VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV will release on Monday his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence (AI), a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide. The US pope will attend the presentation of the &quot;Magnifica Humanitas&quot; (Magnificent Humanity) encyclical at the Vatican in person &ndash; a first for the Catholic Church. He will be joined not only by officials from the Holy See but experts including the co-founder of the American startup Anthropic, a key player in the booming AI landscape. Anthropic is in a legal battle with the US military after refusing to change its internal policy prohibiting the use of its Claude model for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance. Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field, saying that &quot;delegating decisions concerning the life and death of human beings to machines&quot; is a &quot;destructive spiral&quot;. Since his election a year ago as the Church&#39;s first US pope, he has repeatedly warned of the dangers of AI, including &quot;the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation&quot;. And he has slammed the &quot;environmental devastation&quot; caused by the &quot;frenzied race&quot; for rare earth elements, which are essential for modern electronics. &#39;Wake-up call&#39; AI could be worth up to $4.8 trillion by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the UN. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last year warned &quot;the window is closing to shape AI &ndash; for peace, for justice, for humanity&quot;. Leo has made the hot-button issue a cornerstone of his papacy in dedicating to it his first encyclical &ndash; a document which lays the basis for Church teaching and longer-term debate. Experts say &quot;Magnifica Humanitas&quot; could prove as influential as Pope Francis&#39;s &quot;Laudato Si&quot;, a 2015 climate manifesto that triggered political and civic reactions worldwide. The Vatican sees this new text as an extension of its social teachings on &quot;protecting people in the AI era&quot;. It was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of a 1891 encyclical by Leo XIII which laid the foundations of the Church&#39;s social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution. &quot;The Industrial Revolution transformed the labor market, people&#39;s lives, hegemony, and power dynamics,&quot; said Marijana Grbesa, political science professor at the University of Zagreb, and a speaker at an AI conference in the Vatican. &quot;At the time, it was necessary to train individuals in the use of tools. The same is true today: we need to train and educate,&quot; she told AFP. The pope, she said, will emphasize that &quot;education is not enough today&quot;. &quot;It&#39;s a wake-up call for the whole of civilization&quot;, to &quot;be rational when we use these tools&quot;. &#39;Perception of reality&#39; Leo has emphasized the need for &quot;digital literacy... to understand how algorithms shape our perception of reality.&quot; In April he warned against the use of AI to fuel &quot;polarization, conflict, fear, and violence&quot;. And in January he lamented &quot;the lack of transparency in the creation of the algorithms&quot; that govern the operation of various chatbots, whose use is growing rapidly worldwide. The release of &quot;Magnificent Humanity&quot; follows several years of study by the Church of AI-related technologies. As early as 2020, the Holy See launched the &quot;Rome Appeal for an AI Ethic&quot;, which called for new technologies to respect human dignity. Leo&#39;s predecessor Pope Francis spoke extensively on the subject, calling for AI to be regulated and warning that it could exacerbate inequalities.

Artificial Intelligence

Vatican presentation will include experts discussing AI risks and ethical concerns, with focus on military applications and broader social impacts as the Church outlines its position on emerging technology.

Pope to release major artificial intelligence manifesto

BEIJING: Tech giant Alibaba released on Wednesday a new artificial intelligence chip it said performed three times as well as its predecessor, showcasing growing domestic chipmaker prowess as US titan Nvidia struggles for access to China. Semiconductors have been at the centre of a fierce US-China race for AI supremacy, with Nvidia&#39;s most advanced chips banned from sale in China by Washington over national security concerns. Beijing has in response sought to bolster its self-reliance, pouring resources into promoting its domestic industry and reportedly barring firms from buying Nvidia chips. Alibaba said its new chip, Zhenwu M890, can deliver three times the performance of its predecessor Zhenwu 810E, which is widely believed to match the capabilities of Nvidia&#39;s H20. The H20 is a less powerful version of Nvidia&#39;s AI processing units designed specifically for export to China. A more high-end option, the H200, has been licensed to sell to China from the US side, but its access to the Chinese market appears to have stalled. Zhang Guobin, founder of Chinese specialist website <a data-fr-linked="true" href="//eetrend.com" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">eetrend.com</a>, said the timing of the Alibaba launch is &quot;extremely precise&quot;. &quot;It&#39;s during a window when the prospects of the H200 entering the Chinese market are highly uncertain and Nvidia&#39;s business in China has effectively dropped to zero,&quot; he told AFP. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang was part of a US business delegation that travelled to Beijing with President Donald Trump last week. He said he had not discussed the H200 directly but added &quot;the Chinese government has to decide how much of their local market... they want to protect&quot;. The new Zhenwu M890 chip &quot;provides a reliable option that is insulated from fluctuations in export controls, enabling domestic AI companies to formulate long-term technology roadmaps,&quot; said <a data-fr-linked="true" href="//eetrend.com" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">eetrend.com</a>&#39;s Zhang. &quot;At the very least... (it) proves that in the field of high-end AI computing power, China now has a &#39;Plan B&#39; that does not depend on Nvidia,&quot; he added. However, when it comes to performance, Nvidia still holds its lead. Even the H200 is significantly less advanced than the firm&#39;s top-range chips -- the Blackwell series and forthcoming Rubin processors. Alibaba said to date it has shipped more than 560,000 chips in its Zhenwu series, to over 400 customers, including automakers and financial institutions. The Hangzhou-based tech giant, which runs some of the country&#39;s biggest ecommerce platforms, has accelerated its pivot to AI in recent years. Its open-source Qwen AI model family is popular among developers, surpassing one billion cumulative downloads since its initial launch in 2023.

Alibaba unveiled a new AI chip claiming triple the performance of its predecessor, highlighting China’s growing semiconductor capabilities as Nvidia faces US export restrictions and declining access to the Chinese market amid intensifying AI competition.

Alibaba unveils new AI chip as Nvidia access remains stalled

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a national platform using artificial intelligence (AI) to align academic training with labor market needs, as automation reshapes <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/young-chinese-use-ai-to-launch-oneperson-firms-over-job-anxiety" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">employment conditions across the world</a>. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) said the UAE Skills Platform uses data analysis and demand forecasting to determine which skills future jobs will require. The ministry said it is designed to guide students and universities toward decisions that reflect both current hiring conditions and long-term market projections. The launch follows a separate but related effort. The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) said 48 universities have joined the National Work Experience Platform, built alongside MOHRE and the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council, Nafis. In its first three months, 37 public and private training providers listed 545 internship and work placement opportunities across finance, technology, engineering, accounting, marketing, and data fields, according to MoHESR. Both initiatives come as research institutions document deepening pressure on global labor markets. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that 40% of jobs worldwide carry meaningful exposure to AI-driven disruption. Within that group, the IMF calculates that roughly half face reduced demand for human labor, while the other half are likely to see productivity gains. The International Labour Organization (ILO) puts the number of positions at direct automation risk at around 75 million &mdash; 2.3% of global employment. In wealthier nations, that share climbs to 5.1 %, according to ILO data. The burden is not shared equally. ILO figures show women are 2.5 times more likely than men to face job displacement through AI, given their higher concentration in administrative, clerical, and customer-facing work. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI found that employment growth among young workers in <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/hp-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-due-to-ai-adoption" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">AI-exposed fields</a>, including entry-level software and data roles, is running 16% below comparable sectors. A study published on SSRN projects 85 million jobs will be structurally <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/tech-layoffs-worsen-us-job-market-for-foreign-students-jeopardize-futures" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">displaced globally</a>, against a projected creation of 97 million new positions. Economists cited in the research warn the net gain masks a significant skills mismatch, as workers leaving routine roles are rarely positioned to move directly into technical fields such as <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/india-reverses-mandate-on-contentious-cybersecurity-app" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">cybersecurity</a>, AI development, or data engineering without substantial retraining.

ChatGPT logo displayed on a smartphone screen, illustrating the growing use of artificial intelligence tools in daily life and concerns over job displacement and workforce reductions linked to automation, in Tunis, Tunisia, May 5, 2026. (AFP)

The initiative aims to align education with evolving labor needs as global research highlights widespread exposure to automation, uneven job impacts, and growing demand for reskilling in technology-driven sectors.

UAE deploys AI skills tool to ready workforce for shifting job market

ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia has deployed artificial intelligence (AI) robots inside the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet&#39;s Mosque in Madinah, the two holiest sites in Islam, to guide pilgrims, answer religious questions, and autonomously clean spaces that receive millions of visitors each year, according to the Digital Government Authority&#39;s 2026 report on emerging technology adoption by government agencies. The robots operate across courtyards, corridors, and prayer halls where crowd densities routinely exceed what human staff alone can manage. The deployments span three distinct functions: multilingual religious guidance, precision maintenance of sacred structures, and large-scale sterilization, as reported by the Saudi Press Agency. The guidance unit, called the Manarah Robot, was launched by Sheikh Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, the head of religious affairs at both mosques. According to the Saudi Press Agency, it draws on a vetted database of Islamic jurisprudence to field pilgrim inquiries in eleven languages, including Urdu, Hausa, Bengali, and Malay. For questions outside its database, the robot connects the user via live video call to a human scholar rather than generating an answer independently, per the same report. Five robot vacuums are assigned exclusively to the roof of the Holy Kaaba. Each unit generates 2,000 Pascal of suction and completes the full cleaning cycle within 20 minutes, according to technical specifications released by the Saudi Press Agency. Mohammed bin Musleh Al-Jabiri, the Presidency&#39;s undersecretary for field affairs, said the robots are deployed specifically to protect the marble surface from abrasion. A separate fleet of Biocare robots sterilizes floors and open spaces across both sites using dry steam, operating for up to eight hours without human intervention and covering roughly 1,000 square meters per hour, as reported by the Saudi Press Agency. Dry steam was selected over chemical disinfectants because pilgrims walk &ldquo;barefoot on marble surfaces&rdquo; and &ldquo;gather in close proximity.&rdquo; A geofencing-based asset tracking system monitors equipment locations in real time across both mosques, issuing automatic alerts when items exit designated zones. The Digital Government Authority&#39;s 2026 emerging technology report cited the system among the most effective smart-government implementations in the country. The deployments fall under Saudi Arabia&#39;s Vision 2030 program, which has directed government agencies to integrate AI across public services. The two mosques together receive millions of pilgrims annually from over 180 countries, as per the General Authority for the Care of the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet&#39;s Mosque.

Saudi Arabia deploys AI robots at the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah to guide pilgrims, answer questions and clean the holy sites. (Saudi Press Agency)

Robots operate across courtyards, corridors and prayer halls, guiding pilgrims, answering questions in multiple languages, cleaning spaces, and linking users to human scholars when needed.

Saudi Arabia deploys AI robots to work at Islam's two holiest mosques 

ISLAMABAD: The Pulitzer board awarded a Special Citation to Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown for reporting that, as cited by the committee, exposed Jeffrey Epstein&#39;s abuse of young women, the system that protected him, and his network of enablers. Her series, &quot;Perversion of Justice,&quot; published in 2017 and 2018, revealed how prosecutors shielded Epstein from federal sex trafficking charges and gave direct voice to scores of victims &ndash; work the board recognized nearly a decade after its publication. The citation arrived as accountability and conflict-of-interest journalism swept the 2026 awards. The Washington Post took Public Service (the field&#39;s highest honor) for what the Pulitzer board described as &quot;piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration&#39;s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in rich detail the human impacts of the cuts and the consequences for the country.&quot; The New York Times won Investigative Reporting for stories the committee said &quot;exposed how President Trump has shattered constraints on conflicts of interest and exploited the moneymaking opportunities that come with power, enriching his family and allies.&quot; National Reporting went to a Reuters team consisting of Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler, and Mike Spector for, as the board cited, &quot;documenting how the president used the US government and the influence of his supporters to expand executive power and exact vengeance on his foes.&quot; Gaza and global investigations Saher Alghorra, a New York Times contributor, won Breaking News Photography for his &quot;haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza resulting from the war with Israel,&quot; according to the committee.&nbsp; The Associated Press team of Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal, and contributor Yael Grauer won International Reporting for what the board called &quot;an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance, created in Silicon Valley, advanced in China, and spreading worldwide before returning to America for secret new uses by the US Border Patrol.&quot; Other major awards The Minnesota Star Tribune won Breaking News for its coverage of a shooting at a Catholic school that, as reported by the board, killed two children and wounded 17. Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham of Reuters took Beat Reporting for reporting the committee said revealed Meta&#39;s &quot;willingness to expose users, including children, to scams and AI manipulation.&quot; The San Francisco Chronicle&#39;s &quot;Burned&quot; series won Explanatory Reporting for exposing how insurance algorithms systematically undervalued fire-loss properties, according to the Pulitzer board. In books, Daniel Kraus won Fiction for &quot;Angel Down,&quot; Jill Lepore won History for &quot;We the People: A History of the US Constitution,&quot; and Yiyun Li won Memoir for &quot;Things in Nature Merely Grow,&quot; described by the committee as a &quot;moving and revelatory account&quot; of losing two sons to suicide. The music prize went to Gabriela Lena Frank for &quot;Picaflor: A Future Myth,&quot; a symphonic work the board said was informed by her personal experiences with California wildfires. Opinion Writing went to M Gessen of The New York Times for essays on rising authoritarian regimes. The Audio Reporting prize went to the podcast &quot;Pablo Torre Finds Out,&quot; produced by Meadowlark Media and licensed by The Athletic, for investigating how the Los Angeles Clippers &quot;seemingly evaded the NBA&#39;s salary cap by funneling money to a star player,&quot; as cited by the Pulitzer board.

Miami Herald reporter Julie K Brown receives a Pulitzer Special Citation for reporting on Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women and the network that enabled and protected him, as stated by the Pulitzer committee. (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Americas

Nearly a decade after her series dismantled a prosecutor-shielded abuse network, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown received a Special Citation at the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes, as accountability journalism dominated this year's honors.

Reporter who exposed Epstein finally gets a Pulitzer

NEW YORK: <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/wall-street-intends-to-stay-open-around-the-clock" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wall Street</a> stocks were mostly lower early Tuesday on worries about the artificial intelligence (AI) profitability outlook and as oil prices ticked higher. Analysts cited a Wall Street Journal report that pointed to doubts within OpenAI about the company&#39;s revenue outlook and its capacity to build costly new data centers after it missed its own targets. OpenAI is not publicly traded, but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/nvidia-chief-expects-revenue-of-1-trillion-through-2027" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nvidia</a>&nbsp;and Oracle were among the AI-related stocks to fall sharply. About 10 minutes into trading, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.9% at 24,670.37. The broad-based S&amp;P 500 fell 0.4% to 7,143.08, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% at 49,323.38. &quot;This isn&#39;t the first time we&#39;ve had significant questions about the viability of some of the large language model developers,&quot; said B Riley Wealth Management&#39;s Art Hogan, who also pointed to the drag from higher crude prices. Futures of US benchmark West Texas Intermediate and international contract Brent were both up more than 3%, with no visible progress on reopening the <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/us-israel-war-on-iran-day-60" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Strait of Hormuz</a>.

A folder of AI applications containing DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Meta AI, and Copilot is displayed on a smartphone screen in Creteil, France, on April 24, 2026 (AFP)

US stocks mostly fell early Tuesday as AI profitability concerns hit tech shares, with Nvidia and Oracle dropping, while higher oil prices weighed on sentiment; Nasdaq and S&P declined, Dow edged up.

US stocks mostly fall as AI worries weigh on tech shares

TOKYO: Peter Steinberger&#39;s artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw has taken the tech world by storm with its ability to execute real-life tasks such as checking him in for his flight to Tokyo. AI is not yet a ubiquitous personal assistant for ordinary people, but &quot;you&#39;ll see much more of that this year because this is the year of agents&quot;, Steinberger told AFP in the Japanese capital on Monday. &quot;There are still some things we need to do to make it better,&quot; the Austrian programmer said. Demand is ramping up, however, with more developers now &quot;making the future happen&quot;, he added in an interview during a gathering for OpenClaw enthusiasts. When downloaded, OpenClaw can be connected to existing AI models and given simple instructions through instant messaging apps, as if to a friend or colleague. Jensen Huang, head of the world&#39;s most valuable company Nvidia, this month hailed the tool &ndash; whose symbol is a bright red lobster &ndash; as &quot;the next ChatGPT&quot;. But all the buzz has raised concerns over the cybersecurity risks of allowing AI systems vulnerable to hacks to access personal data such as bank details. Chinese &#39;momentum&#39; Steinberger built OpenClaw in November while playing around with AI coding tools in an attempt to organise his digital life. He has since been hired by ChatGPT creator OpenAI &quot;to drive the next generation of personal agents&quot;, the US startup&#39;s boss Sam Altman said in February. &quot;What you have to know about OpenClaw is, like, it couldn&#39;t have come from those big companies,&quot; Steinberger told AFP. &quot;Those companies would have worried too much about what could go wrong instead of just, like &ndash; I wanted to just show people I&#39;ve been into the future,&quot; he said. While tech giants work out how agent tools could be used by businesses, the next AI innovation could come from &quot;someone who just wants to have fun&quot;, Steinberger said. At Monday&#39;s &quot;ClawCon&quot; event in Tokyo, where many of the hundreds of participants were dressed as lobsters, OpenClaw demos were held on stage and experts helped attendees install their agents. Similar scenes have been seen across China, where users have been particularly quick to embrace OpenClaw&#39;s potential to organize emails, help with coding and a plethora of other digital tasks. &quot;If you see it as a competition, it certainly looks like China is gaining a lot of momentum&quot; in the AI sector, Steinberger said. &quot;But right now there&#39;s still quite a bit of a leap between the best models from China and the best models in the US.&quot; AI &#39;hammer&#39; OpenClaw&#39;s success in China has led national cybersecurity authorities and Beijing&#39;s IT ministry to issue official warnings over potential risks. Is Steinberger concerned that people could use his tool for illicit purposes? &quot;Yes, I do worry a bit, especially because there&#39;s now a whole cottage industry of companies that try to make a big buck and make it even simpler to install OpenClaw,&quot; he said. &quot;I purposefully didn&#39;t make it simpler so people would stop and read and understand: what is AI, that AI can make mistakes, what is prompt injection &ndash; some basics that you really should understand when you use that technology.&quot; But at the end of the day, &quot;if you build a hammer... you can hurt yourself. So should we not build hammers any more&quot;? A Reddit-like pseudo social network for OpenClaw agents called Moltbook, where chatbots converse, has also grabbed headlines and provoked soul-searching over AI. &quot;A lot of that was, in my view, very much driven by humans to just create those stories,&quot; Steinberger said, adding that joining OpenAI means he now has more resources to use on &quot;cool ideas&quot;. He said 2023-2024 &quot;was the year of ChatGPT, last year was the year of the coding agent, this year&#39;s going to be the year of the general agent&quot;. &quot;I love that I helped a lot of people to bring AI from this scary thing into something that is fun and weird and gets them excited, because we need to to make it good for this next century,&quot; Steinberger explained. &quot;We need more people to think more about AI.&rdquo;

A man wears a lobster hat that represent the OpenClaw logo, an open-source AI assistant at the Baidu headquarter in Beijing on March 11, 2026. (AFP)

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger says 2026 will be “the year of AI agents,” as tools gain popularity for real-world tasks, despite cybersecurity concerns and growing global competition, particularly from China.

OpenClaw creator says new tool shows rise of everyday AI assistants

TOKYO: Japanese researchers have unveiled a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/big-dreams-for-palestinian-teens-at-singapore-robot-fest" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">robot</a>&nbsp;monk powered by AI that they say can dispense spiritual advice and maybe one day ease shortages of its human counterparts. Trained on even the most esoteric Buddhist scriptures, the University of Kyoto says the machine can answer sensitive questions that people may feel hesitant to share with other humans. In addition, &quot;Buddharoid&quot;, as the diminutive two-legged humanoid is known, can offer a sense of presence at religious sanctuaries in addition to voice communications. &quot;In the future, it is conceivable that they may assist with or replace some of the religious rituals traditionally performed by human monks,&quot; the university said in a statement on Wednesday. The robot is the latest offering from Seiji Kumagai, a professor at the university&#39;s Institute for the Future of Human Society. Using&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/robot-companion-eases-fear-loneliness-in-hospitals" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">AI models</a> from OpenAI and others, he has worked with engineering firms to develop religious AI chatbots like Buddha Bot and a catechism bot. For his new creation, Kumagai installed his updated &quot;BuddhaBotPlus&quot; on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/indian-professors-robot-dog-claim-at-ai-summit-sparks-uproar" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chinese-made</a> &quot;Unitree G1&quot; humanoid robot to create the AI robo-monk. In a media presentation at a temple on Tuesday, Kumagai presented the robot &mdash; as yet without a face &mdash; wearing a simple grey garment. It held its gloved hands together in a prayer form and walked around in front of reporters and performed other tasks. As it sat on a chair, the humanoid gave advice to a young local journalist who confessed to thinking and worrying too much. &quot;Buddhism teaches that it is important not to blindly follow one&#39;s thoughts or rush headlong into things,&quot; it said in a soothing baritone to the journalist from national broadcaster NHK. &quot;One approach is to calm your mind and let go of the thought itself,&quot; it said. Religious chatbots powered by artificial intelligence are already popular tools &mdash;&nbsp;as well as contentious &mdash; across all major faiths, used by millions of people. Kyoto already has a non-AI android called Mindar that delivers sermons, and in Germany in 2017 a robot was unveiled with a touchscreen with glowing hands that gave blessings in five languages. But the new machine brings AI and robotics together, offering spiritual advice and holding religious conversations while also performing human-like physical motions. Kyoto University said that ethical discussions must continue about the proper use of such tools in religious settings. But with Japan&#39;s shrinking and ageing population making the labor market tighter, the university said the humanoids may take over some tasks in the future. &quot;In the future, AI humanoid robots are expected to be utilized in the religious field, such as assisting with or performing some of the religious rituals traditionally conducted by human priests,&quot; the university said. &quot;This is anticipated to bring about a paradigm shift in religious culture.&quot;

Developed at Kyoto University, “Buddharoid” can offer spiritual guidance, answer sensitive questions, and perform rituals. Researchers say AI monks could help address priest shortages amid Japan’s aging population.

Japan introduces AI robot monk to the public

NEW YORK: An onslaught of <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/ai-revolution-looms-over-berlin-film-fest" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">artificial intelligence</a> agents that handle tasks from writing code to dispensing tax advice has the tech world and financial markets scrambling to pick winners and shed losers. Gone are the days of being satisfied with OpenAI&#39;s ChatGPT simply creating responses to text prompts. Makers of leading AI models have embraced &quot;agentic&quot; capabilities that provide software assistants capable of independently tending to tasks, such as creating software applications, based on simple descriptions. Futurum chief strategist Shay Boloor sees the moment as an &quot;inflection point&quot; where millions of AI agents will soon be routinely handling tasks long tended to by people. &quot;We&#39;ve never had a <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/openais-altman-says-world-urgently-needs-ai-regulation" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">tech disruption</a> at this scale before,&quot; Boloor told AFP. &quot;It&#39;s extreme. The market is underwriting that future uncertainty in a doom-based scenario.&quot; The turning point has been marked by rapid-fire releases of ever-improving AI models, including recent new versions from OpenAI and Anthropic. Add to that the November debut of autonomous AI agent OpenClaw that some have equated to the fictional &quot;Jarvis&quot; AI assistant from the &quot;Iron Man&quot; superhero films. The creator of OpenClaw was snapped up by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, signaling that the San Francisco-based startup has even more ambitious agentic aspirations. Future or fiction? Investors quickly saw <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/new-world-for-users-and-brands-as-ads-hit-ai-chatbots" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">AI agents</a> as a threat to software publishers, particularly those serving businesses. <a data-fr-linked="true" href="//Monday.com" style="font-size: 18px;">Monday.com</a>, which specializes in workplace collaboration, along with Salesforce and Thomson Reuters with its tax, accounting and trade software arms saw their stock value plummet 30 percent or more on Wall Street in a matter of days. Georgetown University management professor Jason Schloetzer recounted a recent chat with a chief executive who remarked about no longer needing consultants since there was &quot;one in my pocket&quot; thanks to AI. &quot;There&#39;s paranoia around AI in every industry,&quot; said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. &quot;I believe it&#39;s way overdone.&quot; He viewed the concept of AI models replacing enterprise software and cybersecurity firms as &quot;a fictional tale.&quot; Too much? As AI agents begin shaking up work, creators of large language models powering them continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a battle for supremacy. Claude-maker Anthropic has OpenAI, Google&#39;s Gemini and even Grok from xAI nipping at its heels in the market for professional AI. Even though massive spending on AI infrastructure has some investors worried, Boloor contends &quot;the risk is not overinvesting, but underinvesting&quot; in the transformative technology. Schloetzer reasons that the economic impact of AI may not be clear for several years, the same way it took time for the internet itself to become a vital part of daily life. &quot;Suddenly, entirely new businesses that had no economic attractiveness without the internet started to exist, like Netflix,&quot; Schloetzer said. &quot;I&#39;m waiting to see these new companies or industries that are created (by AI).&quot; AI angst is spreading way beyond the tech industry. A recent blog post by US entrepreneur Matt Shumer titled &quot;Something Big Is Happening&quot; includes a prediction that AI will be tackling jobs in law, finance, accounting, consulting, medicine and other fields. The experience that tech workers had of seeing AI go from a &quot;helpful tool&quot; to something that &quot;does my job better than I do&quot; will ripple through the service sector, Shumer predicted. Some observers have criticized Shumer&#39;s post. In an opinion piece at the Mind Matters website, technology consultant Jeffrey Funk called it &quot;hype&quot; driven by fear. &quot;The markets are a rational mechanism,&quot; analyst Ives said of company shares being punished by AI worries. &quot;We&#39;re going to get to a crossroads here pretty soon where things will settle down.&quot;

AI processor, conceptual illustration. (Science Photo Library via AFP)

Rapid advances in autonomous AI agents are unsettling tech firms and investors, as companies release increasingly capable models, fueling debate over whether the technology will disrupt enterprise software and professional services industries.

AI agent invasion has people trying to pick winners

NEW DELHI: India tightened rules regulating artificial intelligence on Tuesday, requiring social media platforms to clearly label AI content and comply with takedown requests by authorities within three hours. The updated rules, issued by the Ministry of Information Technology, will come into effect on February 20 and shrink the window for removing content that violates local laws from the previous 36-hour window. India has more than a billion internet users, and AI generated misinformation is becoming widespread in the world&#39;s most populous country. The announcement comes as New Delhi is preparing to host a major global AI summit next week, which will be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and a host of other world leaders. The latest rules apply to content &quot;created, generated, modified or altered through any computer resource&quot; unless the information is generated in &quot;routine or good-faith editing.&quot; The rules, first issued in 2021, were amended to require online platforms like X, Instagram and Facebook to clearly label synthetic data or media manipulated by AI with permanent markings that cannot be suppressed or removed. The updated regulations define synthetic data as information &quot;that appears to be real [...] or is likely to be perceived as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event.&quot; They also require online platforms to deploy automated tools to prevent the dissemination of illegal content, including false documents and sexually abusive material. Last year, the government launched an online portal called Sahyog &mdash; meaning &quot;cooperate&quot; in Hindi &mdash; aimed at automating the process of sending government notices to social media platforms such as X and Facebook.

India

Updated regulations define synthetic data as information "that appears to be real [...] or is likely to be perceived as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event"; also require online platforms to deploy automated tools to prevent the dissemination of illegal content, including false documents and explicit material.

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