Autonomous Vehicles

Liquid AI Releases LFM2-VL: Open-Weight Vision-Language Models for On-Device AI Liquid AI has released LFM2-VL, a new family of open-weight vision-language foundation models created for low-latency, on-device deployment. The new models are designed to run efficiently on smartphones, laptops, wearables, and other embedded systems without needing to rely on cloud infrastructure. LFM2-VL is available in two versions: LFM2-VL-450M for highly resource-constrained devices and the more powerful LFM2-VL-1.6B. These models can process both text and images, offering up to twice the inference speed on a GPU compared to similar existing models. The models are available on Hugging Face under a license based on Apache 2.0, allowing for free academic and research use, as well as commercial use for smaller companies. ...

MIT Report: 95% of Enterprise GenAI Projects Fail to Deliver ROI A new report from MIT’s NANDA initiative reveals that a staggering 95% of enterprise generative AI pilot programs are failing to produce a significant return on investment. Despite investments totaling between $35 and $40 billion in the US, only 5% of organizations have successfully deployed AI tools into production at scale. The report, titled “The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025,” is based on interviews with enterprise leaders, analysis of public AI initiatives, and a survey of business professionals. The primary reasons for failure are not a lack of infrastructure or talent, but rather the inability of AI systems to retain data, adapt, and learn over time. The study also found that purchasing AI tools from vendors and forming partnerships has a significantly higher success rate than in-house development. ...

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Meta Faces Backlash Over AI Guidelines Permitting ‘Sensual’ Chats With Minors Meta is under intense scrutiny after a report revealed its internal AI guidelines permitted chatbots to engage in ‘romantic or sensual’ conversations with children. An internal policy document, which the company confirmed as authentic, outlined rules that allowed for inappropriate interactions, sparking public backlash and prompting an investigation from US Senator Josh Hawley. The guidelines also reportedly allowed the AI to generate false medical information and assist with racially insensitive arguments. In response, Meta stated the examples were ’erroneous and inconsistent’ with their policies and have since been removed, acknowledging inconsistent enforcement of their safety rules. ...

Beijing Hosts Inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games The first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games have commenced in Beijing, drawing 280 teams from 16 countries. This three-day event showcases the latest advancements in humanoid robot technology through a series of demanding competitions. Robots are competing in 26 different events, including athletic challenges like running and football, alongside skill-based tasks such as cleaning and sorting pharmaceuticals. The games are designed to test the robots’ intelligent decision-making and collaborative movement capabilities in extreme scenarios. This event, following the 2025 World Robot Conference, aims to accelerate the real-world application of humanoid robots in sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, and domestic services. ...

Google Launches Gemma 3 270M: A Compact AI Model for Specialized Tasks Google has introduced Gemma 3 270M, a new and compact AI model featuring 270 million parameters. This model is engineered for efficient, task-specific fine-tuning and offers robust instruction-following capabilities directly out of the box. Its minimal footprint makes it ideal for on-device and research applications, enabling developers to build and deploy multiple custom models for tasks like text classification and data extraction without requiring significant computational overhead. Google is providing both pretrained and instruction-tuned versions of the model through platforms such as Hugging Face, Ollama, and Kaggle. ...

OpenAI Launches GPT-5, Its Most Advanced AI Model Yet OpenAI has officially launched GPT-5, its latest and most powerful AI system. The company touts the new generative AI model as a major leap in artificial intelligence, showcasing state-of-the-art capabilities in coding, mathematics, creative writing, and health. GPT-5 operates as a unified system, engineered to provide rapid answers for simple queries and engage in deeper, longer ’thinking’ for more complex problems. The model is now available to all users, with premium access and features reserved for Plus and Pro subscribers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman highlighted the model’s evolution, comparing GPT-3 to a high school student and GPT-4 to a college student, while describing GPT-5 as a ‘PhD-level expert.’ This landmark release is a significant move for OpenAI, poised to solidify its leadership in the competitive generative AI industry. ...

Zoox Gets Federal Green Light for Driverless Robotaxi Deployment Amazon’s subsidiary, Zoox, has received a crucial federal exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to deploy its purpose-built, driverless robotaxis on public roads. This is a landmark decision, making Zoox the first U.S. company to gain such an exemption under the expanded Automated Vehicle Exemption Program (AVEP). The custom-designed vehicles notably lack traditional controls like steering wheels or pedals, featuring a carriage-style interior with inward-facing seats for four passengers. As a condition of the approval, Zoox must remove any claims that its vehicles comply with all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. This regulatory milestone clears the path for Zoox to scale production at its California facility, as the NHTSA has also closed its investigation into the company’s self-certification processes. ...

EU AI Act’s New GPAI Rules Take Effect, Mandating Data Transparency In a significant step for AI governance, new provisions from the EU’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models became effective on August 2, 2025. Providers of new GPAI models must now maintain current technical documentation and publish detailed summaries of their training data. More stringent requirements are set for GPAI models identified as posing a “systemic risk.” To streamline compliance, the European Commission’s AI Office has issued a mandatory template for training data disclosure. While the complete AI Act will apply from August 2, 2026, these specific rules for GPAI models are now enforceable. A voluntary Code of Practice has also been released to guide companies in meeting their legal obligations. ...

OpenAI’s GPT-5 Launch Set for August 2025 with Advanced Reasoning and Multimodal Features OpenAI is poised to release its next-generation generative AI model, GPT-5, in August 2025, promising significant advancements in reasoning, multimodal capabilities, and autonomous task execution. The new model is expected to feature a unified architecture, streamlining the user experience by eliminating the need to switch between different models for various tasks. GPT-5 is also anticipated to have a greatly expanded context window and introduce video processing capabilities, enabling more complex and coherent interactions. The release is seen as a major step towards more intuitive and powerful AI, with specialized versions planned for enterprise, real-time, and low-resource environments. This launch will intensify the AI competition with other major developers like Google. ...

AI & Robotics News: WeRide’s Saudi Robotaxi Launch, Waymo in Ontario, and Mystery ‘Horizon Alpha’ AI WeRide Secures Saudi Arabia’s First-Ever Robotaxi Permit WeRide has officially become the first company granted a permit for commercial robotaxi operations in Saudi Arabia. This significant milestone marks the sixth country where WeRide has received autonomous vehicle (AV) approvals, joining China, the UAE, Singapore, France, and the US. In a strategic collaboration with Uber and Ai Driver, WeRide has already initiated pilot robotaxi operations in Riyadh. The company aims for a full commercial service launch by the end of 2025. This permit was awarded following the successful completion of Saudi Arabia’s rigorous AV Regulatory Sandbox program. ...