The controversial preservation order requiring OpenAI to indefinitely keep records of its ChatGPT data has been terminated. Federal judge Ona T. Wang filed a new order on October 9 that frees OpenAI of an obligation to “preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted on a going forward basis.”

The case kicked off in late 2023, with the New York Times suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, alleging that the AI giant trained its models with the news outlet’s intellectual property without proper compensation. In May of this year, OpenAI was ordered to retain all of its chat logs so that the NYT could investigate claims of copyright violation. In response, OpenAI appealed the court order, arguing that the preservation order was an “overreach” and risks its users’ privacy.

However, this latest decision means the AI giant no longer has to preserve chat logs as of September 26, except for some. The judge in the case said that any chat logs already saved under the previous order would still be accessible and that OpenAI is required to hold on to any data related to ChatGPT accounts that have been flagged by the NYT. Moving forward, the NYT is allowed to expand the number of flagged users, as it continues to comb through OpenAI’s preserved records.

On Monday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 23.61%) announced a huge artificial intelligence (AI) strategic partnership with OpenAI, the AI model developer best known for its ChatGPT chatbot. Not only did this news send shares of AMD up a whopping 23.7%, but it also gave a boost to many other AI stocks and the market in general.

AMD’s news came exactly two weeks after its rival Nvidia (NVDA -1.10%), whose graphics processing units (GPUs) dominate the AI chip market, announced a massive deal with OpenAI.

Advanced Micro Devices-OpenAI strategic partnership

The AMD-OpenAI strategic partnership involves AMD supplying 6 gigawatts of its Instinct series GPUs to power OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure. The first 1 gigawatt deployment of AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs is set to begin in the second half of 2026. That’s the same time frame involved in the Nvidia-OpenAI deal.

Moreover — and this is big for AMD — “AMD has issued OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock, structured to vest as specific milestones are achieved,” according to the press release. AMD has a total of about 1.62 billion shares outstanding, so 160 million shares is about 10% of total shares.

For context, before the deal was announced, AMD had a market cap of about $267 billion. Ten percent of that is $26.7 billion.

Putting 6 gigawatts in context

Six gigawatts equates to a ton of computing power. Here are a couple of stats to put 6 gigawatts of power in context:

• New York City’s average power demand is about 6.5 gigawatts, and its peak power demand in the summer is roughly 10 to 11 gigawatts.
• Six large-scale nuclear reactors have a power output of about 6 gigawatts.

Recap of the Nvidia-OpenAI AI deal

On Sept. 27, Nvidia announced its massive deal with OpenAI. The highlights of this strategic partnership:

• The companies plan to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure.
• The announcement stated that the systems will be used to “train and run [OpenAI’s] next generation of models on the path to deploying superintelligence.” [Emphasis mine.]
• The first phase is targeted to come online in the second half of 2026 using the Nvidia Vera Rubin platform.
• Nvidia plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the new Nvidia systems are deployed.

What are the broader implications for the AI space?

This seems like a win-win deal for both AMD and OpenAI. OpenAI secures a large supply of AI-enabling GPUs over multiple years. This is no small thing, as GPUs are in great demand, so supply has been tight. That’s especially true of Nvidia’s GPUs, but no doubt, also true to some extent for AMD.

On AMD’s part, it secures a huge multiyear customer for its GPUs, and it is poised to get a hefty inflow of cash as OpenAI buys up to 10% of AMD’s shares. The partnership “is expected to deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD,” CFO Jean Hu said in the release. Moreover, it’s “expected to be highly accretive to AMD’s non-GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles] earnings per share, ” she added.

Taken together with the recent Nvidia-OpenAI humongous AI deal and other big deals in the space, there are positive implications for the broader AI market.

The main implication, in my opinion, is that these massive AI chip and infrastructure deals should accelerate the race to move beyond generative AI to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) and then artificial superintelligence (ASI), as I wrote about after the Nvidia-OpenAI deal was announced. Nvidia and AMD should be two of the big beneficiaries of this race, as companies rush to buy even more of their AI-enabling GPUs.

Beth McKenna has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

OpenAI is preparing to launch a stand-alone app for its video generation AI model Sora 2, WIRED has learned. The app, which features a vertical video feed with swipe-to-scroll navigation, appears to closely resemble TikTok—except all of the content is AI-generated. There’s a For You–style page powered by a recommendation algorithm. On the right side of the feed, a menu bar gives users the option to like, comment, or remix a video.

Users can create videoclips up to 10 seconds long using OpenAI’s next-generation video model, according to documents viewed by WIRED. There is no option to upload photos or videos from a user’s camera roll or other apps.

The Sora 2 App has an identity verification feature that allows users to confirm their likeness. If a user has verified their identity, they can use their likeness in videos. Other users can also tag them and use their likeness in clips. For example, someone could generate a video of themselves riding a roller coaster at a theme park with a friend. Users will get a notification whenever their likeness is used—even if the clip remains in draft form and is never posted, sources say.

OpenAI launched the app internally last week. So far, it’s received overwhelmingly positive feedback from employees, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Employees have been using the tool so frequently that some managers have joked it could become a drain on productivity.

OpenAI declined to comment.

OpenAI appears to be betting that the Sora 2 app will let people interact with AI-generated video in a way that fundamentally changes their experience of the technology—similar to how ChatGPT helped users realize the potential of AI-generated text. Internally, sources say, there’s also a feeling that President Trump’s on-again, off-again deal to sell TikTok’s US operations has given OpenAI a unique opportunity to launch a short-form video app—particularly one without close ties to China.

OpenAI officially launched Sora in December of last year. Initially, people could only access it via a web page, but it was soon incorporated directly into the ChatGPT app. At the time, the model was among the most state-of-the-art AI video generators, though OpenAI noted it had some limitations. For example, it didn’t seem to fully understand physics and struggled to produce realistic action scenes, especially in longer clips.

OpenAI’s Sora 2 app will compete with new AI video offerings from tech giants like Meta and Google. Last week, Meta introduced a new feed in its Meta AI app called Vibes, which is dedicated exclusively to creating and sharing short AI-generated videos. Earlier this month, Google announced that it was integrating a custom version of its latest video generation model, Veo 3, into YouTube.

TikTok, on the other hand, has taken a more cautious approach to AI-generated content. The video app recently redefined its rules around what kind of AI-generated videos it allows on the platform. It now explicitly bans AI-generated content that’s “misleading about matters of public importance or harmful to individuals.”

Oftentimes, the Sora 2 app refuses to generate videos due to copyright safeguards and other filters, sources say. OpenAI is currently fighting a series of lawsuits over alleged copyright infringements, including a high-profile case brought by The New York Times. The Times case centers on allegations that OpenAI trained its models on the paper’s copyrighted material.

OpenAI is also facing mounting criticism over child safety issues. On Monday, the company released new parental controls, including the option for parents and teenagers to link their accounts. The company also said that it is working on an age-prediction tool that could automatically route users believed to be under the age of 18 to a more restricted version of ChatGPT that doesn’t allow for romantic interactions, among other things. It is not known what age restrictions might be incorporated into the Sora 2 app.

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This is an edition of the Model Behavior newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.

Said on X, which may be over 80 percent bots.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted that he’s coming around to the dead internet theory in an early September post on X. His company gave the world ChatGPT—the large language model (LLM) fueling the epidemic of social media bots and AI slop content—which has many commenters fingering him as the guy who did this.

Featured Video

While it may be considered a conspiracy theory, an increasing number of humans are starting to suspect that the internet is dead, or will be soon.

Sam Altman pronounces the internet dead

In an X post on Sept. 3, 2025, Altman confessed that he “never took the dead internet theory that seriously,” but has come to notice that “there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now.”

i never took the dead internet theory that seriously but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now

— Sam Altman (@sama) September 3, 2025

Dead internet theory posits that the proportion of non-human social media accounts and other online content passed the 50 percent mark back in 2016. Full adherents to this theory believe that this represents an intentional and coordinated attempt to push out human activity and control us all via misinformation and propaganda.

The more casual use of the term might refer to a general shift toward an online bot majority. Whether or not there’s a vast conspiracy to control the population, human traffic has been creeping down to the halfway mark for years. In 2024, Imperva Bad Bot Report measured human traffic at just 50.4 percent, with the rest being bot activity.

AI companies are absolutely fueling this shift, and it’s going to cost human money to combat.

“As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent,” Imperva application security general manager Nanhi Singh told Forbes. “Organizations must invest in bot management and API security tools to manage the threat from malicious, automated traffic.”

In 2022, former CIA cyber-operations officer Dan Woods theorized that over 80 percent of X accounts are bots. That was before Musk took over.

“Facebook is nothing but bots”

Whether believers in dead internet theory or not, many users have beaten Sam Altman to the issue. Any amount of social media use these days will bring you face-to-screen with obvious bots.

Altman stating the obvious about X got people talking about the problem yet again.

“Facebook is nothing but bots and fake ai interaction posts,” said Redditor u/starrpamph. “I can’t believe it’s still as popular as it is. Go on there right now. You won’t see anything from your friends.”

“How many AIO or AITA posts have the phrase ‘my family is divided’ at the end, when it’s super obvious the OP is not being unreasonable?” u/NameLips pointed out. “Very clear engagement bait.”

Back on X, users focused on making fun of Altman for being this late to the game he helped invent.

https://twitter.com/taste_of_tbone/status/1963641497762385993

“I wonder why he calls it an LLM instead of ‘AI’ when he’s reflecting on the downsides,” mused @taste_of_tbone.

“Worldcoin founder says ‘never took the dead internet theory that seriously,’” mocked @onetwoval.

Others not-so-subtly accused him of using ChatGPT to generate his tweet.

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OpenAI is reorganizing its Model Behavior team, a small but influential group of researchers who shape how the company’s AI models interact with people, TechCrunch has learned.

In an August memo to staff seen by TechCrunch, OpenAI’s chief research officer Mark Chen said the Model Behavior team — which consists of roughly 14 researchers — would be joining the Post Training team, a larger research group responsible for improving the company’s AI models after their initial pre-training.

As part of the changes, the Model Behavior team will now report to OpenAI’s Post Training lead Max Schwarzer. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed these changes to TechCrunch.

The Model Behavior team’s founding leader, Joanne Jang, is also moving on to start a new project at the company. In an interview with TechCrunch, Jang says she’s building out a new research team called OAI Labs, which will be responsible for “inventing and prototyping new interfaces for how people collaborate with AI.”

The Model Behavior team has become one of OpenAI’s key research groups, responsible for shaping the personality of the company’s AI models and for reducing sycophancy — which occurs when AI models simply agree with and reinforce user beliefs, even unhealthy ones, rather than offering balanced responses. The team has also worked on navigating political bias in model responses and helped OpenAI define its stance on AI consciousness.

In the memo to staff, Chen said that now is the time to bring the work of OpenAI’s Model Behavior team closer to core model development. By doing so, the company is signaling that the “personality” of its AI is now considered a critical factor in how the technology evolves.

In recent months, OpenAI has faced increased scrutiny over the behavior of its AI models. Users strongly objected to personality changes made to GPT-5, which the company said exhibited lower rates of sycophancy but seemed colder to some users. This led OpenAI to restore access to some of its legacy models, such as GPT-4o, and to release an update to make the newer GPT-5 responses feel “warmer and friendlier” without increasing sycophancy.

OpenAI and all AI model developers have to walk a fine line to make their AI chatbots friendly to talk to but not sycophantic. In August, the parents of a 16-year-old boy sued OpenAI over ChatGPT’s alleged role in their son’s suicide. The boy, Adam Raine, confided some of his suicidal thoughts and plans to ChatGPT (specifically a version powered by GPT-4o), according to court documents, in the months leading up to his death. The lawsuit alleges that GPT-4o failed to push back on his suicidal ideations.

The Model Behavior team has worked on every OpenAI model since GPT-4, including GPT-4o, GPT-4.5, and GPT-5. Before starting the unit, Jang previously worked on projects such as Dall-E 2, OpenAI’s early image-generation tool.

Jang announced in a post on X last week that she’s leaving the team to “begin something new at OpenAI.” The former head of Model Behavior has been with OpenAI for nearly four years.

Jang told TechCrunch she will serve as the general manager of OAI Labs, which will report to Chen for now. However, it’s early days, and it’s not clear yet what those novel interfaces will be, she said.

“I’m really excited to explore patterns that move us beyond the chat paradigm, which is currently associated more with companionship, or even agents, where there’s an emphasis on autonomy,” said Jang. “I’ve been thinking of [AI systems] as instruments for thinking, making, playing, doing, learning, and connecting.”

i’m starting oai labs: a research-driven group focused on inventing and prototyping new interfaces for how people collaborate with ai.

i’m excited to explore patterns that move us beyond chat or even agents — toward new paradigms and instruments for thinking, making,…

— Joanne Jang (@joannejang) September 5, 2025

When asked whether OAI Labs will collaborate on these novel interfaces with former Apple design chief Jony Ive — who’s now working with OpenAI on a family of AI hardware devices — Jang said she’s open to lots of ideas. However, she said she’ll likely start with research areas she’s more familiar with.

This story was updated to include a link to Jang’s post announcing her new position, which was released after this story published. We also clarify the models that OpenAI’s Model Behavior team worked on.

Up until June this year Habryn was living what many would call the American dream. She had a job at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence. Her pay was comfortably in the six-figures, and she owned a house in San Francisco, the first city she had ever lived in which felt like home.

Her six-year old daughter, Steffi, was enjoying school and her wife, Eden, was thriving in her career as an artist.

But the family couldn’t shake their concern about the direction U.S. politics was moving in. While Habryn was born in Poland and raised in Australia from the age of five, her partner and child had only ever known life in the States.

When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, the family made the decision to leave San Francisco—and Habryn’s dream job—and move to Stockholm, Sweden. There they hope to stay indefinitely.

Habryn said she made the choice to leave the the U.S., where she had lived since 2007, one night in March. She said: “My wife was traveling on the East Coast and I was home with Steffi. And something about that particular night, I was awake worrying about things which was not uncommon, and I just got to the point of: It’s time to go, I can’t just stay here and do nothing, but doing anything comes with such terrible risks for me because of my status.”

“If I came to the attention of, or got arrested by the federal authorities, the outcome of that could be tragic. It turns out that my wife, on the same day, reached the same conclusion.”

Habryn explains the “status” she refers to: “During the campaign it was immigrants and transgender people that was occupying the airways and since I’m both, they’ve got me coming and going effectively.”

The family are not alone in their decision to leave Trump’s America. While it’s hard to pin down the number of people leaving the U.S. every year (the Department of State previously told Fortune it does not keep such records) in 2024 applications from Americans to live in the United Kingdom alone spiked 26% compared to a year prior. More than 6,100 Americans applied for British citizenship last year, a record number.

Immigration experts also previously told Fortune their phones had been ringing off the hook—particularly since that infamous Trump and Biden debate, when many people felt the fate of the November election had been decided. Montreal-based immigration experts Moving2Canada, for example, saw inquiries spike in both 2016 and 2020 and in 2024 saw enquiries triple in volume after the Trump vs. Biden debate.

Life at OpenAI

Habryn is no stranger to working in America’s tech elite: She moved to the U.S. originally to work for Google in Mountain View where she stayed for the next 12 years. Her experience at OpenAI, where she worked from May 2024 to July 2025, is a familiar story to many in Big Tech: An intense atmosphere, “wonderful” people and riveting work.

“It’s challenging,” Habryn said. “I think it’s exciting but I was lucky enough to have a lot of security and confidence in my own abilities—I think without that it would have been very, very hard.”

The prospect of losing her dream role in the research department of one of the world’s most-talked about companies was a key issue which held Habryn back from making the move earlier. While her team was supportive of the decision, ultimately the legalities of Habryn’s work meant it couldn’t move with her.

“It was really hard,” she said. “That was probably the reason it took me as long as it did to make the decision, because honestly I had this period of grief stepping away from this. I’ve been working in tech for a long time … and really the only thing I want to be working on is AI.

“It was hard and I didn’t love making that decision but, ultimately, it was just a question of priority.”

Habryn is confident she will find interesting work when she needs to, and the family are settling into their newly purchased home in Stockholm—the family doubt they will ever return to the U.S. That comes with “guilt”, Habryn says: “I buy the narrative that you should fight for the things that you believe in and that there is value to staying and fighting for that. If it were not for Steffi, I think we would have.”

Ultimately her six-year-old daughter is their focus: “We set aside a lot of things that we love to do [because] we want Steffi to have a routine, a stable home, a stable school and all those things. The hardest thing about this whole move has been worrying about the impact on her and so the priority was that we don’t want to do this again, we’re going to move once, and we want to put down roots and spend the next 15/20 years there.”

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.

I was not invited to Sam Altman’s cozy dinner with reporters in San Francisco last week (whomp whomp), but maybe that’s for the best. I have trouble suppressing exasperated eye rolls when I hear peak Silicon Valley–ironic statements.

I am not sure I could have controlled myself when the OpenAI CEO said that he believes AI could be in a “bubble,” with market conditions similar to the 1990s dotcom boom. Yes, he reportedly said, “investors as a whole are overexcited about AI.” 

Yet, over the same meal, Altman also apparently said he expects OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on its data center buildout in the “not very distant future,” adding that “you should expect a bunch of economists wringing their hands, saying, ‘This is so crazy, it’s so reckless,’ and we’ll just be like, ‘You know what? Let us do our thing.’”

Ummm…what could be more frothy than pitching a multi-trillion-dollar expansion in an industry you’ve just called a bubble? Cue an eye roll reaching the top of my head. Sure, Altman may have been referring to smaller AI startups with sky-high valuations and little to no revenue, but still, the irony is rich. It’s particularly notable given the weak GPT-5 rollout earlier this month, which was supposed to mark a leap forward but instead left many disappointed with its routing system and lack of breakthrough progress.

In addition, even as Altman speaks of bubbles, OpenAI itself is raising record sums. In early August, OpenAI secured a whopping $8.3 billion in new funding at a $300 billion valuation—part of its plan to raise $40 billion this year. That figure was five times oversubscribed. On top of that, employees are now poised to sell about $6 billion in shares to investors like SoftBank, Dragoneer, and Thrive, pushing the company’s valuation potentially up to $500 billion.

OpenAI is hardly an outlier in its infrastructure binge. Tech giants are pouring unprecedented sums into AI buildouts in 2025: Microsoft alone plans to spend $80 billion on AI data centers this fiscal year, while Meta is projecting up to $72 billion in AI and infrastructure investments. And on the fundraising front, OpenAI has company too — rivals like Anthropic are chasing multibillion-dollar rounds of their own. 

Wall Street’s biggest bulls, like Wedbush’s Dan Ives, seem unconcerned. Ives said Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that demand for AI infrastructure has grown 30% to 40% in the last months, calling the capex surge a validation moment for the sector. While he acknowledged “some froth” in parts of the market, he said the AI revolution with autonomous systems is only starting to play out and we are in the “second inning of a nine-inning game.” 

And while a bubble implies an eventual bursting, and all the damage that results, the underlying phenomenon causing a bubble often has real value. The advent of the web in the ’90s was revolutionary; The bubble was a reflection of the massive opportunities opening up.

Still, I’d be curious if anyone pressed Altman on the AI paradox—warning of a bubble while simultaneously bragging about OpenAI’s massive fundraising and spending. Perhaps over a glass of bubbly and a sugary sweet dessert? I’d also love to know if he fielded tougher questions on the other big issues looming over the company: its shift to a public benefit corporation (and what that means for the nonprofit), the current state of its Microsoft partnership, and whether its mission of “AGI to benefit all of humanity” still holds now that Altman himself has said AGI “is not a super-useful term.”

In any case, I’m game for a follow-up chat with Altman & Co (call me!). I’ll bring the bubbly, pop the questions, and do my best to keep the eye rolls at bay.

Also: In just a few weeks, I will be headed to Park City, Utah, to participate in our annual Brainstorm Tech conference at the Montage Deer Valley! Space is limited, so if you’re interested in joining me, register here. I highly recommend: There’s a fantastic lineup of speakers, including Ashley Kramer, chief revenue officer of OpenAI; John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S.; Tony Xu, founder and CEO of DoorDash; and many, many more!

With that, here’s more AI news.

Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
@sharongoldman

FORTUNE ON AI

Wall Street isn’t worried about an AI bubble. Sam Altman is – by Beatrice Nolan

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing – by Sheryl Estrada

Silicon Valley talent keeps getting recycled, so this CEO uses a ‘moneyball’ approach for uncovering hidden AI geniuses in the new era – by Sydney Lake

Waymo experimenting with generative AI, but exec says LiDAR and radar sensors important to self-driving safety ‘under all conditions’ – by Jessica Matthews

AI IN THE NEWS

More shakeups for Meta AI. The New York Times reported today that Meta is expected to announce that it will split its A.I. division — which is known as Meta Superintelligence Labs — into four groups. One will focus on AI research; one on  “superintelligence”; another on products; and one on infrastructure such as data centers. According to the article’s anonymous sources, the reorganization “is likely to be the final one for some time,” with moves “aimed at better organizing Meta so it can get to its goal of superintelligence and develop AI products more quickly to compete with others.” The news comes less than two months after CEO Mark Zuckerberg overhauled Meta’s entire AI organization, including bringing on Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang as chief AI officer. 

Madison Avenue is starting to love AI. According to the New York Times, artificial intelligence has quietly become a fixture of advertising. What felt novel when Coca-Cola released an AI-generated holiday ad last year is now mainstream: nearly 90% of big-budget marketers are already using—or planning to use—generative AI in video ads. From hyper-realistic backdrops to synthetic voice-overs, the technology is slashing costs and production times, opening TV spots to smaller businesses for the first time. Companies like Shuttlerock and ITV are helping brands replace weeks of work with hours, while tech giants like Meta and TikTok push their own AI ad tools. The shift raises ethical questions about displacing creatives and fooling viewers, but industry leaders say the genie is out of the bottle: AI isn’t just streamlining ad production—it’s reshaping the entire commercial playbook.

Silicon Valley’s AI deals are creating zombie startups: ‘You hollowed out the organization.’ According to CNBC, Silicon Valley’s AI startup scene is being hollowed out as Big Tech sidesteps antitrust rules with a new playbook: licensing deals and talent raids that gut promising young companies. Windsurf, once in talks to be acquired by OpenAI, collapsed into turmoil after its founders bolted to Google in a $2.4 billion licensing pact; interim CEO Jeff Wang described tearful all-hands meetings as employees realized they’d been left with “nothing.” Similar moves have seen Meta sink $14.3 billion into Scale AI, Microsoft scoop up Inflection’s founders, and Amazon strip talent from Adept and Covariant—leaving behind so-called “zombie companies” with little future. While founders and top researchers cash out, investors and rank-and-file staff are often left stranded, sparking growing concern that these quasi-acquisitions not only skirt regulators but also threaten to choke off AI innovation at its source.

Nvidia working on new AI chip for China that outperforms the H20, sources say. According to Reuters, Nvidia is developing a new China-specific AI chip, codenamed B30A, based on its cutting-edge Blackwell architecture. The chip, which could be delivered to Chinese clients for testing as soon as next month, would be more powerful than the current H20 but still fall below U.S. export thresholds—using a single-die design with about half the raw computing power of Nvidia’s flagship B300. The move comes after President Trump signaled possible approval for scaled-down chip sales to China, though regulatory approval is uncertain amid bipartisan concerns in Washington over giving Beijing access to advanced AI hardware. Nvidia argues that retaining Chinese buyers is crucial to prevent defections to domestic rivals like Huawei, even as Chinese regulators cast suspicion on the company’s products.

EYE ON AI RESEARCH

Study finds AI-led interviews improved outcomes. A new study looked at what happens when job interviews are run by AI voice agents instead of human recruiters. In a large experiment with 70,000 applicants, people were randomly assigned to be interviewed by a person, by an AI, or given the choice. Surprisingly, AI-led interviews actually improved outcomes: applicants interviewed by AI were 12% more likely to get job offers, 18% more likely to start jobs, and 17% more likely to still be employed after 30 days. Most applicants didn’t mind the change—78% even chose the AI when given the option, especially those with lower test scores. The AI also pulled out more useful information from candidates, leading recruiters to rate those interviews higher. Overall, the study shows that AI interviewers can perform just as well as, or even better than, human recruiters—without hurting applicant satisfaction.

AI CALENDAR

Sept. 8-10: Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Park City, Utah. Apply to attend here.

Oct. 6-10: World AI Week, Amsterdam

Oct. 21-22: TedAI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.

Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego

Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.

BRAIN FOOD

Do AI chatbots need to be protected from harm? 

AI lab Anthropic has introduced a new safety measure in its latest Claude models, which empowers the AI to terminate conversations in extreme cases of harmful or abusive interaction. The feature activates only after repeated redirections fail—typically for content requests involving sexual exploitation of minors or facilitation of large-scale violence. The company is notably framing this as a safeguard not principally for users, but for the model’s own “AI welfare,” reflecting an exploratory stance on the machine’s potential moral status.

Unsurprisingly, the idea of granting AI moral status is contentious. Jonathan Birch, a philosophy professor at the London School of Economics, told The Guardian he welcomed Anthropic’s move for sparking a public debate about AI sentience—a topic he said many in the industry would rather suppress. At the same time, he warned that the decision risks misleading users into believing the chatbot is more real than it is.

Others argue that focusing on AI welfare distracts from urgent human concerns. For example, while Claude is designed to end only the most extreme abusive conversations, it will not intervene in cases of imminent self-harm—even though a New York Times opinion piece yesterday urged such safeguards, written by a mother who discovered her daughter’s ChatGPT conversations only after her daughter’s suicide.

OpenAI announced late Friday that it’s updating its latest model to be “warmer and friendlier.”

The company recently launched the much-anticipated GPT-5 in a process that CEO Sam Altman admitted was “a little more bumpy than we’d hoped for,” with some users complaining that they preferred the previous model, GPT-4o.

OpenAI is trying to address some of those complaints with this update, with changes that it says are “subtle” but will make GPT-5 “more approachable now.”

“You’ll notice small, genuine touches like ‘Good question’ or ‘Great start,’ not flattery,” the company wrote in a social media post. “Internal tests show no rise in sycophancy compared to the previous GPT-5 personality.“

At a dinner this week with journalists, OpenAI executives tried to focus on the company’s plans beyond GPT-5, but as Max Zeff reports, the rocky launch was the elephant in the room. As far as model friendliness goes, VP Nick Turley said that the GPT-5 was “just very to the point,” but that the new update would — as now announced — make it feel warmer.

But OpenAI’s earlier decision to release open-source versions of its powerful model—the first time it’s done so since 2020, may be more consequential. OpenAI’s move follows a flood of Chinese AI models spurred by the surprise release from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek.

It’s a major shift for the U.S. AI developer, now worth $300 billion. Open weight models allow developers to fine-tune for specific tasks without retraining it from scratch. Despite its name, OpenAI has focused on releasing closed, proprietary models, meaning developers couldn’t get under the hood to see how they worked—allowing OpenAI to charge for access to its powerful models. 

DeepSeek tested that strategy. The Hangzhou-based start-up made waves by releasing models that matched the performance of products from Western rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. By making its technology openly accessible, DeepSeek allowed developers around the globe to experience the power of its models firsthand.

Since then, Chinese AI development has exploded, with companies large and small rushing to unveil increasingly advanced models. Most releases are open-source. 

“Globally, AI labs are feeling the heat as open source models are increasingly recognized for their role in democratizing AI development,” Grace Shao, an China-based AI analyst and founder of AI Proem, says. 

U.S. tech stocks have rebounded from the slump triggered by DeepSeek, but the shift to open-source may be more permanent. In March, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman conceded that the developer may have been on the “wrong side of history” by maintaining a closed approach. 

The race is now geopolitically charged. Ahead of releasing the open-source models, Altman said he was “excited for the world to be building on an open AI stack created in the United States, based on democratic values, available for free to all and for wide benefit.” Altman’s statement leans into a growing competition over AI–one that developers in the U.S. are worried of losing.

“This plethora of simultaneous open AI models (with published weights and papers about technique) is an ‘idea orgy.’ The collective innovation should easily soar past anything one company can do alone,” Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley wrote on X in late July. “It’s formidable and should easily win over single proprietary players (anywhere in the globe).”

China embraces open-source

Chinese AI firms are now aggressively championing open-source. 

Baidu, once the leader in China’s AI development with its ERNIE model, went open-source a few months ago to catch up with Alibaba and DeepSeek. Kuaishou and Tencent have both released open-source video-generation models. Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI and MiniMax–some of China’s so-called “AI tigers”—have also released open-source models in recent weeks.

Rather than closely guard their breakthroughs, Chinese developers think an open approach will encourage greater innovation and encourage adoption. “When the model is open-source, people naturally want to try it out of curiosity,” Baidu CEO Robin Li told analysts in February, soon after the company unveiled its plans to go open-source

And there’s a business argument too: Alibaba executives, for example, argue that their open-source Qwen models encourage companies and startups to use Alibaba’s cloud computing services. 

Since DeepSeek’s release, Chinese companies have rushed to integrate Chinese AI models into their products, including social media platforms, cars, and even air-conditioners. 

There may also be a psychological element at play. Going open-source lets users around the world see the power of Chinese AI models for themselves, appealing to an up-and-coming tech sector that’s long been denigrated by outsiders as a copycat.

Export controls

China has supported other open-source technologies. Officials back the use of the RISC-V chip design architecture, an open-source alternative to proprietary architectures like ARM and Intel’s x86. RISC-V allows Chinese chip engineers to share best practices and ideas, spurring the growth of the broader sector. 

Beijing seeks to develop a self-sufficient semiconductor sector, in part due to concerns of the U.S.’s control of critical parts of the chip supply chain. The Biden administration’s decision to impose chip controls in 2022 intensified China’s push for domestic innovation. 

China’s embrace of RISC-V has raised eyebrows in Washington. Last year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party recommended that U.S. officials study the risks of RISC-V, and reportedly proposed preventing U.S. citizens from aiding China on the open-source architecture. 

Leaders vs. followers

China’s embrace of open-source aligns with the country’s initial position as a runner-up in AI.

“If you’re an OpenAI, an Anthropic, a Google…if you’re really leading, then you have this incredibly valuable asset,” Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, said at the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore conference in mid-July. “It’s easy to understand why they wouldn’t want to just hand out [their models] for free to their competitors if they’re able to sell access to their closed systems at a premium.”

But for followers, who “can’t compete at the frontier,” releasing an open-source model is a way to show “how advanced you are,” she explained. 

Open-source models also “buy a lot of goodwill,” Toner, who once served on OpenAI’s board, added. “What we’ve seen over the last couple years is how much soft power is available to people who are willing to and organizations that are willing to make their technology available freely,” she explained.

The U.S. may now recognize the “soft power” potential of open-source. “The United States is committed to supporting the development and deployment of open-source and open-weight models,” Michael Kratsios, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in South Korea earlier this week

And with OpenAI’s decision, U.S. AI is now perhaps put in a rare position: Following, not leading.

OpenAI unveiled GPT-5 on Thursday, which the company is calling its “smartest, fastest, [and] most useful model yet.” In a press release, the company said the new model puts “expert-level intelligence in everyone’s hands” and is a “significant leap in intelligence over all our previous models.”

On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a “major upgrade” and said that after the new model, using older versions felt “miserable.”

Related: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says AI Agents Are Like a Team of ‘Junior Employees’

In addition to improvements in coding, math, health, and other areas, the new GPT-5 also lets users choose a “personality” in settings. The default personality is still available and noted to be “clear, neutral, and adaptable.” Other options include “cynic” (sarcastic and dry, blunt but witty); “robot” (precise, emotionless, direct answers without extra words); “listener” (warm, laid-back, and calm with “light wit”); and “nerd” (playful, curious, celebrates knowledge and discovery).

And while previous reports highlighted the sycophancy of past models, OpenAI says that GPT‑5 “is less effusively agreeable” and “uses fewer unnecessary emojis.”

“It should feel less like ‘talking to AI’ and more like chatting with a helpful friend with PhD‑level intelligence,” the company wrote.

Related: Here’s What ‘Terrifies’ OpenAI’s CEO About Financial Institutions Today

GPT-5 is available for all users. OpenAI recommends these prompts to get started:

Create your own video game

• Create a single-page app in a single HTML file with the following requirements:
• Name: Jumping Ball Runner
• Goal: Jump over obstacles to survive as long as possible.
• Features: Increasing speed, high score tracking, retry button, and funny sounds for actions and events.
• The UI should be colorful, with parallax scrolling backgrounds.
• The characters should look cartoonish and be fun to watch.
• The game should be enjoyable for everyone.

Create your own drum simulator

• Create a single-page app in a single HTML file with the following requirements:
• Name: Virtual Drum Kit
• Goal: Play a drum kit using keyboard or clicks.
• Features: Multiple drum sounds, record and playback mode.
• The UI should be music-studio themed, polished, modern. Make it as beautiful as possible.

You can try GPT-5 free here.