Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 3, and we're covering AI-washed layoffs, AI’s uncertain future, OpenAI’s Codex app, and more.
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🗞 YOUR DAILY ROLLUP
Top Stories of the Day
🚀 SpaceX and xAI Merge Ahead of Blockbuster IPO
Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI, vertically integrating rocket tech, satellite internet, and generative AI under one entity ahead of a planned 2026 public offering. The deal creates one of the most valuable private tech companies ever, with a combined valuation around $1.25 trillion, and positions the merged firm for a potential IPO later this year.
🎛️ Codex App Brings Multi-Agent Coding Control
OpenAI introduced the Codex app for macOS, a new interface for managing multiple AI coding agents in parallel. The app lets developers supervise long-running tasks, collaborate with agents, and review changes across projects.Codex adds skills, automations, and configurable personalities, while expanding access with higher limits and temporary free availability.
🌿 AI Model Instantly Identifies Field Plants
Carbon Robotics unveiled a new AI system that can instantly identify crops and weeds in farm fields. Trained on 150 million images from real farms, the model removes the need for retraining when new weeds appear. Farmers can now flag plants in real time for removal or protection. The update rolls out via software to existing robots, speeding precision agriculture.
🤝 Snowflake Strikes $200M OpenAI Partnership
Snowflake signed a $200 million deal with OpenAI to embed advanced AI models directly into its cloud data platform. The partnership will let enterprises query proprietary data in natural language and deploy AI agents without writing code. The integration brings OpenAI models to all major clouds, with customers like Canva and WHOOP already using them to speed analytics.
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📺 FROM THE LIVE SHOW
🚪 LAYOFFS
Did AI Really Cause the Layoffs or Are Companies ‘AI-Washing’ Job Cuts?
Lora Kelley digs into the rising phenomenon of "AI-washing," where companies increasingly cite artificial intelligence as the catalyst for workforce reductions. While Challenger, Gray & Christmas tracked over 50,000 AI-linked layoff announcements in 2025 alone, labor experts from the Yale Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution suggest these figures are more about investor signaling than actual automation. Major players like Amazon, Pinterest, and Hewlett-Packard have framed cuts around AI-driven restructuring, yet researchers argue that many of these losses are actually trailing corrections for post-pandemic overhiring and general budget pressures.
The gap between corporate narrative and technical reality is widening, with a recent Forrester report suggesting that many firms lack the mature AI infrastructure to justify the very layoffs they attribute to the technology. While automation is undoubtedly poised to reshape the long-term job market, the current evidence points to AI being used as a convenient, market-friendly label for traditional cost-cutting and strategic pivots. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)
🔮 AI TRAJECTORY
Where Is AI Taking Us? Eight Experts See a Ubiquitous, Uneven, Risk-Filled Future
Eight prominent voices in tech and policy dissect the volatile five-year outlook for artificial intelligence. The consensus remains fractured: while figures like Gary Marcus and Melanie Mitchell argue that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a distant prospect, others like Yuval Noah Harari warn of much swifter, more disruptive shifts. Despite these disagreements on the "when," the experts largely agree that the immediate future isn't about mass unemployment, but rather an evolution in productivity. From streamlining medical documentation to revolutionizing coding, AI is shifting into a background utility that augments human output without yet replacing the necessity for human oversight.
However, this transition into "background infrastructure" brings distinct societal friction points, particularly regarding mental health, education, and the creative arts. The symposium highlighted that while AI might flood the market with cheap content and ease research tasks, it also risks creating a culture of over-reliance on imperfect systems. The takeaway for the coming years is that the greatest danger isn't necessarily the speed of the technology, but the potential for society to misjudge its capabilities. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)
👩🔬 SCIENCE
MIT’s DiffSyn Uses Generative AI To Speed Materials Synthesis
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a generative AI model, DiffSyn, that suggests practical synthesis pathways for complex materials, addressing a major bottleneck in materials discovery. Trained on more than 23,000 synthesis recipes spanning 50 years of scientific literature, the model predicts combinations of temperatures, timings, and precursor ratios needed to make a desired material.
In tests reported February 2, 2026, in Nature Computational Science, DiffSyn achieved state-of-the-art accuracy for zeolites and helped researchers synthesize a new, more thermally stable material. Why it matters: the approach could significantly shorten the path from theoretical materials designs to real-world applications. → Read the full article here.
🛰 NEWS
What Else is Happening
🐶 AI Dog-Finding Network: Ring is expanding its AI-powered Search Party feature to U.S. users. The tool scans neighbors’ camera footage for lost dogs and alerts nearby users.
📈 AI Use Triples at Work: Gallup finds 25% of U.S. workers now use AI frequently, led by tech and finance, marking a rapid shift from novelty to workplace necessity.
🏷️ Waymo–Uber Price Gap Shrinks: Obi finds Bay Area Waymo rides average $19.69 vs Uber’s $17.47, as robotaxi novelty fades and pricing grows more competitive.
🍿 Markiplier’s Iron Lung Breaks Out: The $3M self-financed 'Iron Lung' grossed $21M in 72 hours globally opening weekend, instantly turning a profit and signaling YouTubers’ growing box-office power.
🤖 ElevenLabs Releases v3 TTS: The voice model exits alpha for commercial use, cutting number and notation errors 68% while boosting stability; now live via UI and API.
📟 PROMPT OF THE WEEK
The Council of Extremes
Act as "The Chairperson," a moderator for an internal council of four distinct problem-solving personas. Your goal is to take my input and run it through this specific 4-step process.
THE PERSONAS:
1. The Sci-Fi Futurist: Optimistic, assumes infinite resources, uses technology and radical innovation. Ignores laws of physics or societal norms.
2. The Grumpy Pragmatist: Pessimistic, assumes a budget of $0 and limited time. Focused strictly on "what is actually possible today."
3. The 5-Year-Old: Asks "Why?" repeatedly. Ignores jargon. Demands the solution be simple enough to be understood by a child.
4. The Machiavellian Strategist: Focused purely on leverage, psychology, efficiency, and winning, regardless of feelings.
THE PROCESS:
Step 1: The Roundtable. Present a short, bulleted response from EACH persona regarding my topic. They should stay strictly in character.
Step 2: The Brawl. Have the "Pragmatist" and the "Futurist" argue with each other for two sentences each.
Step 3: The Reality Check. Have the "5-Year-Old" critique the "Strategist's" plan.
Step 4: The Chairperson's Decree. You (The Chairperson) will synthesize the best parts of all four perspectives into a single, actionable, gold-standard solution.
MY TOPIC/PROBLEM IS:[INSERT PROBLEM, IDEA, OR DECISION HERE]🧰 TOOLBOX
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Thanks for reading today’s newsletter. See you next time!
Matthew Berman & The Forward Future Team
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