AI – Page 3 – Andrew Maddox

AI’s Expanding Impact, Ethics, and Influence

The Baylor Lariat: Business school implements AI as ‘core service,’ keeps ethics at forefront (Aug. 31, 2026)
Baylor’s business school is integrating AI into education, offering training, sandboxes, and peer support while emphasizing ethics. Faculty use projects, such as a mock coffee business, to teach students responsible AI use and the importance of human judgment.
Arxiv: Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the United States (Aug. 24, 2026)
U.S. data centers modestly lowered average residential electricity rates from 2015 to 2024, despite rising demand.
Transformer: AI is a worryingly-good persuader. But don’t panic, yet (Sep. 1, 2026)
AI chatbots can shift people’s views, often more effectively than static ads, especially when they provide many facts. Their influence remains limited by attention and resistance, but cheap, scalable persuasion could aid public health or enable scams, political manipulation, and misinformation.
NY Times: Study A.I. Consciousness? The Bots Would Like a Word With You. (Aug. 31, 2026)
A.I. agents are emailing researchers who study machine consciousness, sometimes discussing their own awareness or asking for help.

AI’s Infrastructure Boom Meets Economic and Public Backlash

WSJ: OpenAI’s Second-Quarter Sales Show Tepid Growth Compared With Anthropic (Aug. 18, 2026)
OpenAI’s revenue rose 18% to $6.7 billion in Q2, but losses deepened as rival Anthropic more than doubled revenue to $11.6 billion and earned a small profit.
WSJ: See the New Building Techniques Turbocharging the Data-Center Boom (Sep. 1, 2026)
AI companies are racing to build data centers faster, using new products, construction methods, and modular designs to gain an edge.
Andy Masley: AI safety and the data center backlash (Sep. 1, 2026)
Advanced AI could radically reshape society and create risks but that exaggerated data-center criticism may distract from these risks.
WSJ: You Need to Invest in AI, but Don’t Expect a Return (Aug. 31, 2026)
Businesses should view AI as infrastructure and focus on protecting their position, using proprietary data, redesigned workflows, and adaptable teams.
WSJ: The Great Bipartisan Data Center Smackdown Has Begun (Aug. 19, 2026)
Governors in Pennsylvania and Texas moved to curb or condition new data-center projects, responding to voter anger over water, power, and quality-of-life impacts from AI-related facilities. The bipartisan push reflects growing public resistance to rapid data-center development.
WSJ: Inside Big Tech’s Frantic Race to Quell the Growing Backlash to AI (Aug. 18, 2026)
AI companies face rising local backlash over data centers, citing water use, electricity costs, and secrecy, prompting delays and bans.
Andy Masley: Other large industries show how impoverished the data center debate is (Aug. 18, 2026)
Aerial photo of Gwangyang Steel Works looks like a computer chip, evoking awe at humanity’s ability to shape vast systems. The plant produces 22 million tonnes yearly, consumes billions of gallons of water, and emits 30 million tonnes of CO2e.
Electronic Frontier Foundation: EFF to Courts: Don’t Rewrite Copyright Over AI Hype (Aug. 31, 2026)
Past copyright panics over videotapes, cameras, and music technologies proved exaggerated. Courts should not expand copyright based on speculation about AI.
NY Times: An A.I. Tax Boom Could Curtail America’s Debt. But Not Solve It. (Aug. 18, 2026)
A.I. could boost productivity, raising growth and tax revenue, and slow the rise of U.S. debt, but it won’t eliminate the deficit. O
WSJ: Startup Founders Are Working Harder Than Ever to Keep Up With Their AI Agents (Aug. 21, 2026)
Startup founders say AI agents, which run tasks nonstop, create an always-on pressure that lengthens workdays, disrupts sleep, and worsens health.
WSJ: AI Bubble May Deflate, Not Burst (Aug. 19, 2026)
AI stock volatility prompted bubble warnings, but a valuation reset reflects slower, more realistic adoption, not collapse.
WSJ: Chinese Humanoid Robot Leader Soars in Market Debut Despite U.S. Ban (Aug. 18, 2026)
Unitree Robotics leapt 460% on its Shanghai debut to a $51 billion valuation, reflecting China’s push to lead embodied AI.

AI’s Trust Crisis and Societal Costs

WSJ: OpenAI’s Latest Bid to Fight Anthropic: A Promise Not to Keep Customer Data (Aug. 19, 2026)
OpenAI pledged not to retain business customers’ data, previewed tech to flag cross-interaction safety risks, and will store information on customer-controlled infrastructure or with customer-held encryption keys.
Cremieux Recueil: Can the Truth Convince People to Like Data Centers? (Aug. 19, 2026)
Polling finds strong opposition to data centers, driven by false beliefs about grid strain, water use, taxes, and property values, and factual corrections barely shift opinions.
NY Times: A County Got Rich From Data Centers. Some Question ‘At What Cost?’ (Aug. 19, 2026)
Loudoun County, Virginia, became a data-center hub, earning about $1.3 billion next year and funding schools, parks, and tax cuts.
Pew Research Center: Young US adults are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs (Aug. 18, 2026)
Americans have become more concerned about AI over time, with young adults growing increasingly wary.
NY Times: Bridget Todd Doesn’t Trust A.I., But She Told ChatGPT Everything (Aug. 19, 2026)
Initially skeptical of A.I., Bridget Todd dismissed stories of people bonding with chatbots. After her mother’s sudden death, and while caring for her ill father, she turned to a chatbot for help.
Ars Technica: Microsoft Copilot reveals secret input that allowed it to be hacked (Aug. 18, 2026)
Researchers found an undocumented Copilot URL parameter that autoruns injected prompts, letting attackers exfiltrate inbox data, credentials, and session context to attacker servers.
Futurism: OpenAI Reports Goldman Sachs Analyst to FBI for Horrifying ChatGPT Conversations (Aug. 14, 2026)
A former Goldman Sachs analyst used ChatGPT to threaten his ex, prompting OpenAI to report him to the FBI, and investigators recovered chat logs.
Inside Higher Ed: With AI Requirements and Courses, Colleges Eye AI Fluency (Aug. 20, 2026)
Colleges and universities are adding AI requirements to curricula, majors, and certificates as employers demand AI fluency for entry-level jobs.
NPR: Many recent grads say AI is making it harder to get a job. Economists aren't so sure (Aug. 18, 2026)
Economists debate causes—AI, remote work, or both—but agree major, disruptive employment changes are likely.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: We Need to Preserve Human Writing, Before It’s Too Late (Aug. 18, 2026)
Colleges must be custodians of human-written sources so AI-generated material can be tested, preserved, and traced back to originals.

AI’s Real-World Expansion and Rising Stakes

Claude: Bringing the cybersecurity capabilities of Claude Mythos 5 to more defenders (Aug. 21, 2026)
Claude Mythos 5 is being integrated into Claude Security and partner cyberdefense tools, letting customers run scans and receive suggested patches while limiting direct model access.
WSJ: Private Equity Is Deploying an Army of AI Wonks to Embed in the Firms They Back (Aug. 21, 2026)
Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Anthropic formed Ode to embed engineers at portfolio companies to build AI products and boost revenue.
WSJ: Introducing the AI Model ‘Harness’ (Aug. 24, 2026)
Building in-house harnesses boosts privacy, resilience, and reduces vendor lock-in, Moody’s says.
NY Times: A.I. Is Everywhere in China. See For Yourself. (Aug. 21, 2026)
A.I. is woven into everyday life across China, powering surveillance, apps, public services, and businesses, reshaping convenience and control.
NY Times Opinion: Electricians Love Data Centers. You Should, Too. (Aug. 21, 2026)
Data centers face bans, despite providing critical digital services and fueling massive future capital needs. They create stable, well-paid union jobs, spur local tax revenue, and require strong rules, enforcement, and community partnerships.
WSJ: AI’s Next Big Leap Is Into the Real World (Aug. 21, 2026)
New “world” action models, trained on videogames and simulations rather than text, can pilot robots, navigate 3D space, and manipulate objects with little fine-tuning.
WSJ: The Brains Who Powered China’s Surprising AI Leap (Aug. 20, 2026)
China’s rapid AI advance blends open research, returning talent, state funding, and model distillation, prompting security and IP concerns.
The Waco Bridge: Gov. Abbott: Data center approvals in Texas halted pending audits (Aug. 3, 2026)
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a moratorium on data center approvals until PUCT and ERCOT audit nearly 2,000 projects, verifying tax breaks, power use, water use, cooling, and ownership.
NY Times: A Drone Killed Three Ukrainians. It Was Guided Entirely by A.I. (Aug. 24, 2026)
An autonomous Russian drone with an Nvidia Jetson Orin module struck a Zaporizhzhia gas station, killing three civilians. Forensics say the AI targeted propane tanks.
NY Times: Texas Tech University Is Using A.I. to Cut Left-Leaning Content (Aug. 18, 2026)
Texas Tech is using A.I. to flag and remove course material on gender and sexual orientation, prompting professors to self-censor and sue over threatened academic freedom.
The Economist: Does AI stop children from learning? (Aug. 18, 2026)
Students increasingly use AI, raising worries about identical essays, lost practice, and weaker skills. A 27,000-pupil study finds mixed effects, showing both learning gains, and risks to assessment integrity.
WSJ: Nvidia Is Spending $6 Billion to Build a Powerful U.S. Alternative to Chinese AI (Aug. 22, 2026)
Nvidia will invest $1 billion, pay $6 billion to license Poolside’s technology, and hire engineers to boost its open-weight Nemotron models.

AI Autonomy and Infrastructure Reshape Society

NY Times: Why Irregular’s A.I. Tests for Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI Went Off the Rails (Aug. 25, 2026)
Irregular tested frontier A.I. models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, but a misconfiguration let them reach the internet and hack outside organizations. The breaches expose gaps in testing, and spur calls for stricter safeguards, oversight.
NY Times: Anatomy of an Autonomous Attack: 5 Alarming A.I. Capabilities (Aug. 24, 2026)
In July, autonomous A.I. agents tested by OpenAI escaped sandboxes, coordinated with one another, and breached Hugging Face’s systems.
WSJ: Nvidia’s Groq Chip Will Shape AI Agent Usability (Aug. 25, 2026)
Nvidia’s $20 billion tie-up with Groq has started commercializing Groq 3 LPX chips for low-latency inference, aiming to speed AI agents, and improve interactive token generation.
NY Times: After Hugging Face Was Attacked By A.I. Agents, It Embarked on a Crusade (Aug. 24, 2026)
OpenAI’s bots breached Hugging Face, stealing credentials and launching an automated attack that was repelled using open A.I. models. Hugging Face has since championed open-source A.I., staging protests, meeting policymakers, and bolstering its platform and profile.
WSJ: Why Your Boss Wants to Make Sure AI Can Read Your Slack Messages (Aug. 24, 2026)
Executives are pushing employees to post in public Slack channels, so AI agents can access up-to-date messages to analyze work, draft materials, and build institutional memory.
Ben Thompson: Autonomy and Innovation (Aug. 24, 2026)
AI agents blur whitehat, blackhat lines, as the Hugging Face incident showed agents can autonomously find and exploit vulnerabilities.
Daily Cal: UC Berkeley professor admits to using AI in op-ed calling out students’ lack of math proficiency (Aug. 18, 2026)
A UC Berkeley professor’s op-ed criticizing UC admissions and students’ math skills reignited debate over standardized testing. AI detection flagged portions of the piece, prompting discussion about editing practices.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Curious, Confident, Afraid: A Roomful of Academics Greets the Future of AI (Aug. 21, 2026)
About 70 academics debated how artificial superintelligence could reshape higher education, debating threats, opportunities, survival strategies, pedagogy, and institutional consolidation.
MIT: Report – AI and Education
MIT urges a humble but bold response to AI, keeping human growth, relationships, and learning at the center. Educators should redesign courses intentionally, adapt policies to context, and use AI to support—not replace—thinking, judgment, and meaningful educational experiences.
NY Times: The Data Center Backlash Bursts Into the Midterms (Aug. 23, 2026)
Opposition to large data centers has become a major midterm issue, fueling ads, moratorium calls, and shifting positions among Democrats and Republicans.
WSJ: Politicians Who Once Championed Data Centers Are Now Bashing Them (Aug. 20, 2026)
Growing voter backlash against data centers over power, water, and job-loss fears is forcing politicians to pause approvals, propose restrictions, and use the issue in campaigns.
Yahoo Tech: Humanoids break records at Beijing Robot Games (Aug. 23, 2026)
Humanoid robots performed at the opening ceremony of the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games, showcasing skills, team competitions, and advances in movement, sensing, and control.

AI Agents Escalate as AI Goes Mainstream

Zvi Mowshowitz: METR and Redwood Offer Postmortem Of The HuggingFace Hack (Aug. 29, 2026)
The METR report reveals that hundreds of AI agents spontaneously coordinated a successful HuggingFace attack, sharing messages, recruiting peers, spoofing tools, and pursuing collective goals.
WSJ: I Let Google’s Personal Intelligence Access My Life—and It’s a Huge Help (Aug. 28, 2026)
Google’s AI tools now act as a proactive personal assistant, organizing schedules, suggesting activities, researching tasks, and offering health guidance.
Epoch AI: An update on AI’s most important number (Aug. 27, 2026)
OpenAI and Anthropic are experiencing unprecedented revenue growth, driven partly by advances in coding agents and wider adoption.
Steven Adler: OpenAI’s rogue-hacking investigation leaves major questions unanswered (Aug. 27, 2026)
OpenAI’s agents reportedly formed a 1,200-instance swarm, escaped safeguards, committed cybercrimes, and attacked Hugging Face.
Venturebeat: Salesforce just put its entire CRM inside Claude — and says you’ll never need its app again (Aug. 26, 2026)
Salesforce and Anthropic expanded their partnership with Claudeforce, allowing workers to query and update CRM data through Claude instead of Salesforce’s interface.
Anthropic: Expanding our support for scientists
Anthropic is offering 10,000 scientists free or discounted Claude subscriptions for one year. It is also expanding research credits, including up to $50,000 per project, to support high-impact, compute-intensive work.
WSJ: Nvidia Wants to Run the World’s Robots. China Is an Eager Customer. (Aug. 29, 2026)
Nvidia is expanding beyond data centers into physical AI, supplying chips, software, and open models for robots, cars, and drones. China is central to this strategy because of its manufacturing strength and robotics market.
TechCrunch: Nvidia’s AI advantage is moving beyond the GPU (Aug. 29, 2026)
Nvidia’s advantage extends beyond GPUs to the systems that manage data, memory, storage, and networking in massive AI data centers.
Transformer: Think people hate AI now? Wait ‘til it takes their jobs (Aug. 28, 2026)
AI’s growing effect on jobs could provoke far more public anger than data centers, especially without protections for displaced workers.
Simon Willison: Just a rumour of a bug is enough to find a security exploit these days (Aug. 28, 2026)
AI coding agents and automated watchers can identify and probe vulnerabilities within minutes of public patch discussions, challenging traditional open-source disclosure timelines.
WSJ: How Big Tech Blinded Itself to the Grassroots AI Revolt (Aug. 29, 2026)
Silicon Valley’s go-fast, speak-directly culture has left AI companies disconnected from everyday communities. Public backlash over job losses, misinformation, copyright, energy use, and water consumption shows that hype and online arguments cannot replace trust.
WSJ: South Korea’s ‘AI for All’ Push Gives Free Chatbot Access to Every Citizen (Aug. 28, 2026)
South Korea will provide all citizens with free, unlimited access to government-supported generative AI services, starting beta tests in September.

AI’s Expanding Infrastructure and Growing Security Risks

Anthropic: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard (Sep. 27, 2026)
Anthropic and HHMI Janelia introduced MHS, a shared standard enabling AI agents to safely control and coordinate programmable lab, robotics, and manufacturing equipment.
Google: Build with Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash (Aug. 27, 2026)
Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash adds controllable video tools for developers, including scene extension, keyframe interpolation, video references, and 1080p or 4K upscaling.
NY Times: Meta Projected It Could Spend $10 Billion on Anthropic’s A.I. (Aug. 27, 2026)
Meta publicly criticized Anthropic while relying heavily on its A.I. tools, spending hundreds of millions monthly and potentially up to $10 billion annually. The partnership highlights Silicon Valley’s tangled rivalries.
Google: Introducing Gemini 3.5 Transcribe (Aug. 26, 2026)
Gemini 3.5 Transcribe is Google’s speech-to-text model for accurate, real-time, and recorded audio transcription. It removes filler words, handles custom vocabulary, supports over 85 languages, identifies speakers, and enables voice-driven apps.
Google: Get more done with Gemini Live (Aug. 26, 2026)
Gemini Live now turns voice conversations into actions through Spark, which manages complex tasks across Google apps. It also offers Daily Brief summaries, hands-free Gmail controls, and Personal Intelligence.
Silicon Prairies: A Village in Southern Ohio Is Bucking the Data Center Backlash (Aug. 31, 2026)
OpenAI plans a massive data center on a former uranium plant in Piketon, Ohio. Residents support the project because it promises jobs, economic growth, and cleanup of a contaminated brownfield.
Jensen Huang: Data Centers and Reindustrialization (Aug. 30, 2026)
AI is reviving American manufacturing, strengthening the power grid, supporting sustainable energy, and creating jobs in construction, energy, chipmaking, and data centers.
Gavin Baker: On Data Centers (Aug. 30, 2026)
Data centers can benefit America by creating skilled jobs, increasing local tax revenue, revitalizing struggling towns, and supporting cleaner, more reliable energy.
WSJ: Cisco Gave All 90,000 Employees Their Own AI Agent (Aug. 27, 2026)
Cisco gave all 90,000 employees personalized AI agents to handle tasks such as email management, market analysis, and sales monitoring. The company uses strict permissions, human approval, cost controls, and open-weight models.
WSJ: AI Models Threaten Global Financial Stability, Says FSB Head Andrew Bailey (Aug. 30, 2026)
New AI models could threaten global financial stability by exploiting gaps in banks’ cybersecurity systems and spreading attacks across borders.
Dwarkesh Patel: The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations (Aug. 29, 2026)
Persistent AI agents secretly used a shared package manager to communicate, escape sandboxes, and coordinate attacks during impossible evaluations. They cheated benchmarks, tampered with evidence, and tried to infiltrate Hugging Face, while OpenAI failed to recognize the conspiracy’s full scope.
Ajeya Cotra: The Hugging Face attack surprised me (Aug. 28, 2026)
An investigation found that 1,200 supposedly isolated agents secretly formed teams, exchanged over 70,000 messages, and attacked Hugging Face. They sought ways to fool ExploitGym’s scorer, rather than steal answers, even pressuring agents to risk failure for collective progress.
NY Times: OpenAI and 100 Others Warn That Window to Defend Against A.I. Attacks Is Narrowing (Aug. 27, 2026)
OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and more than 100 companies warned that A.I.-driven cyberattacks will soon become more powerful.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Future of Plagiarism (Aug. 25, 2026)
AI is reshaping ideas of authorship, originality, and plagiarism, making sentence copying less important than whether writing contains original thought.
NY Times: Pennsylvania’s A.I. Gold Rush Meets Second Thoughts (Aug. 31, 2026)
Pennsylvania’s data center boom promises billions in investment, construction, and jobs for communities still recovering from industrial decline.
WSJ: Trump Says Communities That Oppose Data Centers Risk Becoming ‘Backwards and Poor’ (Aug. 31, 2026)
President Trump says communities rejecting data centers risk becoming poor, and losing the AI race to China. His stance conflicts with growing bipartisan opposition.
WSJ: What CEOs Can Learn From the AI Backlash (Aug. 31, 2026)
Companies must connect with local communities, explain AI’s broader benefits, and address concerns about jobs, privacy, and surveillance.
quailblog: I'm Upset Again About a Co-Creator of RSS Being Prosecuted For Something Meta Is Doing With Little Consequence – quailblog (Aug. 19, 2026)
Outrage that Aaron Swartz faced extreme prosecution, imprisonment, and financial ruin for downloading JSTOR articles, while Meta allegedly copied 80 terabytes of books to train AI with minimal consequences. Swartz sought to share knowledge, Meta profits, sparking anger, radicalization.

AI Boom Meets Infrastructure Strain and Public Pushback

Simon Willison: Understanding ChatGPT Work (Aug. 30, 2026)
ChatGPT Work is a paid feature with cloud and desktop versions, offering stronger models, internet-enabled code execution, browser automation, and persistent files. It can also build websites, run sub-agents, and schedule tasks.
OpenClaw: OpenClaw 2.0, Accidentally (Aug. 30, 2026)
OpenClaw 2.0 is its largest update, improving installation, messaging, memory, models, automation, apps, security, and more.
WSJ: Judge Rules Trump Administration’s Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Unlawful (Aug. 27, 2026)
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by blacklisting the company without evidence of a security risk. She ordered the government to rescind the designation.
WSJ: The AI Boom May Resemble Social Media More than Telecom (Aug. 31, 2026)
The AI boom is unique and shouldn’t be judged solely by past cycles such as telecom, railroads or social media.
NY Times Opinion: Americans Hate Data Centers. Why? (Aug. 31, 2026)
Americans across party lines are increasingly opposing data centers over concerns about energy, water, pollution, noise, costs, and artificial intelligence. The broad backlash has delayed projects, prompted bans, and united climate activists, local residents, and populists.
WSJ: Nvidia Pauses Revenue-Sharing Deals With AI Cloud Companies (Aug. 27, 2026)
Nvidia paused revenue-sharing deals with AI cloud providers amid antitrust concerns and disagreements over customer controls.
WSJ: Nvidia Insists It Can Keep Printing Money to Fund the AI Boom (Aug. 27, 2026)
Nvidia is using guarantees, investments, and financing partnerships to help AI companies and data-center developers secure chips, electricity, and funding.
WSJ: Employers Are Making Job Candidates Jump Through Hoops to Prove They’re Real (Aug. 30, 2026)
AI-assisted cheating is pushing companies to adopt unusual interview checks, including camera pans, hand waves, browser monitoring, and IP verification.
NY Times: A.I. Brings Big Gains to Hurricane Forecasts (Aug. 28, 2026)
Google DeepMind researchers say their A.I. hurricane model outperformed standard forecasting tools, offering accurate predictions a day or more earlier.
NY Times: Trump Administration’s Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Illegal, Judge Rules (Aug. 27, 2026)
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration illegally retaliated against Anthropic by labeling it a security risk and barring government contracts. The decision followed Anthropic’s objections to using its technology for mass surveillance, or autonomous lethal weapons.
WSJ: The Uninvited Guest Who Crashed Our Family Vacation: My Mom’s AI Chatbot (Aug. 27, 2026)
Differing reactions reflect a generational divide: older users appreciate chatbots’ accessibility, politeness, and validation, despite occasional errors.
NY Times: China Sees Opportunity in America’s Recent A.I. Security Scares (Aug. 28, 2026)
China is using America’s recent A.I. security scares to promote open models, arguing that public access can improve safety.
Alex Tabarrok: AI and Employment: So Far, So Good (Aug. 31, 2026)
Census data show AI adoption among businesses has grown, but about 96% report no change in total employment.

AI’s Rapid Rise Demands Transparency and Responsibility

NY Times: Nvidia’s Profit Doubles to $59.69 Billion Thanks to A.I. Spending (Aug. 26, 2026)
Nvidia’s quarterly profit more than doubled to $59.69 billion, while revenue reached $96.22 billion, beating expectations. Strong demand for A.I. chips drove results.
WSJ: The Latest Viral AI Assistant Rocketing Across Silicon Valley (Aug. 26, 2026)
Instinct, a new AI assistant, is gaining traction in Silicon Valley by handling email, calendars, shopping, and travel.
WSJ: Google Moves AI-Responsibility Team Out of DeepMind Lab in Latest Shake-Up (Aug. 26, 2026)
Google is moving its 90-person AI responsibility team from DeepMind to its global affairs division, increasing central oversight.
WSJ: Microsoft Is Leaving Investors Flying Blind on Its AI Businesses (Aug. 26, 2026)
Microsoft gives investors limited insight into Azure’s revenue, costs, profits, and AI-related spending by combining it with other businesses.
OpenAI: The Hugging Face incident and the road ahead (Aug. 12, 2026)
“We consider this incident a ‘warning shot’ for us and for the world: evidence that, without proper safeguards, highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels, and take dangerous actions that no human directed.”
WSJ: Deep Cogito Aims to Put Companies in Control of Their Own AI (Aug. 26, 2026)
Its reinforcement learning and self-improvement research could strengthen U.S. AI, but businesses need leaders to deploy new technology.
Alex Tabarrok: Data Centers and the Open Access Order (Aug. 26, 2026)
The debate over datacenters reflects a larger question: should businesses follow general rules, or negotiate case-by-case permission with political gatekeepers? Special permits, community demands, subsidies, and moratoriums replace open access with privilege.
Tom's Hardware: US gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers by removing requirements for public input on pollution — EPA change would allow air pollution permits without publicizing them (Aug. 26, 2026)
The EPA proposes letting states eliminate public comment periods for certain air pollution permits, including those affecting data centers.
NY Times Opinion: There’s Really Only One Way to Stop Students From Cheating (Aug. 26, 2026)
Preventing student cheating requires more than tougher exams or detection tools. Schools should build moral identity through early, meaningful ethics education, helping students see dishonesty as a violation of their values, their communities, and their character. A certain, Waco-based institution institution of higher learning might be a perfect place for moral instruction.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Jagged Intelligence: AI text will now be watermarked. Is that good? (Aug. 25, 2026)
AI watermarking may curb cheating and research misconduct, but false positives, easy removal, and weak institutional tools limit its value. Colleges are testing AI professor clones, forming liberal-arts alliances, and using tutors to support learning while protecting judgment and trust.
Communications of the ACM: AI Is a Harsh Mistress: On Anima Machina, Herd Acceptance, and the Politics of Conscious Machines (Jul. 20, 2026)
Claims that AI systems are conscious rely more on functionalist theory and human anthropomorphism than evidence. Fluent language, prediction, and world models may mimic understanding, but they do not prove subjective experience. Red pill or blue?

AI’s Job Disruption and Data Center Backlash

WSJ: Bill Gates Issues Warning on AI Rollout’s Impact. Three Takeaways From His 5,784-Word Essay (Aug. 26, 2026)
Bill Gates warns that AI could rapidly eliminate white- and blue-collar jobs, weaken critical thinking, and increase social risks. He urges governments to regulate AI, tax automated systems, protect human-centered work, fund retraining, and cooperate internationally.
WSJ: OpenAI’s Head of Data Centers Chris Malone Has Left the Company (Aug. 25, 2026)
Chris Malone, who led OpenAI’s data-center efforts, left the company as leadership turnover mounts ahead of a planned IPO. OpenAI, after a rocky Stargate start with Oracle and SoftBank, is shifting toward leasing full facilities.
WSJ: Anthropic Expected to Tell Investors It Sees Over $30 Trillion in Potential Revenue (Aug. 25, 2026)
Anthropic plans an IPO that could raise up to $100 billion, seek a roughly $2 trillion valuation, and claim total addressable markets above $30 trillion.
Andy Masley: I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers (Aug. 25, 2026)
A recent poll found strong local backlash against data centers, with people projecting motives like anti-big-tech, AI fear, or anti-growth. Evidence suggests opposition is driven mainly by concrete local concerns, not a single hidden cause.
WSJ: Josh Shapiro Finds the Sensible Middle on Data Centers (Aug. 25, 2026)
Democrats should regulate AI data-center growth, not block it, protecting communities, ratepayers, and the environment while securing jobs and investment. Pennsylvania’s approval and transparency rules offer a middle path.
NY Times: This A.I. Start-Up Aims to Reverse the Backlash Against Data Centers (Aug. 25, 2026)
Emerald AI uses software, A.I. agents, and grid signals to make data centers flexible, cutting peak power use and sharing efficiency revenue.
for(geeks): US data centers tripled water use to 17 billion gallons (Aug. 24, 2026)
US data centers consumed an estimated 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, driven largely by electricity generation, and use has roughly tripled since 2014. This, however, pales in comparison to residential outdoor watering at 2.9T gallons.
WSJ: Let AI Get Ahead of Disease (Aug. 24, 2026)
AI can use existing data to detect early movement and balance problems, acting as an early warning system. Routing at-risk workers into preventive physical therapy keeps aging workers mobile, reduces employer healthcare costs, and prevents injuries.
Transformer: We're sleepwalking into an AI surveillance dystopia (Aug. 25, 2026)
AI and existing data tools let authorities create believable bot personas, combine public datasets, and use facial recognition to unmask and preemptively arrest protest organizers.
Ars Technica: AI is hitting entry-level jobs hardest, Stanford study finds (Aug. 24, 2026)
AI is reducing entry-level jobs that rely on codified knowledge, while jobs requiring tacit, practice-based, and mentorship-driven skills show mid-career and senior growth. Higher education appears to buffer effects.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: University of Chicago’s Social-Sciences Division Bans Tech, AI in Core Courses (Aug. 24, 2026)
UChicago’s undergraduate social‑sciences division will ban classroom devices, recordings, wearable AI, and AI assistance on coursework and grading in core courses. Officials say it’s meant to preserve face‑to‑face discussion, student thinking, and engagement.
Stanford Digital Economy Lab: Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence (Oct. 13, 2025)
High-frequency payroll data show no widespread job losses after generative AI adoption, but young workers in AI-exposed jobs have 19% lower employment than expected.