Meta has reportedly hired AI researcher Trapit Bansal, who previously worked closely with OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever on reinforcement learning and co-created the o1 reasoning model.
Bansal joins Meta’s ambitious superintelligence team, which is focused on further pushing AI reasoning capabilities.
Former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang leads the new team, brought in after Meta invested $14.3 billion in the AI data labelling company.
Alongside Bansal, several other notable figures have recently joined, including three OpenAI researchers from Zurich, a former Google DeepMind expert, Jack Rae, and a senior machine learning lead from Sesame AI.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is accelerating AI recruitment by negotiating with prominent names like former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross.
Despite these aggressive efforts, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that even $100 million joining bonuses have failed to lure key staff away from his firm.
Zuckerberg has also explored acquiring startups such as Sutskever’s Safe SuperIntelligence and Perplexity AI, further highlighting Meta’s urgency in catching up in the generative AI race.
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Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani has warned of mounting global uncertainty driven by tariff wars, AI and the ongoing energy transition.
At the company’s 44th annual general meeting, he urged businesses to de-risk sourcing and diversify supply chains as geopolitical trade tensions reshape global commerce.
He described a ‘perfect storm’ of converging challenges pushing the world away from a single global market and towards fragmented trade blocs. As firms navigate the shift, they must choose between regions and adopt more strategic, resilient supply networks.
Addressing AI, Nilekani acknowledged the disruption it may bring to the workforce but framed it as an opportunity for digital transformation. He said Infosys is investing in both ‘AI foundries’ for innovation and ‘AI factories’ for scale, with over 275,000 employees already trained in AI technologies.
Energy transition was also flagged as a significant uncertainty, as the future depends on breakthroughs in renewable sources like solar, wind and hydrogen. Nilekani stressed that all businesses now face rapid technological and operational change before they can progress confidently into an unpredictable future.
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Elon Musk has revealed plans to retrain his Grok AI model by rewriting human knowledge, claiming current training datasets contain too much ‘garbage’ and unchecked errors.
He stated that Grok 3.5 would be designed for ‘advanced reasoning’ and tasked with correcting historical inaccuracies before using the revised corpus to retrain itself.
Musk, who has criticised other AI systems like ChatGPT for being ‘politically correct’ and biassed, wants Grok to be ‘anti-woke’ instead.
His stance echoes his earlier approach to X, where he relaxed content moderation and introduced a Community Notes feature in response to the platform being flooded with misinformation and conspiracy theories after his takeover.
The proposal has drawn fierce criticism from academics and AI experts. Gary Marcus called the plan ‘straight out of 1984’, accusing Musk of rewriting history to suit personal beliefs.
Logic professor Bernardino Sassoli de’ Bianchi warned the idea posed a dangerous precedent where ideology overrides truth, calling it ‘narrative control, not innovation’.
Musk also urged users on X to submit ‘politically incorrect but factually true’ content to help train Grok.
The move quickly attracted falsehoods and debunked conspiracies, including Holocaust distortion, anti-vaccine claims and pseudoscientific racism, raising alarms about the real risks of curating AI data based on subjective ideas of truth.
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LinkedIn users have readily embraced AI in many areas, but one feature has not taken off as expected — AI-generated writing suggestions for posts.
CEO Ryan Roslansky admitted to Bloomberg that the tool’s popularity has fallen short, likely due to the platform’s professional nature and the risk of reputational damage.
Unlike casual platforms such as X or TikTok, LinkedIn posts often serve as an extension of users’ résumés. Roslansky explained that being called out for using AI-generated content on LinkedIn could damage someone’s career prospects, making users more cautious about automation.
LinkedIn has seen explosive growth in AI-related job demand and skills despite the hesitation around AI-assisted writing. The number of roles requiring AI knowledge has increased sixfold in the past year, while user profiles listing such skills have jumped twentyfold.
Roslansky also shared that he relies on AI when communicating with his boss, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Before sending an email, he uses Copilot to ensure it reflects the polished, insightful tone he calls ‘Satya-smart.’
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Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, has warned that the technology could soon trigger mass unemployment, particularly in white-collar roles. In a recent podcast interview, he said AI will eventually replace most forms of intellectual labour.
According to Hinton, jobs requiring basic reasoning or clerical tasks will be the first to go, with AI performing the work of multiple people. He expressed concern that call centre workers may already be vulnerable, while roles requiring physical skills, like plumbing, remain safer for now.
Hinton challenged the common belief that AI will create more jobs than it eliminates. He argued that unless someone has highly specialised expertise, they may find themselves outpaced by machines capable of learning and performing cognitive tasks.
He also criticised OpenAI’s recent corporate restructuring, saying the shift towards a profit-driven model risks sidelining the public interest. Hinton, alongside other critics including Elon Musk, warned that the changes could divert AI development from its original mission of serving humanity.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has signalled that more job cuts are likely as the company embraces AI to streamline its operations. In a letter to staff, he said the adoption of generative AI is driving major shifts in roles, especially within corporate functions.
Jassy described generative AI as a once-in-a-lifetime technology and highlighted its growing role across Amazon services, including Alexa+, shopping tools and logistics. He pointed to smarter assistants and improved fulfilment systems as early benefits of AI investments.
While praising the efficiency gains AI delivers, Jassy admitted some roles will no longer be needed, and others will be redefined. The long-term outcome remains uncertain, but fewer corporate roles are expected as AI adoption continues.
He encouraged staff to embrace the technology by learning, experimenting and contributing to AI-related innovations. Workshops and team brainstorming were recommended as Amazon looks to reinvent itself with leaner, more agile teams.
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Meta has reportedly attempted to lure top talent from OpenAI with signing bonuses exceeding $100 million, according to OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman, he revealed that Meta has offered extremely high compensation to key OpenAI staff, yet none have accepted the offers.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to be directly involved in recruiting for a new ‘superintelligence’ team as part of the latest AI push.
The tech giant recently announced a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and brought Scale’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, on board. Altman believes Meta sees ChatGPT not only as competition for Google but as a potential rival to Facebook regarding user attention.
Altman questioned whether such high-compensation strategies foster the right environment, suggesting that culture cannot be built on upfront financial incentives alone.
He stressed that OpenAI prefers aligning rewards with its mission instead of offering massive pay packets. In his view, sustainable innovation stems from purpose, not payouts.
While recognising Meta’s persistence in the AI race, Altman suggested that the company will likely try again if the current effort fails. He highlighted a cultural difference, saying OpenAI has built a team focused on consistent innovation — something he believes Meta still struggles to understand.
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The preliminary injunction, issued on 6 June by Judge Denise Cote, cited a strong likelihood that OPM and DOGE violated both the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Administrative Procedures Act.
The lawsuit, led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several advocacy groups, alleges that OPM unlawfully disclosed information from one of the largest federal employee databases to DOGE, a controversial initiative reportedly linked to billionaire Elon Musk.
The database includes names, social security numbers, health and financial data, union affiliations, and background check records for millions of federal employees, applicants, and retirees.
Union representatives and privacy advocates called the ruling a significant win for data protection and government accountability. AFGE President Everett Kelley criticised the involvement of ‘Musk’s DOGE cronies’, arguing that unelected individuals should not have access to such sensitive material.
The legal action also seeks to delete any data handed over to DOGE. The case comes amid ongoing concerns about federal data security following OPM’s 2015 breach, which compromised information on more than 22 million people.
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President Lee Jae-myung is making his first major diplomatic appearance at the G7 summit in Canada, just two weeks into office. The trip marks a reset of South Korea’s foreign policy, focusing on pragmatic diplomacy prioritising national interest.
Officials say the visit aims to restart high-level talks after six months of stagnation, and could include a pivotal meeting with US President Donald Trump. Trade tensions, defence costs and the future of US troops in South Korea are expected to dominate any bilateral agenda.
Lee is also preparing for potential talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as his administration tests its strategy amid rising US-China rivalry. A trilateral summit is considered, adding further weight to this diplomatic debut.
The summit’s outcome could influence Lee’s political standing at home, where leaders have often used foreign success to strengthen domestic reforms. However, failure to secure tangible results could expose the new administration to early criticism.
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OpenAI faced a significant infrastructure strain after its GPT-4o image generator went viral for producing Ghibli-style memes. The sudden influx of user demand added a million new users in under an hour, putting immense pressure on the company’s systems.
CEO Sam Altman admitted that OpenAI had to slow feature rollouts and borrow computing power from its research division to keep the service running. The platform temporarily introduced rate limits as it coped with overloaded GPUs.
Altman described the situation as unprecedented, saying no other company has had to manage such intense viral spikes. He noted that image generation with GPT-4o requires significant compute resources, which the company could not fully meet with its current GPU inventory.
Despite the challenges, Altman maintained that OpenAI is committed to managing high user demand while continuing development. The company is also considering watermarking the AI images created by free users to help manage scale and traceability.
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