It’s as if a bunch of AI experts just had the same nightmare, because this week, several of them—including ones at Anthropic and OpenAI—seemingly jolted upright in a cold sweat to speak on the horrors they see coming from artificial intelligence.

Anthropic: The company behind Claude lost its head of Safeguards Research, who announced his resignation in a letter that mentioned a world “in peril.” Speaking vaguely about Anthropic, he wrote, “Throughout my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions…we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most.”

At OpenAI, alarm bells came from three different employees this week:

• A researcher quit after two years due to “deep reservations” about ChatGPT’s new ad strategy, namely “a potential for manipulating users,” she wrote in an essay for the New York Times.
• A top safety executive was fired after opposing the upcoming release of AI erotica on ChatGPT, the Wall Street Journal reported. OpenAI said she was canned for sexually discriminating against a male coworker, which she called “absolutely false.”
• In a post on X that alluded to widespread job loss, an engineer wrote, “I finally feel the existential threat that AI is posing.”

HyperWrite: The co-founder of an AI writing tool startup warned in a viral post on X that the latest AI models will render countless jobs obsolete, comparing the current moment to the weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic.

How about some AI restrictions for the table?

OpenAI and Anthropic are of two minds on how much to regulate their industry:

• Anthropic pledged $20 million to a political group that backs congressional candidates who favor AI safety, the company announced yesterday. (That’s substantial, but the company also announced yesterday that it closed a $30 billion fundraising round that valued it at $380 billion.)
• OpenAI has supported Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC that spends against the types of candidates that Anthropic’s donation would help.

Meanwhile…half of xAI’s founders have exited as of this week, though the recent departures didn’t specifically cite AI concerns.—ML

Trump admin ends its immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The White House is withdrawing its divisive flood of immigration enforcement agents in the state after achieving its goals, Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, said yesterday. The surge led to more than 4,000 arrests, as well as mass protests and the killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers. Homan argued that the monthslong operation left Minnesota safer, while Gov. Tim Walz condemned it, saying it left the state with “generational trauma” and “economic ruin.” The Trump administration is keeping “a small footprint” of immigration personnel in Minnesota to transition command back to local agencies, according to Homan.

The DOJ antitrust chief resigned. While Gail Slater, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust unit, said she was leaving of her own volition, CNN reported that she was fired by the Trump administration after being at odds with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the president for months. Slater was reportedly urging the White House to be aggressive on tech giants as it pursued cases against Apple and Google. Last year, President Trump pardoned Oak View Group’s CEO, Tim Leiweke, who had been indicted by Trump’s own Justice Department (in a case led by Slater) for allegedly rigging the bidding process for an arena.

Trump officially revoked the US’ ability to regulate pollution. Yesterday, President Trump’s EPA repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and the environment, which served as the legal underpinning for all climate regulation. The repeal of the Obama-era “endangerment finding” means that the federal government will no longer have the ability to control pollution—if it survives legal challenges. Environmental activists are certain to launch a legal fight that observers believe will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.—AE

Last month, the housing market had the energy of a spider web-covered basement that’s used for storage. After months of recovery, sales of preowned US homes decreased by 8.4% in January from December, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported yesterday.

Despite mortgage rates falling throughout 2025:

• Home sales were down 4.4% from a year ago, amounting to the worst month for home closings in more than two years.
• Dwellings sat unsold for a median of 46 days last month, compared with 41 days a year prior.

Housewarming recession

The NAR says arctic weather in parts of the US may be partially to blame for market frigidness, but places that weren’t impacted also experienced home sales declines. Analysts attribute tepid homebuying to economic uncertainty, on top of low inventory that’s keeping prices high.

The number of homes on the market rose by 3.4% in January from a year earlier, but given the monthly pace of sales, that equals just 3.7 months’ worth of supply. Six months of supply is considered a balanced market.

In a silver lining for buyers and sellers…the median price of homes crept up by 0.9%, to $396,800, over the year—but they’ve become more affordable, thanks to wage growth and lower mortgage rates, according to the NAR.—SK

Ever get the feeling you’re being followed? For Olympians, it’s not paranoia—it’s a high-tech drone camera trailing close behind. It is, also, an exhilarating (sometimes nauseating) first-person perspective for us couch potatoes…but not without some drawbacks.

More than two dozen drones deployed by the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) have been used for high-speed sports like luge and downhill skiing, but have yet to be used for curling (it’s already too electric).

Safety first: The drones are controlled by a three-person team with a pilot who has expertise in the particular sport. OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos said the drones underwent controlled crash tests and are never flown in front of competitors or above them, where they can create shadows.

But…some have raised concerns about safety and aesthetics:

• Several athletes who can’t afford a distraction when operating at breakneck speeds have said the drones are noticeable if they don’t keep their distance.
• Then there’s the sound of the whirring blades being picked up by microphones. It’s loud enough that viewers have compared the buzzing to the vuvuzelas during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Bottom line: The first-person views of nontraditional sports are a way to draw in viewers to events that they might otherwise skip. Drones are “a big entry point for people, especially younger people,” Exarchos said.—DL

Wendy’s famously asked, “Where’s the beef?” But, these days, Americans are asking, “Where’s the boneless, skinless, dark chicken thigh meat?” While that is not as catchy a slogan, US chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride may not mind. According to its Q4 earnings report:

• Compared with two years ago, boneless chicken retail prices were down by 1.7%, while those of ground beef were up by 22%.
• Volumes of boneless dark meat in food service grew by double-digit rates.

All of that has strengthened demand for boneless dark meat as consumers look for cheaper sources of protein. The CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride said that the company was considering converting a plant into a deboning facility in order to capitalize on the trend.—AE

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