Twitter owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently announced the creation of a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI, according to a Nevada business filing from March.

The filing occurred March 9 and lists Musk as the company's sole director, and Jared Birchall, his family office manager, as its secretary.

Musk has been very openly skeptical of AI, even to the point that he wrote an open letter to AI developers, asking them to pause it temporarily.

"Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control," a group of tech experts including Musk said in the letter.

Musk has reportedly started his new AI company to combat OpenAI, one of the leading artificial intelligence firms. He was the co-founder of OpenAI, but left in 2018 over unresolved issues.

He has reportedly sought to create a rival to OpenAI and has been recruiting artificial intelligence engineers for months, The Hill reports.

https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/elon-musk-starts-new-artificial-intelligence-organization-called-xai

What to know about 1st test flight of SpaceX’s big Starship

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take its most daring leap yet with a round-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship.

It’s the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built, with the lofty goals of ferrying people to the moon and Mars.

Jutting almost 400 feet (120 meters) into the South Texas sky, Starship could blast off as early as Monday, with no one aboard. Musk’s company got the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday.

It will be the first launch with Starship’s two sections together. Early versions of the sci-fi-looking upper stage rocketed several miles into the stratosphere a few years back, crashing four times before finally landing upright in 2021. The towering first-stage rocket booster, dubbed Super Heavy, will soar for the first time.

For this demo, SpaceX won’t attempt any landings of the rocket or the spacecraft. Everything will fall into the sea.

“I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” Musk promised at a Morgan Stanley conference last month. “I think it’s got, I don’t know, hopefully about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.”

Here’s the rundown on Starship’s debut:

SUPERSIZE ROCKET

The stainless steel Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7 million pounds of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January — good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars. The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 164 feet (50 meters) of its height. Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service, before strapping anyone in. Starship easily eclipses NASA’s moon rockets — the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program that logged its first lunar trip late last year. It also outflanks the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into flight, exploding with no one aboard.

https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/elon-musk-starts-new-artificial-intelligence-organization-called-xai

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan’s military and a powerful paramilitary force battled fiercely Saturday in the capital and other areas, reportedly causing more than 200 deaths and injuries while dealing a new blow to hopes for a transition to democracy and raising fears of a wider conflict.

The country’s doctors’ syndicate said late Saturday that at least 27 people had been killed and more than 180 wounded. But the Sudan Doctor’s Syndicate added that there many uncounted casualties, including military and RSF personnel in the western Darfur region and the northern town of Merowe.

The clashes capped months of heightened tensions between the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces group. Those tensions had delayed a deal with political parties to get the country back to its short-lived transition to democracy, which was derailed by an October 2021 military coup.

After a day of heavy fighting, the military ruled out negotiations with the RSF, instead calling for the dismantling of what it called a “rebellious militia.” The tough language signaled that the conflict between the former allies, who jointly orchestrated the 2021 coup, was likely to continue.

The Sudan Doctor’s Syndicate did not immediately release details of where the 27 deaths occurred, but it said at least six of them were in the capital Khartoum and its sister city Omdurman. At least eight dead and 58 wounded were in the vicinity of Nyala, the capital city of the South Darfur province in the southwest.

https://apnews.com/article/sudan-khartoum-firing-coup-deal-85464b8f9b7eaf1f7ec77eb7337d7881?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_03