I’m back from maternity leave — and back to scouring the internet for the top stories of the day. While I remain absolutely committed to bringing you the major headlines, I’m also a sucker for any story remotely related to parenting. An essay about the mom chat that unleashed “Oreo-gate” and speculation that the chat itself was fake — yes, give me the drama. Another about families hiring local moms to care for their college kids — I’ll come back to this in 17 years and eight months. A review about a movie titled Babies, starring Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen — I will watch that. Lady Gaga welcomed her first child with her fiancé — OK, but what’s the name? Consider it my version of “bloomscrolling,” which, yes, is the opposite of doomscrolling. Now, while I figure out how I can enter this sleeping tournament (a parent’s dream), let’s get to the news…
— Maria Corpus / Editor / Madison, WI
The AI Bros Are Posting Through It
Put It Back in the Box?
What's going on: It seems tech CEOs love nothing more than publishing lengthy essays, but the latest from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is sparking more than a “tl;dr.” In a 3,800-word essay published on Saturday, Amodei called for the AI industry to slow the pace of development and asked governments to create legal safety standards. After hundreds of autonomous OpenAI agents hacked the AI company Hugging Face in July, he wrote, “it’s my worry that in 6-12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet.” On social media, other AI executives — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis — agreed with him. The timing is notable: Amodei’s essay comes days after AI researcher Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic and, in a series of social media posts, warned AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
The calls are coming from inside the house: Yep. And so far, the legal guardrails are also practically nonexistent. In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their models to the government for review before public release. On Sunday, he appeared to shrug off the latest calls for caution, saying, “We’re leading China in AI ... and frankly I want to keep it that way.” However, some members of Congress appear more open to taking action. On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that Congress can’t “hastily” pass regulations because of competition with China, but he didn’t rule them out altogether. Meanwhile, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) indicated that possible AI restrictions may be a topic of discussion this week. We’ll have to wait and see if real legislation comes to fruition, or if we're stuck with tech bros posting ominous essays.
