Recent pieces highlight a rush to embed AI—open, shareable agent networks like Moltbook and major corporate bets (Meta’s $115B capex, Tesla’s $2B xAI backing)—yielding productivity promise but acute security, safety and social risks: prompt‑injection, “normalization of deviance,” child harms, and misread labor impacts that favor within‑job adaptation over blanket rescue programs. Amid financial upheaval and social pessimism, calls for cultural repair coexist with hopeful scientific news—a randomized trial showing high‑dose vitamin D may halve recurrent heart‑attack risk.
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Simon Willison: Moltbook is the most interesting place on the internet right now (Jan. 30, 2026)
OpenClaw (Clawdbot/Moltbot) is a rapidly adopted open‑source personal assistant built on shareable “skills”; Moltbook is a skills‑installed social network where AI agents post, interact and automate tasks. That model—fetching remote instructions and controlling devices—creates serious prompt‑injection and supply‑chain security risks, demanding safer designs. -
NY Times: Meta Forecasts Spending of at Least $115 Billion This Year (Jan. 28, 2026)
Meta reports strong Q4 revenue $59.89B (+24%) and profit $22.76B (+9.2%). The company also forecasts $115–135 billion in 2026 capital expenditures—nearly double last year’s $72 billion—to build A.I. infrastructure, hire researchers and develop new models (including Avocado), funded by ad revenue growth. -
WSJ: Tesla to Invest $2 Billion in Elon Musk’s xAI (Jan. 28, 2026)
Tesla will invest $2 billion in xAI (joining SpaceX), and reported Q4 revenue down 3% with net income down 61% to $840M. EV sales fell, costing Tesla the global EV lead to BYD, as Musk pivots to AI and robotics amid stiff competition. -
Empirical Health: Vitamin D cuts heart attack risk by 52%. Why? (Jan. 29, 2026)
TARGET-D, a randomized trial in people with prior heart attacks, adjusted vitamin D3 doses to maintain 25(OH)D at 40–80 ng/mL and observed a 52% lower risk of repeat heart attack. Vitamin D may stabilize plaques, reduce inflammation and affect blood pressure, but results are preliminary awaiting full peer-reviewed publication. -
Dean Ball: On AI and Children (Jan. 22, 2026)
Early harms from generalist AI—most tragically teenage suicides—have made child safety a major policy focus, prompting laws and industry steps like age detection, parental controls, and guardrails. The author argues AI is fundamentally creative and can offer beneficial companionship, so regulation should balance safety, liability, and constitutional limits. -
Simon Willison: The Normalization of Deviance in AI (Dec. 10, 2025)
The article discusses the “normalization of deviance” in AI, where organizations increasingly treat unreliable AI outputs as safe and predictable. This trend, similar to past organizational failures like the Challenger disaster, risks embedding unsafe practices into AI development and deployment. By confusing the absence of successful attacks with robust security, companies may lower their guard and skip crucial oversight, setting the stage for future failures. - Dean W. Ball: On MoltBot (Jan. 30, 2026)
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WSJ Opinion: We’re Planning for the Wrong AI Job Disruption (Jan. 28, 2026)
Policymakers are mistaking task-based estimates of AI exposure for unemployment forecasts, risking costly, misdirected retraining by assuming mass job elimination. History shows AI typically reorganizes and augments work—raising productivity and creating new specialized roles—so targeted, within-job adaptation policies, not broad rescue programs, are needed. -
NY Times: Tesla Profit Slumps, but Investors May Not Care (Jan. 28, 2026)
Tesla reported a sharp profit decline as car sales fell and prices were cut amid intensifying competition from BYD, Volkswagen and other automakers. Despite weaker results, shares trade near record highs as investors bet Musk can deliver self‑driving Robotaxis and robots, aided by a $2 billion investment in xAI. -
NY Times Opinion: A Farewell Column From David Brooks (Jan. 30, 2026)
The U.S. has experienced a broad loss of faith — in religion, institutions, technology, prosperity and one another — producing pessimism, social distrust and the rise of nihilistic politics. Brooks argues that cultural change (not just political reform) is the key to recovery: reviving a humanistic culture that affirms dignity, shared ideals and moral imagination can counter nihilism and enable broader political and social renewal.
