- Venturebeat: Alibaba’s new open source Qwen3.5 Medium model offers near Sonnet 4.5 performance on local computers (Feb. 25, 2026)
Alibaba released Qwen3.5 Medium models with agentic tool calling, near‑lossless 4‑bit quantization, and 1M+ token context on consumer GPUs. They match or beat similar proprietary models. - Tyler Cowen: AI Won’t Automatically Accelerate Clinical Trials (Feb. 27, 2026)
AI can design better drug candidates, but high trial costs, complex logistics, and the need for rich human data limit widespread therapeutic development. Chronic diseases, especially aging, require long, large trials to measure meaningful outcomes, making investment too costly. - Tom Wojcik: What AI coding costs you (Feb. 14, 2026)
AI tools boost productivity, but heavy reliance risks creating cognitive debt, skill atrophy, and a review paradox where people lose the ability to vet AI output. - Simon Willison: Interactive explanations
When agent-written code becomes opaque, teams incur cognitive debt that slows development. Building interactive explanations, like an animated walkthrough of a Rust word-cloud showing spiral placement, restores understanding, confidence, and ease of future changes. - OpenAI: Supply Chain Risks (Feb. 28, 2026)
“We do not think Anthropic should be designated as a supply chain risk and we’ve made our position on this clear to the Department of War.” - NY Times Opinion: If A.I. Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It? (Feb. 28, 2026)
A clash between the Pentagon and Anthropic over military A.I. use pits corporate ethics against national security, stoking fears of autonomous weapons, centralization, and industry break-up. - Anthropic: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (Feb. 27, 2026)
The Department of War will label Anthropic a supply-chain risk after talks stalled over two exceptions, mass domestic surveillance, and autonomous weapons. Anthropic calls the move legally unsound, will sue, and says commercial and individual access to Claude is unaffected. - Tyler Cowen: What the recent dust-up means for AI regulation (Mar. 2, 2026)
There is no comprehensive federal AI law (and a Trump executive order limited state rules), but an informal “soft regulation” exists: major AI firms keep national security agencies informed and shape products to avoid triggering formal restrictions. - Transformer: OpenAI’s Pentagon red lines are a mirage (Mar. 2, 2026)
OpenAI struck a Pentagon deal claiming bans on domestic mass surveillance, and lethal autonomous weapons, but the contract reportedly contains vague wording. - NY Times: I.R.S. Tactics Against Meta Open a New Front in the Corporate Tax Fight (Feb. 24, 2026)
The I.R.S. says Meta undervalued offshore intellectual property, seeks nearly $16 billion in back taxes. If upheld, the tactic could recover vast taxes, deter profit shifting, and trigger a major Tax Court fight.