OpenAI raises $40bn in deal with SoftBank that values it at $300bn

OpenAI has raised $40bn (£31bn) through fundraising led by the Japanese group SoftBank, in a deal that values the ChatGPT developer at $300bn.OpenAI said the funding round would allow the company to “push the frontiers of AI research even further”. It added that SoftBank’s support would “pave the way” towards AGI, or artificial general intelligence, the term for AI systems that can match or exceed humans at nearly all cognitive tasks.“Hundreds of millions people use ChatGPT each week,” said the OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman. “This investment helps us push the frontier and make AI more useful in everyday life

AI firms are ‘scraping the value’ from UK’s £125bn creative industries, says Channel 4 boss

The chief executive of Channel 4 said that artificial intelligence companies are “scraping the value” out of the UK’s £125bn creative industries, and urged the government to take action.Alex Mahon told MPs that if the government pursues its proposed plan to give AI companies access to creative works unless the copyright holder opts out, it would put the UK creative industries in a “dangerous position”.Speaking on the work of Channel 4 at a culture, media and sport select committee meeting on Tuesday, she said: “AI is clearly absolutely critical to the future of our industry, and many industries. The debate of the day is we need very clear terms. UK copyright law is very, very clear

How Tesla became a battleground for political protest

Over the weekend, protesters gathered at Tesla showrooms in hundreds of cities across the world to demonstrate against Elon Musk laying waste the US government in alliance with Donald Trump. Their goal: stigmatize Tesla’s cars. One sign in Manhattan read: “Burn a Tesla, save democracy.” Protesters are using the commercial democracy of consumer products to influence US political democracy.My colleagues Dara Kerr and Edward Helmore report:In New York City, several hundred anti-Tesla protesters gathered outside the EV company’s Manhattan showroom on Saturday

Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst

A professional YouTuber in Queensland has been ordered to pay $350,000 plus interest and costs to the former world record score holder for Donkey Kong, after the Brisbane district court found the YouTuber had defamed him “recklessly” with false claims of a link between a lawsuit and another YouTuber’s suicide.William “Billy” Mitchell, an American gamer who had held world records in Donkey Kong and Pac-Man going back to 1982, as recognised by the Guinness World Records and the video game database Twin Galaxies, brought the case against Karl Jobst, seeking $400,000 in general damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.Jobst, who makes videos about “speed running” (finishing games as fast as possible), as well as gaming records and cheating in games, made a number of allegations against Mitchell in a 2021 YouTube video. He accused Mitchell of cheating, and “pursuing unmeritorious litigation” against others who had also accused him of cheating, the court judgment stated.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailThe court heard Mitchell was accused in 2017 of cheating in his Donkey Kong world records by using emulation software instead of original arcade hardware

AI is a tool that can sharpen storytelling | Letter

Joseph Earp’s piece on artificial intelligence and storytelling misses the mark (29 March). He casts creativity as a kind of untouchable genius and AI as its pale imitation. But storytelling is not a solitary act of divine inspiration – it is a craft, shaped in the doing and often improved through collaboration.Used well, AI is neither genius nor fraud. It’s a tool – like a piano is to a composer, or a chisel to a sculptor

Bridget Phillipson eyes AI’s potential to free up teachers’ time

AI tools will soon be in use in classrooms across England, but the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has one big question she wants answered: will they save time?Attending a Department for Education-sponsored hackathon in central London last week, Phillipson listened as developers explained how their tools could compile pupil reports, improve writing samples and even assess the quality of soldering done by trainee electrical engineers.After listening to one developer extol their AI writing analysis tool as “superhuman”, able to aggregate all the writing a pupil had ever done, Phillipson asked bluntly: “Do you know how much time it will have saved?”That will be our next step, the developer admitted, less confidently.In an interview with the Guardian, Phillipson said her interest in AI was less futuristic and more practical. Could classroom AI tools free teachers from repetitive tasks and bureaucracy, allow them to focus on their students and ultimately help solve the recruitment crisis that bedevils England’s schools?“I think technology will have an important role to play in freeing up teachers’ time, and in freeing up that time, putting it to better use with more face-to-face, direct teaching that can only ever be done by a human,” she said.“This is less about how children and young people use technology, and more about how we support staff to use it to deliver a better education for children