SAN FRANCISCO: Computer and printer maker HP announced on Tuesday a sweeping restructuring plan that will eliminate about 10% of its workforce globally as the company pivots toward artificial intelligence (AI) to boost efficiency. According to its latest earnings report, the tech giant expects to reduce its global headcount by between 4,000 and 6,000 employees to focus on adopting AI to increase innovation and customer satisfaction. HP&#39;s move reflects a broader trend across the tech sector, where companies are investing heavily in AI development while using the technology to reduce operational costs. Major tech firms including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have announced workforce reductions over the past two years, with many citing the need to reallocate resources, including jobs, toward AI initiatives. Industry analysts say AI automation is particularly affecting roles in customer support, content moderation, data entry, and certain computer programming tasks. HP said its AI plan aims to generate approximately $1 billion in annual savings by the end of fiscal 2028. The company has been working to transform its business model amid changing demand patterns in the PC and printing markets. HP CEO Enrique Lores told the Wall Street Journal that the company plans to raise the prices of its computers and work with new suppliers to help offset the higher costs of AI computing. In its latest quarter, HP posted a profit of $795 million, compared with $906 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 4.2% to $14.64 billion, topping analyst estimates with sales in PCs offsetting a decline in printer sales.

Artificial Intelligence

Tech giant expects to reduce its global headcount by between 4,000 and 6,000 employees to focus on adopting AI to increase innovation, customer satisfaction.

HP to cut thousands of jobs due to AI adoption

SEOUL: South Korean conglomerate Samsung unveiled on Sunday a plan to invest $310 billion over the next five years, mostly in technology powering artificial intelligence, aiming to meet growing demand driven by a global boom.&nbsp;The business group&#39;s flagship Samsung Electronics is already one of the world&#39;s top memory-chip makers, providing crucial components for the AI industry and the infrastructure it relies on.&nbsp;South Korea is also home to SK hynix, another key player in the global semiconductor market.&nbsp;The five-year investment package includes plans to build a new semiconductor facility, Pyeongtaek Plant 5, designed &quot;to meet the needs of memory-chip demands&quot;, Samsung said in a statement.&nbsp;Once fully operational, &quot;the Pyeongtaek plant is expected to play an even greater strategic role in both the global semiconductor supply chain and South Korea&#39;s domestic chip ecosystem,&quot; it said.&nbsp;The new line is scheduled to begin operations in 2028.&nbsp;Samsung SDS, the group&#39;s IT and logistics arm, will establish two AI data centres in South Jeolla and Gumi, the company said, without providing further details.&nbsp;Samsung Group is a network of affiliated companies with complex cross-shareholdings under the Samsung brand, rather than a single legal holding company.&nbsp;It is South Korea&#39;s largest chaebol, a family-run conglomerate that dominates the country&#39;s economy.&nbsp;The $310-billion plan also includes some projects unrelated to AI.&nbsp;Under the investment package, the company said that Samsung SDI, its electric-vehicle battery affiliate, was exploring the creation of a domestic production line &quot;for next-generation batteries, including all-solid-state batteries&quot;.&nbsp;The AI boom has delivered a major tailwind for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, whose high-performance memory chips have become indispensable for AI computing.&nbsp;Samsung Electronics has reported that its profit increased more than 30% year-on-year in the third quarter, driven by AI-fuelled demand.&nbsp;AI-related spending is soaring worldwide, and sky-high tech share valuations have fed concerns of an AI market bubble that could eventually burst, like the dot-com boom that imploded at the turn of the millennium.&nbsp;The investment package announced on Sunday comes after the South Korean government had pledged to triple spending on artificial intelligence next year.&nbsp;President Lee Jae Myung has vowed to &quot;usher in the AI era&quot; and make the country one of the world&#39;s top three AI powers, behind the United States and China.

Samsung announced a $310 billion five-year investment focused on AI technologies, including a new chip plant and AI data centers. The plan strengthens South Korea’s semiconductor ecosystem amid booming global AI demand and government efforts to expand AI leadership.

Samsung plans $310B investment to power AI expansion

MELBOURNE: Deloitte Australia will partially refund the 440,000 Australian dollars ($290,000) paid by the Australian government for a report that was riddled with apparent AI-generated errors, including a fabricated quote from a federal court judgment and references to nonexistent academic research papers. The financial services firm&rsquo;s report to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was initially published on the department&#39;s website in July. A revised version was released on Friday after Chris Rudge, a University of Sydney researcher of health and welfare law, said he alerted the media that the report was &ldquo;full of fabricated references.&rdquo; Deloitte reviewed the 237-page report and &ldquo;confirmed some footnotes and references were incorrect,&rdquo; the department said in a statement Tuesday. &ldquo;Deloitte has agreed to repay the final installment under its contract,&rdquo; the department said. The amount will be made public after the refund is processed. Asked to comment on the inaccuracies, Deloitte told The Associated Press in a statement that the &ldquo;matter has been resolved directly with the client.&rdquo; Deloitte did not respond to questions about whether the errors were generated by artificial intelligence. A tendency for generative AI systems to fabricate information is known as hallucination. The report reviewed the department&rsquo;s IT systems and their use of automated penalties in Australia&#39;s welfare system. The department said the &ldquo;substance&rdquo; of the report had been maintained and that there were no changes to its recommendations. The revised version included a disclosure that a generative AI language system, Azure OpenAI, was used in writing the report. Quotes attributed to a federal court judge were removed, as were references to nonexistent reports attributed to law and software engineering experts. Rudge said he found up to 20 errors in the first version of the report. The first error that caught his attention incorrectly stated that Lisa Burton Crawford, a professor of public and constitutional law at the University of Sydney, had written a nonexistent book with a title suggesting it was outside her field of expertise. &ldquo;I instantaneously knew it was either hallucinated by AI or the world&rsquo;s best-kept secret because I&rsquo;d never heard of the book and it sounded preposterous,&rdquo; Rudge said. Work by his academic colleagues had been used as &ldquo;tokens of legitimacy,&rdquo; cited by the report&rsquo;s authors but not read, Rudge said, adding that he considered misquoting a judge a more serious error in a report that was effectively an audit of the department&rsquo;s legal compliance. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve totally misquoted a court case, then made up a quotation from a judge, and I thought, well, hang on &mdash; that&rsquo;s actually a bit bigger than academics&rsquo; egos. That&rsquo;s about misstating the law to the Australian government in a report they rely on. So I thought it was important to stand up for diligence,&rdquo; Rudge said. Senator Barbara Pocock, the Australian Greens party&rsquo;s spokesperson on the public sector, said Deloitte should refund the entire AU$440,000 ($290,000). Deloitte &ldquo;misused AI and used it very inappropriately &mdash; misquoted a judge, used references that are nonexistent,&rdquo; Pocock told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. &ldquo;I mean, the kinds of things that a first-year university student would be in deep trouble for.&rdquo;

People arrive at the offices of Deloitte in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

The report had AI-generated errors, including a fabricated quote from a federal court judgment and references to nonexistent academic research papers.

Deloitte to partially refund Australia for report containing AI-generated errors

<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TOKYO: US technology company Nvidia and Fujitsu, a Japanese telecommunications and computer maker, agreed Friday to work together on artificial intelligence to deliver smart robots and a variety of other innovations using Nvidia&#39;s computer chips. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;The AI industrial revolution has already begun. Building the infrastructure to power it is essential in Japan and around the world,&rdquo; Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said, hugging his Fujitsu counterpart Takahito Tokita on stage. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;Japan can lead the world in AI and robotics,&rdquo; Huang told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The companies will work together on building what they called &ldquo;an AI infrastructure,&rdquo; or the system on which the various futuristic AI uses will be based, including health care, manufacturing, the environment, next-generation computing and customer services. The hope is to establish AI infrastructure for Japan by 2030. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It initially will be tailored for the Japanese market, leveraging Fujitsu&rsquo;s decades-long experience here, but may later expand globally, and will utilize Nvidia&rsquo;s GPUs, or graphics processing units, which are essential for AI, according to both sides. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The two executives did not outline specific projects or give a monetary figure for planned investments. But exploring a collaboration in AI for robots with Yaskawa Electric Corp., a Japanese machinery and robot maker, was noted as a possible example. AI will be constantly evolving and learning, they said.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fujitsu and Nvidia have been working together on AI, speeding up manufacturing with digital twins and robotics to tackle aging Japan&rsquo;s labor shortages. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tokita said the companies were taking a &ldquo;humancentric&rdquo; approach aimed at keeping Japan competitive. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;Through our collaboration with Nvidia, we aim to create new, unprecedented technologies and contribute to solving even more serious social issues,&rdquo; said Tokita.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, left, and Fujitsu Chief Executive Takahito Tokita shake hands during an announcement in Tokyo Friday

US technology company Nvidia and Fujitsu, a Japanese telecommunications and computer maker, agreed Friday to work together on artificial intelligence to deliver smart robots and a variety of other innovations using Nvidia's computer chips.

Nvidia and Fujitsu agree to work together on AI robots

NEW YORK: A digital character named Tilly Norwood, promoted as Hollywood&rsquo;s first &ldquo;artificial intelligence actor,&rdquo; has ignited a heated debate in the US film industry, with unions and performers denouncing the move as a threat to human creativity. Tilly Norwood was created by Xicoia, a Dutch company that calls itself the world&rsquo;s first artificial intelligence talent studio. The project is spearheaded by producer and comedian Eline Van der Velden, who showcased the AI character last weekend at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival. She said talent agencies were already expressing interest and hinted at a forthcoming representation deal. But not in a good way. Guilds, actors and filmmakers have met the Xicoia product with an immediate wave of backlash, protesting that artificial intelligence should not have a starring role in the acting profession. In a statement Tuesday, the Screen Actors Guild said that &ldquo;creativity is, and should remain, human-centered.&rdquo; &ldquo;To be clear, &lsquo;Tilly Norwood&rsquo; is not an actor, it&rsquo;s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers &mdash; without permission or compensation,&rdquo; the guild said. &ldquo;It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we&rsquo;ve seen, audiences aren&rsquo;t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.&rdquo; Van der Velden, founder of the AI production studio Particle6, last weekend promoted Tilly Norwood at the Zurich Summit, the industry sidebar of the Zurich Film Festival. She said then that talent agencies were circling Norwood and that she expected to soon announce a signing. Many in Hollywood, though, hope that never happens. &ldquo;Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a...,&rdquo; wrote actor Melissa Barrera (&ldquo;In the Heights,&rdquo; &ldquo;Scream&rdquo;) on social media. &ldquo;How gross, read the room.&rdquo; &ldquo;Any talent agency that engages in this should be boycotted by all guilds,&rdquo; wrote Natasha Lyonne on Instagram. The &ldquo;Russian Doll&rdquo; star is directing a feature titled &ldquo;Uncanny Valley&rdquo; that pledges to use &ldquo;ethical&rdquo; artificial intelligence in combination with traditional filmmaking techniques. &ldquo;Deeply misguided &amp; totally disturbed,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;Not the way. Not the vibe. Not the use.&rdquo; Artificial intelligence is often used as a tool in film production, though its implementation is hotly debated. It was a major bargaining point in the lengthy strike by SAG-AFTRA that concluded in late 2023 with some safeguards put in place to protect the use of actors&#39; likenesses and performances by AI. A yearlong strike by video game actors hinged on AI protections. In July, video game actors approved a new contract that mandates employers obtain written permission to create a digital replica. But there have been numerous controversies over the use of AI in acting. The Oscar-winning 2024 film &ldquo;The Brutalist&rdquo; used artificial intelligence for Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones&rsquo; characters, the revelation of which prompted debate in the industry. Van der Velden responded to the stir around Tilly Norwood on Instagram. &ldquo;To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work &mdash; a piece of art,&rdquo; Van der Velden said on Sunday. &ldquo;Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.&rdquo; Van der Velden didn&#39;t respond to interview requests Tuesday. In her post, she argued that AI characters should be judged as their own genre. &ldquo;Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship, not unlike drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;It takes time, skill and iteration to bring such a character to life.&rdquo; That statement was also shared on Tilly Norwood&#39;s own Instagram account. Posts include photos of the creation drinking coffee, shopping for clothes and preparing for various projects. As of Tuesday, the account had more than 33,000 followers. &ldquo;Had such a blast filming some screen tests recently,&rdquo; one post reads. &ldquo;Every day feels like a step closer to the big screen.&rdquo;

SAG-AFTRA picketers carry signs outside NBC in Rockefeller Center on July 17, 2023, in New York.

A digital character named Tilly Norwood, promoted as Hollywood’s first “artificial intelligence actor,” has ignited a heated debate in the U.S. film industry, with unions and performers denouncing the move as a threat to human creativity.

'AI actor' Tilly Norwood stirs outrage in Hollywood

<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISLAMABAD: Pakistan urged the United Nations to regulate artificial intelligence, particularly its military use, warning it could destabilize global security. Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said its use must follow international law.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to a statement by the Associated Press of Pakistan, Asif described artificial intelligence as a consequential, dual-use technology that can accelerate socio-economic progress but also deepen inequalities.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He urged states to prohibit applications &ldquo;without meaningful human control&rdquo; and warned that unregulated use enables disinformation campaigns, offensive cyber operations and new types of armaments.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Minister Asif said these developments raise &ldquo;serious questions for the future of warfare,&rdquo; as artificial intelligence &ldquo;lowers the threshold for use of force,&rdquo; making wars more feasible and compressing decision time for diplomacy.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">UN debate on AI risks<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The meeting was chaired by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, as his country holds the Council&rsquo;s rotating presidency for September, APP reported.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Opening the debate, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said artificial intelligence is &ldquo;no longer a distant horizon&rdquo; and, while it can aid de-mining, food security and violence prevention, &ldquo;without guardrails, it can also be weaponized.&rdquo;&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">President Myung urged a legally binding ban by 2026 on lethal autonomous weapons operating without human control and stressed that any decision on nuclear weapon use must rest with humans, not machines, APP reported.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yejin Choi, a senior fellow at Stanford University&rsquo;s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, said current progress is concentrated among a handful of companies and countries.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yejin Choi urged investment in smaller, adaptive systems to lower barriers to entry and pressed for stronger linguistic and cultural representation, noting leading models underperform for many non-English languages.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pakistan&rsquo;s domestic AI push<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pakistan&rsquo;s intervention comes amid domestic steps to expand access to artificial intelligence tools and skills.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google announced on Wednesday the rollout of its Google AI Plus plan in 40 additional countries, including Pakistan. In a statement, Google Pakistan Country Director Farhan Qureshi described the local digital landscape as &ldquo;vibrant and growing,&rdquo; Dawn reported.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In July, the federal cabinet approved the National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2025, which outlines training one million professionals by 2030, creating public and private funds to spur innovation, and launching thousands of civic projects and local products to build capacity and jobs.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secretary-General Guterres closed the session warning that the window to shape artificial intelligence &ldquo;for peace, for justice, for humanity&rdquo; is narrowing and urged swift action by member states to set rules, build institutions and insist on human dignity, echoing past global governance efforts in nuclear arms control and aviation safety.

Security

Pakistan urged the United Nations to regulate artificial intelligence, particularly its military use, warning it could destabilize global security. Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said its use must follow international law.

Pakistan urges UN to regulate AI for military applications

<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NEW YORK: Artificial intelligence is joining the list of big and complex global challenges that world leaders and diplomats will tackle at this week&#39;s annual high-level United Nations meetup. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since the AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT&#39;s debut about three years ago, the technology&#39;s breathtaking capabilities have amazed the world.&nbsp; <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of its risks, including existential threats like engineered pandemics, large-scale misinformation or rogue AIs running out of control, and call for safeguards. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">UN&#39;s adoption of a new governance architecture is the latest and biggest effort to rein in AI. Previous multilateral efforts, including three AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France, have resulted only in non-binding pledges. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last month, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to set up two key bodies on AI &mdash; a global forum and an independent scientific panel of experts &mdash; in a milestone move to shepherd global governance efforts for the technology. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Wednesday, a UN Security Council meeting will convene an open debate on the issue. Among the questions to be addressed: How can the Council help ensure the responsible application of AI to comply with international law and support peace processes and conflict prevention? <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Thursday, as part of the body&rsquo;s annual meeting, UN Secretary-General Ant&oacute;nio Guterres will hold a meeting to launch the forum, called the Global Dialogue on AI Governance. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It&#39;s a venue for governments and &ldquo;stakeholders&rdquo; to discuss international cooperation and share ideas and solutions. It&#39;s scheduled to meet formally in Geneva next year and in New York in 2027. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, recruitment is expected to get underway to find 40 experts for the scientific panel, including two co-chairs, one from a developed country and one from a developing nation. The panel has drawn comparisons with the UN&rsquo;s climate change panel and its flagship annual COP meeting. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The new bodies represent &ldquo;a symbolic triumph.&rdquo; They are &ldquo;by far the world&rsquo;s most globally inclusive approach to governing AI,&rdquo; Isabella Wilkinson, a research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, wrote in a blog post. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;In practice, the new mechanisms look like they will be mostly powerless,&rdquo; she added. Among the possible issues is whether the UN&#39;s lumbering administration is able to regulate a fast-moving technology like AI. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ahead of the meeting, a group of influential experts called for governments to agree on so-called red lines for AI to take effect by the end of next year, saying that the technology needs &ldquo;minimum guardrails&rdquo; designed to prevent the &ldquo;most urgent and unacceptable risks.&rdquo; <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The group, including senior employees at ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google&#39;s AI research lab DeepMind and chatbot maker Anthropic, wants governments to sign an internationally binding agreement on AI. They point out that the world has previously agreed on treaties banning nuclear testing and biological weapons and protecting the high seas. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;The idea is very simple,&rdquo; said one of the backers, Stuart Russell, a computer science professor and director of University of California, Berkeley&#39;s Center for Human Compatible AI. &ldquo;As we do with medicines and nuclear power stations, we can require developers to prove safety as a condition of market access.&rdquo; <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Russell suggested that UN governance could resemble the workings of another UN-affiliated body, the International Civil Aviation Organization, which coordinates with safety regulators across different countries and makes sure they&#39;re all working off the same page. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather than laying out a set of rules that are set in stone, diplomats could draw up a &ldquo;framework convention&rdquo; that&#39;s flexible enough to be updated to reflect AI&#39;s latest advances, he said.

The UN flag flies on a stormy day at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly

Americas

Artificial intelligence is joining the list of big and complex global challenges that world leaders and diplomats will tackle at this week's annual high-level United Nations meetup.

AI governance joins list of global challenges at annual UN gathering

Reuters

BEIJING: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced on Wednesday its largest ever artificial intelligence language model, the Qwen3-Max, doubling down on AI as a core business strategy. The model, Alibaba&#39;s most powerful to date, contains more than 1 trillion parameters, or variables that determine how an AI system processes information, and shows particular strength in code generation and autonomous agent capabilities, Zhou Jingren, chief technology officer at Alibaba Cloud, said at the company&#39;s annual conference. Autonomous agent capabilities mean the AI system requires fewer human prompts than a chatbot like ChatGPT, and can make decisions and take action independently towards a goal set by the human user. Alibaba cited third-party benchmarks, such as Tau2-Bench, saying the model outperformed rival products including Anthropic&#39;s Claude and DeepSeek-V3.1 in certain metrics. Alibaba has made AI a priority alongside its traditional e-commerce operations. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to invest 380 billion yuan ($53.40 billion) in AI-related infrastructure over the next three years as competition to develop advanced AI capabilities intensifies among Chinese tech firms. During the conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said the company would increase spending further, though he did not specify the amount. &quot;The speed of AI industry development has far exceeded our expectations, and the industry&#39;s demand for AI infrastructure has also far exceeded our expectations,&quot; Wu said. The company released the Qwen 3 model in April. Alibaba also unveiled several other AI products on Wednesday, including Qwen3-Omni, a multimodal, immersive system useful for virtual and artificial reality applications such as smart glasses and intelligent cockpits.

The Alibaba logo is seen in this illustration taken on January 29, 2025. (Reuters)

Qwen3-Max’s autonomous agent capabilities allow it to make decisions and take actions independently with fewer human prompts, setting it apart from typical chatbots.

Alibaba launches new AI model with more than 1 trillion parameters

Robin, an artificial intelligence (AI) robot mimicking a 7-year-old girl, provides emotional support to hospitalised children and nursing home residents, helping address loneliness and healthcare staff shortages.&nbsp;Developed by Expper Technologies, Robin actively engages with patients&mdash;remembering names, playing games, and mirroring emotions. Operating partly autonomously, it supports overworked medical staff while gradually advancing toward greater independence and more medical functions. &nbsp;&nbsp;Shortly after her 6-year-old son Luca was diagnosed with leukemia, Meagan Brazil-Sheehan encountered Robin the Robot in UMass Memorial Children&rsquo;s Medical Center. The robot greeted Luca warmly with a high-pitched voice programmed to sound like a 7-year-old girl. It remembered having met him days earlier, a moment that brought joy to the family.&nbsp;Robin is a 4-foot-tall therapeutic robot powered by artificial intelligence, designed to act like a young girl and offer emotional support to patients in hospitals and nursing homes. It also helps relieve pressures on staff amid widespread shortages. Since its US introduction five years ago, Robin has been deployed in 30 healthcare facilities across California, Massachusetts, New York, and Indiana.&nbsp;Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, explained that nurses face heavy workloads and limited ability to provide emotional connection to patients. Robin steps in to fill this engagement gap. The robot functions with about 30% autonomy; the rest is controlled remotely by operators under clinical supervision. Each patient interaction provides data, supporting progress towards greater independence, all while complying with HIPAA privacy rules.&nbsp;At HealthBridge Children&rsquo;s Hospital in Orange County, California, staff direct Robin&rsquo;s visits, scheduling time with each patient. The robot engages patients by playing favourite songs, such as &ldquo;No Fear&rdquo; by DeJ Loaf, playing tic-tac-toe, and wearing silly glasses to amuse young children. Speech language pathologist Samantha da Silva noted that patients &lsquo;light up&rsquo; when Robin enters, as it remembers names and preferences, spreading joy throughout the hospital.&nbsp;Robin mirrors patient emotions, laughing when patients laugh and showing empathy during difficult conversations. In nursing homes, it plays memory games with dementia patients, leads breathing exercises, and provides companionship akin to a grandchild&rsquo;s presence. Khachikyan recounted an incident where Robin soothed a woman having a panic attack by playing her favourite music and animal videos until she calmed.&nbsp;With the Association of American Medical Colleges forecasting a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians in the next decade, Expper Technologies aims to extend Robin&rsquo;s capabilities. Future versions may monitor vital signs, report health data to medical teams, and assist elderly patients with tasks such as dressing and bathroom use. Khachikyan emphasized that Robin is intended to supplement, not replace, healthcare workers.&nbsp;At UMass Memorial Children&rsquo;s, Robin also helps educate children about medical procedures. Child life specialist Micaela Cotas described how Robin helped a young patient face an IV by showing an animated cartoon of the process, making the robot a relatable peer.&nbsp;Robin was created during Khachikyan&rsquo;s PhD, inspired by his own experience of loneliness growing up in a single-parent household in Armenia. After initial trials across industries, the team realized Robin could benefit pediatric patients experiencing stress and isolation. Following success in Armenia, a 2020 pilot launched at UCLA Mattel Children&rsquo;s Hospital.&nbsp;The robot&rsquo;s personality evolves based on user feedback. For example, children found it amusing when Robin declared its favourite animal was a chicken, a trait that replaced earlier choices like dog or cat. &ldquo;Robin was designed by users,&rdquo; Khachikyan said, highlighting the interactive development process.

 Robin the Robot, developed by Expper Technologies, visits patients' rooms at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, California, US. (AP)

Robin is a 4-foot AI robot that supports patients and helps ease staff shortages in 30 US healthcare facilities.

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