*** Useful AI News ***


Last update: Thursday 4/2/26

As of 3/26/26, this blog will no longer be tracking all significant generative AI news. The "Useful AI News" will only provide inks to op eds and  stories that were useful in the editor's preparation of the intensive and extensive genAI reports that he recently published ... or ... are proving useful to his preparation of forthcoming publications. 

Note: Our new image provides a reminder that we humans cannot process more than four factors at a time. No chatbots accommodate our limits. Ask them a simple question, they overload us with their "extensive" responses. Please don't be impressed because you really have to double check every response. Not checking will undermine your capacity to engage in critical thinking.


A. OpenAI  | B. Microsoft | C.  Google | D. Other Models |
 E. Agents | F. SLM/Open Source | G. Public Policy  | H. OpEds/Misc  | 

Recent Neoskeptics reports ...





A. OpenAI (max = 15)
  • "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 



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
    -- "Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Pentagon feud", CBS, YouTube    , 2/26/26

  • "President Trump ordered the U.S. government to stop using the artificial intelligence company Anthropic's products and the Pentagon moved to designate the company a national security risk" from ''OpenAI announces Pentagon deal after Trump bans Anthropic", NPR, 2/28/26

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
  • "An A.I. Pioneer Warns the Tech ‘Herd’ Is Marching Into a Dead End", Cade Metz, NY Times, 1/26/26


I.  Language model flaws, hacks, and remedies (max = 15) 
  • "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information", George A. Miller, Classics in the History of Psychology, 1956.
  • "The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity", N. Cowan, Pub Med/NIH, February, 2001

  • "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)

Z. Neoskeptics reports (16)

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Links to some back issues

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