Robotics
Physical Intelligence, a Hot Robotics Startup, Says Its Latest Robot Brain Can Figure Out Tasks It Was Never TaughtConnie Loizos | TechCrunch
“Physical Intelligence, the two-year-old, San Francisco-based robotics startup that has quietly turn into one of the crucial closely watched AI firms within the Bay Area, published recent research Thursday showing that its latest model can direct robots to perform tasks they were never explicitly trained on—a capability the corporate’s own researchers say caught them off guard.”
Artificial Intelligence
Wish to Understand the Current State of AI? Check Out These Charts.Michelle Kim | MIT Technology Review ($)
“If you happen to’re following AI news, you’re probably getting whiplash. AI is a gold rush. AI is a bubble. AI is taking your job. AI can’t even read a clock. The 2026 AI Index from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, AI’s annual report card, comes out today and cuts through a few of that noise.”
Science
Sperm Whales Speak With a Complex Alphabet and Even Have ‘Vowels,’ Study FindsMatthew Phelan | Gizmodo
“Sperm whales: They’re similar to us. A world team of researchers, including marine biologists and linguists, reports that it has detected signs of a ‘highly complex’ phonetic alphabet within the calls of sperm whales—including ‘vowels’ deployed in patterns akin to their use in human languages like Mandarin, Latin, and Slovenian.”
Biotechnology
The DNA Fix for AgingRoxanne Khamsi | The Atlantic ($)
“Now that scientists have described just how much mutation happens in aging, they’re curious if DNA repair might offer a counteracting force. In other words, does fixing DNA improve longevity? Biologists are taking different tacks to seek out out.”
Future
Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI?Amanda Gefter | Quanta Magazine
“Suddenly, I understood the racing heart of the trendy AI horror genre. It’s not intelligence we fear, but desire. A machine that knows loads doesn’t scare us. A machine that wishes something does. But can it? Want things? Can it crave power? Thirst for resources? Can it acquire the desire to survive?”
Robotics
You Can Soon Buy a $4,370 Humanoid Robot on AliExpressMarco Trabucchi | Wired ($)
“Unitree is bringing its R1 to international markets. It arrives with some aerobatic capabilities and an entry-level price, however the query of what you’d actually do with it stays open.”
Tech
The Battle for OpenAI’s SoulMaxwell Zeff | Wired ($)
“Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman will head to trial this month in an Oakland, California, federal courtroom, where nine jurors will settle a years-long dispute between the cofounders of OpenAI over the group’s founding mission. …Musk’s suit essentially accuses OpenAI of straying from its founding nonprofit mission: ensuring AGI, a highly capable AI system that may perform a big selection of jobs, advantages humanity.”
Tech
SpaceX Is Principally a Huge Meme StockJames Surowiecki | The Atlantic ($)
“Elon Musk likes to do all the pieces on a grand scale. When he takes SpaceX public in the approaching months, it’s going to likely be the most important initial public offering in history. …By conventional standards, SpaceX isn’t price anything near $2 trillion. The corporate is in truth relatively small and losing money. Yet there’s little doubt that Musk will get the valuation he wants.”
Tech
43% of AI-Generated Code Changes Need Debugging in Production, Survey FindsMichael Nuñez | VentureBeat
“Based on Lightrun’s 2026 State of AI-Powered Engineering Report, shared exclusively with VentureBeat ahead of its public release, 43% of AI-generated code changes require manual debugging in production environments even after passing quality assurance and staging tests. Not a single respondent said their organization could confirm an AI-suggested fix with only one redeploy cycle; 88% reported needing two to 3 cycles, while 11% required 4 to 6.”