*** Useful AI News ***


Last update: Thursday 2/26/26
Our new blog image signals our blog's coverage of (1) Big Tech's new focus on the non-essential functions that chatbots and agents, especially agents, that are not good enough to be called AGI, can perform well enough in profitable niche applications, e.g., advertising videos, personal entertainment/porn videos, shopping, coding, and the automation of mundane white collar scutwork -- provided they continue to be supported by billion dollar data centers, (2) Continuing political backlash to the high energy costs and negative climate impacts of these data centers, and (3) the editor's op-ed reports of his disappointing personal encounters with the outer limits of current chatbots and agents in his efforts to use them to help him understand complex issues, e.g., the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and China over rare earths and the ongoing conflict between data centers and their political opponents,

A. OpenAI  | B. Microsoft | C.  Google | D. Other Models |
 E. Agents | F. SLM/Open Source | G. Public Policy  | H.  OpEds/Misc | 
I. Hacks | J. Basics | K. Data Centers 

Top stories ...
  1. "Pentagon Gives A.I. Company an Ultimatum", Julian E. Barnes and Sheera Frenkel, NY Times, 2/24/26
    -- This story also covered by Reuters,     WSJ, Bloomberg

  2. "Anthropic’s Next Big AI Hit [Claude Code] Could Also Bruise the Jobs Market", Parmy Olson, Bloomberg, 1/26/26
    --     This story and related issues also covered by NY Times, Vox ... and     Anthropic

  3. Big Tech quarterly reports ... January/February 2026
    -- Nvidia, "Nvidia Beats Back Bubble Fears With Record $68 Billion in Sales in Fourth Quarter", WSJ, 2/25/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    -- Alphabet, "Google to Double Spending as Earnings Beat Wall Street Expectations", WSJ,  2/5/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    --     Amazon , "Amazon Shares Sink as Company Boosts AI Spending by Nearly 60%", WSJ, 2/5/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    -- Apple, "Apple Posts Blowout iPhone Sales, but Investors Focus on Higher Costs", Rolfe Winkler, WSJ,1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters
     
    -- Meta, "Meta Reports Record Sales, Massive Spending Hike on AI Buildout", Meghan Bobrowsky, WSJ, 1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by Reuters

    -- Microsoft, "Microsoft Shares Dive as Data-Center Spending Overshadows Earnings Surge", ebastian Herrera, WSJ, 1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by Reuters
Evolving context and connections ... 
Fast moving AI news is often exciting, but also confusing. This page is designed to provide readers with an evolving context for the news and reminders of the connections between news items. From time to time, links to older stories whose content has been overcome by newer events will be deleted. However, enough older links will be retained so that readers can get a quick sense of how we got to where we are today by skimming the headlines of the preceding stories in chronological order. Sections will usually include 7 to 10 stories.
 ➡ Our publication schedule

A. OpenAI (max = 15)
  • "OpenAI Declares ‘Code Red’ as Google Threatens AI Lead", Berber Jin, WSJ, 12/2/25
    -- This story also covered by The Information, The Verge

  • "Disney bets $1 billion on OpenAI in deal that opens its vault of characters to ChatGPT and Sora", Jordan Strauss/, Business Insider, 12/11/25
  • "OpenAI Launches GPT-5.2 as It Navigates ‘Code Red’", Maxwell Zeff, Wired, 12/11/25
    -- This story also covered by VentureBeat, ... and OpenAI

B. Microsoft 
C. Google 
  • "‘Holy shit’: Gemini 3 is winning the AI race — for now", Hayden Field , The Verge, 11/24/25 ... and ...  Here is Gemini 3's summary of its most important benchmark results posted at Google DeepMind: Gemini 3 Pro 


D. Amazon, Meta, Anthropic, Apple, Adobe, Nvidia, xAI, and other Big Tech models (max = 15)
  • "Apple Teams Up With Google for A.I. in Its Products", Kalley Huang, NY Times,1/12/26
    -- This story also covered by     MacRumors, 9to5Mac


E. Agents
  • "Anthropic proposes a new way to connect data to AI chatbots", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 11/25/24 ... "Model Context Protoco (MCP)”

  • "Anthropic’s Next Big AI Hit [Claude Code] Could Also Bruise the Jobs Market", Parmy Olson, Bloomberg, 1/26/26
    --     This story and related issues also covered by NY Times, Vox ... and Anthropic

F. Small Language Model (SLM) news + Open Source
Editor's note -- News reports are classified in this category if and only if they explicitly refer to models with less than 70 billion (70B) parameters. The pace of development should heat up as small, fast models are hooked up to large models and as the competition to become the dominant self-contained AI model on smart phones intensifies.

G. Public policy and legal considerations  (max= 12)
  • "China bans tech companies from buying Nvidia’s AI chips", Zijing Wu, Cheng Leng,Tim Bradshaw, Financial Times, 9/17/25 
    -- This story also covered by Ars Technica

  • "China Tightens Grip on Rare Earths Ahead of Expected Trump-Xi Meeting", Hannah Miao, WSJ, 10/9/25
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg, NY Times, Reuters,

  • "In Retaliatory Move, Trump Threatens 100% Tariffs on Chinese Goods", Ana Swanson, NY Times, 10/10/25
    -- This story also covered by NPR, Reuters, Financial Times, 

  • "China Outlines 5-Year Plan to Double Down on Global Tech Ambitions", Chris Buckley, NY Times, 10/29/25

  • Trump Clears Sale of More Powerful Nvidia A.I. Chips to China"", Tripp Mickle and Ana Swanson, NY Times, 12/8/25
    -- This story also covered by WSJ, Engadget
    -- A related story, "DeepSeek is Using Banned Nvidia Chips in Race to Build Next Model", The Information, 12/10/25

  • "From Chips to Security, China Is Getting Much of What It Wants From the U.S.", Lily Kuo, NY Times, 12/12/25
  • "Trump launches $12 billion minerals stockpile to counter China", Ernest Scheyder and Jarrett Renshaw, Reuters, 2/2/26

  • "Pentagon Gives A.I. Company an Ultimatum", Julian E. Barnes and Sheera Frenkel, NY Times, 2/24/26
    -- This story also covered by Reuters, WSJ, Bloomberg
2

H. Misc = Opinions, other news, rumors, long reads (max = 15) 
  • "U.S. Investors Are Going Big on China AI Despite Concerns in Congress", Rory Jones and Tracy Qu, WSJ, 12/10/25
  • "Large language models as clever software engineering unguided by science", Neoskeptics OpEd, 1/1/26
  • "An A.I. Pioneer Warns the Tech ‘Herd’ Is Marching Into a Dead End", Cade Metz, NY Times, 1/26/26

  • Big Tech quarterly reports ... January/February 2026

    -- Nvidia, "Nvidia Beats Back Bubble Fears With Record $68 Billion in Sales in Fourth Quarter", WSJ, 2/25/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    -- Alphabet, "Google to Double Spending as Earnings Beat Wall Street Expectations", WSJ,  2/5/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    --     Amazon , "Amazon Shares Sink as Company Boosts AI Spending by Nearly 60%", WSJ, 2/5/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters

    -- Apple, "Apple Posts Blowout iPhone Sales, but Investors Focus on Higher Costs", Rolfe Winkler, WSJ,1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by NY Times, Reuters
     
    -- Meta, "Meta Reports Record Sales, Massive Spending Hike on AI Buildout", Meghan Bobrowsky, WSJ, 1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by Reuters

    -- Microsoft, "Microsoft Shares Dive as Data-Center Spending Overshadows Earnings Surge", ebastian Herrera, WSJ, 1/29/26
    ... This story also covered by Reuters

I.  Language model flaws, hacks, and remedies (max = 15) 
  • "Many-shot jailbreaking", Anthropic, 4/2/24 
    -- This story also covered by video on TechCrunch, 
  • "Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats", Anthropic, 6/20/25 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, VentureBeat, 

  • "OpenAI–Anthropic cross-tests expose jailbreak and misuse risks — what enterprises must add to GPT-5 evaluations", Emilia David, VentureBeat, 8/28/25 ... Reports from OpenAI, Anthropic

J. Basics
  • "Transformers (how LLMs work)" explained visually | DL5, 3Blue1Brown, 2024,

K. GenAI Data Centers Externalities -- Electriciity, Health, Environment, and Climate Impact  (max = 15)

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Links to some back issues

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