August 7, 2025 News
Tesla Discontinues Dojo AI Supercomputer Project, Shifts to External Partners
Tesla is shutting down its Dojo AI training supercomputer project and disbanding the team, with lead engineer Peter Bannon leaving the company. The company is pivoting to rely more heavily on external partners like Nvidia and AMD for compute power, while signing a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung for AI6 inference chips. This represents a major strategic shift away from in-house chip development that CEO Elon Musk had previously touted as crucial for achieving full self-driving capabilities.
Skynet Chance (-0.03%): Tesla's shift away from developing proprietary AI hardware reduces potential concentration of advanced AI capabilities under a single company's control. Increased reliance on established vendors like Nvidia creates more distributed oversight and standardization in AI development infrastructure.
Skynet Date (+1 days): The abandonment of Dojo represents a setback in Tesla's AI ambitions and suggests slower progress toward autonomous systems that could pose control risks. This strategic retreat likely delays aggressive AI capability development in the automotive sector.
AGI Progress (-0.04%): Tesla's retreat from custom AI hardware development represents a step back from vertical integration in AI systems. The failure of Dojo, which was designed to process vast amounts of video data for autonomous driving, suggests challenges in scaling specialized AI compute infrastructure.
AGI Date (+0 days): While Tesla's pivot to external partners may provide access to more mature hardware, the abandonment of Dojo likely delays Tesla's specific contributions to AGI through autonomous vehicle AI. However, increased reliance on Nvidia may accelerate overall progress through established infrastructure.
OpenAI Releases GPT-5 with Unified Architecture and Agent Capabilities
OpenAI has launched GPT-5, a unified AI model that combines reasoning abilities with fast responses and enables ChatGPT to complete complex tasks like generating software applications and managing calendars. CEO Sam Altman calls it "the best model in the world" and a significant step toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). The model is now available to all free ChatGPT users and shows improvements in coding, reduced hallucinations, and better safety measures.
Skynet Chance (+0.06%): GPT-5's agent capabilities and OpenAI's explicit positioning as a step toward AGI increases potential control risks, though improved safety measures and reduced deception rates partially offset these concerns.
Skynet Date (-1 days): The model's enhanced agentic abilities and widespread deployment to free users accelerates the timeline for advanced AI systems reaching broader populations with autonomous task completion capabilities.
AGI Progress (+0.04%): GPT-5 represents a significant architectural advancement with unified reasoning and response capabilities, while OpenAI explicitly frames it as progress toward AGI that can "outperform humans at most economically valuable work."
AGI Date (-1 days): The successful integration of reasoning and speed in a single model, combined with agent-like task completion abilities, suggests faster than expected progress toward general-purpose AI systems.