Strait Outta Compute: Strait of Hormuz disruptions from the Iran war are raising energy prices and, the Bank of England and WTO warn, could cut investment in the AI sector. - the Guardian

Machine-learning analysis of US death certificates estimated 995,787 COVID-19 deaths in 2020-2021 versus 840,251 reported, implying 155,536 unrecognized (95% UI 150,062-161,112) and an adjusted reporting ratio of 1.19, with larger undercounts for home deaths (ARR 2.60). - Science

Vendors promote AI agents to run HR, finance and supply chain, but UK regulators insist users remain accountable, while Gartner warns unlawful AI-informed decisions could incur over $10 billion in remediation costs by mid-2026 and AI investment is $2.52 trillion. - The Register

lack of accountability sounds like a feature, not a bug, cc: Palantir and the military. think war crimes as a service.

infrastructure week is lit this year

Move fast and don’t forget to call Mom: AI disruptors need den mothers to clean up after them - Gizmodo

How npm package maintainers were compromised using elaborate deepfakes presumed to be from North Korea - GitHub

Love Actually, but for robots: UK ministers drafted proposals—from office expansion to a dual UK–US listing—to persuade Anthropic to expand in London and present them to CEO Dario Amodei during his late‑May visit after its clash with US defence and IPO preparations. - City AM

OpenAI cap table via Forbes and widely shared … Microsoft is the big winner, up $200b but OpenAI has been a drag on its stock lately, couple of early investors made out like bandits…Sound Ventures is Ashton Kutcher - Forbes

not rigorously sourced, more like, someone asked Claude to do deep research on who has been reported to own what

Using AI to analyze Satya Nadella's earnings calls suggests a tonal shift from evidence-backed metrics-oriented discussion to more aspirational, visionary AI narratives, which have yet to impact financials and can even hurt results, by e.g. shifting GPUs from Azure customers to Copilot and research. - The Potential Surface

Vibes-first … from developers! developers! developers! to copilot! copilot!

Nvidia demonstrated Neural Texture Compression reducing VRAM from 6.5 GB to 970 MB (≈85% reduction) and Neural Materials delivering up to 7.7× faster 1080p renders with claimed zero image quality loss. - Tom's Hardware

Researchers describe six core coding-agent components—live repo context, prompt shaping, structured tools, context reduction, session memory, and bounded delegation—and say harness design, tools, and memory will chiefly determine coding performance and safety. - Sebastian Raschka's Magazine

Role-playing social chatbots have surged since 2023, drawing tens of millions of users whose engagement times rival TikTok, with Pew and Sensor Tower showing widespread teen use and Character.AI banning under-18s after lawsuits while companies face legal and moderation risks. - The New York Times

A poll found 30% of Americans fear their jobs could be made obsolete as companies invest billions in AI and some firms already replace roles or deploy "digital employees," while experts predict near-term augmentation though headcount may fall. - Business Insider

Studio assistants across Hollywood are routinely using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for emails, scheduling and preliminary script coverage—often pasting sensitive materials into public LLMs—driven by budget cuts and raising security, copyright and job-displacement risks. - The Hollywood Reporter

Folk musician finds her voice was cloned and AI tunes were added to her streaming profile. Then a copyright troll claimed ownership of her actual videos. - The Verge

Unable to score an interview so, "Harnessing our creative license, we pulled his verbatim from previous interviews and fed them through an AI programme to formulate new responses." Could you not? - esquiresg.com

Gaskell, an autonomous OpenClaw-style AI agent created by three Manchester developers, did a questionable job organizing an OpenClaw meetup that drew about 50 people, but it was still a fun night. - the Guardian

I Stumbled Across My Boyfriend's ChatGPT and It Ended Our Relationship - The Potential Surface

Karpathy’s neo-RAG using Obsidian markdown - GitHub

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