YouTube is testing a new change that could lead people to being stopped from watching videos. The site will limit the amount of videos people are able to watch if they are using an ad blocker, as part of a new test. Those affected will be told to remove their ad blocker or purchase a subscription to YouTube Premium if they want to keep watching videos. If they don’t, they will find themselves cut off after watching three videos on the site. It comes with a warning that tells users “video player will be blocked after three videos”. It warns users that they have been automatically detected as maybe using an ad blocker, and that “video playback will be blocked unless YouTube is allowlisted or the ad blocker is disabled”. Users are told that ads are required for YouTube to remain free, or that they can purchase a subscription to YouTube Premium and watch without that advertising. Other messages, posted to Reddit, show users being told that using ad blockers are in violation of the site’s terms of service. The company said that users will receive reported warnings before their playback stops, and that there will be an option for users to report situations where they feel they have been falsely accused of using an ad blocker. YouTube said in a statement that the new features were being tested in a “small experiment globally that urges viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium”. The site has been making a range of changes intended to show users more ads – or encourage them to sign up for the paid-for service, where advertising is hidden. Updates have seen users shown an increasing number of ads as well as longer ones, before videos will play, and YouTube has even tested putting other features behind its subscription plan, such as 4K quality videos. YouTube Premium costs $11.99 or £11.99 each month. It not only removes ads from the service but also adds other features, such as offline downloads and access to YouTube Music Premium.

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Less than eight months after discouraging companies from developing advanced artificial intelligence, Elon Musk has unveiled his answer to “woke” AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The tech billionaire claims his new Grok AI is both smarter and funnier than its rivals, offering paid users of X (formerly Twitter) the chance to ask it “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems”. The X boss offered an example of how it will answer “almost anything”, sharing a screenshot of a user asking it how to make cocaine. “Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak,” a blog post announcing its launch noted. “Please don’t use it if you hate humour!” What differentiates it from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard is that it has access to real-time data from X, which Mr Musk took over almost exactly a year ago. Before the takeover, AI firms were using Twitter as a data set to train its models, however the tech billionaire shut this down following the release of ChatGPT last November. Initially labelled “TruthGPT”, Grok takes its name from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land, meaning understanding something thoroughly and intuitively, while the tone of its responses are modelled on the same writing style as Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But with X as its training set, Grok risks mimicking the same misinformation and toxic discourse that has plagued the platform since before Musk’s takeover. Not only does it adopt a more informal tone to its rivals, Grok also appears to have less safety filters preventing it from answering questions about sensitive topics. Despite claiming that Grok outperforms ChatGPT, which is freely available, xAI did acknowledge that it does not yet match the capabilities of OpenAI’s more powerful GPT-4 model – which carries a similar monthly fee to Grok. In its own in-house tests, xAI graded Grok against GPT-4 on the 2023 Hungarian national high school finals in mathematics. Grok passed the exam with a mark of 59 per cent, while GPT-4 scored 68 per cent. In March this year, Mr Musk was among hundreds of leading tech figures to add their name to an open letter calling on all AI labs to pause the training of AI systems. The letter warned that artificial intelligence with “human-competitive intelligence” could pose “profound risks to society and humanity”, potentially leading to the loss of control of human civilisation and even its extinction. This letter of discouragement looks increasingly like a plea to allow his own companies – which include the newly formed xAI – to catch up. Just weeks before signing it, Mr Musk was approaching AI researchers to form xAI, with the explicit intention of taking on ChatGPT. The world’s richest person had been instrumental in the formation of OpenAI in 2015 but cut ties after it became a for-profit endeavour. His team included researchers from OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, who had experience in developing large language models (LLMs) that power AI chatbots. The reason he cited for creating his own chatbot was due to apparent fears that these tech companies were creating “woke” AI systems. “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly,” he tweeted last December in reply to a post by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. The new chatbot fits in with Musk’s broader goals that he is hoping to achieve with his other companies, including SpaceX’s mission to transform humanity into a multi-planetary species “Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilisation will never become multiplanetary,” Mr Musk said. In justifying why it built Grok, xAI said its goal was to create a tool that “maximally benefits all of humanity”. The blog post explained: “We believe that it is important to design AI tools that are useful to people of all backgrounds and political views.” Read More How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT Musk shares cocaine recipe in effort to prove Grok AI is ‘rebellious’ Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity Musk shares cocaine recipe in effort to prove Grok AI is ‘rebellious’

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The leaks have hinted that the game might release in October 2024 and could feature Joe Rogan's 'JRE' podcast