8 An AI agent platform is reinventing spam to flood inboxes worldwide
iLand says its agents have sent 1.6 million messages. (404 Media)
9 ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has become Asia’s richest person
His fortune has risen above $105 billion as AI booms. (Bloomberg $)
10 A fully AI-generated sitcom has arrived—and it’s terrible
A reviewer called the characters “dead-eyed waxworks.” (Guardian)
Quote of the day
“The only institution that Americans might trust less than Washington these days is Silicon Valley.”
—Patrick Hillman, the chief operating officer of Logical Intelligence, a San Francisco–based startup chaired by Yann LeCun, says in a statement that people have little faith in tech companies to act in the public interest.
One more thing
Why Trump’s “golden dome” missile defense idea is another ripped straight from the movies
In 1940, a fresh-faced Ronald Reagan starred in Murder in the Air, a movie centered on a “superweapon” that could stop enemy aircraft. More than 40 years later, the concept became a real-life centerpiece of Reagan’s presidency with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as “Star Wars.” Now Donald Trump has revived the dream.
In 2024, Trump announced plans to build the “Golden Dome,” a system of sensors and interceptors on the ground, in the air and in space. It’s often compared to SDI for its futuristic sheen, its aggressive form of protection and the idea that an impenetrable shield is the cheat code to global peace.