The Year the Robots Stopped Demoing and Started Working
Figure AI's robots now outnumber its staff, roughly 740 to 660. As Automate 2026 opens its first humanoid pavilion in Chicago, the industry's question has flipped from whether humanoids work to how fast factories can absorb them. The reliability and safety gaps are what stand in the way.
Read full story →AI Got Blamed for 40 Percent of May's Layoffs. The Word "Blamed" Is Doing a Lot of Work.
Challenger data shows AI cited as the top reason for layoffs three months running, and 99 percent of CEOs expect cuts. But skeptics call AI a convenient alibi for cost-cutting to fund capex, even as the real labour shortage is in the trades needed to build data centres.
Read full story →They Quit Over Warnings Nobody Wanted. Four Months Later, the Warnings Are the News.
Two researchers resigned from OpenAI and Anthropic in February with precise predictions about ChatGPT ads, sycophancy and brittle safeguards. By June those predictions are lawsuits, a Commerce Department shutdown of Fable 5, and a regulatory crisis with no end date.
Read full story →The Two Biggest AI Labs Are Fighting a Proxy War. The Battleground Is a Manhattan Primary.
OpenAI's and Anthropic's backers have poured more than $15 million into a single New York congressional primary, deciding today, over a candidate pushing stricter AI rules. The seat barely matters to the spenders; the deterrent message to every other politician is the point.
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