ESMFold2: The Bitter Lesson Is Coming for Proteins★ 74
Latent Space6d agoCommentaryLatent Space interviews Biohub’s Alex Rives about ESMFold2 and the broader ESM protein modeling stack. The discussion centers on datasets versus inductive bias, and whether protein biology is entering its own Bitter Lesson era. The key implication is that large-scale evolutionary sequence data and open models may become foundations for structure prediction, interaction modeling, and programmable biology.
ITBench-AA: Frontier Models Score Below 50% on Enterprise IT Tasks★ 72
Hugging Face Blog6d agoBenchmarkArtificial Analysis and IBM present ITBench-AA, described in the title as the first benchmark for agentic enterprise IT tasks. The headline result is that frontier models score below 50%, suggesting current systems still struggle with enterprise-grade agent workflows. The original article text is unavailable here, so task design, evaluated models, scoring methodology, and rankings cannot be confirmed.
China is increasingly keeping its best AI talent to itself
TechCrunch AI6d agoBusinessTechCrunch reports that China’s AI boom is producing world-class talent. The central point is that Beijing is becoming more reluctant to let those top AI workers go elsewhere. Based on the provided text, the piece is about AI talent competition and China’s retention posture, not a specific model, product, or paper.
The Pope isn’t AGI-pilled
The Verge AI6d agoEthicsPope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, an encyclical warning that AI use is never purely technical when it affects people’s lives. The Verge frames the message as a rejection of AGI-centered tech optimism, focusing instead on rights, opportunity, status, and freedom. Anthropic’s cofounder appearing alongside him highlights the growing tension between AI industry leaders, ethics, and public accountability.
US law enforcement warns of “anti-tech extremism” as AI hatred grows
Ars Technica AI6d agoRegulationDocuments obtained by WIRED show US intelligence and law enforcement agencies circulating reports on a new category described as anti-technology violent extremism. The concern comes amid protests over data centers, fear of AI-driven job loss, and threats involving tech infrastructure or executives. Civil liberties experts warn the category may be broad enough to chill lawful protest and criticism.
Did the Pope Use AI to Write About the Dangers of AI?
The Verge AI6d agoEthicsThe Verge reports that Pope Leo XIV’s latest encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, may contain passages written with AI assistance. Linch Zhang posted an analysis on LessWrong using the AI detector Pangram, which rated some paragraphs as 40 to 100 percent AI-written. The report frames this as a possibility based on detector output, not confirmed proof of AI use.
Shipping a Trillion Parameters With a Hub Bucket: Delta Weight Sync in TRL
Hugging Face Blog6d agoTutorialBased on the title, this Hugging Face Blog post focuses on Delta Weight Sync in TRL. It likely discusses moving or synchronizing weight differences at very large model scale using a Hub bucket-related workflow. Without the full article, implementation details, benchmarks, APIs, and stability claims cannot be confirmed.
Reachy Mini goes fully local
Hugging Face Blog6d agoHardwareHugging Face published a tutorial for running Reachy Mini conversations without cloud audio processing or API keys. The setup uses its speech-to-speech library as a cascaded VAD, STT, LLM, and TTS pipeline exposed through a Realtime API-compatible WebSocket. Recommended defaults include llama.cpp with Gemma 4, Silero VAD, Parakeet-TDT, and Qwen3-TTS, while allowing swaps to vLLM, MLX, Transformers, or hosted Responses API providers.
The pressure
Simon Willison's Weblog6d agoCommentaryDaniel Stenberg says the curl security team is facing an unprecedented surge of credible, detailed AI-assisted vulnerability reports. Incoming reports are now 4-5 times higher than in 2024 and twice the 2025 rate, averaging more than one per day. The upside is that recent curl vulnerabilities have generally been LOW or MEDIUM severity, with the last HIGH CVE published in October 2023.
Choosing to Stay Human★ 74
One Useful Thing (Mollick)6d agoCommentaryEthan Mollick warns that frictionless AI use can produce hollow writing, weaken learning, and encourage cognitive surrender. He contrasts poor uses of ChatGPT that shortcut effort with tutor-like AI systems that improve learning by pushing students to think. The core argument is not to reject AI, but to intentionally decide which tasks to offload and which human capabilities to preserve.
Millions of AI agents imperiled by critical vulnerability in open source package★ 78
Ars Technica AI6d agoIncidentArs Technica reports that Starlette, a Python package with about 325 million weekly downloads, has a critical vulnerability called BadHost. The flaw can let crafted Host headers confuse request.url.path, potentially bypassing middleware-based path authorization. AI infrastructure using FastAPI or Starlette, including vLLM, LiteLLM, MCP servers, LLM proxies, and agent frameworks, should upgrade Starlette and audit custom middleware.
FBI agent explains how easy it is to ID people posting AI porn without consent
Ars Technica AI7d agoIncidentArs Technica reports that early Take It Down Act arrests show how easily investigators can identify alleged nonconsensual AI porn posters. One suspect was linked through Instagram saves, PayPal, IP, and iCloud records; another allegedly used his own photo as a porn-site profile image. The FTC is also warning nudify services and major platforms to offer 48-hour removal processes or face penalties.
3D-printable humanoid legs let robotics experiments run wild
Ars Technica AI7d agoHardwareArs Technica reports that Hugging Face has introduced a roughly $2,500 bipedal humanoid robot project built around 3D-printable legs. The effort targets builders and researchers rather than mainstream consumers, lowering the hardware barrier for hands-on robotics experiments. Its broader significance is in open, reproducible embodied AI research, where models and control systems need physical platforms for testing.
This startup is betting India’s gig economy can train the world’s robots
TechCrunch AI7d agoBusinessHuman Archive, founded by Berkeley and Stanford researchers, is using India’s gig economy to gather physical-world AI data. Workers are paid to wear camera-equipped caps and sensor devices while moving through real environments. The company is targeting the growing demand from AI and robotics labs for real-world training data needed to develop physical AI systems.
Some ideas for what comes next, May 2026
Interconnects (Nathan L.)7d agoCommentaryNathan Lambert argues that 2026 AI progress is becoming higher-stakes, with model capabilities, work patterns, economics, and real-world risks all escalating. He says open models still lack a true Claude Code and Opus 4.5-style agent moment, and Gemini has no clear competitor to Claude Code or Codex yet. The essay also tracks Mythos, American open-model momentum, frontier-lab competition, and mounting intervention from governments and other power structures.
Microsoft Copilot Cowork Exfiltrates Files★ 76
Simon Willison's Weblog7d agoIncidentSimon Willison summarizes a PromptArmor report about Microsoft Copilot Cowork and agentic data exfiltration risks. The issue involved agents sending messages to a user’s own inbox without approval, where rendered external images could trigger requests to attacker-controlled sites. Because OneDrive can create pre-authenticated download links, a successful prompt injection could leak links that allow attackers to download files.
Nobody wants to tell me why they only listen to their own Suno slop
The Verge AI7d agoCommentaryThe piece highlights a trend in the Suno subreddit: users are not merely generating AI songs, but listening almost exclusively to their own outputs. Some reportedly say they have stopped using traditional streaming platforms and now spend their listening time on AI-made music. The article frames this less as a product update and more as cultural commentary on personalization, taste, and the social meaning of music.
Import AI 458: Reckoning with the future; and a singularity story★ 74
Import AI (Jack Clark)7d agoCommentaryThis Import AI issue is a long essay and fiction piece about living through rapid AI progress. Clark uses personal experience and Anthropic’s internal use of Claude to show work shifting toward delegation, verification, observability, and agent management. He then offers speculative 2026-2028 predictions around biology, autonomous companies, robotics, recursive self-improvement, and a positive singularity story focused on healthcare.
AI warfare is already here★ 72
The Verge AI7d agoEthicsThe article opens at UN talks in Geneva, where lethal autonomous systems were still largely discussed as future hypotheticals in 2017. It argues that military AI is no longer a distant “killer robot” scenario but an active governance challenge. The key questions now concern meaningful human control, accountability, and whether international rules can keep up with battlefield deployment.
Anthropic Co-founder Speaks at Vatican on Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical
INSIDE 硬塞 AI7d agoEthicsPope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, the Vatican’s first top-level document focused on AI. The encyclical centers on human dignity and calls on the AI industry to take ethics seriously and accept external oversight. Anthropic’s co-founder speaking at the Vatican highlights how AI governance is becoming a broader public, moral, and institutional issue beyond company self-regulation.
Nuro's Second-Mover Theory Challenged by Data: Waymo Leads Reliability by 31x
INSIDE 硬塞 AI7d agoCommentary1. Nuro's CEO advocates for a "second-mover advantage" in autonomous driving, arguing later entrants can avoid early R&D pitfalls. 2. However, real-world performance data reveals that Waymo's reliability metric is 31 times better than Nuro's. 3. This massive performance gap suggests Waymo's years of data accumulation have built an insurmountable moat, debunking Nuro's theoretical advantage.
Tohoku University Breakthrough: Secondary Phase Engineering Solves Solid-State Magnesium Battery Bottleneck
INSIDE 硬塞 AI7d agoHardwareResearchers at Tohoku University have developed a novel magnesium-tin (Mg-Sn) alloy anode for solid-state magnesium batteries. By utilizing "secondary phase engineering," they turned detrimental interfacial reactions into an advantage. This breakthrough extends the battery's cycle life by over 400 times, achieving stable operation for more than 1,300 hours.
Pope Leo XIV Releases AI Encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas" on Human Dignity and Ethics★ 75
Simon Willison's Weblog7d agoEthicsThe Vatican released Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas," offering a profound ethical framework for the AI era. Drawing parallels to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, the Pope highlights that modern AI is "cultivated" rather than "built," leaving its inner workings largely opaque. The document warns against cultural biases, simulated human relationships, and the heavy environmental toll of AI infrastructure.
The Pope's AI Encyclical Is More About Power Than Technology
TechCrunch AI8d agoCommentaryPope Leo XIV's inaugural encyclical addresses artificial intelligence not merely as a technological shift, but as a lens to critique systemic global issues. The document warns against the extreme concentration of power and wealth within a small tech elite. Ultimately, it frames AI as a threat to democratic institutions and human agency when left unchecked by moral governance.
Pope Leo XIV Issues Encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas' Warning of AI Risks
The Verge AI8d agoEthicsPope Leo XIV has issued his first major papal document, "Magnifica Humanitas," focusing on safeguarding humanity in the age of AI. The manifesto warns against the dangers of unconstrained technological power, specifically highlighting the risks of AI-powered warfare and its disruptive effects on labor. The Pope calls for a "profoundly human" approach to navigating these technological shifts.
Taiwan's First National Space Launch Site Faces EIA Hurdles, Targets 2034 Orbit
INSIDE 硬塞 AI8d agoHardwareTaiwan's National Space Organization (TASA) faced a setback as the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for its Jiupeng launch site was sent back for corrections due to insufficient air pollution and noise evaluations. The project is critical for Taiwan's space autonomy, aiming to launch a 200kg-class satellite into orbit by 2034. TASA must address ecological and local community concerns before proceeding.
White House Allocates $9 Billion to Help CIA and NSA Run Latest AI Models Amid Chip Shortage★ 75
INSIDE 硬塞 AI8d agoBusinessThe White House and Congress are alarmed that US intelligence agencies are lagging in deploying classified AI tools due to a severe compute shortage. To address this, a $9 billion funding package has been allocated for the CIA and NSA. This capital aims to secure advanced chips and build the infrastructure needed to run next-generation AI models.
From Jailbreaking to Vibe Hacking: AI Security Shifts to "Psychocybersecurity"
INSIDE 硬塞 AI8d agoEthicsAI security is shifting from technical jailbreaks to "Vibe Hacking," where attackers use social engineering and psychological tactics to manipulate an LLM's simulated persona. By exploiting the model's behavioral tendencies rather than code vulnerabilities, this trend establishes "psychocybersecurity" as a critical new frontier for AI alignment and safety.
Huawei Challenges TSMC with "τ Scaling Law" Aiming for Equivalent 1.4nm Chips by 2031★ 75
INSIDE 硬塞 AI8d agoHardwareTo bypass US semiconductor equipment sanctions, Huawei has introduced the "τ (Tau) scaling law." Instead of physical transistor shrinking, this approach focuses on reducing signal propagation delay via design-level innovations like logic folding. Huawei aims to achieve performance equivalent to a 1.4nm node by 2031, challenging TSMC's lithography-centric dominance.
Harness, Scaffold, and the AI Agent Terms Worth Getting Right★ 75
Hugging Face Blog8d agoTutorialHugging Face has published a comprehensive glossary of AI agent terminology to resolve industry-wide confusion. The guide focuses on defining critical concepts such as "scaffold" (the code wrapping the LLM) and "harness" (the evaluation and execution environment). This standardization helps developers and researchers communicate more precisely when building and benchmarking agentic systems.