LOS ANGELES: Performances by AI-generated actors will not be eligible for Golden Globe awards, organizers said Thursday, days after they were also ruled out of Oscars contention.&nbsp;The new guidelines will not automatically disqualify performances that have used artificial intelligence to enhance an actor, but require that a live human be the main element.&nbsp;&quot;Submissions in which a performance is substantially generated or created by artificial intelligence are not eligible&quot; for consideration in the annual film and television prize-giving extravaganza, which kicks off Hollywood&#39;s awards season, organizers said.&nbsp;&quot;The use of AI for technical or cosmetic enhancements (such as de-aging, aging, or visual modifications) may be permissible, provided the underlying performance remains that of the credited individual and AI does not replace or materially alter the performer&#39;s work.&quot;&nbsp;The new rules come days after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it was cracking down on the use of AI.&nbsp;The body that doles out the Oscars said only real human performers -- not their AI avatars -- are eligible for the film world&#39;s biggest prizes, and screenplays must have been penned by a person, rather than a chatbot.&nbsp;The use of artificial intelligence remains one of the most sensitive issues in the entertainment industry and was central to the 2023 strikes that shut down Hollywood, as actors and writers warned that unchecked technology threatened their livelihoods.&nbsp;The new restrictions come after an AI version of the late Val Kilmer was unveiled to an audience of movie theatre owners, a year after the &quot;Top Gun&quot; star&#39;s death.&nbsp;A youthful, digital version of Kilmer appeared in the trailer for archaeological action pic &quot;As Deep as the Grave,&quot; telling another character: &quot;Don&#39;t fear the dead and don&#39;t fear me.&quot;&nbsp;The project was created with the enthusiastic support of the actor&#39;s family, who granted access to Kilmer&#39;s video archives, which were used to recreate the actor at multiple stages of his life.

Film & TV

Golden Globes will not allow AI-generated actors to compete for awards, requiring a real human performance as the main element, while limited AI use for enhancement, like de-ageing may still be permitted.

AI actors not eligible for Golden Globes, say organizers

Muhammad Usman Amin

PESHAWAR: Across the globe, Silicon Valley tech companies are investing billions to build the future of artificial intelligence, making headlines. But in Peshawar, two university students are challenging the status quo with grit, determination, and a bit of prize money from national hackathons. Muhammad Uzair and Junaid Ahmed, both fourth-semester computer science students at Peshawar University and both cousins, have built AI models designed specifically for the Pashto language.&nbsp; With over 60 million speakers worldwide, especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East, Pashto has been poorly integrated by major AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. The lack of Pashto data online for training AI models means that the more established AI giants often mix it up with Arabic or Persian because of their similar scripts. Recognizing this digital niche, Uzair and Junaid decided to take matters into their own hands. Uzair&#39;s solution is &quot;Katib-ASR,&quot; an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) model. Katib is the traditional word for scribe as the model writes down what it hears, converting spoken Pashto audio directly into accurate Pashto script. Building it was a huge linguistic hurdle. Pashto features 45 letters, including more than half a dozen variations of a single letter like &quot;Ye&rdquo;. Because relevant datasets didn&#39;t exist, Uzair had to build his own from scratch. He pulled audio from regional podcasts, generated it himself and with friends and family or found it online and clipped it into tiny segments to teach his model how specific sounds correspond to text.&nbsp; Currently sitting at an impressive 75%-80% accuracy, Uzair&rsquo;s goal is to further refine the model and eventually introduce text-to-speech and other capabilities for Pashto speakers. Meanwhile, his cousin Junaid faced a similar problem with text generation. His focus is &quot;Qehwa AI,&quot; a text-generation model named after the region&#39;s famous traditional tea. Junaid scraped every corner of the internet for Pashto text, translated entire books from English and Urdu and compiled an astonishing 1.5 billion words. According to Junaid, this makes it the largest Pashto dataset.&nbsp; By feeding this massive library into an open-source base model, he has created an AI that understands the deep context, literature, cultural nuances and history of the language.&nbsp; Whether you prompt it in English, Urdu, or Pashto, Qehwa AI processes the information and responds in Pashto. Since it is specifically trained on Pashto, Junaid claims that Qehwa AI outperforms global models in Pashto translation and summarization tasks. According to the two developers, training AI requires immense computational power, usually found in massive data centers. When the duo approached local institutions for help, they found a lack of supercomputers or advanced graphics cards (GPUs). And lack of funds was also a major obstacle.&nbsp; The idea they came up with was to compete in major national Hackathons, win and use that money. And win they did. They pooled their prize money -- nearly Rs200,000 -- and used it to rent cloud-based GPUs. Grassroots, self-funded operation.&nbsp; Going forward, both students see this as just the beginning. While Uzair aims to perfect the audio mechanics, Junaid plans to expand his model to include other regional languages like Punjabi, Sindhi, and Balochi, ultimately creating a unified AI for all Pakistani languages. In a world where AI is dominated by corporate conglomerates, Uzair and Junaid are a reminder that actual innovation can often start with limited funds and resources, and a drive to empower and represent one&#39;s own culture, land and language on a global level.

Artificial Intelligence

Two computer science students at Peshawar University have built AI models specifically designed for the Pashto language. 

How two students are putting Pashto AI on the world map

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has launched a regulatory sandbox for artificial intelligence-driven payments and virtual asset services, marking a key step in its push to formalize digital finance and strengthen oversight in the fast-evolving virtual assets sector.&nbsp;The move was discussed during a meeting this week between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Minister of State and Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Office.&nbsp;The development comes as Pakistan accelerates efforts to build a formal regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and digital assets, following recent high-level engagements with global industry leaders, including a 2025 visit by Richard Teng, chief executive of Binance, to Islamabad.&nbsp;The visit underscored Islamabad&rsquo;s growing focus on digital asset regulation, blockchain adoption and financial innovation as part of its broader economic modernization strategy.&nbsp;The sandbox, a controlled environment for testing financial technologies under regulatory supervision, is designed to support innovation in AI-driven payments and regulated virtual asset services while helping authorities develop policy frameworks for emerging technologies.&nbsp;PM Sharif directed officials to ensure that &ldquo;an effective and globally compliant regulatory system in the virtual assets sector&rdquo; is made fully operational at the earliest, saying the framework is essential to promote Pakistan&rsquo;s digital economy and enhance investor confidence.&nbsp;He also stressed the need to equip young Pakistanis with future-ready skills, calling for special measures to provide training in &ldquo;modern technologies,&rdquo; particularly artificial intelligence and digital finance.&nbsp;Saqib briefed the prime minister on PVARA&rsquo;s transition into an operational regulator and outlined progress on the regulatory sandbox, saying innovations are being introduced in digital payments and virtual asset services.&nbsp;The PMO said work is underway to prepare national institutions, the workforce and the regulatory framework for the next phase of economic transformation, as Pakistan seeks to expand its footprint in emerging digital and financial technologies.

Pakistan launched a regulatory sandbox for AI-driven payments and virtual assets to formalize digital finance. PM Sharif urged a compliant framework, youth training, and faster rollout to boost innovation, oversight, and investor confidence.

Pakistan launches regulatory sandbox for AI-driven financial innovation

BEIJING: Chinese startup DeepSeek released &quot;preview&quot; versions of a new artificial intelligence model Friday, more than a year after it stunned the world with a low-cost reasoning model that matched the capabilities of US rivals. The long-awaited DeepSeek-V4 &quot;features an ultra-long context of one million words, achieving leadership in both domestic and open-source fields across agent capabilities, world knowledge, and reasoning performance&quot;, the company said in a statement on social media. A &quot;preview version&quot; is now available, the company said. The new DeepSeek-V4 model is released as two versions, DeepSeek-V4-Pro and DeepSeek-V4-Flash, with the latter being &quot;a more efficient and economical choice&quot; because it has smaller parameters. &quot;In world knowledge benchmarks, DeepSeek-V4-Pro significantly leads other open-source models and is only slightly outperformed by the top-tier closed-source model, (Google&#39;s) Gemini-Pro-3.1,&quot; the statement added.

The photo taken on April 12, 2026 shows founder of one-person company SoloNest Karen Dai (C) sharing her experience with participants during a coffee chat at a conference room in Shanghai.

DeepSeek unveiled preview versions of DeepSeek-V4 models, highlighting ultra-long context and strong reasoning performance rivaling top systems like Gemini‑Pro‑3.1.

China's DeepSeek releases long-awaited new AI model

HANOVER: A blue-eyed humanoid robot carefully opens a box and places a tool inside as a crowd of visitors watch the demonstration of &quot;physical AI&quot; skills at a major industrial trade fair in Germany. Made by German startup Agile Robots, it was among a host of robots showing off their moves at the event, underlining hopes of a coming AI-powered boost for Germany&#39;s long-struggling factories. Embedding the technology into industrial processes, where Europe already has deep expertise, is seen as a key route for the continent to catch up in the artificial intelligence race against the United States and China. Such AI-boosted robots make it possible to &quot;actually solve industrial problems&quot;, Rory Sexton, chief executive of Agile Robots, told AFP in an interview. From next year, he added, the company plans to begin fitting out German factories, particularly those in the automotive industry, a crucial sector for Europe&#39;s biggest economy.<div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=2041953590877810784&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Fdashboard%2F&sessionId=a39aa8ddb55a2e0d344043106d62509b254c011d&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 921px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" data-tweet-id="2041953590877810784"></iframe></div></div>Artificial intelligence used for real-world, hands-on tasks -- so-called physical AI -- was in focus this year in Hanover at the world&#39;s biggest industrial technology fair, which brings together more than 3,000 exhibitors. Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited the Agile Robots stand, where he talked to Zhaopeng Chen, the Chinese founder of the Munich-based startup. In a speech at the fair, Merz threw his support behind the drive to encourage German manufacturers, many of whom still rely on traditional techniques, to step up their use of AI. AI should be &quot;embedded in the key sectors of our industry and especially&quot; in small- and medium-sized firms, the backbone of the German economy, to create &quot;industrial added value and high-quality jobs&quot;, he said. - &#39;Dark side&#39; of AI - But, like in many other industries, German manufacturers are playing catch-up against China when it comes to making humanoid robots. Merz witnessed China&#39;s progress in the field first-hand during a visit to the country in February, when he saw displays of Chinese-made robots performing kung fu and boxing. The maker of those robots, Unitree, and other Chinese manufacturers were also out in force at the Hanover fair, as they have been in previous years. Still, Sexton of Agile Robots insisted that &quot;we&#39;ll soon be able to do what (Unitree) are doing&quot;, and shrugged off such impressive public displays.<div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-1" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfdGltZWxpbmVfbGlzdCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOltdLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2ZvbGxvd2VyX2NvdW50X3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9iYWNrZW5kIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19yZWZzcmNfc2Vzc2lvbiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZm9zbnJfc29mdF9pbnRlcnZlbnRpb25zX2VuYWJsZWQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib24iLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X21peGVkX21lZGlhXzE1ODk3Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRyZWF0bWVudCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3Nob3dfYmlyZHdhdGNoX3Bpdm90c19lbmFibGVkIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19kdXBsaWNhdGVfc2NyaWJlc190b19zZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdXNlX3Byb2ZpbGVfaW1hZ2Vfc2hhcGVfZW5hYmxlZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdmlkZW9faGxzX2R5bmFtaWNfbWFuaWZlc3RzXzE1MDgyIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRydWVfYml0cmF0ZSIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfbGVnYWN5X3RpbWVsaW5lX3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9mcm9udGVuZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=2042912788717408509&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Fdashboard%2F&sessionId=a39aa8ddb55a2e0d344043106d62509b254c011d&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 648px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" data-tweet-id="2042912788717408509"></iframe></div></div>Rather than dancing or martial arts, Agile Robots is focused on &quot;value-added tasks for industry&quot;, such as electronic wiring in cars or phone assembly, he said. He emphasised that Germany offers an &quot;ecosystem of suppliers&quot; and &quot;very strong expertise in mechanical engineering and automation&quot;, both crucial in the race for AI. Companies are also hopeful about the technological developments -- 58 percent of industrial firms surveyed by German digital business association Bitkom believe humanoid robots could help plug skilled labour shortages. The country also has deep pools of industrial data to draw on from its factories, according to Antonio Krueger, head of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). &quot;This is something we have at a level of quality far superior to the United States or China,&quot; he told AFP. But, critics say, the use of this data is still often too piecemeal and isolated, with no overarching strategy to bring it together cohesively. Not everyone in Hanover was convinced that AI was the solution to the woes of Germany manufacturers, who have long been struggling with issues from high energy costs to weak demand. Jochen Heinz, an executive from German factory machinery maker SW Machines, cautioned that AI can sometimes make mistakes by, for instance, giving misleading instructions for repairs or incorrectly claiming to have detected problems.

Robots powered by physical AI drew attention at Germany’s Hanover fair, where firms promoted them as a way to modernise factories, ease labour shortages and help Europe compete with the US and China.

AI-powered robots offer new hope to German factories

PARIS: Billionaire Elon Musk has been summoned for a voluntary interview in Paris on Monday as part of a French probe into his social media platform X, though it remains unclear if he will appear. French authorities issued a summons for Musk in February as part of an investigation, launched in January 2025, into allegations that X&#39;s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. The probe was later expanded to include an investigation into X&#39;s AI chatbot Grok&#39;s dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes. In early February, French prosecutors searched the Paris offices of X, in what the social media giant &mdash; which has denied any wrongdoing &mdash; slammed as &quot;politicized&quot; raids and an &quot;abusive judicial act.&quot; At the time, Paris prosecutors also summoned Musk and then-CEO Linda Yaccarino for voluntary interviews as the &quot;de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events,&quot; a move Musk called a &quot;political attack.&quot; Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year after two years at the helm of the company. In February, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said X employees had also been summoned to appear between April 20 and 24 &quot;to be heard as witnesses.&quot; But whether or not those invited for voluntary questioning appear would not be &quot;an obstacle to the continuation of the investigation,&quot; the Paris prosecutor&#39;s office said on Saturday. Officials have not offered any details on the location or time of Musk&#39;s scheduled interview. The French investigation focuses on several suspected criminal offences, including complicity in possessing child sexual abuse material and denial of crimes against humanity. The social media company in July called the probe &quot;politically motivated.&quot; &#39;Serious concerns&#39;The French investigation comes as part of a broader international backlash against Grok after it emerged that users could sexualise images of women and children using simple text prompts such as &quot;put her in a bikini&quot; or &quot;remove her clothes.&quot; It generated an estimated three million sexualized images &mdash; mostly of women, though also 23,000 that appeared to depict children &mdash; in 11 days, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit watchdog, said in late January. In a separate investigation, Britain&#39;s data regulator in February launched investigations into Musk&#39;s X and xAI over &quot;serious concerns&quot; regarding whether the companies complied with personal data laws when it came to Grok&#39;s generation of sexualized deepfakes. In late January, the European Union also hit X with a probe over Grok&#39;s generation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors.

French authorities issued a summons for Musk in February as part of an investigation, launched in January 2025, into allegations that X's algorithm was used to interfere in French politics.



France summons Elon Musk over X probe

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican on Wednesday warned artificial intelligence could lead to &quot;social control&quot; and &quot;manipulation&quot; and called for more focus on human relationships to counter the dehumanizing effects of digital technology. In a wide-ranging document with the Latin title &quot;Quo Vadis, Humanitas?&quot; (Whither Humanity?), the Vatican&#39;s International Theology Commission said humanity was faced with &quot;never before imagined risks&quot; from tech. &quot;Today we are witnessing a loss of the sense of history and a reduction of experience to the fleeting moment,&quot; the document said. &quot;Digital culture tends to... transform the living culture of memory and hope into a postmodern culture of a present closed in on itself.&quot; It said AI was creating a &quot;hyper-connected&quot; world with &quot;an increasing acceleration of economic, political, social, and military dynamics that risk becoming uncontrollable and therefore ungovernable&quot;. &quot;In such a world, human action itself becomes material to be analysed and shaped according to power or market goals that are not always transparent. Social control increases, as does the risk of manipulation,&quot; it said. It said relationships, particularly within families, were &quot;a barrier against the spread of a homogenising globalisation, which does not always help to shape authentic bonds&quot;. The document was approved by Pope Leo XIV, who has repeatedly warned about the risks of generative artificial intelligence. In a message marking the World Day of Social Communications in January, Pope Leo said AI systems reflect the worldview of their creators and can reproduce biases. He has also condemned the use of AI by the military, warning against delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The Vatican&#39;s warnings come as generative AI makes leaps and bounds towards replicating, altering and manufacturing images, music and text to levels sometimes indistinguishable from human-made works.

The Vatican warned AI could enable social control and manipulation, eroding human relationships and historical awareness.

Vatican warns AI could lead to 'social control'

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI announced Friday a massive $110 billion funding round valuing the ChatGPT maker at $730 billion, with SoftBank, Nvidia and Amazon each making multi-billion-dollar commitments as the artificial intelligence company races to meet surging global demand.&nbsp;The investment round -- one of the largest in Silicon Valley history -- includes $30 billion from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, $30 billion from chip giant Nvidia, and up to $50 billion from Amazon, with additional investors expected to join as the round progresses.&nbsp;Alongside the capital injection, OpenAI announced strategic partnerships with both Amazon, the world&#39;s biggest cloud company through its AWS division, and Nvidia, whose AI chips remain unparalleled in their capacity for AI training.&nbsp;&quot;SoftBank, Nvidia, and Amazon are long-term partners who share our ambition to turn real scientific progress into systems that deliver meaningful benefits for people at global scale,&quot; OpenAI said in a statement.&nbsp;The eye-watering level of funding reflects the soaring costs of computing power and comes amid lingering questions about whether OpenAI and other AI companies can generate sufficient revenue to cover those costs.&nbsp;The Amazon investment will begin with $15 billion, followed by another $35 billion in the coming months when certain conditions are met, the companies said.&nbsp;According to reports, these include OpenAI going public or achieving artificial general intelligence, a sometimes ill-defined standard of AI capability that more closely matches human-level ability.&nbsp;OpenAI and Amazon also struck a deal in which the ChatGPT maker will use two gigawatts of computing capacity powered by Amazon&#39;s in-house Trainium chips.&nbsp;Amazon&#39;s cloud computing rival Microsoft, which did not participate in the funding round, remains a major shareholder of OpenAI and a strategic partner.&nbsp;In the announcement, OpenAI cited a series of user metrics pointing to a breakneck pace of AI adoption.&nbsp;Even if short of its previous forecasts, ChatGPT now counts more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million paying consumer subscribers, with January and February on track to be the platform&#39;s biggest-ever months for new subscriptions, the company said.&nbsp;It added that more than nine million businesses pay to use ChatGPT for workplace tasks, while its Codex software development tool has seen weekly users more than triple since the start of the year to 1.6 million.&nbsp;The figures are intended to reassure more skeptical investors who have questioned OpenAI&#39;s ability to secure revenue, with user growth for its flagship ChatGPT slowing.&nbsp;The company this month began rolling out advertising for its non-premium users in a bid to bring in more revenue.&nbsp;According to The Information tech news, OpenAI now predicts that it will burn more than twice as much cash through 2030 than previously predicted, spending $665 billion on the costs of running and training its AI.&nbsp;Competition has ramped up too.&nbsp;Arch-rival Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, continues to gain ground and grab headlines for its well-regarded Claude AI models.&nbsp;Anthropic earlier this year secured a $30 billion funding round.&nbsp;Google&#39;s AI model Gemini has also emerged as a potent competitor, with Elon Musk&#39;s xAI also attracting investment and users.

OpenAI announces a $110 billion funding round valuing it at $730 billion, with major backing from SoftBank, Nvidia, and Amazon, as it expands partnerships, scales computing capacity, and accelerates growth amid rising costs and intensifying AI competition.

OpenAI raises $110 bn in record funding round

NEW DELHI: India&#39;s IT minister apologized on Tuesday to visitors to a global <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/indias-tougher-ai-social-media-rules-spark-censorship-fears" style="color:#0073e6;">artificial intelligence</a> summit who had complained of overcrowding and other organizational problems on the first day. The AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, the fourth in a series of annual gatherings to discuss the fast-evolving technology, is the largest edition yet and also the first held in a developing country. Organizers are expecting tens of thousands of attendees, from top-level national delegations to companies, campaigners, and students. But not all areas of the vast conference site were open when big crowds showed up to the five-day event that opened on Monday, with some visitors saying the entry systems and other provisions were not up to scratch. &quot;If anybody has faced any problems yesterday, my apologies for that. We are working very hard,&quot; IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a news conference on Tuesday. &quot;We definitely will make efforts to make it more smooth and make it more enjoyable for all of you,&quot; he said. On Monday, the media center and most of the exhibition zones had not yet opened to general visitors, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured the booths in the late afternoon. &quot;Gates are closed, so could not access my own booth at the AI Summit,&quot; startup founder Maitreya Wagh wrote on X on Monday.

India

Organizers are expecting tens of thousands of attendees, from top-level national delegations to companies, campaigners and students; not all areas of the vast conference site open, some visitors say the entry systems and other provisions were not up to scratch.

Indian minister apologizes after AI summit crowding complaints

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.&nbsp;The ads will initially appear in the United States for free and lower-tier subscribers, the company said in a blog post outlining its long-anticipated move into advertising.&nbsp;The integration of<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/chatgpt-now-lets-users-buy-from-etsy-shopify-in-push-for-chatbot-shopping" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer"> advertising</a> has been a key question for generative AI chatbots, with companies largely reluctant to interrupt the user experience with ads.&nbsp;But the exorbitant costs of running AI services may have forced OpenAI&#39;s hand.&nbsp;Only a small percentage of its nearly one billion users pay for subscription services, putting pressure on the company to find new revenue sources.&nbsp;Since ChatGPT&#39;s launch in 2022, OpenAI&#39;s valuation has soared to $500 billion in funding rounds -- higher than any other private company. Some expect it could go public with a trillion-dollar valuation.&nbsp;But the ChatGPT maker burns through cash at a furious rate, mostly on the powerful computing required to deliver its services.&nbsp;With its move, OpenAI brings its business model closer to tech giants Google and Meta, which have built advertising empires on the back of their free-to-use services.&nbsp;Unlike <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/openai-signs-38-bn-infrastructure-deal-with-cloud-giant-aws" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">OpenAI</a>, those companies have massive advertising revenue to fund AI innovation with Amazon also building a solid ad business on its shopping and video streaming platforms.&nbsp;&quot;Ads aren&#39;t a distraction from the gen AI race; they&#39;re how OpenAI stays in it,&quot; said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at Emarketer.&nbsp;&quot;If ChatGPT turns on ads, OpenAI is admitting something simple and consequential: the race isn&#39;t just about model quality anymore; it&#39;s about monetizing attention without poisoning trust,&quot; he added.&nbsp;OpenAI&#39;s pivot comes as Google gains ground in the generative AI race, infusing services including Gmail, Maps and YouTube with AI features that in addition to its Gemini chatbot compete directly with ChatGPT.&nbsp;To address concerns about its pivot into advertising, OpenAI pledged that ads would never influence ChatGPT&#39;s answers and that user conversations would remain private from advertisers.&nbsp;&quot;Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you,&quot; the company stated. &quot;Answers are optimized based on what&#39;s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled.&quot;&nbsp;In an apparent reference to Meta, TikTok and Google&#39;s YouTube platforms accused of maximizing user engagement to boost ad views OpenAI said it would &quot;not optimize for time spent in ChatGPT.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;We prioritize user trust and user experience over revenue,&quot; it added.&nbsp;The commitment to user well-being is a sensitive issue for OpenAI, which has faced accusations of allowing ChatGPT to prioritize emotional engagement over safety, allegedly contributing to mental distress among some users.

OpenAI will test ads on ChatGPT for US free users to boost revenue amid high AI costs, pledging ads won’t affect answers or privacy as competition with Google intensifies and rising valuations and investor pressure.

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