Author name: Kelly Newman

trump-has-“a-little-problem”-with-apple’s-plan-to-ship-iphones-from-india

Trump has “a little problem” with Apple’s plan to ship iPhones from India

Analysts estimate it would cost tens of billions of dollars and take years for Apple to increase iPhone manufacturing in the US, where it at present makes only a very limited number of products.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last month that Cook had told him the US would need “robotic arms” to replicate the “scale and precision” of iPhone manufacturing in China.

“He’s going to build it here,” Lutnick told CNBC. “And Americans are going to be the technicians who drive those factories. They’re not going to be the ones screwing it in.”

Lutnick added that his previous comments that an “army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones—that kind of thing is going to come to America” had been taken out of context.

“Americans are going to work in factories just like this on great, high-paying jobs,” he added.

For Narendra Modi’s government, the shift by some Apple suppliers into India is the highest-profile success of a drive to boost local manufacturing and attract companies seeking to diversify away from China.

Mobile phones are now one of India’s top exports, with the country selling more than $7 billion worth of them to the US in the 2024-25 financial year, up from $4.7 billion the previous year. The majority of these were iPhones, which Apple’s suppliers Foxconn and Tata Electronics make at plants in southern India’s Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states.

Modi and Trump are ideologically aligned and personally friendly, but India’s high tariffs are a point of friction and Washington has threatened to hit it with a 26 percent tariff.

India and the US—its biggest trading partner—are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement, the first tranche of which they say they will be agreed by autumn.

“India’s one of the highest-tariff nations in the world, it’s very hard to sell into India,” Trump also said in Qatar on Thursday. “They’ve offered us a deal where basically they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff… they’re the highest and now they’re saying no tariff.”

© 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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meta-is-making-users-who-opted-out-of-ai-training-opt-out-again,-watchdog-says

Meta is making users who opted out of AI training opt out again, watchdog says

Noyb has requested a response from Meta by May 21, but it seems unlikely that Meta will quickly cave in this fight.

In a blog post, Meta said that AI training on EU users was critical to building AI tools for Europeans that are informed by “everything from dialects and colloquialisms, to hyper-local knowledge and the distinct ways different countries use humor and sarcasm on our products.”

Meta argued that its AI training efforts in the EU are far more transparent than efforts from competitors Google and OpenAI, which, Meta noted, “have already used data from European users to train their AI models,” supposedly without taking the steps Meta has to inform users.

Also echoing a common refrain in the AI industry, another Meta blog warned that efforts to further delay Meta’s AI training in the EU could lead to “major setbacks,” pushing the EU behind rivals in the AI race.

“Without a reform and simplification of the European regulatory system, Europe threatens to fall further and further behind in the global AI race and lose ground compared to the USA and China,” Meta warned.

Noyb discredits this argument and noted that it can pursue injunctions in various jurisdictions to block Meta’s plan. The group said it’s currently evaluating options to seek injunctive relief and potentially even pursue a class action worth possibly “billions in damages” to ensure that 400 million monthly active EU users’ data rights are shielded from Meta’s perceived grab.

A Meta spokesperson reiterated to Ars that the company’s plan “follows extensive and ongoing engagement with the Irish Data Protection Commission,” while reiterating Meta’s statements in blogs that its AI training approach “reflects consensus among” EU Data Protection Authorities (DPAs).

But while Meta claims that EU regulators have greenlit its AI training plans, Noyb argues that national DPAs have “largely stayed silent on the legality of AI training without consent,” and Meta seems to have “simply moved ahead anyways.”

“This fight is essentially about whether to ask people for consent or simply take their data without it,” Schrems said, adding, “Meta’s absurd claims that stealing everyone’s personal data is necessary for AI training is laughable. Other AI providers do not use social network data—and generate even better models than Meta.”

Meta is making users who opted out of AI training opt out again, watchdog says Read More »

2025-bentley-continental-gt:-big-power,-big-battery,-big-price

2025 Bentley Continental GT: Big power, big battery, big price


We spend a week with Bentley’s new plug-in hybrid grand touring car.

The new Bentley Continental GT was already an imposing figure before this one left the factory in Crewe clad in dark satin paint and devoid of the usual chrome. And under the bonnet—or hood, if you prefer—you’ll no longer find 12 cylinders. Instead, there’s now an all-new twin-turbo V8 plug-in hybrid powertrain that offers both continent-crushing amounts of power and torque, but also a big enough battery for a day’s driving around town.

We covered the details of the new hybrid a bit after our brief drive in the prototype this time last year. At the time, we also shared that the new PHEV bits have been brought over from Porsche. There’s quite a lot of Panamera DNA in the new Continental GT, as well as some recent Audi ancestry. Bentley is quite good at the engineering remix, though: Little more than a decade after it was founded by W.O., the brand belonged to Rolls-Royce, and so started a long history of parts-sharing.

Mind if I use that?

Rolls-Royce and Bentley went their separate ways in 2003. The unraveling started a few years earlier when the aerospace company that owned them decided to rationalize and get itself out of the car business. In 1997, it sold the rights to Rolls-Royce to BMW, or at least the rights to the name and logos. Volkswagen Group got the rest, including the factory in Crewe, and got to work on a new generation of Bentleys for a new century.

This paint is called Anthracite Satin. Jonathan Gitlin

VW Group was then under the overall direction of Ferdinand Piëch, often one to let bold engineering challenges make it all the way through into production. Piëch wanted to prove to the rest of the industry that VW could build a car every bit as good as Mercedes, and thus was born the Phaeton. Over-engineered and wearing too-plebeian a badge, the Phaeton was a flop, but its platform was the perfect foundation for some new Bentleys. These days, VW itself doesn’t have anything quite as sophisticated to share, but Porsche certainly does.

It has become common these days to disclose power and torque; in more genteel times, one was simply told that the car’s outputs were “sufficient.” Well, 771 hp (575 kW) and 737 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) could definitely be described by that word, even with two and a half tons to move. The twin-turbo 4.0 L V8 generates 584 hp (435 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 Nm), and, as long as you have the car in sport mode, sounds rather like Thor gargling as you explore its rev range.

Even if you can’t hear that fast-approaching thunder, you know when you’re in Sport mode, as the car is so quick to respond to inputs. I was able to tell less of a difference between Comfort and B mode, the latter standing for “Bentley,” obviously, and offering what is supposed to be a balanced mix of powertrain and suspension settings.

Even in Sport, the Continental GT will raise its nose and hunker down at the rear under hard acceleration, and the handling trends more toward “heavy powerful GT” rather than “lithe sports car.” For a car like this, I will happily take the slightly floaty ride provided by the air springs and two-valve dampers over a bone-crushing one, however. It can be blisteringly quick if you require, with a 0-to-60 time of just 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 208 mph (335 km/h), while cosseting you from most of the world outside. The steering is weighty enough that you feel you’re actually piloting it in the corners, and it’s an easy car to place on the road.

As this is a plug-in, should you wish, you can drive off in silence thanks to the electrical side of that equation. The 188 hp (140 kW) electric motor isn’t exactly fast on its own, but with 332 lb-ft (450 Nm) there’s more than enough instant torque to get this big GT car underway. The lithium-ion battery pack is in the boot—ok, the trunk—where its 25.9 kWh eat some luggage capacity but balance out the weight distribution. On a full charge, you can go up to 39 miles, give or take, and the electric-only mode allows for up to 87 mph (140 km/h) and 75-percent throttle before the V8 joins the party.

Recharging the pack via a plug takes a bit less than three hours. Alternatively, you can do it while you drive, although I remain confused even now about what the “charge” mode did; driving around in Sport did successfully send spare power to the battery pack for later use, but it was unclear how much charge actually happened. I still need to ask Bentley what the miles/kWh readout on the main display actually refers to, because it cannot be the car’s actual electric-only usage, much as I like to imagine the car eeking out 8 miles/kWh (7.8 L/100 km).

Made in England

Then again, the Bentley is British, and as noted with another recent review of an import from those isles, electrical and electronic oddness is the name of the game with cars from Albion. There was an intermittent check engine light on the dashboard. And sometimes the V8 was reluctant to go to sleep when I switched into EV mode. And I also had to remind it of my driving position more than once. Still, those are mere foibles compared to an Aston Martin that freaks out in the rain, I suppose.

The ride on 22-inch wheels is better than it should be. Jonathan Gitlin

Even with a heavy dusting of spring pollen drybrushing highlights onto the Continental GT’s matte exterior, this was a car that attracted attention. Though only a two-door, the rear seats are large enough and comfortable enough for adults to sit back there, although as noted, the cargo capacity is a little less than you’d expect due to the battery above the rear axle.

Obviously, there is a high degree of customization when it comes to deciding what one’s Bentley should look like inside and out. Carbon fiber is available as an alternative to the engine-turned aluminum, and there’s still a traditional wood veneer for the purists. I’d definitely avoid the piano black surrounds if it were me.

I also got deja vu from the main instrument display. The typefaces are all Bentley, but the human machine interface is, as far as I can tell, the exact same as a whole lot of last-generation Audis. That may not be obvious to all of Bentley’s buyers, but I bet at least some have a Q7 at home and will spot the similarities, too.

No such qualms concern the rotating infotainment display. When you don’t need to see the 12.3-inch touchscreen, a button on the dash makes it disappear. Instead, three real analog gauges take its place, showing you the outside air temperature, a clock, and a compass. First-time passengers think it quite the party trick, naturally.

Even with the UK’s just-negotiated tariff break, a new Continental GT will not be cheap. This generation got noticeably more expensive than the outgoing model and will now put at least a $302,100 hole in your bank account. I say at least, because the final price on this particular First Edition stretched to $404,945. I’m glad I only learned that toward the end of my week with the car. For that much money, I’m more annoyed by the decade-old recycled Audi digital cockpit than any of the other borrowed bits. After all, Bentleys have (almost) always borrowed bits.

Photo of Jonathan M. Gitlin

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

2025 Bentley Continental GT: Big power, big battery, big price Read More »

tuesday-telescope:-taking-a-look-at-the-next-generation-of-telescopes

Tuesday Telescope: Taking a look at the next generation of telescopes

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

This week’s Tuesday Telescope photo is pretty meta as it features… a telescope.

This particular telescope is under construction in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, one of the darkest places on Earth with excellent atmospheric visibility. The so-called “Extremely Large Telescope” is being built on a mountaintop in the Andes at an elevation of about 3,000 meters.

And it really is extremely large. The primary mirror will be 39 meters (128 feet) in diameter. Like, that’s gigantic for an optical telescope. It is nearly four times larger than the largest operational reflecting telescopes in the world.

The Europeans are in a contest, of sorts, with other very large telescope construction projects. A consortium of several countries, including the United States, is building the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will have a primary diameter of 25.4 meters. This facility is also located in the Atacama Desert. Both facilities are targeting first light before the end of this decade, but this will depend on funding and how smoothly construction proceeds. A third large project, the Thirty Meter Telescope, is planned for Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. However, this effort has stalled due to ongoing opposition from native Hawaiians. It is unclear when, or if, it will proceed.

In any case, within less than a decade, we are going to undergo a radical revolution in how we see the cosmos when one or more of these next-generation ground-based optical telescopes come online. What will we ultimately observe?

The mystery of what’s up there left to be discovered is half the fun!

Source: European Southern Observatory

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope?  Reach out and say hello.

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nintendo-warns-that-it-can-brick-switch-consoles-if-it-detects-hacking,-piracy

Nintendo warns that it can brick Switch consoles if it detects hacking, piracy

Switch and Switch 2 users who try to hack their consoles or play pirated copies of games may find their devices rendered completely inoperable by Nintendo. That new warning was buried in a recent update to the Nintendo User Account Agreement, as first noticed by Game File last week.

Nintendo’s May 2025 EULA update adds new language concerning the specific ways users are allowed to use “Nintendo Account Services” on the console, a term defined here to encompass the use of “video games and add-on content.” Under the new EULA, any unlicensed use of the system not authorized by Nintendo could lead the company to “render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.” (Emphasis added.)

That language would apply to both the current Switch and the upcoming Switch 2.

Later in the same EULA, Nintendo adds new language clarifying that it reserves the right to “suspend your access to any or all Nintendo Account Services, in our sole discretion and without prior notice to you.” That suspension can even come before a EULA violation occurs if Nintendo has “a reasonable belief such a violation… will occur, or as we otherwise determine to be reasonably necessary for legal, technical or commercial reasons, such as to prevent harm to other users or the Nintendo Account Services.”

Play inside the lines

So what kind of Switch usage counts as a “violation” here? Unsurprisingly, playing pirated games is high on the list; the EULA now specifically calls out “obtain[ing], install[ing] or us[ing] any unauthorized copies of Nintendo Account Services.” That language would likely apply to users with hacked console hardware and those who use any number of third-party flash carts to play pirated games.

Nintendo warns that it can brick Switch consoles if it detects hacking, piracy Read More »

google-hits-back-after-apple-exec-says-ai-is-hurting-search

Google hits back after Apple exec says AI is hurting search

The antitrust trial targeting Google’s search business is heading into the home stretch, and the outcome could forever alter Google—and the web itself. The company is scrambling to protect its search empire, but perhaps market forces could pull the rug out from under Google before the government can. Apple SVP of Services Eddie Cue suggested in his testimony on Wednesday that Google’s search traffic might be falling. Not so fast, says Google.

In an unusual move, Google issued a statement late in the day after Cue’s testimony to dispute the implication that it may already be losing its monopoly. During questioning by DOJ attorney Adam Severt, Cue expressed concern about losing the Google search deal, which is a major source of revenue for Apple. This contract, along with a similar one for Firefox, gives Google default search placement in exchange for a boatload of cash. The DOJ contends that is anticompetitive, and its proposed remedies call for banning Google from such deals.

Surprisingly, Cue noted in his testimony that search volume in Safari fell for the first time ever in April. Since Google is the default search provider, that implies fewer Google searches. Apple devices are popular, and a drop in Google searches there could be a bad sign for the company’s future competitiveness. Google’s statement on this comes off as a bit defensive.

Google hits back after Apple exec says AI is hurting search Read More »

trump-admin-to-roll-back-biden’s-ai-chip-restrictions

Trump admin to roll back Biden’s AI chip restrictions

The changing face of chip export controls

The Biden-era chip restriction framework, which we covered in January, established a three-tiered system for regulating AI chip exports. The first tier included 17 countries, plus Taiwan, that could receive unlimited advanced chips. A second tier of roughly 120 countries faced caps on the number of chips they could import. The administration entirely blocked the third tier, which included China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, from accessing the chips.

Commerce Department officials now say they “didn’t like the tiered system” and considered it “unenforceable,” according to Reuters. While no timeline exists for the new rule, the spokeswoman indicated that officials are still debating the best approach to replace it. The Biden rule was set to take effect on May 15.

Reports suggest the Trump administration might discard the tiered approach in favor of a global licensing system with government-to-government agreements. This could involve direct negotiations with nations like the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia rather than applying broad regional restrictions. However, the Commerce Department spokeswoman indicated that debate about the new approach is still underway, and no timetable has been established for the final rule.

Trump admin to roll back Biden’s AI chip restrictions Read More »

whatsapp-provides-no-cryptographic-management-for-group-messages

WhatsApp provides no cryptographic management for group messages

The flow of adding new members to a WhatsApp group message is:

  • A group member sends an unsigned message to the WhatsApp server that designates which users are group members, for instance, Alice, Bob, and Charlie
  • The server informs all existing group members that Alice, Bob, and Charlie have been added
  • The existing members have the option of deciding whether to accept messages from Alice, Bob, and Charlie, and whether messages exchanged with them should be encrypted

With no cryptographic signatures verifying an existing member who wants to add a new member, additions can be made by anyone with the ability to control the server or messages that flow into it. Using the common fictional scenario for illustrating end-to-end encryption, this lack of cryptographic assurance leaves open the possibility that Malory can join a group and gain access to the human-readable messages exchanged there.

WhatsApp isn’t the only messenger lacking cryptographic assurances for new group members. In 2022, a team that included some of the same researchers that analyzed WhatsApp found that Matrix—an open source and proprietary platform for chat and collaboration clients and servers—also provided no cryptographic means for ensuring only authorized members join a group. The Telegram messenger, meanwhile, offers no end-to-end encryption for group messages, making the app among the weakest for ensuring the confidentiality of group messages.

By contrast, the open source Signal messenger provides a cryptographic assurance that only an existing group member designated as the group admin can add new members. In an email, researcher Benjamin Dowling, also of King’s College, explained:

Signal implements “cryptographic group management.” Roughly this means that the administrator of a group, a user, signs a message along the lines of “Alice, Bob and Charley are in this group” to everyone else. Then, everybody else in the group makes their decision on who to encrypt to and who to accept messages from based on these cryptographically signed messages, [meaning] who to accept as a group member. The system used by Signal is a bit different [than WhatsApp], since [Signal] makes additional efforts to avoid revealing the group membership to the server, but the core principles remain the same.

On a high-level, in Signal, groups are associated with group membership lists that are stored on the Signal server. An administrator of the group generates a GroupMasterKey that is used to make changes to this group membership list. In particular, the GroupMasterKey is sent to other group members via Signal, and so is unknown to the server. Thus, whenever an administrator wants to make a change to the group (for instance, invite another user), they need to create an updated membership list (authenticated with the GroupMasterKey) telling other users of the group who to add. Existing users are notified of the change and update their group list, and perform the appropriate cryptographic operations with the new member so the existing member can begin sending messages to the new members as part of the group.

Most messaging apps, including Signal, don’t certify the identity of their users. That means there’s no way Signal can verify that the person using an account named Alice does, in fact, belong to Alice. It’s fully possible that Malory could create an account and name it Alice. (As an aside, and in sharp contrast to Signal, the account members that belong to a given WhatsApp group are visible to insiders, hackers, and to anyone with a valid subpoena.)

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openai-claims-nonprofit-will-retain-nominal-control

OpenAI Claims Nonprofit Will Retain Nominal Control

Your voice has been heard. OpenAI has ‘heard from the Attorney Generals’ of Delaware and California, and as a result the OpenAI nonprofit will retain control of OpenAI under their new plan, and both companies will retain the original mission.

Technically they are not admitting that their original plan was illegal and one of the biggest thefts in human history, but that is how you should in practice interpret the line ‘we made the decision for the nonprofit to retain control of OpenAI after hearing from civic leaders and engaging in constructive dialogue with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California.’

Another possibility is that the nonprofit board finally woke up and looked at what was being proposed and how people were reacting, and realized what was going on.

The letter ‘not for private gain’ that was recently sent to those Attorney Generals plausibly was a major causal factor in any or all of those conversations.

The question is, what exactly is the new plan? The fight is far from over.

  1. The Mask Stays On?.

  2. Your Offer is (In Principle) Acceptable.

  3. The Skeptical Take.

  4. Tragedy in the Bay.

  5. The Spirit of the Rules.

As previously intended, OpenAI will transition their for-profit arm, currently an LLC, into a PBC. They will also be getting rid of the capped profit structure.

However they will be retaining the nonprofit’s control over the new PBC, and the nonprofit will (supposedly) get fair compensation for its previous financial interests in the form of a major (but suspiciously unspecified, other than ‘a large shareholder’) stake in the new PBC.

Bret Taylor (Chairman of the Board, OpenAI): The OpenAI Board has an updated plan for evolving OpenAI’s structure.

OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit. Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit.

Our for-profit LLC, which has been under the nonprofit since 2019, will transition to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC)–a purpose-driven company structure that has to consider the interests of both shareholders and the mission.

The nonprofit will control and also be a large shareholder of the PBC, giving the nonprofit better resources to support many benefits.

Our mission remains the same, and the PBC will have the same mission.

We made the decision for the nonprofit to retain control of OpenAI after hearing from civic leaders and engaging in constructive dialogue with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California.

We thank both offices and we look forward to continuing these important conversations to make sure OpenAI can continue to effectively pursue its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity. Sam wrote the letter below to our employees and stakeholders about why we are so excited for this new direction.

The rest of the post is a letter from Sam Altman, and sounds like it, you are encouraged to read the whole thing.

Sam Altman (CEO OpenAI): The for-profit LLC under the nonprofit will transition to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) with the same mission. PBCs have become the standard for-profit structure for other AGI labs like Anthropic and X.ai, as well as many purpose driven companies like Patagonia. We think it makes sense for us, too.

Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler.

The nonprofit will continue to control the PBC, and will become a big shareholder in the PBC, in an amount supported by independent financial advisors, giving the nonprofit resources to support programs so AI can benefit many different communities, consistent with the mission.

Joshua Achiam (OpenAI, Head of Mission Alignment): OpenAI is, and always will be, a mission-first organization. Today’s update is an affirmation of our continuing commitment to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity.

I find the structure of this solution not ideal but ultimately acceptable.

The current OpenAI structure is bizarre and complex. It does important good things some of which this new arrangement will break. But the current structure also made OpenAI far less investable, which means giving away more of the company to profit maximizers, and causes a lot of real problems.

Thus, I see the structural changes, in particular the move to a normal profit distribution, as a potentially a fair compromise to enable better access to capital – provided it is implemented fairly, and isn’t a backdoor to further shifts.

The devil is in the details. How is all this going to work?

What form will the nonprofit’s control take? Is it only that they will be a large shareholder? Will they have a special class of supervoting shares? Something else?

This deal is only acceptable if and only he nonprofit:

  1. Has truly robust control going forward, that is ironclad and that allows it to guide AI development in practice not only in theory. Is this going to only be via voting shares? That would be a massive downgrade from the current power of the board, which already wasn’t so great. In practice, the ability to win a shareholder vote will mean little during potentially crucial fights like a decision whether to release a potentially dangerous model.

    1. What this definitely still does is give cover to management to do the right thing, if they actively want to do that, I’ll discuss more later.

  2. Gets a fair share of the profits, that matches the value of its previous profit interests. I am very worried they will still get massively stolen from on this. As a reminder, right now most of the net present value of OpenAI’s future profits belongs to the nonprofit.

  3. Uses those profits to advance its original mission rather than turning into a de facto marketing arm or doing generic philanthropy that doesn’t matter, or both.

    1. There are still clear signs that OpenAI is largely planning to have the nonprofit buy AI services on behalf of other charities, or otherwise do things that are irrelevant to the mission. That would make it an ‘ordinary foundation’ combined with a marketing arm, effectively making its funds useless, although it could still act meaningfully via its control mechanisms.

Remember that in these situations, the ratchet only goes one way. The commercial interests will constantly try to wrestle greater control and ownership of the profits away from us. They will constantly cite necessity and expedience to justify this. You’re playing defense, forever. Every compromise improves their position, and this one definitely will compared to doing nothing.

Or: This deal is getting worse and worse all the time.

Or, from Leo Gao:

Quintin Pope: Common mistake. They forgot to paint “Do Not Open” on the box.

There’s also the issue of the extent to which Altman controls the nonprofit board.

The reason the nonprofit needs control is to impact key decisions in real time. It needs control of a form that lets it do that. Because that kind of lever is not ‘standard,’ there will constantly be pressure to get rid of that ability, with threats of mild social awkwardness if these pressures are resisted.

So with love, now that we have established what you are, now it’s time to haggle over the price.

He had an excellent thread explaining the attempted conversion, and he has another good explainer on what this new announcement means, as well as an emergency 80,000 Hours podcast on the topic that should come out tomorrow.

Consider this the highly informed and maximally skeptical and cynical take. Which, given the track records here, seems like a highly reasonable place to start.

The central things to know about the new plan are indeed:

  1. The transition to a PBC and removal of the profit cap will still shift priorities, legal obligations and incentives towards profit maximization.

  2. The nonprofit’s ‘control’ is at best weakened, and potentially fake.

  3. The nonprofit’s mission might effectively be fake.

  4. The nonprofit’s current financial interests could largely still be stolen.

It’s an improvement, but it might not effectively be all that much of one?

We need to stay vigilant. The fight is far from over.

Rob Wiblin: So OpenAI just said it’s no longer going for-profit and the non-profit will ‘retain control’. But don’t declare victory yet. OpenAI may actually be continuing with almost the same plan & hoping they can trick us into thinking they’ve stopped!

Or perhaps not. I’ll explain:

The core issue is control of OpenAI’s behaviour, decisions, and any AGI it produces.

  1. Will the entity that builds AGI still have a legally enforceable obligation to make sure AGI benefits all humanity?

  2. Will the non-profit still be able to step in if OpenAI is doing something appalling and contrary to that mission?

  3. Will the non-profit still own an AGI if OpenAI develops it? It’s kinda important!

The new announcement doesn’t answer these questions and despite containing a lot of nice words the answers may still be: no.

(Though we can’t know and they might not even know themselves yet.)

The reason to worry is they’re still planning to convert the existing for-profit into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). That means the profit caps we were promised would be gone. But worse… the nonprofit could still lose true control. Right now, the nonprofit owns and directly controls the for-profit’s day-to-day operations. If the nonprofit’s “control” over the PBC is just extra voting shares, that would be a massive downgrade as I’ll explain.

(The reason to think that’s the plan is that today’s announcement sounded very similar to a proposal they floated in Feb in which the nonprofit gets special voting shares in a new PBC.)

Special voting shares in a new PBC are simply very different and much weaker than the control they currently have! First, in practical terms, voting power doesn’t directly translate to the power to manage OpenAI’s day-to-day operations – which the non-profit currently has.

If it doesn’t fight to retain that real power, the non-profit could lose the ability to directly manage the development and deployment of OpenAI’s technology. That includes the ability to decide whether to deploy a model (!) or license it to another company.

Second, PBCs have a legal obligation to balance public interest against shareholder profits. If the nonprofit is just a big shareholder with super-voting shares other investors in the PBC could sue claiming OpenAI isn’t doing enough to pursue their interests (more profits)! Crazy sounding, but true.

And who do you think will be more vociferous in pursuing such a case through the courts… numerous for-profit investors with hundreds of billions on the line, or a non-profit operated by 9 very busy volunteers? Hmmm.

In fact in 2019, OpenAI President Greg Brockman said one of the reasons they chose their current structure and not a PBC was exactly because it allowed them to custom-write binding rules including full control to the nonprofit! So they know this issue — and now want to be a PBC. See here.

If this is the plan it could mean OpenAI transitioning from:

• A structure where they must prioritise the nonprofit mission over shareholders

To:

• A new structure where they don’t have to — and may not even be legally permitted to do so.

(Note how it seems like the non-profit is giving up a lot here. What is it getting in return here exactly that makes giving up both the profit caps and true control of the business and AGI the best way to pursue its mission? It seems like nothing to me.)

So, strange as it sounds, this could turn out to be an even more clever way for Sam and profit-motivated investors to get what they wanted. Profit caps would be gone and profit-motivated investors would have much more influence.

And all the while Sam and OpenAI would be able to frame it as if nothing is changing and the non-profit has retained the same control today they had yesterday!

(As an aside it looks like the SoftBank funding round that was reported as requiring a loss of nonprofit control would still go through. Their press release indicates that actually all they were insisting on was that the profit caps are removed and they’re granted shares in a new PBC.

So it sounds like investors think this new plan would transfer them enough additional profits, and sufficiently neuter the non-profit, for them to feel satisfied.).

Now, to be clear, the above might be wrongheaded.

I’m looking at the announcement cynically, assuming that some staff at OpenAI, and some investors, want to wriggle out of non-profit control however they can — because I think we have ample evidence that that’s the case!

The phrase “nonprofit control” is actually very vague, and those folks might be trying to ram a truck through that hole.

At the same time maybe / hopefully there are people involved in this process who are sincere and trying to push things in the right direction.

On that we’ll just have to wait and see and judge on the results.

Bottom line: The announcement might turn out to be a step in the right direction, but it might also just be a new approach to achieve the same bad outcome less visibly.

So do not relax.

And if it turns out they’re trying to fool you, don’t be fooled.

Gretchen Krueger: The nonprofit will retain control of OpenAI. We still need stronger oversight and broader input on whether and how AI is pursued at OpenAI and all the AI companies, but this is an important bar to see upheld, and I’m proud to have helped push for it!

Now it is time to make sure that control is real—and to guard against any changes that make it harder than it already is to strengthen public accountability. The devil is in the details we don’t know yet, so the work continues.

Roon says the quiet part out loud. We used to think it was possible to do the right thing and care about whether AI killed everyone. Now, those with power say, we can’t even imagine how we could have been so naive, let’s walk that back as quickly as we can so we can finally do some maximizing of the profits.

Roon: the idea of openai having a charter is interesting to me. A relic from a bygone era, belief that governance innovation for important institutions is even possible. Interested parties are tasked with performing exegesis of the founding documents.

Seems clear that the “capped profit” mechanism is from a time in which people assumed agi development would be more singular than it actually is. There are many points on the intelligence curve and many players. We should be discussing when Nvidia will require profit caps.

I do not think that the capped profit requires strong assumptions about a singleton to make sense. It only requires that there be an oligopoly where the players are individually meaningful. If you have close to perfect competition and the players have no market power and their products are fully fungible, then yes, of course being a capped profit makes no sense. Although it also does no real harm, your profits were already rather capped in that scenario.

More than that, we have largely lost our ability to actually ask what problems humanity will face, and then ask what would actually solve those problems, and then try to do that thing. We are no longer trying to backward chain from a win. Which means we are no longer playing to win.

At best, we are creating institutions that might allow the people involved to choose to do the right thing, when the time comes, if they make that decision.

For several reasons, recent developments do still give me hope, even if we get a not-so-great version of the implementation details here.

The first is that this shows that the right forms of public pressure can still work, at least sometimes, for some combination of getting public officials to enforce the law and causing a company like OpenAI to compromise. The fight is far from over, but we have won a victory that was at best highly uncertain.

The second is that this will give the nonprofit at least a much better position going forward, and the ‘you have to change things or we can’t raise money’ argument is at least greatly weakened. Even though the nine members are very friendly to Altman, they are also sufficiently professional class people, Responsible Authority Figures of a type, that one would expect the board to have real limits, and we can push for them to be kept more in-the-loop and be given more voice. De facto I do not think that the nonprofit was going to get much if any additional financial compensation in exchange for giving up its stake.

The third is that, while OpenAI likely still has the ability to ‘weasel out’ of most of its effective constraints and obligations here, this preserves its ability to decide not to. As in, OpenAI and Altman could choose to do the right thing, even if they haven’t had the practice, with the confidence that the board would back them up, and that this structure would protect them from investors and lawsuits.

This is very different from saying that the board will act as a meaningful check on Altman, if Altman decides to act recklessly or greedily.

It is easy to forget that in the world of VCs and corporate America, in many ways it is not only that you have no obligation to do the right thing. It is that you have an obligation, and will face tremendous pressure, to do the wrong thing, in many cases merely because it is wrong, and certainly to do so if the wrong thing maximizes shareholder value in the short term.

Thus, the ability to fight back against that is itself powerful. Altman, and others in OpenAI leadership, are keenly aware of the dangers they are leading us into, even if we do not see eye to eye on what it will take to navigate them or how deadly are the threats we face. Altman knows, even if he claims in public to actively not know. Many members of technical stuff know. I still believe most of those who know do not wish for the dying of the light, and want humanity and value to endure in this universe, that they are normative and value good over bad and life over death and so on. So when the time comes, we want them to feel as much permission, and have as much power, to stand up for that as we can preserve for them.

It is the same as the Preparedness Framework, except that in this case we have only ‘concepts of a plan’ rather than an actually detailed plan. If everyone involved with power abides by the spirit of the Preparedness Framework, it is a deeply flawed but valuable document. If those involved with power discard the spirit of the framework, it isn’t worth the tokens that compose it. The same will go for a broad range of governance mechanisms.

Have Altman and OpenAI been endlessly disappointing? Well, yes. Are many of their competitors doing vastly worse? Also yes. Is OpenAI getting passing grades so far, given that reality does not grade on a curve? Oh, hell no. And it can absolutely be, and at some point will be, too late to try and do the right thing.

The good news is, I believe that today is not that today. And tomorrow looks good, too.

Discussion about this post

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ford-raises-prices-on-mexican-made-cars—but-not-the-full-tariff-cost

Ford raises prices on Mexican-made cars—but not the full tariff cost

Ford also told Ars that it will continue to offer employee pricing to all its customers until at least July 4, even on vehicles made after May 2.

Ford published its Q1 2025 financial results earlier this week, reporting a net income of $471 million, a $900 million decrease compared to Q1 2024. In its statement to investors, the company said that it estimates that the Trump tariff will cost it as much as $1.5 billion in 2025.

Still, the price increases will be felt keenly, particularly for hybrid Maverick customers. When Ford facelifted the hybrid pickup truck last year, it also added several thousand more dollars to the MSRP; now that’s going up yet again.

Meanwhile, a separate 25 percent tariff on imported car parts went into effect last week. While there is a small break for OEMs to apply for up to 3.75 percent reimbursements, the parts tariff will affect all OEMs building cars in the US, all of which depend to greater or lesser degrees on suppliers in Mexico and Canada. On top of the persistent 25 percent price increase that almost all cars have experienced since 2020, it seems it’s becoming an even more horrible time to have to buy a new vehicle.

Ford raises prices on Mexican-made cars—but not the full tariff cost Read More »

dangerous-clear-air-turbulence-is-worsening-due-to-global-warming

Dangerous clear-air turbulence is worsening due to global warming

“Global warming is faster at the poles,” Faranda said, “and it’s melting ice and it’s also warming differently in oceans and on continents.”

As global warming jars climatic patterns, it affects the jet streams, he said.

Williams, the University of Reading scientist, was “the first to understand that if the jet stream is affected, then turbulence in the jet stream is affected, and therefore flight operations are affected,” Faranda said.

In his EGU presentation, Williams said it’s important to look at vertical wind shear because the signal in the data is much stronger compared to the noise.

“Why do we care about stronger wind shear? Well, of course, it’s because we fly through it,” he said, showing a photo of a grounded jet plane that lost an engine in severe clear-air turbulence. The data shows there has been a 55 percent increase of severe air turbulence since the 1970s, he added.

Climate models show that, under the most realistic greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, a “hotspot in the tropical upper troposphere will continue to grow, which means an even stronger midlatitude temperature gradient,” he said.

That hotspot in the upper troposphere is an area of amplified warming resulting partly from water vapor feedbacks, as moist, hot air steams off the tropical oceans. That heat bulge is increasing the temperature gradient in areas near some of the busiest flight paths, including transatlantic routes.

If rapid warming continues, Williams said, studies show vertical wind shear could increase 29 percent by 2100, or 17 percent if global emissions are halved by mid-century and keep dropping.

“This, of course, means a lot more turbulence in not that many years from now,” he said.

Faranda added that his own experiences and research on clear-air turbulence won’t keep him from flying. New measurements by weather instruments and greater awareness of the potential for such turbulence will help keep most flights safe, and changes to wing design and plane construction could make them less vulnerable, he added.

“In principle, you can fly through these areas without consequences in most cases,” Faranda said. But with projections for more intense and frequent turbulence, it’s important to maintain observation programs, he added.

“With the new global political situation, there is a lot of talk of reducing instruments for monitoring the weather and the climate, and this would produce worse weather forecasts,” he said. And fewer weather observations will likely lead to shakier flights.

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

Dangerous clear-air turbulence is worsening due to global warming Read More »

the-company-with-the-world’s-largest-aircraft-now-has-a-hypersonic-rocket-plane

The company with the world’s largest aircraft now has a hypersonic rocket plane

“Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” said George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center, in a statement. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”

Krevor said Talon-A carried multiple experiments on each mission but did not offer any details about the nature of the payloads, citing proprietary reasons and customer agreements.

“We cannot disclose the nature of those payloads other than to say typical materials, instrumentation, sensors, etc.,” he said. “The customers were thrilled with their ability to recover the payloads shortly after landing.”

Stratolaunch completed the first powered flight of a Talon-A vehicle last year when the rocket plane launched over the Pacific Ocean and fired its liquid-fueled Hadley engine—produced by Ursa Major—for about 200 seconds. The Talon-A1 vehicle accelerated to just shy of hypersonic speed, then fell into the sea as planned and was not recovered.

That set the stage for Talon-A2’s first flight in December.

Military officials previously stated that they set up the MACH-TB program to enable more frequent flight testing of hypersonic weapon technologies, including communication, navigation, guidance, sensors, and seekers. Stratolaunch aims for monthly flights of the Talon-A rocket plane by the end of the year and eventually wants to ramp up to weekly flights.

“These flights are setting the stage now to increase the cadence of hypersonic flight testing in this country,” Krevor said. “The ability to have a fully reusable hypersonic flight architecture enables a very high cadence of flight along with a lot of responsiveness. The DoD can call Stratolaunch if there’s a priority program, and we can have a hypersonic flight next week, assuming the readiness of all the other technologies and payloads.”

Pentagon officials in 2022 set a goal of growing US capacity for hypersonic testing from 12 to 50 flight tests per year. Krevor believes Stratolaunch will play a key part in making that happen.

Catching up

So why is hypersonic flight testing important?

The Pentagon wants to close what it views as a technological gap with China, which US officials acknowledge has become the world’s leader in hypersonic missile development. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult than conventional missiles for aerial defense systems to detect, track, and destroy. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons ride at the top of the atmosphere, enhancing their maneuverability and ability to evade interceptors.

Hypersonic flight is an unforgiving environment. Temperatures outside the Talon-A vehicle can reach up to 2,000° Fahrenheit (1,100° Celsius) as the plane plows through air molecules, Krevor said. He declined to disclose the duration, top speed, and maximum altitude of the December and March test flights but said the rocket plane performed a series of “high-G” maneuvers on the journey from its drop location to Vandenberg.

The company with the world’s largest aircraft now has a hypersonic rocket plane Read More »