Tag: Updated

By Martin Coulter

LONDON (Reuters) -Negotiations around the European Union’s first-of-a-kind rules governing artificial intelligence (AI) looked set for a dramatic climax on Wednesday, as lawmakers enter what some hope will be the final round of discussions on the landmark legislation.

What is decided could become the blueprint for other governments as countries seek to craft rules for their own AI industry.

Ahead of the meeting, lawmakers and governments could not agree on key issues, including the regulation of fast-growing generative AI and its use by law enforcement.

Here’s what we know:  

HOW DID CHATGPT DERAIL THE AI ACT?

The main issue is that the first draft of the law was written in early 2021, almost two years before the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, one of the fastest-growing software applications in history.

Lawmakers have scrambled to write regulations even as companies like Microsoft-based OpenAI continue to discover new uses for their technology.

OpenAI’s founder Sam Altman and computer scientists have also raised the alarm about the danger of creating powerful, high intelligent machines which could threaten humanity.

Back in 2021, lawmakers focused on specific use-cases, regulating AI tools based on the task they had been designed to perform and categorised them by risk from minimal to high.

Using AI in a number of settings – like aviation, education, and biometric surveillance – was deemed high risk, either as an extension of existing product safety laws, or because they posed a potential human rights threat.

The arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022 forced lawmakers to rethink that.

This so-called “General Purpose AI System” (GPAIS) had not been built with a single use-case in mind, but rather completes all kinds of tasks: engaging in humanlike conversation, composing sonnets, and even writing computer code.

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools did not clearly fit into the act’s original categories of risk, prompting an ongoing row over how they should be regulated.  

WHAT ARE THE PROPOSALS?

General purpose AI systems, also known as foundation models, can be built “on top of” by developers to create new applications.

Researchers have sometimes been caught off-guard by AI’s behaviour — like ChatGPT’s habit of “hallucinating” false answers, where the underlying model is trained to best predict strings of sentences, but sometimes produces answers that sound convincing, but are in fact false, — and any underlying quirks buried in a foundation model’s code could play out in unexpected ways when deployed in different contexts.

EU proposals for regulating foundation models have included forcing companies to clearly document their system’s training data and capabilities, demonstrate they have taken steps to mitigate potential risks, and undergo audits conducted by external researchers.

In recent weeks, France, Germany and Italy – the EU’s most influential countries – have challenged that.

The three nations want makers of generative AI models to be allowed to self-regulate, instead of forcing them to comply with hard rules.

They say strict regulations will limit European companies’ ability to compete with dominant U.S. companies like Google and Microsoft.

Smaller companies building tools on top of OpenAI code would also face stricter rules, while the providers like OpenAI would not.

WHAT IS AT ISSUE WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT?

Lawmakers are also divided over the use of AI systems by law enforcement agencies for biometric identification of individuals in publicly accessible spaces, sources told Reuters.

EU lawmakers want regulation to protect citizens’ fundamental rights, but member states want some flexibility for the technology to be used in the interests of national security, by police or border protection agencies, for example.

MEPs may drop a proposed ban on remote biometric identification, one source said, if exemptions for its use were limited and clearly-defined.  

WHAT IS THE LIKELY OUTCOME?

If a final text is agreed on Wednesday, the EU Parliament could theoretically vote the bill into law later this month. Even then, it could be close to two years before it comes into effect.

Without a final agreement, however, EU lawmakers and governments may instead reach a “provisional agreement”, with the specifics hammered out in weeks of technical meetings. That risks reigniting longstanding disagreements.

They would still have to get a deal ready for a vote in spring. Without that, the law risks being shelved until after Parliamentary elections in June and the 27-member bloc would lose its first-mover advantage in regulating the technology.

(Reporting by Martin CoulterEditing by Josephine Mason and David Evans)

By Akash Sriram, Hyunjoo Jin and Abhirup Roy

(Reuters) -Tesla’s long-delayed Cybertruck will be priced starting at $60,990, over 50% more than what CEO Elon Musk had touted in 2019 and a cost analysts have said will draw select, affluent buyers.

The truck, made of shiny stainless steel and shaped into flat planes, is partly inspired by a car-turned-submarine in the 1977 James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me,” Musk has said.

Its new body material and unconventional, futuristic styling has added complexity and costs to production, and threatens to alienate traditional pickup truck buyers who focus on utility, experts say.

But Musk, who has priced the vehicle’s three variants between $60,990 and $99,990, said on Thursday the Cybertruck has “more utility than a truck” and is “faster than a sports car.”

He drove a Cybertruck onto a stage to cheers from the crowd and later handed over vehicles to about a dozen customers at an event in Austin, Texas.

“Finally, the future will look like the future,” he said about the truck’s design, showing a video of the Cybertruck towing a Porsche 911 and beating another gasoline-powered 911 in a short race.

Tesla shares fell 2% in extended trading after closing off 1.6% at $240.08.

Musk did not announce the vehicle’s prices at the event, but Tesla’s website listed the prices. Its highest performance variant, the ‘Cyberbeast’ will be available next year, as will the all-wheel drive trim that starts at an estimated $80,000.

The cheapest rear-wheel drive version with an estimated starting price of about $61,000 will be available in 2025.

“This is going to appeal to … definitely a wealthier clientele that can afford the price point and they want something that is unique and quirky,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at auto research firm Edmunds.

“That just isn’t a large segment of the population that can afford that especially where interest rates are.”

After Musk estimated in 2019 that the Cybertruck would sell for $40,000, the vehicle drew more than a million reservation holders who put down $100 deposits. He had not offered an updated price before Monday, despite rising raw material costs for EVs.

New deposits are $250, Musk said on Thursday.

The price is not a surprise to many, said Paul Waatti, an analyst at consultancy AutoPacific. Waatti told Reuters before the event that the Cybertruck would do well with a smaller audience.

GRANDSTANDING SHOWPIECE

Cybertruck, two years behind schedule, enters a hot pickup truck market to compete with the likes of Ford’s F150 Lightning, Rivian Automotive’s R1T and General Motors’ Hummer EV.

Rivian’s R1T has a starting price of $73,000, while the F-150 Lightning starts at about $50,000. The larger and more powerful Hummer EV pickup costs more than $96,000.

The Cybertruck, Tesla’s first new model in nearly four years, is critical to its reputation as a maker of innovative vehicles. At a time when the company is battling softening electric vehicle (EV) demand and rising competition, Cybertruck is also key for generating sales, though not to the extent of the company’s high-volume Models 3 and Y.

Musk tempered investor expectations about the product last month citing problems in ramping production and warning that it would take a year to 18 months to make it a significant cash flow contributor.

Ahead of the launch, Musk captured media attention on a different subject, giving a profanity-laced interview to the New York Times on Wednesday. He cursed advertisers who left his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, because of antisemitic comments.

On Thursday, he said about the truck: “It’s basically an incredibly useful truck. It’s not just some grandstanding showpiece like me.”

UNIMPRESSIVE RANGE

The Cybertruck’s longest-range version can drive an estimated 340 miles (547 km), and comes with a “range extender” or extra battery pack that extends its range to 470 miles.

In 2019, Musk had said the truck would be able to travel 500 miles or more on a single charge.

“As a truck, the Ford and Chevy are more useful and certainly easier to see out of,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights.

“Given that Teslas almost always fall short of (range) estimates in real world driving by anywhere from 10%-20%, I wouldn’t expect the longest range version of the Cybertruck to achieve more than 300 miles on the road,” he said, noting that the Chevrolet Silverado EV is capable of exceeding its 450-mile rated range.

Musk has said Tesla was likely to reach a production rate of roughly 250,000 Cybertrucks a year in 2025. He did not update that on Thursday.

During its 2019 reveal, Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen took a metal ball to demonstrate the truck’s unbreakable “armor glass” window, only to shatter it.

Holzhausen on Thursday lobbed a baseball at the Cybertruck window that bounced off.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, and Hyunjoo Jin and Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Peter Henderson and Deepa Babington)

BERLIN (Reuters) -Volkswagen’s 10 billion euro ($10.9 billion) savings programme will include staff reductions, managers told staff on Monday as brand chief Thomas Schaefer warned that high costs and low productivity were making its cars uncompetitive.

The German carmaker is in the midst of negotiations with its works council over a cost-cutting scheme at its VW brand, the first step in a group-wide drive to boost efficiency in the transition to electric cars.

“With many of our pre-existing structures, processes and high costs, we are no longer competitive as the Volkswagen brand,” Schaefer told a staff meeting at the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, according to a post on the company’s intranet site and seen by Reuters.

The company had previously said it planned to take advantage of the “demographic curve” to reduce its workforce, having pledged that it would not carry out dismissals until 2029.

In Monday’s meeting, human resources board member Gunnar Kilian said this would be achieved through agreements on partial or early retirement.

However, the bulk of the 10 billion euro savings goal would be achieved through measures other than personnel reduction, Kilian added, with the full details to be defined by the end of the year.

“We need to finally be brave and honest enough to throw things overboard that are being duplicated within the company or are simply ballast we don’t need for good results,” Kilian said.

($1 = 0.9168 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria WalderseeWriting by Matthias WilliamsEditing by Miranda Murray and David Goodman)

By Hyunjoo Jin and Dan Levine

(Reuters) -A Florida judge found “reasonable evidence” that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker’s vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.

Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, ruled last week that the plaintiff in a lawsuit over a fatal crash could proceed to trial and bring punitive damages claims against Tesla for intentional misconduct and gross negligence. The order has not been previously reported.

The ruling is a setback for Tesla after the company won two product liability trials in California earlier this year over the Autopilot driver assistant system. A Tesla spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.

The Florida lawsuit arose out of a 2019 crash north of Miami in which owner Stephen Banner’s Model 3 drove under the trailer of an 18-wheeler big rig truck that had turned onto the road, shearing off the Tesla’s roof and killing Banner. A trial set for October was delayed, and has not been rescheduled.

Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor, called the judge’s summary of the evidence significant because it suggests “alarming inconsistencies” between what Tesla knew internally, and what it was saying in its marketing.

“This opinion opens the door for a public trial in which the judge seems inclined to admit a lot of testimony and other evidence that could be pretty awkward for Tesla and its CEO,” Smith said. “And now the result of that trial could be a verdict with punitive damages.”

The Florida judge found evidence that Tesla “engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous” and that Musk’s public statements about the technology “had a significant effect on the belief about the capabilities of the products.”

Scott also found that the plaintiff, Banner’s wife, should be able to argue to jurors that Tesla’s warnings in its manuals and “clickwrap” agreement were inadequate.

The judge said the accident is “eerily similar” to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks, leading vehicles to go underneath a tractor trailer at high speeds.

“It would be reasonable to conclude that the Defendant Tesla through its CEO and engineers was acutely aware of the problem with the ‘Autopilot’ failing to detect cross traffic,” the judge wrote.

Banner’s attorney, Lake “Trey” Lytal III, said they are “extremely proud of this result based in the evidence of punitive conduct.”

The judge also cited a 2016 video showing a Tesla vehicle driving without human intervention as a way to market Autopilot. The beginning of the video shows a disclaimer which says the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. “The car is driving itself,” it said.

That video shows scenarios “not dissimilar” than what Banner encountered, the judge wrote.

“Absent from this video is any indication that the video is aspirational or that this technology doesn’t currently exist in the market,” he wrote.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Richard Chang and Stephen Coates)