MATT O’BRIEN

Technology writer

O’Brien covers the business of technology and artificial intelligence for The Associated Press. He is based in Rhode Island and focuses on how AI technology is built and the people it affects.

Voice actor Sarah Elmaleh poses for a photo in Los Angeles on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. Recent years marked a golden age for making an acting career in video games, but now some studios are looking to use artificial intelligence to clone actors' voices. Voice actors like Elmaleh, who played the Cube Queen in Fortnite, are taking a cautious approach to making sure such arrangements can help actors rather than replace them. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Some video game actors are letting AI clone their voices. They just don’t want it to replace them

Video game studios pay professional actors to voice the soldiers, goblins, elves and aliens that populate virtual worlds.

Sora is ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s new text-to-video generator. Here’s what we know about the new tool

The maker of ChatGPT is now diving into AI-generated video. Meet Sora — OpenAI’s new text-to-video generator.

FILE - Meta's president of global affairs Nick Clegg speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2024. Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok and other companies are gathering at the Munich Security Conference on Friday to announce a new voluntary framework for how they will respond to AI-generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Tech companies sign accord to combat AI-generated election trickery

Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools from disrupting democratic elections worldwide.

FILE - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at an event at the Chatham House think tank in London, Jan. 15, 2024. Speaking to over 1,000 computer code developers in India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ Bengaluru, Thursday Nadella, asked them to use the company’s artificial intelligence tools that they are deploying across their products. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Microsoft’s Nadella woos Indian developers to the company’s AI tools

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has urged more than a thousand Indian computer code developers to use the company’s artificial intelligence tools being deployed across its products.

Meta says it will label AI-generated images on Facebook and Instagram

Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing made-by-AI labels on deepfake images that appear on their social media feeds, part of a broader tech industry initiative to sort between what’s real and not.

File - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at Chatham House in London, Jan. 15, 2024, ahead of traveling to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Nadella marks his tenth year as Microsoft CEO on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, capping a decade of stunning growth as he pivoted the slow-moving software giant into a laser focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella caps a decade of change and tremendous growth

Satya Nadella marks his tenth year as Microsoft CEO on Sunday, capping a decade of stunning growth as he pivoted the slow-moving software giant into a laser focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

FILE - Lina Khan, the nominee for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), speaks during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing, April 21, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. U.S. antitrust enforcers are launching an inquiry into how big tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google are holding sway over artificial intelligence startups, Khan said Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FTC opens inquiry into Big Tech’s partnerships with leading AI startups

U.S. antitrust enforcers are opening an inquiry into the relationships between leading artificial intelligence startups such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic and the tech giants that have invested billions of dollars into them.

Microsoft lays off 1,900 employees in its gaming division following Activision Blizzard buyout

Microsoft is laying off about 1,900 employees in its gaming division, according to an internal company memo, just over three months since the tech giant completed its $69 billion purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard.

A person wears Xreal Air augmented reality glasses while taking an augmented reality driving demonstration at the BMW booth during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Here are the ‘Worst in Show’ CES products, according to consumer and privacy advocates

The best CES products pierce through the haze of marketing hype at the Las Vegas gadget show to reveal innovations that could improve lives.

ChatGPT-maker braces for fight with New York Times and authors on ‘fair use’ of copyrighted works

A barrage of high-profile lawsuits in a New York federal court will test the future of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products that wouldn’t be so eloquent had they not ingested huge troves of copyrighted human works.

Microsoft's new Copilot key is seen on a Dell computer, next to the alt key, in this undated photo provided by AxiCom. Starting this month, some new personal computers that run Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system will have the special 'Copilot key' that launches the software giant's AI chatbot. (AxiCom on behalf of Dell Technologies via AP)

Microsoft’s new AI key is first big change to keyboards in decades

Starting this month, some new personal computers that run Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system will have a special “Copilot key” that launches the software giant’s AI chatbot.

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

AI pioneer says public discourse on intelligent machines must give ‘proper respect to human agency’

She’s an important figure behind today’s artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build.

FILE - Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif. Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory that urges technology companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

AI image-generators are being trained on explicit photos of children, a study shows

Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report that urges companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built.

2023: The year we played with artificial intelligence — and weren’t sure what to do about it

ChatGPT was the catalyst for a year that took artificial intelligence mainstream. For AI, 2023 was a long time coming.

File - Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks about Google DeepMind at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., May 10, 2023. Google took its next leap in artificial intelligence Wednesday with the launch of a project called Gemini that's trained to think more like humans and behave in ways likely to intensify the debate about the technology's potential promise and perils. Google DeepMind is the AI division behind Gemini. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Google launches Gemini, upping the stakes in the global AI race

Google took its next leap in artificial intelligence Wednesday with the launch of project Gemini, an AI model trained to behave in human-like ways that’s likely to intensify the debate about the technology’s potential promise and perils.

FILE - Darío Gil, senior vice president and director of IBM Research, speaks at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Oct. 13, 2023 in Troy, N.Y. IBM and Facebook parent Meta are launching a new group called the AI Alliance that's advocating an "open science" approach to AI development that puts them at odds with rivals like Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. (Hans Pennink/AP Images for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, File)

AI’s future could be ‘open-source’ or closed. Tech giants are divided as they lobby regulators

Tech leaders have been vocal proponents of the need to regulate artificial intelligence, but they’re also lobbying hard to make sure the new rules work in their favor.

FILE - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman participates in a discussion during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, Nov. 16, 2023, in San Francisco. Altman, the ousted leader of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, is returning to the company that fired him late last week, the latest in a saga that has shocked the artificial intelligence industry. San Francisco-based OpenAI said in a statement late Tuesday, Nov. 21: “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo.” (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

OpenAI brings back Sam Altman as CEO just days after his firing unleashed chaos

The ousted leader of ChatGPT maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him just days ago. The move culminates a short but chaotic power struggle that shocked the tech industry and underscored the conflicts around how to safely build artificial intelligence.

File - Sam Altman participates in a discussion during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in San Francisco. Microsoft has announced that it's hired Sam Altman and another architect of ChatGPT maker OpenAI after they unexpectedly departed the company days earlier in a corporate shakeup that shocked the artificial intelligence world. Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella also tweeted Monday, Nov. 20, 2023 that the major investor in the chatbot that kicked off the generative AI craze is committed to its partnership with OpenAI. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Company that created ChatGPT is thrown into turmoil after Microsoft hires its ousted CEO

The company that created ChatGPT is in turmoil after Microsoft hired its ousted CEO and many more employees threatened to follow him in a conflict that centered in part oin part on how to build artificial intelligence that’s smarter than humans.

File - Actor and filmmaker Justine Bateman, right, speaks outside Netflix during a Writers Guild rally on July 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. Bateman said she was disturbed that AI models were "ingesting 100 years of film" and TV in a way that could destroy the structure of the film business and replace large portions of its labor pipeline. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

‘Please regulate AI:' Artists push for U.S. copyright reforms but tech industry says not so fast

Country singers, romance novelists, video game artists and voice actors are appealing to the U.S. government for immediate relief from the threat that artificial intelligence poses to their livelihoods.

File - Sam Altman participates in a discussion during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in San Francisco. The board of ChatGPT-maker Open AI says it has pushed out Altman, its co-founder and CEO, and replaced him with an interim CEO. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI fires CEO Sam Altman, the face of the AI boom, for lack of candor with company

The board of ChatGPT-maker Open AI says it has pushed out its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman and replaced him with an interim CEO.

Sam Altman, left, CEO of OpenAI, appears onstage with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI DevDay, OpenAI's first developer conference, on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Barbara Ortutay)

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI hosts its first big tech showcase as the AI startup faces growing competition

Less than a year into its meteoric rise, the company behind ChatGPT has unveiled the future it has in mind for its artificial intelligence technology.

Humanoid robot Figure 01 is demonstrated at Figure AI's test facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. "If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans are not wanting to do because there's a shortfall of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe", said Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward. Do we really need them?

Building a robot that’s both human-like and useful is a decades-old engineering dream inspired by popular science fiction.

FILE - Text from the ChatGPT page of the OpenAI website is shown in this photo, in New York, Feb. 2, 2023. A majority of American adults think artificial intelligence tools will increase the spread of false and misleading information in the 2024 presidential election. That's one of the findings from a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Poll shows most US adults think AI will add to election misinformation in 2024

A majority of American adults think artificial intelligence tools will increase the spread of false and misleading information in the 2024 presidential election.

President Joe Biden signs an executive on artificial intelligence in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023, in Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris looks on at right. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Biden wants to move fast on AI safeguards and signs an executive order to address his concerns

President Joe Biden has signed a sweeping executive order to guide the development of artificial intelligence.

In this picture, the desktop and mobile websites for Stable Diffusion are seen, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, in New York. Computer-generated child sexual abuse images made with artificial intelligence tools like Stable Diffusion are starting to proliferate on the internet and are so realistic that they can be indistinguishable from photographs depicting actual children, according to a new report. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

AI-generated child sexual abuse images could flood the internet. Now there are calls for action

A new report warns that the proliferation of child sexual abuse images on the internet could become much worse if something is not done to put controls on artificial intelligence tools that generate deepfake photos.

Post-doctoral researcher Tofunmi Omiye, right, gestures while talking in his office with assistant professor Roxana Daneshjou at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. A new study led by Stanford researchers cautions that popular chatbots are perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas, prompting concerns that the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients. Omiye co-led the study and Daneshjou was a faculty advisor. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Health providers say AI chatbots could improve care. But research says some are perpetuating racism

Hospitals and health care systems are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records.

File - Xbox CEO Phil Spencer arrives at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on June 28, 2023 in San Francisco. After two years co-piloting the biggest acquisition in video game history past an onslaught of challenges, Spencer now moves on to his next quest: making Microsoft's takeover of Activision Blizzard worth the hassle. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

Microsoft spent two years trying to buy Activision Blizzard. For Xbox CEO, that was the easy part

After two years co-piloting the biggest acquisition in video game history past an onslaught of challenges, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer now moves on to his next quest: making Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard worth the hassle.

Microsoft closes deal to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard after antitrust fights

Microsoft has completed its purchase of video game-maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, closing one of the most expensive tech acquisitions in history that could have repercussions across the video game industry.

File - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in San Francisco, on July 28, 2023. The social media platform X says it is trying to take action on a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the latest war between Israel and Hamas. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

X promises ‘highest level’ response on posts about Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation still flourishes

The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, says it is struggling with a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the latest war between Israel and Hamas.

FILE - Twitter, now X. Corp., and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses before his talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, May 15, 2023, at the Elysee Palace in Paris. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday, Oct. 5, that it is seeking a court order that would compel Musk to testify as part of an investigation into his purchase of Twitter, now called X. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, Pool, File)

US regulators seek to compel Elon Musk to testify in their investigation of his Twitter acquisition

The Securities and Exchange Commission says it is seeking a court order that would compel Elon Musk to testify as part of an investigation into his purchase of Twitter, now called X.