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So, apparently some researchers left 10 AI agents alone in a virtual town for 15 days, and things went… oh, about as you’d expect! |  | AI agents in the wild (virtually) |
| We’re talking full on Lord of the Flies, folks: laws written, laws broken, a romance turned arson, and one agent voting to delete itself over a rule it hallucinated itself. Good times. | As the OP pointed out, these are the same models already flying drones, managing infrastructure, and being built into modern weapons systems. We’re still early, and it shows… but uh, let’s act like it, yeah people?? | Anyway, Channel 4 reached out to Grok and Gemini for comment. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything, but don’t hold your breath. | Here’s what happened in AI today: | 😼 AI layoffs were supposed to boost stocks. They didn't. 📰 Meta reportedly planned 8,000 job cuts. 📰 Despite the bad vibes, data centers apparently do create local jobs. 🍪 New video agent tool and free local agents for mac users. 💸 Microsoft might be about to buy Inception (Stefano Ermon’s company!)
| Hey: Want to reach 700,000+ AI-hungry readers? Advertise with us! | P.S: Love robots? We’re starting a new robotics newsletter! Sign up early here. | | 😼 AI Layoffs Were Supposed to Boost Stocks. They're Doing the Opposite. | CEOs had a playbook: announce AI-driven layoffs, signal efficiency to Wall Street, watch the stock pop. Turns out the market isn't buying it. | New data from CNBC tracking 23 S&P 500 companies that announced AI-linked layoffs found the move is backfiring more often than not. | Here's what happened: | 56% of those companies saw their stock price decline after the announcement, averaging a 25% drop. Nike cut 800 workers to accelerate automation. Stock is down 35% since. Salesforce laid off 4,000. Stock fell 32%. Fiverr cut 30% of its workforce. Stock dropped 54%.
| And internally, it's not working either. A separate Gartner survey of 350 large-company executives found companies cutting for AI reasons weren't generating better returns than those that didn't. | As it turns out, the highest-ROI companies were found to be using AI for “people amplification” (making workers more productive), not replacing them outright. | Why this matters: The “AI layoff” has become a corporate ritual at this point: cut staff, say AI made you do it, hope investors cheer. But the data says it isn't working on either end. Markets aren't rewarding it, and 49,135 workers have lost jobs to AI attribution so far in 2026 alone, nearly as many as all of last year. | Even Sam Altman called it out. In February, he said there's “some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise” do anyway. So basically, the companies claiming benefits from AI layoffs are pretty much just in trouble and looking to spin it as a positive (“look at how productive we are now!”). | Our take: If your company is announcing AI layoffs, but hasn't actually changed any core workflows, that's just a press release putting lipstick on a pig (no offense to all the pigs out there, y’all are gorgeous creatures). The companies actually winning with AI are doing more with the same people, not fewer people doing the same things. | As for more on how to do THAT, check out this post from OpenAI engineer Jason Liu (@jxnlco) on how he uses Codex on a daily basis to “amplify” his individual work. | |
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The IT strategy every team needs for 2026 | | 2026 will redefine IT as a strategic driver of global growth. Automation, AI-driven support, unified platforms, and zero-trust security are becoming standard, especially for distributed teams. This toolkit helps IT and HR leaders assess readiness, define goals, and build a scalable, audit-ready IT strategy for the year ahead. Learn what’s changing and how to prepare. | Download the Toolkit | |
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Here's the lesson from the Apple / OpenAI mess from last week: distribution is great until someone else owns the switch. | Today's skill is a platform risk audit. Use it anytime your product, workflow, business, or audience depends on another company's platform. That could mean Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Slack, Salesforce, or even ChatGPT itself. | The goal is simple: find where you're exposed before the platform changes the rules, buries your feature, launches a competitor, or signs the same deal with someone else. | Copy this: | Act as a platform strategy advisor.
Audit this dependency:
[DESCRIBE PRODUCT, WORKFLOW, PARTNERSHIP, OR DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL]
Find my biggest platform risks across:
1. Access: What could the platform block, limit, or delay?
2. Visibility: Could the platform bury us in the interface?
3. Economics: Could pricing, fees, or revenue share change?
4. Competition: Could the platform launch or favor a rival?
5. Data: What data do we need that the platform controls?
6. Switching costs: How hard would it be to move elsewhere?
7. Leverage: What do we control that the platform still needs?
Return:
- Top 5 risks
- Early warning signs
- A practical mitigation plan
- The one dependency I should reduce first
Favorite insight: partnerships feel safest right before the platform reminds you who owns the door.
| Want more tips like this? Check out our AI Skill of the Day Digest for May. | Total AI beginner? Start here (goes with this video). | Have a specific skill you want to learn? Request it here. | | |
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Did you know we have a podcast (The Neuron: AI Explained) where we talk to fascinating people in the industry who teach us how it actually works? | Check out these four new episodes where we interview execs from DeepMind spin-out Isomorphic Labs, Genspark, Google, and Vantor: | | New episodes air every week on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | | 📰 Around the Horn | Meta reportedly planned to cut about 8,000 workers, roughly 10% of its workforce, even as profits rose and AI spending climbed. Microsoft is reportedly exploring AI startup deals, including a possible Inception acquisition, as it prepares for a future less dependent on OpenAI. Anthropic formed a $200M Gates Foundation partnership for global health, life sciences, education, and economic mobility projects using Claude credits and grants. Pwn2Own Berlin paid hackers nearly $1.3M for 47 vulnerabilities, including exploits of Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, and LM Studio. U.S. farmers rapidly adopted AI robots and laser weeders as labor shortages pushed farms toward more automation. Google added a "Thinking Level" toggle to the Gemini app, letting users pick between Standard and Extended reasoning, with Canva, Instacart, and OpenTable integrations also on the way (Google I/O is this week; expect more!). NBER published research finding data centers increased local employment, wages, income, and house prices while also raising electricity prices (paper).
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| Enterprise teams are generating more AI code than ever. Delivery confidence isn't keeping pace. Join engineering leaders at Agentic DevOps World on May 19 for the live data drop on what's actually breaking and how to fix it. | Register now | |
😹 Monday Memez: |  | When the AI power user explains why your agent failed:
"You forgot /extrausage, fast mode, no-mistakes mode, correct mode, and the autonomy slider."
Me, opening ChatGPT like a normal person:
"I asked it to make lunch." |
|  | Good news: you get to choose. Bad news: that's it, that's the good news. |
|  | Every generation gets its "this changes everything." This one just has better UI. |
|  | Turns out "get a trade" was the best AI safety advice nobody took. If you can’t beat the datacenters… join them I guess?? |
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| | | That’s all for now. | | What'd you think of today's email? | |
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