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The artificial intelligence maker OpenAI may face a costly and inconvenient reckoning with its nonprofit origins even as its valuation recently exploded to $157 billion. Nonprofit tax experts have been closely watching OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, since last November when its board ousted and rehired CEO Sam Altman. Now, some believe the company may have reached — or exceeded — the limits of its corporate structure, under which it is organized as a nonprofit whose mission is to develop artificial intelligence to benefit “all of humanity” but with for-profit subsidiaries under its control. Jill Horwitz, a professor in law and medicine at UCLA School of Law who has studied OpenAI, said that when two sides of a joint venture between a nonprofit and a for-profit come into conflict, the…

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines and washed out roads all over North Carolina’s mountains, the constant din of a gas-powered generator is getting to be too much for Bobby Renfro. It’s difficult to hear the nurses, neighbors and volunteers flowing through the community resource hub he has set up in a former church for his neighbors in Tipton Hill, a crossroads in the Pisgah National Forest north of Asheville. Much worse is the cost: he spent $1,200 to buy it and thousands more on fuel that volunteers drive in from Tennessee. Turning off their only power source isn’t an option. This generator runs a refrigerator holding insulin for neighbors with diabetes and powers the oxygen machines and nebulizers some of them need to breathe. The retired…

Technology features in modern vehicles can make driving easier and more enjoyable. But when buying your next car, it can be hard to know which features are useful and which ones are more like gimmicks. And many times, these features are only available on certain trim levels. To help you out, car experts have come up with a list of their top four features and offer insight on how to get them. EASY PHONE PAIRING: WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY AND WIRELESS CHARGING Most modern vehicles come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. These features allow you to display and use many of your smartphone’s apps and features on the vehicle’s touchscreen. Typically, you’ll need to connect your phone with a USB cord to make Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work. But some…

Connor Tomasko grew up wary of credit cards. As she taught herself more about managing money, she realized that many people also have bad habits when it comes to payment apps. Tomasko, 31, a freelance software consultant in Chicago, understands why people appreciate the ease of the apps, which typically only require you to know someone’s username in order to send money. But she realized that keeping money in the apps could be risky and means losing out on the interest from a high yield savings account. She now immediately transfers any payments out of the apps and encourages friends to do the same. “I’m definitely the one that is always harping about high yield savings accounts,” Tomasko said. “But if you’re in an industry dealing with a lot of…

Phones hold so much of our digital lives — emails, social media and bank accounts, photos, chat messages and more — that if they ever get stolen or go missing, it can cause major disruption beyond just the loss of a device. In some places, phone thefts have surged so much it’s now an everyday problem, with thieves on electric bikes snatching them out of pedestrians’ hands, swiping them off restaurant tables or pickpocketing them on the subway. In Britain, where 200 phones are stolen every day in “snatch thefts,” the government has pledged to crack down on the crime and is meeting with tech companies and device makers to come up with solutions. Here are steps you can take before and after your phone goes missing: BASIC PROTECTIONS There…

Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins — the building blocks of life — were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry last week. Their work used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and holds the potential to transform how new drugs and other materials are made. The prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London. Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the award honored research that unraveled “a grand challenge in chemistry, and in particular in biochemistry, for decades.” “It’s that breakthrough that gets awarded today,” he said. WHAT IS THE 2024 NOBEL…

Tesla’s aim is to revolutionize industries far beyond automotive, including energy, robotics, and artificial intelligence. In October, Elon Musk unveiled the Robotaxi and CyberCab, demonstrating the brand’s commitment to an autonomous future, alongside the Optimus humanoid robot. It’s a product that could disrupt the jobs market in unimaginable ways. THE ROBOTAXI At Tesla’s recent “We, Robot” event, CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Robotaxi, a purpose-built, fully autonomous vehicle that lacks traditional controls like a steering wheel or pedals. It represents a significant step forward in Tesla’s plan to democratize autonomous transportation. While Tesla’s current models already feature Full Self-Driving (FSD) in a supervised state, the Robotaxi is designed for complete autonomy, and it marks Tesla’s most significant departure from traditional car design to date. The Robotaxi, with its compact size,…

Amazon this week said that it was investing in small nuclear reactors, coming just two days after a similar announcement by Google, as both tech giants seek new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. The plans come as the owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant said last month it plans to restart the reactor so tech giant Microsoft can buy the power to supply its data centers. All three companies have been investing in solar and wind technologies, which make electricity without producing greenhouse gas emissions. Now they say they need to go further in the search for clean electricity to meet both demand and their own commitments to cut emissions. Nuclear energy is a climate solution in…

United Airlines is adding eight new international destinations to its itinerary for next summer. The airline, which said that this is its biggest international expansion ever with more than 760 weekly flights, will also be adding some new routes. Beginning in May, travelers departing from Newark, New Jersey will be able to visit locations including Bilbao, Spain; Faro, Portugal and Palermo, Italy. In June, the airline will start offering flights from Newark to Madeira Island, Portugal and Nuuk, Greenland. Other flights include Tokyo to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Washington, D.C. to Dakar starting in May and Tokyo to Kaohsiung, Taiwan beginning in July. New routes to already existing destinations include Washington D.C. to Nice, France; Washington D.C. to Venice, Italy and Tokyo to Narita-Koror, Palau. The airline will also resume service…

The Federal Trade Commission adopted a final rule this week that will require businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted subscriptions and memberships. The “click-to-cancel” rule will prohibit retailers and other businesses from misleading people about subscriptions and require them to obtain consumers’ consent before charging for memberships, auto-renewals and programs linked to free trial offers. The FTC said businesses must also disclose when free trials or other promotional offers will end and let customers end recurring subscriptions as easily as they started them. Most of the provisions take effect effect 180 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register, the agency said. “Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.…

Hours after the artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton won a Nobel Prize in physics, he drove a rented car to Google’s California headquarters to celebrate. Hinton doesn’t work at Google anymore. Nor did the longtime professor at the University of Toronto do his pioneering research at the tech giant. But his impromptu party reflected AI’s moment as a commercial blockbuster that has also reached the pinnacles of scientific recognition. Then, early Wednesday (09), two employees of Google’s AI division won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for using AI to predict and design novel proteins. “This is really a testament to the power of computer science and artificial intelligence,” said Jeanette Wing, a professor of computer science at Columbia University. Asked about the historic back-to-back science awards for AI work in…

The artificial intelligence boom has benefited chatbot makers, computer scientists and Nvidia investors. It’s also providing an unusual windfall for Anguilla, a tiny island in the Caribbean. ChatGPT’s debut nearly two years ago heralded the dawn of the AI age and kicked off a digital gold rush as companies scrambled to stake their own claims by acquiring websites that end in .ai. That’s where Anguilla comes in. The British territory was allotted control of the .ai internet address in the 1990s. It was one of hundreds of obscure top-level domains assigned to individual countries and territories based on their names. While the domains are supposed to indicate a website has a link to a particular region or language, it’s not always a requirement. Google uses google.ai to showcase its artificial…

The U.S. Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to break up Google after its ubiquitous search engine was declared an illegal monopoly, but it is just one of many possible remedies under review, according to a court filing. In court papers filed, government lawyers outlined a series of potential remedies it may pursue, including restrictions on how Google’s artificial intelligence mines other websites to deliver search results, and blocking Google from paying companies like Apple billions of dollars annually to ensure that Google is the default search engine presented to consumers on gadgets like iPhones. The filing is the first step in a monthslong legal process to come up with remedies that could reshape a company that’s long been synonymous with online search. “For more than a…

TikTok was aware that its design features are detrimental to its young users and that publicly touted tools aimed at limiting kids’ time on the site were largely ineffective, according to internal documents and communications exposed in lawsuit filed by the state of Kentucky. The details are among redacted portions of Kentucky’s lawsuit that contains the internal communications and documents unearthed during a more than two year investigation into the company by various states across the country. Kentucky’s lawsuit was filed alongside separate complaints brought forth by attorneys general in a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia. TikTok is also facing another lawsuit from the Department of Justice and is itself suing the Justice Department over a federal law that could ban it in the U.S. by…

The world’s second Sphere is planned to be built in the capital of the United Arab Emirates after the opening of the first giant dome entertainment complex in Las Vegas. Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism and Sphere Entertainment Co. announced the plan late Tuesday to bring a Sphere to the Middle East. Under the deal, Abu Dhabi will pay a franchise fee to Sphere Entertainment to build the second location using its designs. Abu Dhabi’s government will pay to build the structure, as well as annual fees to Sphere Entertainment “for creative and artistic content.” The announcement offered no financing information, nor did it say where the Sphere would be built in the Emirati capital. Abu Dhabi’s government did not immediately respond to questions about the project. Sphere…