Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s self-driving robotaxi this week, predicting that it would be available by 2027. Musk said the fully electric car — which has no steering wheel or pedals — would be priced under $30,000, would be charged wirelessly with inductive technology and would be “10 to 20 times safer” than human-driven cars.

Few other details were given about the vehicle, but Musk said Tesla already had 50 of them.He said the company was expecting to begin “fully autonomous, unsupervised” driving next year with existing models, and then move on to production of what he called the “cybercab”.

He also introduced dancing humanoid robots called ‘Optimus’ that would one day be able to do menial tasks, as well as offer friendship. “I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind,” he said.He said it might retail for $20,000 to $30,000, though he didn’t give any timeline on this.

TikTok designed to be addictive, causes kids harm: Lawsuit

More than a dozen US states filed lawsuits against TikTok, saying the app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health.

The lawsuits citeTikTok’s design features — such as the ability to scroll endlessly through content, push notifications that come with built-in “buzzes” and face filters that create unattainable appearances for users — addict children.

“They’ve chosen profit over the health and safety, well-being and future of our children,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.The latest lawsuits come as TikTok is facing an even bigger obstacle; its very existence in the US is in question. Under a federal law that took effect earlier this year, TikTok could be banned from the US by mid-January if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the platform by then.

Both TikTok and ByteDance are challenging the law at an appeals court.

Meta unveils instant AI video generator that adds sounds

Meta unveiled a set of AI tools, called ‘Meta Movie Gen’, for automatically generating videos, instantly editing them and synchronising them with AI-generated sound effects, ambient noise and background music.

Given a short text description of an image, one tool creates a video. Then, given another description of some sounds, a second tool adds audio.

A demonstration included short videos — created in minutes — of a man in a poncho standing over a waterfall, a snake slithering through a forest and a person riding an all-terrain vehicle across the desert. Each included music as well as sound effects.

The new system also lets people upload photos of themselves and instantly weave these images into moving videos. However, in some cases, these videos can be flawed.

During one demonstration, when asked to generate a video of a dog in a park talking on a cellphone, it mistakenly grafted a human hand onto the phone.