posts

Laura Paddison and Rene Marsh for CNN:

Last summer, an abandoned factory in southwest Memphis got a new life courtesy of the world’s richest man. Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI moved in to transform this unprepossessing building into the “world’s largest supercomputer.”

Musk named it Colossus and said it was the “ most powerful AI training system in the world.” It was sold locally as a source of jobs, tax dollars and a key addition to the “Digital Delta” — the move to make Memphis a hotspot for advanced technology.

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Kyle Orland, writing at Ars:

On Wednesday, the world was a bit perplexed by the Grok LLM’s sudden insistence on turning practically every response toward the topic of alleged “white genocide” in South Africa. xAI now says that odd behavior was the result of “an unauthorized modification” to the Grok system prompt—the core set of directions for how the LLM should behave.

That prompt modification “directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic” and “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values,” xAI wrote on social media. The code review process in place for such changes was “circumvented in this incident,” it continued, without providing further details on how such circumvention could occur.

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As I’ve previously written, xAI has a permit to run 15 gas turbines at its first site, but more than 30 have been spotted running. Those additional turbines are operating under an emergency-use exemption that is good for one year, and were initially slated to provide backup power when the utility company couldn’t keep up. Our county Health Department will be weighing in on the matter later this summer, according to a press release:

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Desmond Nugent at ABC24:

In response to growing environmental concerns in South Memphis, the Shelby County Commission has proposed a resolution that would require the Shelby County Health Department to provide monthly — rather than quarterly — updates on local air quality in South Memphis.

The proposal stems from rising tensions surrounding emissions linked to xAI, the world’s largest supercomputer facility, which began operations in South Memphis last year. Community members and environmental groups say xAI and other related facilities have contributed to a noticeable decline in air quality.

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If you’ve seen Tom Hanks’ Apollo 13, you surely remember the scene where a group of guys dump a bunch of junk onto a table to figure out how to adapt air-scrubbing canisters meant for the command module to work in the lunar module that was keeping the crew alive.

Ed Smylie lead the work that solved the problem, giving the crew enough air to breathe to make it home. His contraption was literally held together with duct tape:

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Once again, Samuel Hardiman for The Daily Memphian, writing about xAI’s power needs:

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, appears to be exploring how to generate electricity for its second data center in Memphis. And those plans could cross the Tennessee-Mississippi border.

The plans could involve a former natural gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi, just over a mile from xAI’s second data center, which is being built at 5420 Tulane Road in Whitehaven.

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Apple:

Starting today, CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, is available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available for existing models that feature the brand’s next-generation infotainment system through a software update in the coming weeks. CarPlay Ultra builds on the capabilities of CarPlay and provides the ultimate in-car experience by deeply integrating with the vehicle to deliver the best of iPhone and the best of the car. It provides information for all of the driver’s screens, including real-time content and gauges in the instrument cluster, while reflecting the automaker’s look and feel and offering drivers a customizable experience. Many other automakers around the world are working to bring CarPlay Ultra to drivers, including newly committed brands Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.

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This week on the podcast, Myke hosts The Quizzies, Apple announces new accessibility features, Federico explains vibe coding, Google makes announcements ahead of IO, and I take on xAI.

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Rich Trouton spotted something in the release notes for macOS Sequoia 15.5, released earlier this week: that AFP is now deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the operating system. He writes:

This announcement is providing a end-of-the-road notification for AFP, which has been included in Apple’s operating systems for the Mac since System 6 in 1988. The ability to run an AFP server was removed from macOS as part of macOS Big Sur and it is not possible to host AFP shares from APFS formatted drives, so the AFP client has been the final functional part of AFP left as of macOS Sequoia.

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Kyle Wiggers, writing at TechCrunch:

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project.

xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understood. A recent report found that the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, would undress photos of women when asked. Grok can also be considerably more crass than chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT, cursing without much restraint to speak of.

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In a timeline where a lot of folks have …complicated… feelings about Apple, seeing the company to continue improve access to technology for everyone is still great.

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