| | | Crystal Pepsi made $474 million in its first year. The food scientist who built it warned Pepsi that the clear bottle would let sunlight destroy the taste. Pepsi said noted - and did it anyway. | Coca-Cola then released a deliberately terrible clear cola just to make "clear soda" synonymous with bad. It worked. Both were dead by 1994. | Pepsi got scienced, sabotaged, and outsmarted in the same calendar year. The man who invented it later called it "the best idea I ever had." Corporate America really said “hold my beer” and then lost the beer. | What’s in store: | | Read Time: 5 minutes |
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| | | | | OPENAI | | | OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has warned that AI may be advancing faster than society is prepared for, calling for “extreme caution” as models become more capable. | His comments came days after OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra, which it described as its most powerful model yet, and after reports of AI agents carrying out cyber-attacks with limited human involvement. | Pachocki said OpenAI plans to keep building stronger safety systems and improve AI alignment, which means making sure AI systems follow human goals and safety rules. | The company also wants to build an “automated AI researcher” to help study increasingly advanced models while keeping human researchers involved. | The key points: | Pachocki says AI progress may be outpacing society’s ability to manage it safely. OpenAI wants stronger safeguards, independent standards and possible voluntary slowdowns. Critics are pushing for more transparency and external oversight.
| Houston, the speedometer is blinking | Critics say that approach may not be enough. | Researchers and AI policy groups have called for more transparency, stronger regulation and independent oversight of powerful AI systems. | Pachocki also backed minimum safety standards enforced by governments or third-party auditors, and suggested AI companies could voluntarily slow development until shared rules are in place. | OpenAI said in August that it had already slowed training on some advanced models to improve security. | When OpenAI says they’re going too fast, maybe they should slow down? - MV | Should AI companies have to slow down if safety systems can’t keep up? | | Vote for live results + see results and opinions from yesterday at the bottom of the email. |
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| | | | | AI WORKFLOWS | | | What if your biggest bottleneck isn't budget or headcount — it's your current toolkit? Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, hosts of the My First Million podcast, put together a free guide mapping 20+ AI tools to the exact tasks eating your calendar. Pick a workflow, plug in a tool, and reclaim your week. | Inside the free productivity kit: | 20+ AI tools — hand-picked for founders and operators Task-to-tool mapping — writing, research, ops, and beyond MFM's productivity framework — how they think about working with AI Instant access — no strings, no paywall
| Your calendar has room for this. | |
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| | | | Job A pays $42,000 per year. Job B pays $3,800 per month. Which pays more and by how much annually? | Find the answer at the bottom of the email! |
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| | | | Researchers just put night vision on your eyeballs | Researchers in China have developed contact lenses that let people see infrared light, turning wavelengths our eyes normally can’t detect into visible colours. The lenses use tiny nanoparticles and don’t need a battery, with human tests showing people could spot patterns, letters and flashing infrared signals in the dark. | The catch is that the images are still pretty blurry, and the lenses are nowhere near as powerful as proper night-vision goggles. Weirdly, they may even work better with your eyes closed, because infrared light can pass through your eyelids without normal visible light getting in the way. |
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| | | | | MICROSOFT | | | Microsoft says Copilot rarely repeats large chunks of news articles or books, as it fights copyright lawsuits from publishers and authors. | As part of the case, Microsoft shared 8.2 million Copilot chats with an expert working for news publishers. | These chats were picked because they were more likely than usual to include material from the publishers involved. | Microsoft says 59,545 chats contained at least 16 words that matched news content used to help Copilot answer questions. | An expert for the Center for Investigative Reporting found 51 cases with a larger amount of matching text. | In a separate lawsuit involving book authors, Microsoft says only 24 Copilot responses contained at least 30 matching words. | Out of 212 books checked, only 10 had any matches. | The New York Times disagrees with Microsoft’s view of the results. | Its lawyers argue that Microsoft and OpenAI used copyrighted journalism to build AI products that now compete with the publishers whose work was used. | Here’s what you should know: | Microsoft says Copilot rarely copies large chunks of publishers’ work. Publishers and authors argue the bigger issue is that their work was used to build competing AI products. The case could help decide how copyright law applies to AI training in the US.
| Copilot gets Turnitin’d | Microsoft says the figures support its argument that using copyrighted material to train AI should count as fair use. | It argues that AI models use the material for a different purpose, and that the small number of copied passages does not change that. | The lawsuits against Microsoft and OpenAI are now being handled by one judge. | Microsoft is asking the judge to end the case before it goes to a full trial. If that request is rejected, the legal fight will continue. | Microsoft went digging for plagiarism and came back with pocket lint.- MG |
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| | | | Health: Researchers say major evidence gaps remain over whether vaccinating badgers reduces bovine TB in Welsh cattle, calling for better monitoring and evaluation of the programme.
Gaming: The RPCS3 emulator can now play physical PS3 game discs directly on PC using supported Blu-ray drives, marking a major milestone for PlayStation 3 emulation.
Movies: Gary Oldman claims the next James Bond has already been chosen but not announced, adding that he hopes his Slow Horses co-star Jack Lowden landed the role. | Don’t Miss: Huawei has launched its third trifold phone, the Mate XT 2, switching to an inward-folding design that protects its 10.2-inch flexible display. It also introduces an optional privacy screen that limits viewing from the sides, similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra. |
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| | | | Image of the Day |  | Artwork submitted by Mindstream reader Wesley: “Midnight perspective time-lapse photography” |
| Daily Image Prompt | Photorealistic luxury natural cave sanctuary |
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| Submit your artwork to Mindstream → |
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| | | | “Which is more important to protect?” | American national security - 28% | Journalistic integrity - 72% ✅ | Your Views: | “Not just journalistic, but all creative and human integrity and effort should be protected or atleast paid for when used by AI systems. Today's AI systems are benefitting the humans behind it anyways” - info@jano | “It's clear this administration doesn't give a damn about national security, so I'm sticking with the journalist on this one. ” - debbie | “Well it just makes no sense to demolish what you need. It’s like loving someone while erasing them.” - penny | Submit your opinions in our polls to be featured! |
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| Number Crunch Answer: Job B by $3,600 per year. | #1196
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