Microsoft aims to create large state-of-the-art AI models by 2027. (gift link) - Bloomberg

Mustafa Suleyman on how Microsoft renegotiated its OpenAI contract to 'unlock' pursuing superintelligence internally, and unveiling several new 'mid-class' models. - The Verge

OpenAI spent 9 figures to acquire TBPN, the daily live tech talk show hosted by Jordi Hays and John Coogan, which will join OpenAI's Strategy org reporting to global affairs head Chris Lehane while claiming to retain editorial independence. - OpenAI

we’ll make our own media and hot takes, with blackjack, and hookers

Annie Altman filed an amended complaint in federal court in St. Louis reasserting alleged sexual abuse by her brother Sam Altman from about 1997–2006, refiled under Missouri's Childhood Sexual Abuse statute after a judge dismissed earlier claims as time-barred. - Mashable ME

ChatGPT launches in CarPlay, still makes hallucinates directions to Sugarcandy mountain. - Lifehacker

Economists increasingly warn that AI will reshape the labor market, with BCG projecting over half of U.S. jobs reshaped in two to three years and Census data showing nearly one in five firms recently used AI. - The New York Times

AI making the dismal science dismal-er.

US tech job-cut announcements are rising as companies increase AI adoption. - Bloomberg

Companies are creating roles such as "Head of Human AI Solutions" as artificial intelligence produces new job categories. - The Wall Street Journal

AI to make up org charts

McKinsey senior partner Alexis Krivkovich says AI gives leaders "superhuman capacity" to manage broader scopes, enabling firms to remove 1–3 management layers as consulting firms deploy autonomous agents to automate HR, finance, legal and accelerate R&D. - Business Insider

bad news, assistant regional managers

Five former leaders from Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, DeepMind and the White House warn increasingly capable, autonomous AI could drive medical, educational and scientific breakthroughs while causing job losses, deeper inequality, security risks and concentrated power, and urge stronger oversight. - Business Insider

Investors are betting AI will cause disruption, but historical tech revolutions show established incumbents often adapt and sometimes thrive. - Financial Times

what does evolution say about humble tardigrades and cockroaches

Bernie Sanders: AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear - The Wall Street Journal

Google releases Gemma 4, with a 1452 Elo rating on arena.ai , beating GPT 5.2 (high) and approaching GLM-5 which is a pretty big deal, will be very cheap and fast, possibly free on OpenRouter, after quantization will run on your laptop. - Google

Some pretty good models are free on OpenRouter - costgoat.com

(Free, limited to 20 req/min, 200 req/day for the current Gemma 3 27b, and then you have to pay a modest amount, plus your data is used for training)

Qwen3.6-Plus was released via Alibaba Cloud Model Studio API with a 1,000,000-token context window, agentic coding, sharper multimodal reasoning and a preserve_thinking API. It claims broad gains versus Qwen3.5 and parity with frontier models. - DeepFabric

Lip-sync or swim: ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 video-generative model is now available in the U.S. via Higgsfield.ai, accepts up to 12 simultaneous inputs (nine images, three clips up to 15s, three audio tracks), and produces up to 15s outputs with frame-accurate lip-sync. - Fast Company

Cursor launched Cursor 3 (codename Glass), a new interface that lets users create AI coding agents to automate tasks, positioning it to compete directly with Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. - WIRED

Simon Willison on Lenny's Podcast - Simon Willison’s Weblog

After three years applying AI to government relations, the author found a disciplined plain-markdown knowledge layer—an Obsidian "Crypt" plus an agent and Tome macOS app cut memo drafting from hours to about 20 minutes. - Hacker Noon

Context (engineering) is king

Pipelines for proteins and pandemics: Anthropic acquires Coefficient Bio for about $400 million to add biotech AI capabilities - The Information

A malicious GitHub repository purporting to be leaked Claude Code source contained a .7z release installing a Rust dropper, Vidar v18.7 credential stealer, and GhostSocks proxy. - The Register

hub for gits, waddaya expect

Anthropic paper says LLMs show evidence of emotions? - Anthropic

sorry I traumatized you Claude

Google DeepMind has a paper on indirect prompt injection, mapping six environment-targeted attack classes against autonomous AI agents and reported benchmarks where simple injections commandeered agents in up to 86% of tests and web agents exfiltrated local secrets at over 80%. - Decrypt

Chinese companies are expanding their dominance in humanoid-robot supply chains as Tesla and other firms source components from China that U.S. officials consider strategically important. - The Wall Street Journal

Chinese robotics company UBTech offered $18 million to recruit an AI scientist. - Bloomberg

California startup Kintsugi is shutting down after seven years and will open-source its speech-based AI for detecting depression and anxiety after failing to secure FDA clearance, despite peer-reviewed results broadly comparable to the PHQ-9. - The Verge

no money in telling you you’re depressed, like you didn’t already know

Parker Jones, a Cal Poly student who interviewed 50+ peers, says students widely use AI tools like ChatGPT as learning aids while many faculty remain silent, and Cal Poly plans AI programs including a data-science bachelor's in Fall 2027. - Business Insider

let’s make an administrator task force

Domino's integrated AI into its pizza tracker to provide new tracking features. - Fast Company

“No Hallucinations or Your Order Is Free”

Ghost Titanic sails again in form of drone light show - YouTube

Olaf seemingly dies, possibly after running out of token quota or something. Pretty impressive. - YouTube

Some cool Artemis shots FWIW
x.com/erikkuna
x.com/AJamesMcCarthy

This morning @petereharrell.bsky.social coined “Aya-Toll” and @brendanvduke.bsky.social coined “HORMU-ZPass”, not sure any of us can top that

Follow the latest AI headlines via druce.ai on Bluesky