In a world of companies burning money and resources at a breathtaking rate, Nilay Patel’s essay on the state of AI offers a refreshing level of clarity.
The next time someone asks me what I think about AI, I will send this video with a note that I agree with all of it.
AI is the most complex thing to happen to the technology industry, and Patel nails many of the reasons why.
For the last couple of years, I have used Apple’s Reminders app, but over the last few months, it has become clear I needed something with planned dates to better map out future work. Last fall, OmniFocus 4.7 shipped with just that feature, so after years away, I have returned to the venerable application.
When using Reminders, I was also using InstaRemind to add tasks quickly using natural language processing. OmniFocus’ Quick Entry tool is pretty great, but I have found it to be error-prone as you have to tab between multiple fields to enter a task with metadata such as a project, due date, etc:
Maureen Farrell at The New York Times:
It’s not uncommon for large companies doing big deals to make demands of their bankers and lawyers.
But Elon Musk has made a particularly bold demand of his Wall Street advisers ahead of the initial public offering of his company SpaceX.
Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly about confidential discussions.
Will no one think of the slop?!
If you want your classic Mac to interact with Claude, Sean Lavigne has the project for you:
AgentBridge is a native Classic Mac OS application that lets AI agents (like Claude) interact with Mac OS 7–9 through structured commands and responses. It works on real hardware and emulators — no modifications to your Mac required.
Drop AgentBridge into a shared folder, launch it on your Mac, and an AI agent can list windows, open apps, type text, read the clipboard, browse files, and more — all through a simple text-based protocol.
Apple today announced John Giannandrea,1 Apple’s senior vice president for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, is stepping down from his position and will serve as an advisor to the company before retiring in the spring of 2026. Apple also announced that renowned AI researcher Amar Subramanya has joined Apple as vice president of AI, reporting to Craig Federighi. Subramanya will be leading critical areas, including Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation. The balance of Giannandrea’s organization will shift to Sabih Khan and Eddy Cue to align closer with similar organizations.
OpenAI reportedly asked the Raine family – whose 16-year-old son Adam Raine died by suicide after prolonged conversations with ChatGPT – for a full list of attendees from the teenager’s memorial, signaling that the AI firm may try to subpoena friends and family.
OpenAI also requested “all documents relating to memorial services or events in the honor of the decedent including but not limited to any videos or photographs taken, or eulogies given,” per a document obtained by the Financial Times.
Since the launch of Sora 2, the system has been willing to generate video of just about any famous person doing just about anything. Over the last couple of weeks, OpenAI has been clamping down on many examples of this, but this particular one caught my eye:
In an unsigned statement on X:
The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. (King, Inc.) and OpenAI have worked together to address how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s likeness is represented in Sora generations. Some users generated disrespectful depictions of Dr. King’s image. So at King, Inc.’s request, OpenAI has paused generations depicting Dr. King as it strengthens guardrails for historical figures.
After months of reporting and rumors, Google made its investment in West Memphis official today. Here’s The Daily Memphian’s Dima Amro:
Google’s new data center in West Memphis will cost $4 billion and take 18 to 24 months to complete, officials said Thursday, Oct. 2.
The data center will host cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Google, announced during a groundbreaking ceremony at the site in Crittenden County.
Amrith Ramkumar at The Wall Street Journal ( Apple News), writing about a new partnership between the Trump administration and his on-again, off-again bestie Elon Musk:
Under the agreement with the General Services Administration, which oversees technology procurement for the federal government, agencies will get access to models such as Grok 4 and a new fast version called Grok 4 Fast for a nominal fee of 42 cents, the GSA said in a news release Thursday.
When I saw this floating around, it was hard to believe that Caitlin Huston wasn’t writing for The Onion, but here I am, linking to a very real story at The Hollywood Reporter:
Inception Point AI is attempting to do just that, as the company builds a stable of AI talent to host podcasts, and eventually become broader influencers across social media, literature and more. Amid the high costs for producing narrative podcasts and pricy, short-term contracts for popular hosts, the idea here is being able to own, scale and control the talent (unlike those off-the-cuff humans) and produce shows at a minimal cost.
In what’s potentially the first major payout to creatives whose work was used to train AI systems, Anthropic has reached an agreement to pay “at least” a staggering $1.5 billion, plus interest, to authors to settle its class-action lawsuit. The amount breaks down to smaller payouts expected to be approximately $3,000 per book or work. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said it’s “believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation.”