MND Association and 11Labs, created a natural-sounding digital voice that Varley used publicly at a council meeting, allowing him to continue participating in work and daily life.

MND progressively weakens muscles, affecting speech, movement, eating, and breathing, and losing the ability to communicate can be isolating. AI for MND communication gives patients control over their voice and helps them stay active in work, family, and community life.

Varley has also raised over £21,000 for MND charities, showing how AI supports both practical communication and emotional resilience.

This technology represents a major advancement in assistive tools, offering hope for patients worldwide to maintain independence and continue contributing to society.

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From chips to jobs: Huang’s vision for AI at Davos 2026

AI is evolving into a foundational economic system rather than a standalone technology, according to NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang, who described AI as a five-layer infrastructure spanning energy, hardware, data centres, models and applications.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Huang argued that building and operating each layer is triggering what he called the most significant infrastructure expansion in human history, with job creation stretching from power generation and construction to cloud operations and software development.

Investment patterns suggest a structural shift instead of a speculative cycle. Venture capital funding in 2025 reached record levels, largely flowing into AI-native firms across healthcare, manufacturing, robotics and financial services.

Huang stressed that the application layer will deliver the most significant economic return as AI moves from experimentation to core operational use across industries.

Concerns around job displacement were framed as misplaced. AI automates tasks rather than replacing professional judgement, enabling workers to focus on higher-value activities.

In healthcare, productivity gains from AI-assisted diagnostics and documentation are already increasing demand for radiologists and nurses rather than reducing headcount, as improved efficiency enables institutions to treat more patients.

Huang positioned AI as critical national infrastructure, urging governments to develop domestic capabilities aligned with local language, culture and industrial strengths.

He described AI literacy as an essential skill, comparable to leadership or management, while arguing that accessible AI tools could narrow global technology divides rather than widen them.

Diplo is live reporting on all sessions from the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

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South Korea sets the global standard for frontier AI regulation

South Korea will begin enforcing its Artificial Intelligence Act on Thursday, becoming the first country to introduce formal safety requirements for high-performance, or frontier, AI systems, reshaping the global regulatory landscape.

The law establishes a national AI governance framework, led by the Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, and creates an AI Safety Institute to oversee safety and trust assessments.

Alongside regulatory measures, the government is rolling out broad support for research, data infrastructure, talent development, startups, and overseas expansion, signalling a growth-oriented policy stance.

To minimise early disruption, authorities will introduce a minimum one-year grace period centred on guidance, consultation, and education rather than enforcement.

Obligations cover three areas: high-impact AI in critical sectors, safety rules for frontier models, and transparency requirements for generative AI, including disclosure of realistic synthetic content.

Enforcement remains light-touch, prioritising corrective orders over penalties, with fines capped at 30 million won for persistent noncompliance. Officials said the framework aims to build public trust while supporting innovation, serving as a foundation for ongoing policy development.

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GPT-5.2 shows how AI can generate real-world cyber exploits

Advanced language models have demonstrated the ability to generate working exploits for previously unknown software vulnerabilities. Security researcher Sean Heelan tested two systems built on GPT-5.2 and Opus 4.5 by challenging them to exploit a zero-day flaw in the QuickJS JavaScript interpreter.

Across multiple scenarios with varying security protections, GPT-5.2 completed every task, while Opus 4.5 failed only 2. The systems produced more than 40 functional exploits, ranging from basic shell access to complex file-writing operations that bypassed modern defences.

Most challenges were solved in under an hour, with standard attempts costing around $30. Even the most complex exploit, which bypassed protections such as address space layout randomisation, non-executable memory, and seccomp sandboxing, was completed in just over three hours for roughly $50.

The most advanced task required GPT-5.2 to write a specific string to a protected file path without access to operating system functions. The model achieved this by chaining seven function calls through the glibc exit handler mechanism, bypassing shadow stack protections.

The findings suggest exploit development may increasingly depend on computational resources rather than human expertise. While QuickJS is less complex than browsers such as Chrome or Firefox, the approach demonstrated could scale to larger and more secure software environments.

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AI model maps how humans form emotions

Researchers in Japan have developed an AI framework designed to model how humans form emotional experiences by integrating bodily signals, sensory input and language. The work was led by scientists at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in collaboration with Osaka University.

The AI model draws on the theory of constructed emotion, which suggests emotions are built by the brain rather than hard-wired responses. Physiological data, visual cues and spoken descriptions were analysed together to replicate how people experience feelings in real situations.

Using unlabeled data from volunteers exposed to emotion-evoking images and videos, the system identified emotional patterns without predefined categories. Results showed about 75 percent alignment with participants’ own emotional assessments, well above chance levels.

The Japanese researchers say the approach could support emotion-aware AI applications in healthcare, robotics and mental health support. Findings were published in IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, with potential benefits for understanding emotions that are difficult to express verbally.

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