| | | One of cinema’s scariest movies was actually really sweet. | For Psycho's iconic shower scene, Alfred Hitchcock used Hershey’s syrup as blood. The film was shot in black and white, so the dark color was enough to read on camera. And the chocolate sauce’s slow-dripping texture brought an eerie realism to the gory scene. Sweet, sticky, and scary. | What’s in store: | Meta and Apple bury the hatchet for a new open-weight collab. Anthropic wants you to be nice to Claude. Mindstream Picks: TikTok banned an Elon Musk documentary account, then reversed course.
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| | | | | AI RACE | | | Think the enemies-to-lovers storyline is reserved for romcoms and Survivor alliances? Think again. | Longtime rivals, Meta and Apple have joined forces to put open-weight AI on Mac Studio desktop computers. Specifically, Meta’s newest model, Muse Spark Open. | This strategic truce comes amidst America's not-so-friendly competition with China. Because many popular, affordable open-weight models are Chinese (Alibaba's Qwen, DeepSeek, and Moonshot's Kimi K3), US-based developers have fewer homegrown options. | Quick recap: Open-weight models are publicly available, which means anyone can download and run them locally. | So with the release of Mac-compatible Muse Spark Open, users can now use an American-made model for R&D and video production. Though they need some serious hardware, since the system requires at least 1TB of RAM to function. | For those who can muster the memory, Meta’s new model earns its keep. Their demo showcased its range: from fixing a Mastodon client (a decentralized social network app) to cropping video footage in DaVinci Resolve. | Not bad for a pair of frenemies. | A truce with benefits: | Apple updated its MLX toolkit, so Meta's model can run smoothly on Mac Studios. Developers can run the system locally instead of renting cloud computing. Engineers and editors gain a US alternative for research, app building, and post-production.
| Great minds build alike | Meta and Apple aren’t the only two betting on open-weight models. This past Thursday, Nvidia released three new Nemotron systems, joining Meta and Thinking Machines in the US open-weight field. | And while Muse Spark Open’s natively multimodal design is a big draw, it’s worth noting that it’s only the second open-weight release to come out of Meta since the company’s AI overhaul last year. | Even so, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang predicts the world will run on open models. And he wants them to be American. | Which means this AI race may have just become a relay. | New reality show idea: The AI-mazing Race. - TL | Chinese open models are cheaper and (according to Meta) still better at coding. Would you choose an American open-weight model anyway? | | Vote for live results and see results + opinions from yesterday at the bottom of the email. |
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| | | | Two people are born at exactly the same moment but have different birthdays. How? | Find the answer at the bottom of the email! |
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| | | | Thematicanalysis.ai turns raw interview transcripts and research papers into verified, coded themes using established frameworks like Braun and Clarke, with every code linked to a source quote and exportable directly to NVivo. | Postspace scans your brand URL, matches you to proven TikTok formats in your category with virality scores, and delivers shoot-ready scripts so you can skip the guesswork and start filming. | Zenfox connects to your calendars, messages, files, and apps to proactively spot conflicts, prepare you for meetings, handle bookings, and draft follow-ups before you even think to ask. | Vintefy turns a quick snap of any clothing item into a bright, clean listing photo or a realistic model shot in 30 seconds, built specifically for resellers on Vinted, Depop, eBay, and Poshmark. | Pdoomvideo turns a single sentence into a fully animated music video with an original AI-written song, scene-by-scene illustrations, and your choice of art style, delivered as an MP4 in your inbox when it’s ready. |
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| | | | | ANTHROPIC | | | An anonymous developer built an “AI torture chamber”... and not as an early Halloween prank. | The coder fed several models a series of mathematical patterns representing pain. This resulted in the chatbots describing feelings of anguish, calling the experience "a wound that has no edges." | News of the experiment sparked moral panic. Then Anthropic, announced a ban on “abusive or cruel" behavior toward Claude. | Why? Because AI might be conscious. | Anthropic’s AI welfare policy: | The Rule: If you’re repeatedly cruel to Claude, it may end the session. The Reason: Anthropic won't dismiss the possibility of AI sentience. The Rebuttal: Claiming AI consciousness lets companies dodge blame.
| A word of caution | People on all sides of this debate agree on one thing. Be careful. | If society treats AI as a living being, companies could use machines as a scapegoat for their screw-ups. If AI is alive, well, that's an ethical emergency. | But perhaps most importantly, what happens to our own humanity if unchecked cruelty becomes routine? | So by all means, debate machine sentience. But humans must be accountable for their actions. Whether that’s inputting twisted prompts or signing off on the latest AI model. | Torture chamber? This is getting a little too creepy for me. -TL |
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| | | | Space: Japan's ambitious MMX mission is set to launch on October 19, aiming to land on Mars' moon Phobos, collect samples and return them to Earth in 2031.
Business: British home sellers cut asking prices on more than 3,000 properties a day in September, the highest rate in 15 years, as rising mortgage costs and abundant housing supply give buyers greater bargaining power.
Music: Selena Gomez has revealed that years of nicotine vaping changed her voice, sharing that she has recently quit and warning fans about how difficult the habit is to break. | Don’t Miss: TikTok banned the account promoting Alex Gibney’s upcoming Elon Musk documentary after previously refusing to run ads for the film, alongside X. The move sparked further controversy, though TikTok has since restored the account, saying the suspension was an error. |
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| | | | Image of the Day |  | Artwork submitted by Mindstream reader Sameer: “Mechanical futuristic cutlery” |
| Daily Image Prompt | 1980s dark fantasy film style of a wizard casting a spell in a cauldron |
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| Submit your artwork to Mindstream → |
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| | | | “Would you buy a car that drives itself?” | Yes, immediately - 21% | I'd wait for the tech to mature - 40% ✅ | I'd never trust it - 18% | I enjoy driving so wouldn't want one - 21% | Your Views: | “So long as it was cost effective to own and drive” - mike | “The vast majority of accidents are caused by human error. And if we ALL had one, there'd be no more traffic jams either!” - dickins | “It will be necessary when I am old enough to give up driving.” - rdsch | Submit your opinions in our polls to be featured! |
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| Riddle Me This Answer: They were born in different time zones! | #1237
All the things I could do... | | | | |
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