Tesla has been sued by an environmental nonprofit that accused Elon Musk's electric car company of violating the federal Clean Air Act hundreds of times by letting its Fremont, California, plant emit harmful pollutants.

In a complaint filed on Monday, the Environmental Democracy Project said Tesla has since January 2021 exposed nearby residents and workers to excessive nitrogen oxides, arsenic, cadmium and other harmful chemicals, mainly through its paint shop operations.

The nonprofit wants an injunction to halt excess pollution, plus civil fines of up to $121,275 per day per violation of the Clean Air Act.

Tesla did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit filed federal court in San Francisco adds to pressure on Tesla to improve air quality surrounding the Fremont plant, its main US factory.

On May 2, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said it wanted an independent hearing board to order Tesla to reduce harmful emissions from its paint shop operations.

It said that Tesla's emissions abatement system breaks down "repeatedly," and the automaker has since 2019 racked up 112 notices of violation, each accounting for as much as 750 pounds of illegal air pollution.

In February, Tesla agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit by 25 California counties that claimed it mishandled hazardous waste at locations across the state.

The Environmental Democracy Project said it has authority to file a "citizen" lawsuit under the Clean Air Act because Tesla "has violated or in violation of conditions imposed by an operating permit for major sources of pollution."

Lawyers for the nonprofit did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

The case is Environmental Democracy Project v Tesla Inc et al, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-02888.

The chief executive of Amazon.com's cloud unit Amazon Web Services, Adam Selipsky, is stepping down, the company said on Tuesday.

Amazon.com's shares fell 1% in early trading.

Senior Vice President Matt Garman will take on Selipsky's role at AWS, effective June 3, the firm said, Reuters reported.

Over two stints, Selipsky has spent 14 years at AWS.

He was the CEO of Tableau Software from 2016 to 2021.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Monday it would release a new AI model called GPT-4o, capable of realistic voice conversation and able to interact across text and image, its latest move to stay ahead in a race to dominate the emerging technology.

New audio capabilities enable users to speak to ChatGPT and obtain real-time responses with no delay, as well as interrupt ChatGPT while it is speaking, both hallmarks of realistic conversations that AI voice assistants have found challenging, the OpenAI researchers showed at a livestream event.

"It feels like AI from the movies ... Talking to a computer has never felt really natural for me; now it does," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI faces growing competition and pressure to expand the user base of ChatGPT, its popular chatbot product that wowed the world with its ability to produce human-like written content and top-notch software code.

At the livestream event, OpenAI researchers showed off ChatGPT's new voice assistant capabilities. In one demo, ChatGPT used its vision and voice capabilities to talk a researcher through solving a math equation on a sheet of paper.

In another demo, researchers showed the GPT-4o model's capability of real-time language translation.

OpenAI's demonstrations verged on science-fiction, with ChatGPT and its interlocutor at one point engaging in coquettish banter. The OpenAI researcher told the chatbot he was in a great mood because he was demonstrating "how useful and amazing you are."

ChatGPT responded: "Oh stop it! You're making me blush!"

Altman posted on X after the demo, "her," in what appeared to be a reference to the so named 2013 film by Spike Jonze about a man falling in love with his AI assistant, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

OpenAI's chief technology officer, Mira Murati, said at the event that the new model would be offered for free because it is more cost-effective than the company's previous models. Paid users of GPT-4o will have greater capacity limits than the company's free users, she said. The GPT-4o model will be available in ChatGPT over the next few weeks, the company said.

In addition, free ChatGPT users now have access to a "browse" feature that enables ChatGPT to display up-to-date information from the web, Murati told Reuters after the event. The company does not intend to make money off free users through selling ads, Murati said.

Shortly after launching in late 2022, ChatGPT was called the fastest application ever to reach 100 million monthly active users. However, worldwide traffic to ChatGPT's website has been on a roller-coaster ride in the past year and is only now returning to its May 2023 peak, according to analytics firm Similarweb.

OpenAI made the announcements a day before Alphabet is scheduled to hold its annual Google developers' conference, where it is expected to show off its own new AI-related features. Reuters reported last week that OpenAI planned to announce an AI-powered search product, citing sources. But the company decided to delay the search product announcement, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Shares of Alphabet were down 0.4% on Monday afternoon, after falling nearly 3% earlier in the day. Microsoft shares were down 0.2%.

The Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and TONOMUS, the NEOM-born cognitive technology company, announced The Immersive Digital Environments and Assets (I.D.E.A.) Initiative.
The initiative, originally showcased during a keynote presentation at LEAP 2024, is envisioned to propel the Saudi immersive technology sector among the leading nations and fuel the Kingdom’s digital economy ambitions as part of economic diversification, realizing Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030, the Saudi Press Agency said.
Through the initiative, MCIT, TONOMUS, and partners will work closely to activate a national partner network to engage policymakers, researchers, technology providers, and end users in the participatory design of ecosystem interventions.
The initiative will create a unified strategic plan and activation roadmap across public- and private-sector partners to jumpstart immersive tech economy development as well as to develop a comprehensive solution blueprint for national immersive tech developments and establish standards to unite a diverse array of technology stakeholders.
MCIT and TONOMUS have already onboarded more than 15 potential partners across Saudi Arabia’s tech landscape and have issued a call to interested organizations to engage.
I.D.E.A. spans immersive experiences, virtual collaboration spaces, industrial digital twin and metaverse applications enabled by the convergence of several emerging technologies, including mixed reality, artificial intelligence (AI), three-dimensional (3D) modeling, and spatial computing, among others.
“The launch of this initiative is a testament to The Kingdom’s ambition to harness technology in building a thriving digital society and economy,” said MCIT Undersecretary for Technology Mohammed Alrobayan.
“For MCIT, this initiative is directly aligned with our objectives of growing the technology sector and supporting localized technology development. The involvement of TONOMUS and our plan for this partner network reinforces MCIT’s support for collaboration across the public and private sectors. We want to be at the forefront of immersive technology and accelerate a new wave of digital transformation”, he added.
“At the core,” said TONOMUS chief commercial officer Yousef Khalili,” this initiative is an effort to develop a local immersive tech ecosystem by driving technology adoption and supporting next-generation tech solutions. This partnership has been more than a year in the making and is based on a shared vision at the intersection of MCIT’s goal to unlock more value for the Kingdom through technology, and TONOMUS’ ambition to be a home-grown cognitive technology champion. TONOMUS is committed to developing innovative, next-generation technology solutions to propel Saudi organizations into the future”.

The voice Alexis “Lexi” Bogan had before last summer was exuberant.
She loved to belt out Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan ballads in the car. She laughed all the time — even while corralling misbehaving preschoolers or debating politics with friends over a backyard fire pit. In high school, she was a soprano in the chorus.
Then that voice was gone.
Doctors in August removed a life-threatening tumor lodged near the back of her brain. When the breathing tube came out a month later, Bogan had trouble swallowing and strained to say “hi” to her parents. Months of rehabilitation aided her recovery, but her speech is still impaired. Friends, strangers and her own family members struggle to understand what she is trying to tell them.
In April, the 21-year-old got her old voice back. Not the real one, but a voice clone generated by artificial intelligence that she can summon from a phone app. Trained on a 15-second time capsule of her teenage voice — sourced from a cooking demonstration video she recorded for a high school project — her synthetic but remarkably real-sounding AI voice can now say almost anything she wants.
She types a few words or sentences into her phone and the app instantly reads it aloud.
“Hi, can I please get a grande iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso,” said Bogan’s AI voice as she held the phone out her car’s window at a Starbucks drive-thru.
Experts have warned that rapidly improving AI voice-cloning technology can amplify phone scams, disrupt democratic elections and violate the dignity of people — living or dead — who never consented to having their voice recreated to say things they never spoke.
It's been used to produce deepfake robocalls to New Hampshire voters mimicking President Joe Biden. In Maryland, authorities recently charged a high school athletic director with using AI to generate a fake audio clip of the school’s principal making racist remarks.
But Bogan and a team of doctors at Rhode Island's Lifespan hospital group believe they've found a use that justifies the risks. Bogan is one of the first people — the only one with her condition — who have been able to recreate a lost voice with OpenAI’s new Voice Engine. Some other AI providers, such as the startup ElevenLabs, have tested similar technology for people with speech impediments and loss — including a lawyer who now uses her voice clone in the courtroom.
“We’re hoping Lexi's a trailblazer as the technology develops,” said Dr. Rohaid Ali, a neurosurgery resident at Brown University's medical school and Rhode Island Hospital. Millions of people with debilitating strokes, throat cancer or neurogenerative diseases could benefit, he said.
“We should be conscious of the risks, but we can’t forget about the patient and the social good,” said Dr. Fatima Mirza, another resident working on the pilot. “We’re able to help give Lexi back her true voice and she’s able to speak in terms that are the most true to herself.”
Mirza and Ali, who are married, caught the attention of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI because of their previous research project at Lifespan using the AI chatbot to simplify medical consent forms for patients. The San Francisco company reached out while on the hunt earlier this year for promising medical applications for its new AI voice generator.
Bogan was still slowly recovering from surgery. The illness started last summer with headaches, blurry vision and a droopy face, alarming doctors at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence. They discovered a vascular tumor the size of a golf ball pressing on her brain stem and entangled in blood vessels and cranial nerves.
“It was a battle to get control of the bleeding and get the tumor out,” said pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Konstantina Svokos.
The 10-hour length of the surgery coupled with the tumor's location and severity damaged Bogan's tongue muscles and vocal cords, impeding her ability to eat and talk, Svokos said.
“It’s almost like a part of my identity was taken when I lost my voice,” Bogan said.
The feeding tube came out this year. Speech therapy continues, enabling her to speak intelligibly in a quiet room but with no sign she will recover the full lucidity of her natural voice.
“At some point, I was starting to forget what I sounded like," Bogan said. “I’ve been getting so used to how I sound now.”
Whenever the phone rang at the family's home in the Providence suburb of North Smithfield, she would push it over to her mother to take her calls. She felt she was burdening her friends whenever they went to a noisy restaurant. Her dad, who has hearing loss, struggled to understand her.
Back at the hospital, doctors were looking for a pilot patient to experiment with OpenAI's technology.
“The first person that came to Dr. Svokos’ mind was Lexi,” Ali said. “We reached out to Lexi to see if she would be interested, not knowing what her response would be. She was game to try it out and see how it would work."
Bogan had to go back a few years to find a suitable recording of her voice to “train” the AI system on how she spoke. It was a video in which she explained how to make a pasta salad.
Her doctors intentionally fed the AI system just a 15-second clip. Cooking sounds make other parts of the video imperfect. It was also all that OpenAI needed — an improvement over previous technology requiring much lengthier samples.
They also knew that getting something useful out of 15 seconds could be vital for any future patients who have no trace of their voice on the internet. A brief voicemail left for a relative might have to suffice.
When they tested it for the first time, everyone was stunned by the quality of the voice clone. Occasional glitches — a mispronounced word, a missing intonation — were mostly imperceptible. In April, doctors equipped Bogan with a custom-built phone app that only she can use.
“I get so emotional every time I hear her voice,” said her mother, Pamela Bogan, tears in her eyes.
"I think it’s awesome that I can have that sound again,” added Lexi Bogan, saying it helped “boost my confidence to somewhat where it was before all this happened.”
She now uses the app about 40 times a day and sends feedback she hopes will help future patients. One of her first experiments was to speak to the kids at the preschool where she works as a teaching assistant. She typed in “ha ha ha ha” expecting a robotic response. To her surprise, it sounded like her old laugh.
She's used it at Target and Marshall's to ask where to find items. It's helped her reconnect with her dad. And it's made it easier for her to order fast food.
Bogan's doctors have started cloning the voices of other willing Rhode Island patients and hope to bring the technology to hospitals around the world. OpenAI said it is treading cautiously in expanding the use of Voice Engine, which is not yet publicly available.
A number of smaller AI startups already sell voice-cloning services to entertainment studios or make them more widely available. Most voice-generation vendors say they prohibit impersonation or abuse, but they vary in how they enforce their terms of use.
“We want to make sure that everyone whose voice is used in the service is consenting on an ongoing basis,” said Jeff Harris, OpenAI's lead on the product. “We want to make sure that it’s not used in political contexts. So we’ve taken an approach of being very limited in who we’re giving the technology to.”
Harris said OpenAI's next step involves developing a secure “voice authentication” tool so that users can replicate only their own voice. That might be “limiting for a patient like Lexi, who had sudden loss of her speech capabilities,” he said. "So we do think that we’ll need to have high-trust relationships, especially with medical providers, to give a little bit more unfettered access to the technology.”
Bogan has impressed her doctors with her focus on thinking about how the technology could help others with similar or more severe speech impediments.
“Part of what she has done throughout this entire process is think about ways to tweak and change this,” Mirza said. “She’s been a great inspiration for us.”
While for now she must fiddle with her phone to get the voice engine to talk, Bogan imagines an AI voice engine that improves upon older remedies for speech recovery — such as the robotic-sounding electrolarynx or a voice prosthesis — in melding with the human body or translating words in real time.
She's less sure about what will happen as she grows older and her AI voice continues to sound like she did as a teenager. Maybe the technology could “age” her AI voice, she said.
For now, "even though I don’t have my voice fully back, I have something that helps me find my voice again,” she said.

The US and China will meet in Geneva to discuss advanced artificial intelligence on Tuesday, US officials said, stressing that Washington's policies would not be up for negotiation even as the talks explore mitigating risks from the emerging technology.

President Joe Biden's administration has sought to engage China on a range of issues to reduce miscommunication between the two rivals. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi broached the topic of AI in April in Beijing, where they agreed to hold their first formal bilateral talks on the subject.

The State Department has pressed China and Russia to match US declarations that only humans, and never artificial intelligence, would make decisions on deploying nuclear weapons.

"This is the first meeting of its kind. So, we expect to have a discussion of the full range of risks, but wouldn't prejudge any specifics at this point," a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the meeting when asked if the US would prioritize the nuclear weapons issue.

China's rapid deployment of AI capabilities across civilian, military and national security sectors often undermined the security of the US and its allies, the official said, adding the talks would allow Washington to directly communicate its concerns.

"To be very clear, talks with Beijing are not focused on promoting any form of technical collaboration or cooperating on frontier research in any matter. And our technology protection policies are not up for negotiation," the official added.

Reuters has reported that the Biden administration plans to put guardrails on US-developed proprietary AI models that power popular chatbots like ChatGPT to safeguard the technology from countries such as China and Russia.

A second US official briefing reporters said Washington and Beijing were competing to shape the rules on AI, but also hoped to explore whether some rules could be "embraced by all countries."

"We certainly don't see eye to eye ... on many AI topics and applications, but we believe that communication on critical AI risks can make the world safer," the second official said.

US National Security Council official Tarun Chhabra and Seth Center, the State Department's acting special envoy for critical and emerging technology, will lead the talks with officials from China's Foreign Ministry and state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission.

US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer plans to issue recommendations in coming weeks to address risks from AI, which he says will then be translated into piecemeal legislation.

He has cited competition with China and its divergent goals for AI, including surveillance and facial recognition applications, as reason for Washington's need to take a lead in crafting laws around the rapidly advancing technology.

Chinese authorities have been emphasizing the need for the country to develop its own "controllable" AI technology.

The third edition of the Global AI Summit will be held in Riyadh from September 10 to 12 under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA).

In a statement, SDAIA President Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi expressed his gratitude to Crown Prince Mohammed for his unwavering support for the Global AI Summit.

He emphasized the pivotal role this patronage plays in advancing the national data and AI agenda, maximizing the benefits of cutting-edge technologies, and improving the Kingdom's global standing and reinforcing its leadership position in the field.

“This summit builds on the remarkable achievements of its previous editions, held in 2020 and 2022 under the gracious patronage of the Crown Prince,” he added.

“The third edition of the summit distinguishes itself through its extensive range of topics covering diverse areas of global interest in data and AI. This is particularly significant considering the rapid progress of these technologies and their profound impact on individuals and institutions,” he stressed.

The summit will cover key topics in the field of AI, such as innovation and industry trends, shaping a brighter future for AI, and cultivating an enabling environment for human talent.

Sub-themes will delve into various issues, including local and global AI applications, the integral relationship between humans and AI, business leadership in AI, the correlation between data and applications, generative AI, AI ethics, AI processing and infrastructure, and the role of AI in smart cities.

Al-Ghamdi extended an invitation to leading AI policymakers and individuals passionate about data and innovation to participate in the upcoming summit.

The gathering aims to tackle critical issues surrounding AI development and establish a framework for its responsible use.

According to Al-Ghamdi, the summit is expected to have a positive impact both locally and internationally. It aims to strengthen the Kingdom's role in supporting the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, thus contributing to a better future for all.

Al-Ghamdi underscored the summit's significance to Saudi Vision 2030, led by Crown Prince Mohammed, and said it aspires to make Riyadh a global compass for AI advancements, fostering collaboration on responsible AI development that benefits humanity as a whole.

Attendees will gain insights from prominent international decision makers, ministers, heads of organizations, and tech CEOs.

The summit will facilitate interaction with leading data scientists and AI researchers, offering a global perspective on cutting-edge developments.

The event is expected to witness the signing of local and international agreements, which will form the foundation of future international initiatives in AI led by Saudi Arabia.

Al-Ghamdi said the third edition of the summit underscores the Kingdom's ambition, as envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammed, to become a leading global model in the AI field.

US automaker Ford plans to start production of a new partly electric car at its plant in the Valencia region of Spain starting in 2027, a company spokesperson said on Friday.

Ford had said in March that it was considering making a new, multi-energy passenger car at its Valencia plant, Reuters reported.

Spain's Industry Ministry said the carmaker aimed to produce 300,000 units of the new vehicle annually. "It is a model that will guarantee the workload for this factory and prepare it for the future," the ministry said in a statement.

Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people, after cutting back output of other models in recent years.

The Ford Spain spokesperson said the new car will be assembled for markets in Europe and elsewhere.

Shares of Zeekr Intelligent Technology were indicated to open up to 19% above their initial public offering price on Friday, giving the China-based electric-vehicle maker a potential fully diluted valuation of $6.55 billion.

The debut would mark the first major US listing by a Chinese company since 2021 amid fierce competition in China between electric-vehicle makers that have hurt their profits - and as many push to expand outside China.

Zeekr is the premium brand of Chinese automaker Geely, which also owns Sweden's Volvo Cars and the UK's Lotus. It was formed in 2021 to tap into growing Chinese demand for premium models, and has delivered nearly 200,000 cars so far, according to its IPO filing, mostly in China.

The company is one of a number of Chinese automakers, including BYD, SAIC and Great Wall Motor that are targeting Europe, rolling out electric models as they seek to compete with legacy European automakers on their turf. Chinese EV sales in Europe have soared in recent years.

Shares of EV companies in the United States have lost substantial value in recent months, including Tesla, the leading US EV maker, which has dropped 30% this year, Reuters reported.

Rivian Automotive has lost 85% since its IPO in November 2021, while Lucid Group is left with a fourth of what it fetched when it signed a deal with a blank-check firm earlier that year.

Zeekr, however, upsized its IPO, indicating strong demand from investors. It sold 21 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at $21 each to raise $441 million. It had earlier planned to sell 17.5 million ADSs at a price between $18 and $21 apiece.

Since the start of the year, the company's deliveries have overtaken its nearest competitors.

Zeekr delivered 49,148 vehicles in the first four months ended April 30, while Xpeng delivered 31,214 units and Nio delivered 45,673 cars during the same period, according to regulatory filings and press releases.

The share flotation comes during rising tension between the world's two biggest economies over trade, intellectual property, Taiwan and China's stance on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The IPO gives Zeekr a fully diluted valuation, which includes securities such as options and restricted stock units, of $5.5 billion at the high end of its targeted range, but still lower than the $13 billion it fetched after a funding round last year.

The discount to last year's valuation could help draw in investors, said Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell.

"They're able to buy into a growing business at a fraction of last year's valuation. Everyone loves a perceived bargain."

The number of Chinese companies that have pursued stock market flotations in the United States in the past few years has dropped, after Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global was forced to delist its shares following a backlash from Chinese regulators.

Beijing has since softened its stance and released a set of rules last year to revive such listings, after the US accounting watchdog and China resolved a longstanding audit dispute in December 2022.

Using virtual reality headsets, students at a Hong Kong university travel to a pavilion above the clouds to watch an AI-generated Albert Einstein explain game theory.
The students are part of a course at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that is testing the use of "AI lecturers" as the artificial intelligence revolution hits campuses around the world, AFP said.
The mass availability of tools such as ChatGPT has sparked optimism about new leaps in productivity and teaching, but also fears over cheating, plagiarism and the replacement of human instructors.
Professor Pan Hui, the project lead for HKUST's AI project, is not worried about being replaced by the tech and believes it can actually help ease what he described as a global shortage of teachers.
"AI teachers can bring in diversity, bring in an interesting aspect, and even immersive storytelling," Hui told AFP.
In his "Social Media for Creatives" course, AI-generated instructors teach 30 post-graduate students about immersive technologies and the impact of digital platforms.
These instructors are generated after presentation slides are fed into a program. The looks, voices and gestures of the avatars can be customized, and they can be displayed on a screen or VR headsets.
This is mixed with in-person teaching by Hui, who says the system frees human lecturers from the "more tedious" parts of their job.
For student Lerry Yang, whose PhD research focuses on the metaverse, the advantage of AI lecturers was in the ability to tailor them to individual preferences and boost learning.
If the AI teacher "makes me feel more mentally receptive, or if it feels approachable and friendly, that erases the feeling of distance between me and the professor", she told AFP.
- 'Everybody's doing it' -
Educators around the world are grappling with the growing use of generative AI, from trying to reliably detect plagiarism to setting the boundaries for the use of such tools.
While initially hesitant, most Hong Kong universities last year allowed students to use AI to degrees that vary from course to course.
At HKUST, Hui is testing avatars with different genders and ethnic backgrounds, including the likenesses of renowned academic figures such as Einstein and the economist John Nash.
"So far, the most popular type of lecturers are young, beautiful ladies," Hui said.
An experiment with Japanese anime characters split opinion, said Christie Pang, a PhD student working with Hui on the project.
"Those who liked it really loved it. But some students felt they couldn't trust what (the lecturer) said," she said.
There could be a future where AI teachers surpass humans in terms of trustworthiness, Hui said, though he said he preferred a mix of the two.
"We as university teachers will better take care of our students in, for example, their emotional intelligence, creativity and critical thinking," he said.
For now, despite the wow factor for students, the technology is far from the level where it could pose a serious threat to human teachers.
It cannot interact with students or answer questions and like all AI-powered content generators, it can offer false, even bizarre answers -- sometimes called “hallucinations".
In a survey of more than 400 students last year, University of Hong Kong professor Cecilia Chan found that respondents preferred humans over digital avatars.
"(Students) still prefer to talk to a real person, because a real teacher would provide their own experience, feedback and empathy," said Chan, who researches the intersection of AI and education.
"Would you prefer to hear from a computer 'Well done'?"
That said, students are already using AI tools to help them learn, Chan added.
"Everybody's doing it."
At HKUST, Hui's student Yang echoed that view: "You just can't go against the advancement of this technology."