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

OpenAI restructures under new foundation, Microsoft takes 27 percent stake

AI and society

The long-predicted deepfake dystopia has arrived with Sora 2

AI and society

Google downplays AI's environmental impact in new study

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Meta has set up its own super PAC in California to shape AI policy. According to The Verge, the "Meta California PAC" is designed to channel millions of dollars into campaigns supporting politicians who back the company’s approach to AI regulation.

Unlike other tech firms, Meta is funding the effort exclusively with its own corporate funds, meaning Mark Zuckerberg ultimately controls its resources. The company’s strategy contrasts with rivals that often join collective lobbying efforts or seek funding from multiple sources.

Critics, including Rick Hasen of UCLA, argue the move could give Meta an outsized advantage over competitors by transforming corporate wealth into political power. At the same time, a separate industry-wide super PAC called Leading the Future recently launched without Meta’s participation.

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According to the Financial Times, China has ordered leading tech firms including Bytedance and Alibaba to cancel orders for the RTX Pro 6000D, a chip designed specifically for the Chinese market. The Cyberspace Administration of China is seen as pushing this policy to reduce reliance on US technology.

The measure goes further than earlier guidelines, which only targeted the H20 chip, another Nvidia product adapted for China. The move also comes just after China accused Nvidia of violating competition law in connection with its Mellanox acquisition.

At the same time in the US, the House of Representatives is investigating the ties between Nvidia and Huawei spinoff Futurewei. Until 2024, Futurewei leased three buildings on Nvidia's Santa Clara campus. Lawmakers are now demanding access to documents over espionage concerns. Nvidia said its campus and intellectual property remained secure.

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Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have filed a lawsuit in California against Chinese company Minimax. The studios accuse Minimax of using their copyrighted characters, including Darth Vader, the Minions, and Wonder Woman, to promote its AI service Hailuo AI and generate content.

According to the complaint, Minimax ignored requests to add safeguards that other AI platforms typically use to prevent copyright violations. The studios argue that Minimax actively encouraged infringement by treating their characters as if they were its own property. They are seeking damages and an injunction to stop the service from operating without protections in place.

This case follows earlier actions against Midjourney. Disney and Universal filed suit in June, and Warner Bros. launched its own complaint in September.

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Google plans to invest 5 billion pounds (about 6.78 billion US dollars) in AI infrastructure and other projects in the UK over the next two years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The company says the funds will also support energy supply, research, engineering, and workforce training. At the same time, Google has opened a new data center north of London to meet the growing demand for services like Cloud, Maps, Workspace, and Search.

Other US tech giants are also ramping up their investments across Europe. Oracle has announced 3 billion dollars for projects in Germany and the Netherlands, Microsoft is putting 4.75 billion dollars into Italy, and Amazon is making multi-billion dollar investments in cloud and logistics centers in Germany and Spain. OpenAI is moving ahead with a major European project as well, called "Stargate Norway."

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According to Bloomberg, Chinese regulators say Nvidia violated conditions of its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox.

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced Monday that the deal had been approved only on the condition that Nvidia would not discriminate against Chinese firms. The agency now claims Nvidia failed to comply. The original approval was granted during trade talks between the US and China in Madrid. Nvidia’s stock slipped about 2 percent in premarket trading after the news.

At the same time, Beijing launched an anti-dumping investigation into US-made semiconductors from companies including Texas Instruments. The move comes against the backdrop of US restrictions on the export of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China. Regulators did not say what new penalties Nvidia might face.

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OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor sees strong echoes between today's AI boom and the dotcom era.

"I think there are a lot of parallels to the internet bubble," Taylor said in a conversation with The Verge. "If you look at the internet, some of the world's biggest companies like Amazon and Google came out of it. At the same time, a lot of big failures like Pets.com and Webvan happened right alongside them. Both existed together - massive winners and dramatic losses."

For Taylor, the key point is that AI will reshape the global economy in the same way the internet did, but it's also going to produce plenty of failed bets. "I think it's absolutely true both at once - that AI will transform the economy, and that we're in a bubble where a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money."

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AI research

Gemini 3 Pro tops new AI reliability benchmark, but hallucination rates remain high

AI research

Researchers push "Context Engineering 2.0" as the road to lifelong AI memory

AI and society

German court deepens the split on AI and copyright with its latest ruling

Google News