Science and Technology

Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, offered a personal tour of the electric carmaker’s factory in Austin, Texas, to select shareholders this week.“Please let us know if you have any questions about voting your Tesla shares!” Mr. Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.It was just one of at least a dozen posts that Mr. Musk has published on X in recent weeks as Tesla’s shareholders have been voting on a $46.5 billion pay package for him.To encourage approval of the package, Mr. Musk has shared on X a sizzle reel of Tesla’s vehicles speeding through deserts at…

A dozen years ago, John Mark Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Palm Beach County, Fla., sent voters an email posing as a county commissioner, urging them to oppose the re-election of the county’s sheriff.He later masqueraded online as a Russian tech worker with a pseudonym, BadVolf, to leak confidential information in violation of state law, fooling officials in Florida who thought they were dealing with a foreigner.He also posed as a fictional New York City heiress he called Jessica, tricking an adviser to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office into divulging improper conduct by the department.“And boy, did he…

As artificial intelligence programs shake up the office, potentially making millions of jobs obsolete, one group of perpetually stressed workers seems especially vulnerable.These employees analyze new markets and discern trends, both tasks a computer could do more efficiently. They spend much of their time communicating with colleagues, a laborious activity that is being automated with voice and image generators. Sometimes they must make difficult decisions — and who is better at being dispassionate than a machine?Finally, these jobs are very well paid, which means the cost savings of eliminating them is considerable.The chief executive is increasingly imperiled by A.I., just…

Just before Russian troops pushed across the Ukrainian northern border this month, members of Ukraine’s 92nd Assault Brigade lost a vital resource. Starlink satellite internet service, which soldiers use to communicate, collect intelligence and conduct drone attacks, had slowed to a crawl.Operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink has been critical to the Ukrainian military since the earliest days of the war with Russia. Without the full service, Ukrainian soldiers said, they couldn’t quickly communicate and share information about the surprise onslaught and resorted to sending text messages. Their experiences were repeated across the new northern front line, according to Ukrainian…

Last week, Google unveiled its biggest change to search in years, showcasing new artificial intelligence capabilities that answer people’s questions in the company’s attempt to catch up to rivals Microsoft and OpenAI.The new technology has since generated a litany of untruths and errors — including recommending glue as part of a pizza recipe and the ingesting of rocks for nutrients — giving a black eye to Google and causing a furor online.The incorrect answers in the feature, called AI Overview, have undermined trust in a search engine that more than two billion people turn to for authoritative information. And while…

In 2021, David Sacks, a prominent venture capital investor and podcast host, said former President Donald J. Trump’s behavior around the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol had disqualified him from being a future political candidate.At a tech conference last week, Mr. Sacks said his view had changed.“I have bigger disagreements with Biden than with Trump,” the investor said. Mr. Sacks said he and his podcast co-hosts were working on hosting a fund-raiser for Mr. Trump, which could include an interview for their “All In” show. They also extended an invitation to President Biden, he said, but the Trump…

One of the weirder, more unnerving things about today’s leading artificial intelligence systems is that nobody — not even the people who build them — really knows how the systems work.That’s because large language models, the type of A.I. systems that power ChatGPT and other popular chatbots, are not programmed line by line by human engineers, as conventional computer programs are.Instead, these systems essentially learn on their own, by ingesting vast amounts of data and identifying patterns and relationships in language, then using that knowledge to predict the next words in a sequence.One consequence of building A.I. systems this way…

As protests over the war in Gaza unfolded blocks away, last week’s Met Gala was largely devoid of political statements on the red carpet. That the organizers of fashion’s most powerful annual spectacle (one for which tickets cost $75,000 this year) achieved this feat proved surprising to many observers. Less than two weeks later, though, a fast-growing online protest movement is taking shape. At least, it is on TikTok, the social media platform that was a sponsor of the Met event.Blockout 2024, also referred to as Operation Blockout or Celebrity Block Party, targets high-profile figures who participants feel are not…

The two-story library has Oriental rugs, shaded lamps dotting its desks and rows of hardbacks lining its walls. It is the architectural centerpiece of the offices of OpenAI, the start-up whose online chatbot, ChatGPT, showed the world that machines can instantly generate their own poetry and prose.The building, which was once a mayonnaise factory, looks like a typical tech office, with its communal work spaces, well-stocked micro-kitchens and private nap rooms spread across three floors in San Francisco’s Mission District.But then there is that library, with the ambience of a Victorian Era reading room. Its shelves offer everything from Homer’s…

European Union regulators on Thursday opened investigations into the American tech giant Meta for the potentially addictive effects Instagram and Facebook have on children, an action with far-reaching implications because it cuts to the core of how the company’s products are designed.Meta’s products may “exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors” to create behavioral dependencies that threaten their mental well-being, the European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-member bloc, said in a statement. E.U. regulators could ultimately fine Meta up to 6 percent of its global revenue, which was $135 billion last year, as well as force other product…