1 The US has approved Nvidia chip sales to 10 Chinese firms
Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance are among those cleared to buy H200 chips. (Reuters $)
+ The US will receive 25% of the revenue from the sales. (Engadget)
+ But Beijing wants domestic firms to prioritize homegrown chips. (Nikkei Asia)
+ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is in China with a White House delegation. (CNBC)
2 Beijing’s push for AI independence is weakening US leverage
It’s allowing China to resist pressure during the Beijing talks. (NYT $)
+ The country has made a big bet on open-source. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Here’s what’s at stake for tech at the Trump-Xi meeting. (Rest of World)
3 AI is “rotting the brains” of developers
They’re losing their previous abilities to do their jobs. (404 Media)
+ A populist backlash is building against AI. (MIT Technology Review)
+ It’s time to reset our expectations about AI. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Sam Altman has over $2 billion in companies that have dealt with OpenAI
The ties have triggered accusations of conflicts of interest. (The Times $)
+ The GOP is scrutinizing Altman’s business dealings. (WSJ $)
5 Andreessen Horowitz has become the top political donor in the US
A16z contributed $115.5 million to the midterm elections. (NYT)
+ AI lobbying has reached a fever pitch. (NYT $)
6 Microsoft feared being too dependent on OpenAI
CEO Satya Nadella was worried about OpenAI supplanting his company. (CNBC)
+ Microsoft is eyeing startup deals for life after OpenAI. (Reuters $)
7 AI systems are forecasting wars and regime collapse
One estimates a 20% chance of regime change in Iran by 2026. (Economist $)
+ AI has turned the Iran conflict into theater. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Anthropic says a model behaved badly due to training on dystopian sci-fi
Training on more positive stories could help. (Ars Technica)
9 Data centers now consume 6% of the electricity in the US and UK
AI’s global energy consumption is up 15% globally in two years. (Guardian)
10 NASA has rescued Curiosity after its drill got stuck on Mars
The agency has just revealed how it freed the rover. (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“Musk loves to be glazed, and this person is the doughnut factory.”
—Joan Donovan, assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University, tells the Washington Post how Elon Musk has consistently amplified one anonymous X account.
One More Thing