Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 10, 2026

Yann LeCun, former chief AI scientist at Meta and Turing Award winner, has raised over $1 billion for his new startup Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs) - making it Europe's largest seed funding round ever. Investors include Nvidia, Bezos Expeditions, Singapore's Temasek, and France's Cathay Innovation.

The company was valued at $3.5 billion before the funding round. Alexandre LeBrun, former head of French startup Nabla, serves as CEO, while LeCun will take the role of board chair. The company is launching with about a dozen employees spread across Paris, New York, Singapore, and Montreal.

AMI Labs aims to build so-called world models that understand the physical environment - with applications in areas like robotics and transportation. According to LeCun and LeBrun, today's language models aren't up to the task. Meta isn't an investor but is expected to partner with AMI Labs.

Comment Source: AMILabs | FT

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 9, 2026

Short News

Millions of people are already using chatbots like ChatGPT for retirement planning, the Financial Times reports. In a Lloyds Bank survey, more than half of respondents used AI for financial advice. However, experts point to clear limitations, including the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, which recently cautioned against AI hallucinations.

A test by Which? in November, for example, showed that popular chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Meta AI achieved overall scores of only 55 to 71 percent. Still, the pressure on the financial industry is significant: pension providers like Scottish Widows are now developing their own AI tools.

"I think that's the danger of AI is that people will assume they know what they don't," warns JPMorgan strategist John Bilton. According to Bilton, if users treat AI as an investment tool rather than a data tool, it risks making "underlying behavioural biases — such as the tendency to hold too much in cash or trade too often — stronger."

A counterexample is a 41-year-old software engineer who had ChatGPT restructure his entire $200,000 portfolio. ChatGPT advised him to diversify his risk exposure: 80 percent into a broad market equity index tracker and the remainder into a bond ETF. He told the Financial Times that speaking with the chatbot helped him to "commit to and actually execute" his plan.

Comment Source: FT

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 9, 2026

AI in practice

Study warns of "AI Brain Fry" as workers hit cognitive limits overseeing AI agents

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 9, 2026

AI in practice

U.S. Military strikes 3,000 targets in Iran with AI support, but oversight remains "underinvested"

The Wall Street Journal confirms and expands on previous reports about the massive use of generative AI in the U.S. military campaign against Iran. New details reveal how deeply AI is already embedded in intelligence, targeting, and logistics.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 6, 2026

Short News

The Pentagon formally notified Anthropic on March 4 that the company and its products have been designated as a supply chain risk to US national security. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced on March 5 that the company will challenge the designation in court. According to Amodei, the measure only applies to the use of Claude as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all customers.

The dispute escalated after Anthropic demanded assurances that its AI would not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons deployment. According to Bloomberg, Claude is currently the only AI system operating in the Pentagon's classified cloud and is actively used in US operations against Iran.

Amodei also apologized for an internal post that was leaked to the press. "It does not reflect my careful or considered views," Amodei said. The post was written within hours of Trump's Truth Social post, Secretary of War Hegseth's announcement on X, and a Pentagon deal with OpenAI.

Anthropic is offering to continue providing its models to the military at nominal cost until a transition is complete. According to Bloomberg, the company is currently valued at $380 billion and is approaching an annual revenue run rate of $20 billion.

Comment Source: Anthropic

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 6, 2026

Short News

Oracle is planning to cut thousands of jobs to manage the massive costs of its AI data center expansion, Bloomberg reports. The cuts will affect multiple divisions and could be implemented as early as March. Some reductions target job categories the company expects to need less due to AI. Oracle had around 162,000 employees worldwide as of the end of May 2025. Under Chairman Larry Ellison, Oracle is investing heavily in data centers for AI customers like OpenAI.

Analysts expect the company's free cash flow to turn negative in the coming years before the spending starts to pay off around 2030. In February, Oracle announced plans to raise up to $50 billion this year through debt and equity sales. The stock has fallen 54 percent from its September 2025 high. Oracle had already disclosed in September a restructuring plan costing up to $1.6 billion – the largest in the company's history.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 6, 2026

AI research

AI models can barely control their own reasoning, and OpenAI says that's a good sign

With GPT-5.4 Thinking, OpenAI is reporting on “CoT controllability” for the first time – a measure of whether AI models can deliberately manipulate their own reasoning. An accompanying study finds that reasoning models almost universally fail at this task, which OpenAI says is encouraging for AI safety.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 5, 2026

Short News

Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Oracle, xAI and OpenAI signed a voluntary pledge at the White House to cover the electricity costs of their data centers themselves. The commitment is not legally binding. The goal is to prevent the massive energy demand of AI data centers from driving up electricity bills for households and small businesses, Reuters reports.

President Trump first announced the so-called "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" during his State of the Union Address. The companies promise to secure their own power sources or expand existing plants and cover grid upgrade costs.

Critics like Jon Gordon of Advanced Energy United doubt that new power plants can be built fast enough to relieve the grids, according to Reuters. Especially since the administration is focusing on natural gas rather than faster-to-build solar and wind energy. The initiative comes ahead of the November midterm elections, where rising energy costs are a key voter concern.

Comment Source: Reuters

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 5, 2026

AI in practice

Yann LeCun wants to replace the AGI concept with "Superhuman Adaptable Intelligence"

A new paper by researchers at Columbia University and NYU, including Yann LeCun, argues that AGI is a flawed concept. Human intelligence is not general, they say, but specialized. Instead, they propose the term “Superhuman Adaptable Intelligence”.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 5, 2026

AI and society

Maximilian Schreiner

Study warns of "AI Brain Fry" as workers hit cognitive limits overseeing AI agents

U.S. Military strikes 3,000 targets in Iran with AI support, but oversight remains "underinvested"

AI models can barely control their own reasoning, and OpenAI says that's a good sign

Yann LeCun wants to replace the AGI concept with "Superhuman Adaptable Intelligence"

Anthropic CEO attacks OpenAI's Pentagon deal as "safety theater" while investors scramble for de-escalation