Elon Musk says xAI has acquired X in deal that values social media site at $33 billion (4 minute read)
xAI has merged with X in an all-stock transaction that valued the artificial intelligence company at $80 billion and the social media company at $33 billion. As both companies are privately held and controlled by Elon Musk, the transaction was likely a stock swap, with X investors getting paid out in xAI shares. The companies have several mutual investors. X and xAI were already intertwined, with xAI's Grok chatbot available to X users. |
The Secrets and Misdirection Behind Sam Altman's Firing From OpenAI (15 minute read)
OpenAI was set up to be a different kind of tech company from the start - one governed by a nonprofit board with a duty not to the shareholders, but to humanity. While Sam Altman's surprise firing was an explosive headline around the world, OpenAI's board had no answers for why he was fired beyond that he had not been consistently candid with the board. Altman was quickly reinstated after it was clear that the only way to keep the company from imploding was to bring him back. This article tells the inside story in detail. |
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Science & Futuristic Technology |
First Therapy Chatbot Trial Yields Mental Health Benefits (8 minute read)
Dartmouth researchers have published the results of the first-ever clinical trial of a generative AI-powered therapy chatbot. The software resulted in significant improvement in participants' symptoms - people in the study reported they could trust and communicate with the system to a degree that is comparable to working with a mental health professional. The study showed that AI has the potential to provide real-time support for the many people who lack regular or immediate access to a mental health professional. While there is no replacement for in-person care, there are nowhere near enough providers available - generative AI could help the huge number of people outside of the in-person care system. |
First hormone-free male birth control pill clears another milestone (3 minute read)
Researchers from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy have laid the groundwork for the first hormone-free male birth control pill to enter clinical trials. YCT-529 is a hormone-free and orally administered male contraceptive that works by stopping the production of sperm. It appears to have no side effects (apart from infertility) in mice and non-human primates - both groups regained fertility after stopping the drug. The drug is currently undergoing safety and efficacy testing. |
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Programming, Design & Data Science |
Gemini 2.5 is the New SoTA (20 minute read)
While Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental is not the best model for everything, it is the model you want for reasoning and raw intelligence. It can solve practical problems, it's fast, and it's not $200 a month. The model's release shows that Google can offer high-end large models, as well as the small models with large context windows that it has so far been releasing. |
MCP - It's Hot, But Will It Win? (18 minute read)
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a new open source software layer that can connect large language models to domain specific software. A broad set of companies have announced support for MCP. Middleware never quite lives up to its promises in practice. Over time, the negatives of either being easily replaced or having user experience and feature innovations ignored end up making the commitment to middleware look like a poor investment. |
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The Gen X Career Meltdown (18 minute read)
Those who entered media or image-making in the 90s are probably now doing something else for work because those industries have shrunk or transformed radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand. People who once imagined they would be able to have a solid career while flexing their creative muscles have seen their work dry up over the past few decades as digital technology began seeping into their lives. Many in Generation X now find themselves shut out economically and culturally from their chosen fields. The shedding of jobs and upending of longstanding business models has come at a bad time, with the cost of living skyrocketing. |
Emmett Shear Is Back With a New Company and A Lot of Alignment (11 minute read)
Emmett Shear, Adam Goldstein, and David Bloomin have a new 10-person start-up called Softmax. Softmax is part research lab and part aspiring money maker. It aims to figure out how to fuse the goals of humans and AI in a novel way. It is unknown yet what form the technology Softmax hopes to develop will take in terms of an actual product. The startup has raised an undisclosed amount from Andreessen Horowitz, Lionheart Ventures, and Plural. |
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The 500 Million Worker Problem (3 minute read)
India had predicted that its roughly 500 million citizens entering the workforce over the next two decades would boost it to economic superpower status, but rapid advances in AI may erode all of the advantages of India's rich demographic dividend. |
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