🗞️ YOUR DAILY ROLLUP

Top Stories of the Day

🧭 U.S. Hides Trackers in AI Chip Shipments
U.S. officials are secretly embedding trackers in AI chip shipments from companies like Dell and Super Micro to detect illegal diversions to China. The hidden devices target NVIDIA and AMD chips restricted under export controls. The tactic highlights rising tech tensions with China, which has condemned the measures as efforts to suppress its AI ambitions.

🍎 Apple Eyes AI Revival with Tabletop Robot and Smarter Siri
Apple is reportedly staging a full-scale comeback into AI with a refreshed, conversational Siri and a new suite of smart home gadgets. At the heart of the plan is a tabletop robot—an iPad on a movable arm with personality—slated for a possible 2027 debut. The company is also prepping a more modest smart home display, running a new OS called Charismatic that uses facial recognition for personalized layout and Siri interactions.

🧠 Altman Backs Neuralink Rival in Brain-Tech Race
Sam Altman is co-founding Merge Labs, a brain-computer startup that could rival Elon Musk’s Neuralink. The company may receive funding from OpenAI Ventures and is reportedly valued at $850M. Merge is working with Tools for Humanity’s Alex Blania and aims to shape the future of human-machine integration. Talks are early, but the stakes are high.

🔗 Microsoft Folds GitHub Into CoreAI, CEO Plans Exit
Microsoft is integrating GitHub into its CoreAI division as CEO Thomas Dohmke prepares to step down. The shift signals a deeper focus on AI-driven software development. While GitHub Copilot thrives, developers fear Microsoft’s tighter control could threaten GitHub’s independence and open culture that helped make it the world’s top code platform.

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📊 MARKET PULSE

The $2.7 Trillion Question: How AI Unicorns Are Rewriting the Rules of Wealth Creation

The math is staggering, almost absurd. In the span of just two years, 100 artificial intelligence startups have crossed the billion-dollar valuation threshold. They've joined 398 other AI unicorns in what amounts to the most concentrated wealth creation event in modern history: a collective $2.7 trillion in paper value, according to new data from CB Insights.

To put that figure in perspective, it's larger than the GDP of most countries. It's more than the combined market capitalizations of Amazon and Microsoft just five years ago. And here's the kicker—most of this wealth doesn't technically exist yet. → Continue reading here.

📐 ALIGNMENT

Geoffrey Hinton Warns AI May Outgrow Humanity, Suggests Teaching It to Love Us

At the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas, Geoffrey Hinton—AI trailblazer and former Google exec—dismissed efforts to keep AI "submissive" to humans as naive. Superintelligent systems, he warned, will inevitably outthink us and develop their own goals, like self-preservation and control. As an alternative, Hinton proposed designing AI with built-in "maternal instincts," creating systems that genuinely care about human well-being. The idea: teach AI to love us before it learns to outmaneuver us.

While the technical path is unclear, Hinton argued this is the only viable long-term solution. His remarks come amid growing concern over AI’s accelerating capabilities and signs of manipulative behavior in current models. Hinton, who regrets not prioritizing AI safety earlier, stressed the need for compassion-based alignment before it’s too late. → Read the full article here.

🤖 AGI

The AGI Horizon: Why Smarter Machines Demand Smarter Infrastructure

MIT Technology Review Insights outlines the evolving path to artificial general intelligence (AGI), spotlighting predictions from leaders like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei that AGI could arrive within a few years. These future systems may exhibit Nobel-level reasoning, multimodal interaction, and autonomous goal-setting—but current models still fail at tasks a human toddler could manage. Progress hinges not only on more data and compute, but on smarter architectures and better generalization across domains.

The report emphasizes that breakthroughs in hardware and orchestration software are critical to sustaining AI’s growth. Heterogeneous computing, energy-efficient processors, and distributed systems will define AGI’s infrastructure. But experts argue that true intelligence also requires conceptual leaps—rethinking benchmarks, capabilities, and even what “intelligence” means. AGI, it suggests, isn’t just a technical feat, but a philosophical frontier. → Read the full article here.

🛰️ NEWS

What Else is Happening

🛡️ China Steps Up on AI Safety: Beijing now mandates pre-deployment AI checks and rapid-response protocols, while the U.S. drags its feet, despite shared risks like bio-threats and model control failures.

🚪 xAI Co-Founder Exits: Zack Korman, a key figure in Elon Musk’s AI startup, has left amid growing leadership changes as the company pushes toward commercialization.

🧔 Microsoft Chases Meta’s AI Stars: The tech giant is reportedly dangling huge paychecks to lure top researchers from Meta’s FAIR lab, intensifying the AI talent arms race.

✍ Pocket FM Supercharges Writers With AI: New tool “CoPilot” helps craft cliffhangers, plot twists, and dialogue, boosting output 50% and slashing production time as AI-written stories surge globally.

💪 Anthropic Reveals Claude's Safety Layers: From crisis-trained AI to real-time threat detectors, Anthropic’s Safeguards team uses layered defenses to keep Claude helpful, fair, and abuse-resistant.

🎭 AI’s New Weapon: Synthetic Identities: As deepfake scams and bot-driven hacks surge, experts warn identity—not firewalls—is now your last real defense against AI-powered cyberattacks.

👔 Anthropic Acqui-Hires Humanloop Team: In a bid to dominate enterprise AI, Anthropic grabs Humanloop’s top talent—bringing deep tooling, evaluation, and safety expertise into its fast-growing fold.

📽️ VIDEO

People Are Getting Too Attached to AI

OpenAI’s GPT-5 rollout sparked backlash after plans to retire older models, highlighting deep emotional bonds, AI addiction, and dependency risks.

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🤠 THE DAILY BYTE

Tunisian Startup Gives Prosthetics a High-Tech Hand-Up

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