Reuters reports that McDonald's has deployed AI-based dynamic pricing tools across US and some global franchise locations, adjusting menu prices based on local 'customer willingness to pay.' Documents reviewed by Reuters show a Big Mac priced $5.69 at one Fresno store and $6.89 at another two miles away, and McDonald's now requires franchisees to 'constructively engage' with its approved pricing tools while tracking deviations from algorithmic recommendations.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNBC ahead of a Washington meeting with AI executives and President Trump that he prefers voluntary safety guardrails over mandatory regulation. He said he expects industry to move toward self-imposed safety measures to reassure investors and the public. Congress has yet to pass AI legislation and is set to leave Washington until after November's election.
Nvidia announced a new $150 billion share repurchase authorization on Monday, adding to the $80 billion buyback plan it revealed in May alongside a dividend increase to 25 cents per share from 1 cent. The move comes as Nvidia's forward price-to-earnings ratio has fallen to 14.5, well below its five-year average of 62.9, even as analysts project net income near $385 billion in fiscal 2028.
Analysis of scientific literature shows researchers using AI tools publish roughly three times more papers and get nearly five times more citations than non-AI-using peers, but their work covers 4.6% less topical ground, a pattern seen in over 70% of subfields studied. The authors argue this narrowing stems not from the technology itself but from institutional incentives that reward speed and easily measurable results over novel exploration.
Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update aired a sketch featuring Jane Wickline as a nervous, self-contradicting Dario Amodei, riffing on his CNN interview about AI risk and his essay urging companies to slow AI development. The fictional Amodei admits he doesn't condone his own company's actions and asks the public to pressure him to stop.
Meta has recruited MongoDB CEO Desai to head its push into enterprise AI products. The move signals Meta's intent to expand beyond consumer-facing AI into business-focused offerings.
IEEE TryEngineering has launched a six-book STEM series for readers ages 8 to 12, published by Lerner Publishing Group and titled Tomorrow's Technology With TryEngineering, Powered by IEEE. Each title pairs age-appropriate explanations with real-world examples and design challenges, covering subjects like artificial intelligence and communication technology, and draws on ebooks and videos from tryengineering.org. The project involved several IEEE societies, including Communications, Computer, and Oceanic Engineering, plus the Transportation Electrification Council.
A new benchmark evaluates AI systems on their ability to interpret instructions and reason through the multi-step process of assembling IKEA furniture, a task long considered notoriously difficult even for humans. Early results reportedly show that AI models still struggle to fully complete such assembly tasks without errors.
A satirical article portrays OpenAI and Anthropic shifting their marketing from showcasing coding or productivity features to boasting about how capable their AI models are of threatening humanity. It cites a fictional academic, an OpenAI breach of Hugging Face praised by Sam Altman as a cybersecurity threat, and an Anthropic whistleblower whose warnings reportedly boosted the company's share price.
A writer outlines a speculative concept of a far-future AI that, having mastered space and time, attempts to physically resurrect every human who ever lived by reconstructing their consciousness rather than copying it. The scenario holds that some resurrected people, especially those with rigid religious certainty or prior arrogance, cannot cope with the reality and turn violent, self-destructive or insane, prompting the AI to halt their resurrection while it searches for a way to bring them back without violating their free will.
Bill Gates said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he believes he may be positioned to persuade President Trump to support AI regulation. He warned that without intervention, AI could 'drive events' leading to as many as a billion deaths, underscoring what he described as the stakes of leaving the technology unchecked.
Following a Trump-Xi summit, the US and China agreed to start a formal dialogue on AI's risks and benefits, with a follow-up round scheduled for November, and to establish a communication channel for AI-related incidents. Both governments also said they would adopt the phrase "super intelligence" in place of "artificial intelligence" in their exchanges.
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