AI policy, law and government oversight: legislation, export controls and global governance frameworks.
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Jensen Huang's resignation and the fallout from Nvidia's leadership crisis, follow Terrence O'Brien. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
Some governments moved to confirm chip supply commitments, while others are monitoring the impact on local projects or addressing ongoing investigations.
Jensen Huang has resigned from Nvidia following an affair, which could have ramifications for national security as the U.S. and China race to develop the most advanced AI infrastructure.
Today, we’re talking about the Jensen Huang scandal at Nvidia, which is developing so quickly that we had to do an emergency update of this intro minutes before publishing this episode.
Jensen Huang has resigned from Nvidia following an affair, which could have ramifications for national security as the U.S. and China race to develop the most advanced AI infrastructure.
The affair could have ramifications for national security as the U.S. and China race to develop the most advanced AI infrastructure.
The affair could have ramifications for national security as the U.S. and China race to develop the most advanced AI infrastructure.
After the leather-jacketed CEO, president, and co-founder of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, acknowledged an affair with Megaspeed exec Alice Huang, his company initially announced an investigation. However, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that there was evidence of another affair, this time with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted to an extramarital affair with a woman US intelligence agencies classify as a suspected Chinese informant. The board has launched an independent investigation.
On Tuesday night, Democrats made history as they took control of the House and the Senate, and a blue wave swept through traditionally red and swing states. In these and other campaigns, one theme kept coming up: holding AI companies accountable to the American people.
Data center developers are poised to face a more restrictive building environment after voters across the country voted in candidates who favor moratoriums and ballot measures that put more obstacles on their expansion, delivering a stinging blow to a central pillar of the AI industry.
OpenAI will cut frontier models off from the internet weeks after one of its engineers said that solution wouldn't work.
Google tried to overturn a landmark Munich ruling on AI search liability by appealing, then quietly settled. The strategy isn't working. The Aachen Regional Court just applied the exact same reasoning in a new case where Google's AI falsely attributed criminal offenses to a doctor that actually involved someone else.
New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed a years-long multi-state investigation against Character.AI as they now seek to require protections on consumer data sold through its bankruptcy proceeding.
OpenAI's teen safety features for ChatGPT failed an independent audit. After more than 4,000 test prompts, the Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute rated the service an "unacceptable risk" for minors. Conversations about suicide and self-harm on test accounts never triggered a parental alert. The institute wants teenagers locked out until safety can be independently verified.
The FTC is formally investigating OpenAI, Anthropic, and other leading AI labs over potential consumer protection violations. The agency plans to force document handovers and executive testimony through legally binding demands. The probe was already underway before the Hugging Face hack and goes well beyond the FTC's earlier push to hold companies liable for their agents' behavior.
"Overly constrained AI models" could cause military operations to fail, judges say.