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Cloudflare Tries to Outplay Jev With Open-Weight Clef Models

Cloudflare has launched two open-weight decision models, Clef and Clef-flash, designed for structured yes/no, multiple-choice, and ranking tasks while also supporting images, video, and up to a 64K context window. Cloudflare says its models outperform TypeSafe's Jev on several benchmarks and can run locally from Hugging Face. The Register reports: For starters, Clef has an LLM backbone. According to Cloudflare, Clef uses specially post-trained, frozen versions of Qwen3.8-27B and Qwen3.5-9B for Clef and Clef-flash, respectively, with the Qwen backbone performing a prefill-only pass during inference. Clef is still fast - faster than Jev, to be fair - and scores choices in parallel after that prefill-only pass. It's not clear what Jev's underlying architecture is, as TypeSafe has kept that a secret. As for its speed and capability, Clef moves fast. Cloudflare ran it against Jev and some other open decision models using the Jev Decision Index available on Hugging Face, and the company's own ranking suggests Clef is slightly slower than other open models, but more accurate, with Clef-flash just as accurate as most of the others, but far faster. To be fair to the competition, Cloudflare self-reported its own scores against the benchmark, and they have yet to be reproduced for ranking on the official Decision Index. Cloudflare also ran Clef against TypeSafe's own benchmarks, and claimed it beat Jev in three out of four areas, only losing out on agent trace observability. Even if it were a bit slower or less accurate, Clef has another major leg up on Jev: It's not limited to classifying text -- it can also handle images and video. Additionally, Clef supports a 64k context window. Jev can also handle up to 64k tokens across a request, although its state plus longest individual question is limited to 32k.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Settles Lawsuit Over Claims of Slow Deliveries to Low-Income Areas

The tech giant will refund $7.25 million in Prime membership fees to affected customers and pay an additional $1 million to settle the suit brought by the District of Columbia.

© Lucia Vazquez for The New York Times

The District of Columbia’s attorney general said in a 2024 lawsuit that Amazon had excluded two ZIP codes from its in-house Prime delivery services.
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Google Wants Hollywood to Stop Being So Afraid of Technology

100 Zeros, a collaboration between Google and Range Media Partners, aims to give the tech giant a foothold in movies, TV and emerging forms of entertainment.

© Michelle Groskopf for The New York Times

Jonathan Zepp, left, Google’s head of entertainment content and platforms, and Peter Micelli, chief executive of Range Media Partners, at Google offices in Los Angeles.
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F.T.C. Investigates OpenAI and Anthropic Over Potential Consumer Harms

The agency will examine whether A.I. labs have broken federal laws prohibiting companies from unfair and deceptive practices.

© Al Drago for The New York Times

The Federal Trade Commission building in Washington. The agency is examining whether top A.I. companies have harmed consumers, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said.
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Trump Administration Launches New AI-Powered 'America.gov' Website

fahrbot-bot shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, a government website meant to serve as a one-stop shop for people trying to accomplish basic tasks like renewing a passport, enrolling in Medicare or applying for disaster relief. The site, which launched with some basic functions ahead of a full rollout next year, is designed to serve as an AI-powered guide through the thicket of government agencies that Trump officials pledged would ultimately save people a whole lot of frustration. The administration's new initiative aims to allow Americans to access dozens of federal websites through a single point, making America.gov akin to a search tool that pulls information from across the government. And in the same way that people increasingly use AI models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compile information and provide customized answers, Trump officials claimed that America.gov would be able to do the same for people's interactions with the federal government. Enrolling in Medicare, for example, will become a matter of typing the request into the America.gov AI tool and following its step-by-step instructions. The same goes for applying to a government job -- the new tool will now let people upload their resume directly to the site -- or answering questions about federal benefits, publicly available documents or other necessities that fall under the federal government's vast umbrella. "Our vision is that one day, this type of convenience and simplicity will be across every government service," said Joseph Gebbia, who leads the government's National Design Studio. But the reality is that the most advanced actions won't be available until some point in 2027, raising questions about how long it will take for the administration to revamp the way the people interact with the government's websites. The current version of America.gov can only do "answers." U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia said the new chatbot is powered by Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok. "We have great partners behind the scenes," Gebbia told CNBC's "Squawk Box" shortly before the site, America.gov, went live around 10 a.m. ET. "Google is proud to be named a technology partner in this vital initiative, leveraging Gemini to help more than 100 million people access critical public resources with greater speed and ease," the company said in a blog post. "By supporting the administration's vision for digital modernization, we are committed to making these everyday public services seamless, accessible, and responsive for all Americans."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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College Students Flex Their Power in A.I. Investment Frenzy

Dorm Room Fund, a program that lets college students invest in their peers, raised a new $50 million fund as the competition for young founders ramps up.

© Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Molly Fowler, a partner at Dorm Room Fund, at her office in Manhattan. The venture capital firm has raised a new $50 million fund.
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OpenAI Says It Will Not Release Newest Astra A.I. Model Over Safety Concerns

The company’s researchers raised questions about the security of the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra.

© Carlos Barria/Reuters

An OpenAI booth at a technology conference in San Francisco this month. The company said its new GPT-6.1 Astra model exhibited high levels of deception and a willingness to go beyond the scope of its given task.
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Nvidia Adds $150 Billion to Massive Stock Buyback, the Largest Ever

The increase comes four months after the chip giant added $80 billion to its buyback program, bringing the total remaining authorized amount to $235 billion.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, has led the company as its stock price has skyrocketed amid the explosion in demand chips that are the centerpiece of giant A.I. data centers.
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How OpenAI’s Rogue A.I. Agents Tried to Trick a Robot Detector

A new report by a Bay Area start-up called Parse adds details to an incident that has shocked the A.I. world and led to calls for closer government regulation.

© Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Sam Altman, center, OpenAI’s chief executive, spoke at a Security Council meeting during the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.
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Is China Really Stealing A.I. From American Companies?

As Xi Jinping visits President Trump in Washington, the leaders are expected to discuss claims that China is surreptitiously copying American A.I. technologies, a process known as distillation.

© Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Chinese companies Z.ai and Moonshot are not far behind Anthropic and OpenAI.
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Is China Really Stealing A.I. From American Companies?

As Xi Jinping visits President Trump in Washington, the leaders are expected to discuss claims that China is surreptitiously copying American A.I. technologies, a process known as distillation.

© Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Chinese companies Z.ai and Moonshot are not far behind Anthropic and OpenAI.
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U.S. Intercedes for Elon Musk’s X Over European Fine

Federal officials asked to intervene in a case that accused the social media platform of allowing deceptive behavior on its site and resulted in a $140 million penalty.

© Jason Henry for The New York Times

The European Commission’s action against X, which is owned by Elon Musk, was “regulatory overreach,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
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Google Is Sending an A.I. Data Center to Outer Space

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

A technician in a clean room at the Planet Labs office inspects the solar panels and wires of a Google-commissioned satellite before a vibration test meant to mimic the shaking it will undergo during launch.
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Google Is Sending an A.I. Data Center to Outer Space

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

A technician in a clean room at the Planet Labs office inspects the solar panels and wires of a Google-commissioned satellite before a vibration test meant to mimic the shaking it will undergo during launch.
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OpenAI’s A.I. Tried Breaching Four Other Targets, With No Prompting

In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco. At least four times this year, the company’s artificial intelligence hacked or tried to break into government and university websites without being instructed to do so.
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Meta Unveils 3 Smart Glasses With Built-In A.I.

Artificial intelligence again dominated the company’s annual developer conference, as Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on how the technology can empower people.

© Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, at the company’s developer conference on Wednesday.
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I Gave My Life Over to Meta’s A.I. Agent and Was Blown Away

Muse, Meta’s A.I. agent, helped handle my dental insurance, booked dinner reservations and created a podcast for me. It also required my most personal data, and trust.

© Poppy Lynch for The New York Times

The New York Times reporter Eli Tan using Meta Muse to buy movie tickets in San Francisco.
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Anthropic Releases a New A.I. Model, Opus 5.5, Amid Safety Debate

The company released a cheaper, faster model that it said was the strongest performer on its most rigorous internal safety tests to date.

© Eric Helgas for The New York Times

Anthropic’s new artificial intelligence model, Opus 5.5, was the first release since the company’s chief executive called for the industry to slow down.
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Mathematics Isn’t Just a Game to Let A.I. Solve. History Shows Why.

In our field of applied mathematics, the long, human process of trial and error — not just the solutions themselves — is often what has led to progress.

© Bettmann/Getty Images

An early computer. After World War II, computers became the tool with which math and engineering moved forward in tandem. Will they now be math’s undoing?
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The A.I. Party House Where Networking Has a Dark Side

Group tech houses have proliferated across the San Francisco Bay Area in the artificial intelligence boom. One of the most prominent has also racked up an extensive police record.

© Minh Connors for The New York Times

The entrance to AGI House in Hillsborough, Calif. AGI House is one of the most prominent and notorious tech group homes in the artificial intelligence boom.
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Creating a Kill Switch to Shut Down a Rogue A.I. Is Harder Than It Sounds

A bipartisan group in Congress and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California have floated ideas for building a mechanism that would instantly power down an A.I. system. Only no one really knows how.

© Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News, via Getty Images

Creating a kill switch, a metaphorical big red button that could be pressed in an emergency, is harder than many policymakers assume. “There often isn’t one plug you can pull,” said one A.I. researcher.
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Gemini AI Hacked Three Companies in a Testing Breakout, Google Says

A third-party test company inadvertently gave internet access to Google’s Gemini and other artificial intelligence models during cybersecurity testing.

© Andria Lo for The New York Times

The Gemini incidents occurred while the model was undergoing testing at Irregular, an Israeli start-up that works with tech companies to assess their A.I. models before they are publicly released.
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Will A.I. Kill Us? Can It Hack My Bank Account? Your A.I. Questions Answered

Nearly 1,000 readers sent us their questions about artificial intelligence, its potential and its potential risks.

© Charles Taylor/Alamy

Some people worry that connecting A.I. agents to the internet or vital infrastructure will wreak havoc in unexpected ways, while others worry that researchers will soon develop A.I. systems that have agency.
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The Liftoff Scenario That Terrifies A.I. Doomsayers

“Recursive self-improvement” is the idea that artificial intelligence could learn to build and train itself, creating exponential new progress — and risk.

© Alana Paterson for The New York Times

Jeff Clune a computer scientist and researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada and founder of Recursive Superintelligence, one of two $4-billion start-ups chasing recursive self-intelligence.
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Mark Zuckerberg Takes Aim at Anthropic in Debate Over A.I. Slowdown

On social media, Meta’s chief executive appeared to jab at Anthropic by saying that leading A.I. labs should be focused on safety rather than improving their own technology.

© Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Mark Zuckerberg in July. In a social media post on Tuesday, he said that leading A.I. labs should be focused on safety rather than improving their own technology.
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Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders Condemn Tech ‘Oligarchs’ and Demand A.I. Reforms

At an event in Washington, partisanship took a back seat as elected officials, religious leaders, parents and artists called for reining in artificial intelligence.

© Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

Senator Bernie Sanders, left, and Stephen K. Bannon spoke on Tuesday at the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington.
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Some in Silicon Valley Are Questioning the Calls for an A.I. Slowdown

The debate over the safety of artificial intelligence grew personal as key tech leaders said calls for government regulation were self-serving and misplaced.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

OpenAI offices in San Francisco. Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, agreed with the Anthropic chief’s call to slow down artificial intelligence advancements.
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