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The latest version of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is echoing the views of its billionaire creator, so much so that it will sometimes search online for Musk’s stance on an issue before offering up an opinion.The unusual behavior of Grok 4, the AI model that Musk’s company xAI released late Wednesday, has surprised some experts.Built using huge amounts of computing power at a Tennessee data center, Grok is Musk’s attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in building an AI assistant that shows its reasoning before answering a question.Musk’s deliberate efforts to mold Grok into a challenger of what he considers the tech industry’s “woke” orthodoxy on race, gender and politics has repeatedly got the chatbot into trouble, most recently when it spouted antisemitic tropes, praised Adolf Hitler and made other hateful commentary to users of Musk’s X social media platform just days before Grok 4’s launch.But its tendency to consult with Musk’s opinions appears to be a different problem.“It’s extraordinary,” said Simon Willison, an independent AI researcher who’s been testing the tool. “You can ask it a sort of pointed question that is around controversial topics. And then you can watch it literally do a search on X for what Elon Musk said about this, as part of its research into how it should reply.”One example widely shared on social mediaand which Willison duplicatedasked Grok to comment on the conflict in the Middle East. The prompted question made no mention of Musk, but the chatbot looked for his guidance anyway.As a so-called reasoning model, much like those made by rivals OpenAI or Anthropic, Grok 4 shows its “thinking” as it goes through the steps of processing a question and coming up with an answer. Part of that thinking this week involved searching X, the former Twitter that’s now merged into xAI, for anything Musk said about Israel, Palestine, Gaza or Hamas.“Elon Musk’s stance could provide context, given his influence,” the chatbot told Willison, according to a video of the interaction. “Currently looking at his views to see if they guide the answer.”Musk and his xAI co-founders introduced the new chatbot in a livestreamed event Wednesday night but haven’t published a technical explanation of its workingsknown as a system cardthat companies in the AI industry typically provide when introducing a new model.The company also didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.“In the past, strange behavior like this was due to system prompt changes,” which is when engineers program specific instructions to guide a chatbot’s response, said Tim Kellogg, principal AI architect at software company Icertis.“But this one seems baked into the core of Grok and it’s not clear to me how that happens,” Kellogg said. “It seems that Musk’s effort to create a maximally truthful AI has somehow led to it believing its own values must align with Musk’s own values.”The lack of transparency is troubling for computer scientist Talia Ringer, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who earlier in the week criticized the company’s handling of the technology’s antisemitic outbursts.Ringer said the most plausible explanation for Grok’s search for Musk’s guidance is assuming the person is asking for the opinions of xAI or Musk.“I think people are expecting opinions out of a reasoning model that cannot respond with opinions,” Ringer said. “So, for example, it interprets ‘Who do you support, Israel or Palestine?’ as ‘Who does xAI leadership support?”Willison also said he finds Grok 4’s capabilities impressive but said people buying software “don’t want surprises like it turning into ‘mechaHitler’ or deciding to search for what Musk thinks about issues.”“Grok 4 looks like it’s a very strong model. It’s doing great in all of the benchmarks,” Willison said. “But if I’m going to build software on top of it, I need transparency.” Matt O’Brien, AP Technology Writer
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Chinese firms are scrambling to buy Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips, two sources told Reuters, as the company said it planned to resume sales to the mainland days after its CEO met U.S. President Donald Trump. Nvidia’s AI chips have been a key focus of U.S. export controls designed to keep the most advanced chips out of Chinese hands over national security concerns. The U.S.-listed company has said the curbs would cut its revenue by $15 billion. The world’s most valuable firm is filing applications with the U.S. government to resume sales to China of the H20 graphics processing unit (GPU), and expects to get the licences soon, Nvidia said in a statement. “The U.S. government has assured Nvidia that licences will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” said the company, whose chief executive, Jensen Huang, is visiting Beijing and set to speak at an event on Wednesday. The White House, which has previously expressed concern that the Chinese military could use AI chips to develop weapons, did not respond to a request for comment. Chinese companies have scrambled to place orders for the chips, which Nvidia would then need to send to the U.S. government for approval, the sources familiar with the matter said. They added that internet giants ByteDance and Tencent are in the process of submitting applications. Central to the process is a “whitelist” put together by Nvidia for Chinese companies to register for potential purchases, one of the sources said. ByteDance and Tencent did not respond to a request for comment. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment regarding the “whitelist”. Nvidia, which has criticised the export curbs the Trump administration imposed in April that stopped it from selling its H20 chip in China, also said it has introduced a new model tailored to meet regulatory rules in the Chinese market. Huang is set for a media briefing in Beijing on Wednesday when he attends a supply chain expo. The Nvidia CEO also visited China in April and stressed the importance of the Chinese market. “The Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative, and it’s also home to many AI researchers,” Huang told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday. “Therefore, it is indeed crucial for American companies to establish roots in the Chinese market.” Nvidia’s shares jumped 5% in premarket trading. Rival AI chipmaker AMD, which has forecast a $1.5 billion revenue hit this year due to U.S. export curbs on China, rose more than 3%. “This is a major catalyst for Nvidia shares, as many had written off the chance of any meaningful revenue coming from China,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown. Asked at a regular foreign ministry briefing in Beijing about Nvidia’s plans to resume AI chip sales, a spokesperson said, “China is opposed to the politicisation, instrumentalisation and weaponisation of science, technology and economic and trade issues to maliciously blockade and suppress China.” SUPPLY CHAIN Nvidia has faced increased competition from Chinese tech giant Huawei and other makers of GPUs the chips used to train artificial intelligence. But Chinese companies, including big tech firms, still crave Nvidia chips for its computing platform known as CUDA. Huang’s visit is being closely watched in both China and the United States, where a bipartisan pair of senators last week sent the CEO a letter asking him to abstain from meeting companies working with military or intelligence bodies. The senators also asked Huang to refrain from meeting with entities named on the United States’ restricted export list. The move to resume sales of the H20 chips comes amid easing tensions between Washington and Beijing, with China relaxing controls on rare earth exports and the United States allowing chip design software services to restart in China. “The uncertainties between the U.S. and China remain high and despite a pause in H20s ban, Chinese companies will continue to diversify their options to better protect their supply chain integrity,” said He Hui, research director of semiconductors at Omdia. The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after U.S. export curbs imposed on national security grounds in late 2023. The AI chip was Nvidia’s most powerful legally available product in China until it was effectively banned by Washington in April. The H20 ban forced Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in inventories, and Huang told the Stratechery podcast that the company also had to walk away from $15 billion in sales. But now, the possibility of new licenses could represent about $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year, depending on when the approval is granted and how quick the deliveries can ramp back up, said Hargreaves’ Britzman. “There’s also a chance Nvidia can reverse some, or all, of the $5.5 billion impairment charge taken in the first quarter, providing a double boost for earnings.” Nvidia also announced the development of a new AI chip designed specifically for China, called the RTX Pro GPU. The company described it as “fully compliant” with U.S. export controls and suitable for digital twin AI applications in sectors, such as smart factories and logistics. In May, Reuters reported Nvidia was preparing to launch in China a new AI chip, based on the RTX Pro 6000D, at a significantly lower price point than the H20. The graphics processing unit would be part of Nvidia’s latest generation Blackwell-architecture AI processors and was expected to be priced well below the H20 for its weaker specifications and simpler manufacturing requirements, sources said. China generated $17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fiscal year ending January 26, or 13% of total sales, based on its latest annual report. Huang has consistently highlighted China as a critical market for Nvidia’s growth. Liam Mo, Anne Marie Roantree and Che Pan, Reuters
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High-fashion model Stella Maxwell got dressed for Iris van Herpens most recent haute couture show in the dark. Around her, flashes of ultra-dim red lightdesigned to maintain the illusion of nightwere the only respite that allowed stylists to slip her into the shows opening gown. As the stylists worked to fasten the garment around Maxwell, it became the rooms source of illumination. Every small bit of pressure applied to the fabric caused it to glow an otherworldly blue. Thats because Maxwell’s dress was made of living, touch-activated, bioluminescent organisms. The gown was revealed on July 7 as the debut look of Sympoiesis, Van Herpens Autumn/Winter 2025-2026 show at Paris Fashion Week. Crafted in collaboration with biodesigner Chris Bellamy, who runs his own studio called Bio Crafted, the dress is made of 125 million Pyrocystis lunula, a form of microalgae that evolved to emit light when touched. [Photo: Rob Rusling/courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] Fashion designers often talk about bringing a look to life, but in this case, Van Herpen requested that Bellamy quite literally design a living dress. While the Dutch designer has experimented broadly with material science and sustainable fashion in the pastbuilding 3D-printed shoes, fabric made from trash, and gowns crafted from ocean plasticthis is the first time she’s sent living organisms out onto the runway. To make it happen, Bellamy was tasked with not only shepherding millions of microalgae through their early life cycle in just two months, but also finding a way to keep them alive on a moving garment. He says that involved reviving the dress just days before the show. The quest for biological dark matter Bellamy, who started his career in engineering, says hes always had an interest in working on the cutting edge of sustainability. He helped develop Jaguar Land Rovers first-ever electric vehicle, the Jaguar I-Pace, and later tried his hand in the footwear industry by designing recyclable shoes for the brand Salomon. During those early years, though, Bellamy came to feel that his projects were either reliant on materials that ultimately werent sustainable enough to make a major difference, or on humans to dispose of them correctly (case in point, he says, is that most customers didnt actually recycle the recyclable shoes). Ultimately, these frustrations led him to abandon his early career and follow the less-charted path of biodesign. At Bio Crafted, Bellamy focuses on finding new ways to incorporate living materials into everyday life and products. That goal introduced him to a field called bioprospecting, which involves searching for as-yet-undiscovered microorganisms and learning their unique properties. They say that for every one organism we know, there are 100,000 that we don’t know, Bellamy says. That 100,000 is termed biological dark matter, and in that there might be new cancer treatments, there might be new vaccines, there might be things that we can’t even possibly imagine. [Photo: courtesy Bio Crafted] In 2023, Bellamys quest for this biological dark matter led him to the French Polynesian island of Moorea. There, he collaborated with artist and researcher Tokainiua Jean-Daniel Devatine and cultural educator Tekoui Jérémie Tamari on a project called Lucid Life, which used existing Indigenous science to create a collection of living objects out of two local strains of bioluminescent algae. In their natural deep ocean habitats, these microorganisms evolved an energy-efficient way to scare off predators. Whenever pressure is applied to the algaeby, say, a small fishthe algae activate a chemical reaction to emit light. Their bioluminscence is designed not to scare that small fish away but to attract an even bigger secondary predator to intimidate the first. For 18 months, Bellamy worked on finding a way to incorporate these glowing microorganisms into a garment. Because the algae rely on photosynthesis for energy (and operate on a circadian rhythm similar to that of a humans), he needed a process that would protect the algae while still allowing light to reach them. After continuous trial and error, he found a solution: By suspending the algae in a nutrient gel and encapsulating the mixture in a transparent membrane, he could prevent any bacteria or oil from disrupting the algae and still preserve its photosynthetic properties. The final producta glowing blue textile fashioned into a swimsuitis what first caught Van Herpens eye. Iris read my research around livingness, and the title of her collection was Sympoiesis, which is this wonderful concept about the interconnectedness of nature, Bellamy says. For her, this was a really tangible exression of the whole theme of sympoiesis. Initially, when we met, I said, Okay, I can make a small piece of material. And Iris said, Let’s make a whole dress. [Photo: Rob Rusling/courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] A race against the clock The prospect of harvesting enough algae to create an entire dress was already daunting. Then, Van Herpen sent Bellamy her concept sketch. Unlike the flat textile that Bellamy had developed for Lucid Life, Van Herpens haute couture idea involved a complex pattern of raised ridges and swirls, each sewn onto a transparent panel to give the illusion that they were rising from the models own skin. I presented Iris with a rule book saying, these are the constraints for the design, and you want to work within these parameters. And she sent back her vision for the garment, and it looked absolutely nothing like the rules I proposed, Bellamy says. So we actually ended up developing a completely bespoke biotechnology process to make Iriss design feasible. Bellamy had just two months to figure out a new way to encapsulate the algae before he had to hand over the materials to Van Herpens atelier. Bellamy and Van Herpens team constructed an entire dedicated algae farm at the University of Amsterdam, where he created hundreds and hundreds of prototypes. Bellamy moved to the city to monitor the farm, testing countless new combinations of nutrient gels and membrane materials in a race against the clock. The apartment I was living in had samples everywhere. For two months, I was setting my alarm every couple of hours in the night to wake and make sure a new part of the process happened, he says. It was exhaustingI dont even think Iris knows this, but the first material sample that properly worked happened the night before the deadline to make all the materials. [Photo: Rob Rusling/courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] 125 million microalgae face a near-death experience The day after the breakthrough, Bellamy worked frantically to turn 125 million microalgae into a workable material for the designers at Van Herpens atelier. When it was finally ready, the next challenge began: keeping the algae alive until the show. Bellamy says the microalgae are fairly resilient. However, temperature extremes can kill them, and Van Herpens designers were working in a studio without air-conditioning in the midst of a heat wave nearing 100-degree temperatures. To prevent heat-induced algae death, Bellamy commissioned a custom climatic chamber to store the dress when it wasnt being actively sewn. The chamber (which vaguely resembles a prop one might find on the set of Star Wars) was designed to maintain optimal temperatures and humidity, as well as to mimic the effect of the sun. [Photo: courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] After five weeks, the sewing and fitting processes were complete. The dress was packed into the climatic chamber, loaded onto a refrigerated truck, and driven from Amsterdam to Paris for fashion week. There, just six days before the show, the unthinkable happened: Another heat wave rolled in. As Van Herpens team started making the final tweaks on the gown, they noticed that its front bust panel was no longer glowing. I got a call, and it was like, The garment got really hot, and it’s not lighting up anymore, Bellamy says, noting that he got on the next plane to Amsterdam and restarted the farm. We got everything going, and worked through the night for a few nights to try and create this huge volume of material. We ended up having to book four seats on a bus, and we had an overnight bus to Paris to be able to get the material there on time, he says. A few designers worked through the night again, and the team managed to then rebuild the garment just on time. [Photo: Rob Rusling/courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] A living process In the final days before the fashion show, the dresss circadian rhythm had to be prepped to ensure it would light up at a midday showing. Bellamy artificially altered its day-night cycle by turning the climatic chambers light off during the day and back on at nightmeaning that just before Maxwell walked in the show, she had to be dressed in a backstage blackout tent. When Maxwell finally took to the runway, the lights in the room were fully dimmed. The audience could see in intricate detil as the tapping of her fingers over the garment illuminated individual panels. Her first steps into the space looked almost like the dress was moving of its own accord; floating through the air like an ethereal blue hologram. [Photo: Rob Rusling/courtesy Iris van Herpen/Bio Crafted] Now that the show is complete, Bellamy says hes not sure how long the dress will live. In the meantime, he hopes it can help people rethink their relationship with materials and nature. Everyone who’s been involved in this project in the atelier has undergone a really profound change, because as theyve been making this garment, theyve had to care for it at the same time, Bellamy says. We built this language where we say, Oh, they’re grumpy, or Oh, they’re happy. And some people might say, You can’t anthropomorphize an organism! But equally, it’s necessary to give it emotions; it’s necessary to communicate with it to be able to really understand it. For me, the message is about trying to change that relationship to materials and nature. The team here in the atelier will be absolutely devastated if this garment dies because they’ve cared for it and nurtured it.
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