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A new episode of Dwarkesh Patel's podcast features researchers John Schulman, Beren Millidge and Charlie O'Neill discussing how close AI systems are to achieving recursive self-improvement, where models could enhance their own capabilities without human intervention. The conversation, drawn from researchers at leading AI labs, opens with arguments against the idea that such self-improvement is imminent.
A federal judge dismissed proposed class-action lawsuits accusing LinkedIn of improperly scanning users' browser extensions. The court ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show they suffered any concrete harm from the alleged scanning practice.
Partner Keith Rabois revealed at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event that Khosla Ventures is setting up its first-ever satellite office, located on 14th Street in New York, with an expected fall opening. The firm currently has no presence even in San Francisco, making this a significant shift for the Menlo Park-based investor.
Security researchers found that Android's public NAT-T socket-keepalive API allows ordinary apps to send UDP packets directly to a router, bypassing Always-on VPN and 'Block connections without VPN' protections. Tests on a Pixel 8 Pro, Samsung SM-F966B, and Nothing A059, all running Android 16, confirmed that keepalive packets reached the physical gateway outside the VPN tunnel, with one device sustaining a leak for over 24 hours. The root cause traces to changes in Android's startNattKeepaliveWithFd function, where validation checks tying the socket to the caller's VPN policy were added and later removed.
Security researchers found a flaw in Android's network stack that lets any app, without special permissions, send UDP packets through the device's Wi-Fi or cellular hardware that bypass VPN tunnels entirely. This occurs even when the 'Block all connections without VPN' setting is enabled, exposing a user's real IP address. The bug was reported through Google's Vulnerability Reward Program but closed without action, while GrapheneOS says it is working on a fix.
Health officials in Ireland traced an outbreak of aggressive skin infections to a community party featuring three bouncy castles, where about 120 people, roughly half of them children, gathered for a barbecue in fall 2025. Of 48 children who fell ill, 33 were treated by regular doctors, 15 needed emergency care, and four were hospitalized, though all recovered. Genomic testing identified a rare, toxin-producing strain of MRSA that caused symptoms far faster than typical infections, sometimes within hours.
A new Grand Theft Auto 5 mod called Grand Theft Automated License Plate Reader, created by Morry Kolman, adds 235 fictional Flock-style cameras to Los Santos that track players' movements and report crimes to in-game police. Players can destroy the cameras using weapons like rocket launchers, earning $600 per camera based on the estimated cost of a real Flock camera's components, and can even race against a timer to beat their best destruction time.
Emil Barr, who launched Step Up Social from his college dorm room at Miami University, earned his first $1 million within 14 months of starting the business at age 19. Now 23, he estimates his personal net worth at roughly $35 million and has since founded a second company, Flashpass, aimed at addressing AI-driven job displacement.
Sony Music and Warner have filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the AI company scraped and used their song catalogs without permission to train its models. This follows a similar suit from Universal Music Group in January, meaning all three major music publishers are now pursuing legal action against Anthropic.
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan told CNBC he opposes any regulatory crackdown on AI model distillation, even suggesting U.S. open-weight labs should distill from American frontier labs the way Chinese firms reportedly do. His comments come as Anthropic released a report accusing Chinese labs of illicit distillation attacks using stolen credentials, with CEO Dario Amodei calling for regulators to intervene.
Apple has re-entered TIME's World's Best Companies ranking at No. 3 with an overall score of 93.16, a year after being absent from the list entirely. The 2026 list is led by Nvidia at 97.51 and Cigna at 94.37, with scores based on employee satisfaction, three-year revenue growth, and sustainability transparency.
Twenty-five Fields Medal winners signed an open letter warning that AI labs, especially OpenAI, are racing to claim credit for solving famous math problems without proper verification or acknowledgment of human collaborators. The dispute intensified after NYU's Tristan Buckmaster alleged OpenAI pressured him to omit credit to an Anthropic-affiliated collaborator, and OpenAI subsequently pulled its sponsorship from a CalTech math event following backlash from researchers there.