Hub AI and society

Artificial Intelligence is a key technology that can help us solve major societal challenges such as climate change, energy supply, healthcare, education or logistics. AI can solve specific problems more effectively by supporting us in decision-making, automating solutions and thus scaling them, or discovering completely new solutions. But the use of AI also poses new risks, for example when it comes to surveillance or questions of social justice.

What is our society doing with AI – and what is AI doing to our society? We shed light on this question in our AI and Society Content Hub.

AI and society

Google downplays AI's environmental impact in new study

AI and society

Meta's human-like chatbot personas can mislead users and result in real-world harm

AI and society

US think tank warns of "reverse brain drain" in China's AI sector

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Reuters reports that Nvidia has ordered 300,000 H20 chips from TSMC after the Trump administration lifted its sales ban to China in July. Previously, the company had planned to rely only on existing inventory, which sources say currently totals between 600,000 and 700,000 chips. The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market, since more powerful models like the H100 are still subject to export restrictions. However, the US government has not yet approved the necessary export licenses for these new chips. Nvidia is now asking Chinese customers to confirm updated order quantities. The decision to resume sales is tied to ongoing talks between the US and China over rare earths, but has faced bipartisan criticism in Washington. Nvidia says it is important not to lose the Chinese market to competitors like Huawei.

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According to Forbes, the AI startup Cognition is negotiating with investors for funding of over 300 million US dollars at a valuation of 10 billion US dollars. Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are among those involved. As recently as March, Cognition was valued at 4 billion US dollars, led by 8VC, the company of Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. According to a source, the talks have not yet been finalized. Cognition is known for its programming agent Devin and recently acquired the rest of the AI coding start-up Windsurf after its founders unexpectedly switched to Google and OpenAI's planned takeover fell through.

Cognition, the AI startup behind the Devin coding agent, is reportedly in talks with investors to raise over $300 million at a $10 billion valuation, according to Forbes. Investors involved include Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures. Just in March, Cognition was valued at $4 billion in a round led by 8VC, the venture firm founded by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. The current negotiations are not yet finalized.

Cognition recently acquired the remaining assets of Windsurf, another AI coding startup, after Windsurf's founder unexpectedly joined Google and a planned acquisition by OpenAI fell through.

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei admits his company is making compromises with authoritarian regimes in the race to build advanced AI.

"Unfortunately, I think 'No bad person should ever benefit from our success' is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on," Amodei wrote in an internal Slack message to staff, obtained by WIRED. "This is a real downside and I'm not thrilled about it."

Amodei acknowledged that Anthropic will seek investment from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, even though this would "enrich dictators." Previously, Amodei had argued that "Democracies need to be able to set the terms by which powerful AI is brought into the world, both to avoid being overpowered by authoritarians and to prevent human rights abuses within authoritarian countries." Explaining the shift, he pointed to the vast amounts of capital available in the Middle East: "There is a truly giant amount of capital in the Middle East, easily $100B or more. If we want to stay on the frontier, we gain a very large benefit from having access to this capital. Without it, it is substantially harder to stay on the frontier."

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AI in practice

New data from OpenAI and Anthropic show how people actually use ChatGPT and Claude

AI and society

Leading AI chatbots are now twice as likely to spread false information as last year, study finds

AI in practice

Anthropic confirms technical bugs after weeks of complaints about declining Claude code quality

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