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Tech News
A commentary argues that artificial general intelligence has effectively arrived, describing it as a threshold where machines can reason across domains and act with meaningful autonomy rather than a state of perfection or superintelligence. The author points to a recently released model, called Astra, as an example that has crossed this threshold, while noting that even more capable systems are already in development.
In its Plugged In newsletter, Fast Company argues that the tech industry's habit of anthropomorphizing artificial intelligence—giving it humanlike personas, voices, and emotional cues—misrepresents what these systems actually are. The piece suggests companies should instead present AI tools as explicitly mechanical rather than humanlike.
Ricursive Intelligence co-founders Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini will speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 about their startup's AI system for designing computer chips. The company aims to cut chip design time from two to three years down to weeks, building on the pair's earlier work co-leading Google's AlphaChip project, which helped design several generations of Google's Tensor Processing Units.
Brian Chesky said he created an AI 'intelligence corpus' trained on 18,000 Keynote presentations, 50,000 Google Docs and other internal materials, paired with dashboards giving him real-time visibility into Airbnb's operations. He said the system has let him cut his meeting load in half by giving him direct access to information that previously required staff briefings.
A researcher who builds analytical models for intelligence, foreign-policy and investment work describes applying that same methodology to forecasting the University of Illinois football team's season. Using a model nicknamed 'Hinsley,' he tracks how a recent home loss to Duke lowered the team's projected chances of reaching the College Football Playoff while simultaneously raising confidence in the offensive line and new quarterback.
Sources tell The Post that a private, closely guarded spreadsheet circulating among Silicon Valley women names more than 100 alleged sexual predators, including prominent investors and businessmen. One contributor, a tech worker in her 20s, said she was invited to add her own account after mentioning it privately, and that the list includes allegations of drugging, assault and rape tied to figures at major tech and AI firms. The Post notes the authenticity of individual entries has not been independently verified.
A report examines how business leaders are increasingly using AI tools to draft communications, memos and messages more quickly and polish their delivery. It warns that heavy reliance on these tools can leave executives unable to explain or defend the substance of what they've put out under their own name.
A published opinion column contends that artificial intelligence is already producing significant real-world benefits, citing its role in saving lives within medicine and boosting productivity in business. The author further argues that, contrary to widespread fears, AI has not yet caused substantial job losses.
Databricks has acquired Row Zero, an early-stage startup whose cloud spreadsheet tool scales beyond 1 million live rows. Databricks plans to combine Row Zero with its Genie AI agent so users can query and manipulate secured data using familiar spreadsheet formulas rather than exporting it elsewhere. Terms were not disclosed; Row Zero had raised $10 million in May 2025 at a $40 million valuation, per PitchBook.
A Fortune column responds to Wall Street Journal reporting by Amrith Ramkumar, Angel Au-Yeung and Lindsay Ellis describing a week in which anxiety about AI's impact on jobs became widespread public discourse. The columnist acknowledges the concerns are legitimate but argues historical parallels suggest such technological disruption can also produce broad benefits.
Artificial Analysis maintains an Intelligence Index that plots large language models against their blended API cost per million tokens, using a 3:1 input-to-output ratio and a log-price scale. The tool highlights a 'value frontier' of models that aren't beaten on both price and intelligence by any other option, showing only top variants and hiding low scorers by default, with filters to expand the view.
Kurt Andersen's novel 'The Breakup' depicts a fictional 2045 America split by a civil war triggered by a 'robot massacre' following a terrorist attack. The story follows the divorce of a pro-AI United States and an anti-AI 'Free American Republic,' mirrored by the personal separation of a San Francisco AI researcher and his skeptical wife in Tennessee. The piece situates this fiction within a longer history of robot narratives, tracing anxieties about artificial beings back to the 1920 Czech play 'R.U.R.'