- Anthropic: Introducing Sonnet 4.6 (Feb. 17, 2026)
Claude Sonnet 4.6 delivers major upgrades in coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design, with a 1M-token context window. - Sar Haribhakti: GitHub Commits & Claude Code (Feb. 5, 2026)
“4% of GitHub public commits are being authored by Claude Code right now. At the current trajectory, we believe that Claude Code will be 20%+ of all daily commits by the end of 2026.” - The Chronicle of Higher Education: David Brooks: ‘We’re Part of the Problem’ (Feb. 17, 2026)
“Brooks argues the Ivy‑League–driven American meritocracy warped higher education, prioritized résumé virtues over moral formation, hardened social lines, and helped produce political polarization (including Trump).” - Axios: Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 uncovers 500 zero-day flaws in open-source code (Feb. 5, 2026)
Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 found over 500 unknown, high-severity open-source vulnerabilities with little prompting. - Mitchell Hashimoto: My AI Adoption Journey (Feb. 4, 2026)
A five-step journey adopting AI agents: drop chatbots, reproduce work with agents, run end-of-day agents, outsource tasks, engineer safeguards. It boosted focus, efficiency, and control. - Andrew Yang: The End of the Office (Feb. 16, 2026)
Some dire prognostications here: AI is rapidly automating white-collar work, threatening massive layoffs, bankruptcies, housing declines, and social unrest. - NY Times: Why an A.I. Video of Tom Cruise Battling Brad Pitt Spooked Hollywood (Feb. 16, 2026)
A 15-second AI-generated clip of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt, made with ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0, looked cinema-quality and spread widely. Hollywood responded with outrage, cease-and-desist demands, and renewed fears. - Inside Higher Ed: AI Can Raise the Floor for Higher Ed Policymaking (opinion) (Feb. 5, 2026)
AI helped committees gather and compare policies, research, and feedback, shifting discussions from anecdotes to evidence. It broadened options, improved implementation, and supported ongoing, data-driven policy review. - WSJ: How to Stay Sane in the AI Skills Race (Feb. 4, 2026)
Don’t panic, assess your role, choose targeted training, and build a portfolio. Certificates alone won’t impress employers. - NY Times Opinion: What if Labor Becomes Unnecessary? (Feb. 4, 2026)
Economists debate A.I.’s labor impact, noting current employment data are inconclusive, while massive A.I. investment could lock in major disruption. - Tyler Cowen: “You see tech and AI everywhere but in the productivity statistics” (Feb. 16, 2026)
Brynjolfsson notes a 403,000 payroll downward revision, while Q4 real GDP rose 3.7%. That mix—more output, less labour—signals productivity growth. He projects 2.7% US productivity for 2025, nearly double the decade’s 1.4%. - Austin Vernon: Speed Can Reindustrialize America – Austin Vernon’s Blog (Feb. 12, 2026)
US manufacturing makes high-volume, static goods, but struggles with low-volume, custom parts. Long lead times and high white-collar soft costs make small runs unprofitable. Digitized, AI-enabled firms cut soft costs, speed production, and boost resilience, and policy should ease approvals.