CHICAGO: The king of pop will be honored in Motown with a street named Michael Jackson Avenue, officials announced on Thursday in Detroit.
The city, which has a rich history of nurturing American musical talent, will rename a portion of its Randolph Street in the downtown theater district in honor of the late entertainer.
The tribute comes 50 years after his family group known as the “Jackson 5” birthed their career with a successful recording contract audition in the Motor City.
“The Jacksons were among the first groups of black American performers to attain crossover status, and went on to release hit after hit after hit,” said city spokesman Stephen Grady.
Michael Jackson, who started with the group, went on to become one of the most famous performers in pop music history.
He died in 2009 at the age of 50 from a fatal dose of drugs, including the powerful anesthetic propofol.
The street renaming will take place June 15, coinciding with the Detroit Music Weekend outdoor festival, which Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine Jackson are scheduled to headline.
“This is where music comes from. This is where everybody copied the Motown sound,” Jackie Jackson said at a Detroit news conference.
The city honored another American music royalty during last year’s festival — naming a street after queen of soul Aretha Franklin.
King of pop Michael Jackson to get street name in Detroit
King of pop Michael Jackson to get street name in Detroit
India tells university to leave AI summit after presenting Chinese robot as its own, sources say
- Social media users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China’s Unitree Robotics for about $2,800
- Orion, the robotic dog, was claimed to have been developed at the Center of Excellence at Galgotias University
NEW DELHI: An Indian university has been asked to vacate its stall at the country’s flagship AI summit after a staff member was caught presenting a commercially available robotic dog made in China as its own creation, two government sources said.
“You need to meet Orion. This has been developed by the Center of Excellence at Galgotias University,” Neha Singh, a professor of communications, told state-run broadcaster DD News this week in remarks that have since gone viral.
But social media users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China’s Unitree Robotics for about $2,800 and widely used in research and education globally.
The episode has drawn sharp criticism and has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on India’s artificial intelligence ambitions.
The embarrassment was amplified by IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who shared the video clip on his official social media account before the backlash. The post was later deleted.
Both Galgotias and Singh have subsequently said the robot was not a university creation and the university had never claimed otherwise.
The stall remained open to visitors as of Wednesday morning with university officials fielding questions from media about accusations of plagiarism and misrepresentation.
Galgotias has yet to receive any communication about being kicked out from the event, a representative at the booth said.
The India AI Impact summit at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, which runs until Saturday, has been billed as the first major AI gathering hosted in the Global South. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei will address the gathering on Thursday.
The event has also faced broader organizational difficulties since opening, with delegates reporting overcrowding and logistical issues.
That said, there has been more than $100 billion of investment in India AI projects pledged during the summit, including investments from the Adani Group conglomerate, tech giant Microsoft and data center firm Yotta.
India’s biggest opposition party, Congress, was among those expressing outrage.
“The Modi government has made a laughing stock of India globally with regard to AI,” it said on social media, citing the robot incident.
