2026-07-17
More coverage of Kimi K3's achievements below
Kimi
Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter AI model that it says rivals Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5, and plans to release its full model weights by July 27
Today, we are introducing Kimi K3 — our most capable model. Kimi K3 is a 2.8T-parameter model built on our Kimi Delta Attention and Attention Residuals …
More coverage of Kimi K3's achievements below
VentureBeat
Kimi-K3 takes #1 on the Frontend Code Arena benchmark, surpassing Claude Fable 5, and scores 88.3 on Terminal Bench 2.1, trailing only GPT-5.6 Sol's 88.8
Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based artificial intelligence startup backed by Alibaba, on Thursday released Kimi K3 …
During its earnings call earlier today, Netflix shared that AI has been used in about 300 titles this year. Its shareholder letter stated — “We are increasingly leveraging these tools to deliver higher quality output more quickly and at a lower cost than traditional methods.” — GenAI is here to stay.
The Verge
Netflix says ~300 titles on its app used generative AI in 2026, mostly in post-production, “to deliver higher quality output more quickly and at a lower cost”
Some titles used AI to create ‘enhanced crowds, historical battle sequences, and worldbuilding establishing shots.’
2026-07-15
Stripe and a private equity firm teaming up to acquire PayPal was not on my bingo card. — A pre-IPO startup acquiring a public company for $53B is the opposite of what we've come to expect. At this point I wonder if Stripe will ever IPO.
Reuters
Sources: Stripe and PE firm Advent have jointly offered $60.50/share to acquire PayPal, a 28% premium to Tuesday's close, valuing it at $53B+; PYPL jumps 15%+
Payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings Inc …
It seems running an ad showing a homeless person sleeping on the street and rows upon rows of tombstones in a cemetery then asking what do we do “when AI takes almost all the jobs?” and “can AI be trusted?” isn't going over well. — Another great example of Anthropic's extremely tone deaf marketing.
TechCrunch
Anthropic faces ridicule and criticism for an ad titled “There's hope in hard questions” that unsettled viewers with weird graveyard imagery and doomer-ist tone
Anthropic is known for its creative marketing, but the AI company may have been a little bit too creative when it conjured up its most recent advertisement.
2026-07-14
It seems running an ad showing a homeless person sleeping on the street and rows upon rows of tombstones in a cemetery then asking what do we do “when AI takes almost all the jobs?” and “can AI be trusted?” isn't going over well. — Another great example of Anthropic's extremely tone deaf marketing.
TechCrunch
Anthropic faces ridicule and criticism for an ad titled “There's hope in hard questions” that unsettled viewers with weird graveyard imagery and doomer-ist tone
Anthropic is known for its creative marketing, but the AI company may have been a little bit too creative when it conjured up its most recent advertisement.
The AI bubble looks a lot like the dotcom bubble. — • It's clear the technology will change everything. — • Massive adoption is a matter of when not if. — • A lot of companies are spending a lot of money unprofitably and will crash spectacularly. …
Bloomberg
Apple's stock is up 16% since June 25, adding ~$650B in market value and pushing shares back to record territory, as investors flee an AI stock selloff to Apple
2026-07-13
The AI bubble looks a lot like the dotcom bubble. — • It's clear the technology will change everything. — • Massive adoption is a matter of when not if. — • A lot of companies are spending a lot of money unprofitably and will crash spectacularly. …
Bloomberg
Apple's stock is up 16% since June 25, adding ~$650B in market value and pushing shares back to record territory, as investors flee an AI stock selloff to Apple
There's a big push to blame teen mental health issues on smartphones but this story made me wonder about exploring other things that have since become normalized. — Should we expect kids who grew up post-Columbine on regular school shootings and active shooter drills to have great mental health?
The Atlantic
Psychologist Peter Gray argues that school stress, not smartphone use, is the main driver of the teen mental health crisis, challenging Jonathan Haidt's thesis
2026-07-12
There's a big push to blame teen mental health issues on smartphones but this story made me wonder about exploring other things that have since become normalized. — Should we expect kids who grew up post-Columbine on regular school shootings and active shooter drills to have great mental health?
The Atlantic
Psychologist Peter Gray argues that school stress, not smartphone use, is the main driver of the teen mental health crisis, challenging Jonathan Haidt's thesis
When the 82-year-old psychologist Peter Gray describes the way he grew up, he punctuates the anecdotes by saying that modern parents …
2026-07-10
I see this as part of the same zero sum attention challenge facing gaming. Too much competition for people's free time. — Every minute scrolling TikTok is a minute not spent playing Call of Duty or Bing watching Stranger Things.
Wall Street Journal
Sources: Netflix executives are increasingly worried about declining engagement and are exploring adding live TV and bundling streaming services like Peacock
2026-07-09
On one hand, it seems rough to hear that companies are no longer interested in hiring for entry levels but on the other hand, cheating due to AI is so rampant in schools that it seems like the safest bet instead of hiring people who have no understanding of the work. *sigh*
Inside Higher Ed
A Brown University professor suspected his class used AI to cheat after a take-home midterm averaged 96%, prompting an in-person final, which averaged 48.6%
2026-07-08
The Chinese government has had talks with top Chinese AI companies about restricting access to their most advanced AI models by foreign users. — Given the significant interest in Chinese open weight models as AI token costs have risen, this would be huge hit to AI adoption if they follow through.
Reuters
Sources: China met with Alibaba, ByteDance, Z.ai, and others to discuss potentially limiting foreign access to advanced AI models, AI theft penalties, and more
Chinese authorities have held meetings with top tech firms over the past month about potentially restricting overseas access …
2026-07-07
“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI...At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.” - Amy Coleman, Microsoft's Chief People Officer — Striking the balance of doing layoffs because of AI but not replacing people with AI.
The Verge
Microsoft is laying off ~4,800 employees, or ~2.1% of its workforce; most are in sales or Xbox, where ~20% of jobs are set to be cut by the end of FY 2027
Most of the job losses are in Microsoft's Xbox and commercial sales organizations. … A year after cutting around 9,100 employees …
The Chinese government has had talks with top Chinese AI companies about restricting access to their most advanced AI models by foreign users. — Given the significant interest in Chinese open weight models as AI token costs have risen, this would be huge hit to AI adoption if they follow through.
Reuters
Sources: China met with Alibaba, ByteDance, Z.ai, and others to discuss potentially limiting foreign access to advanced AI models, penalties for AI theft, more
Chinese authorities have held meetings with top tech firms over the past month about potentially restricting overseas access …
“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI...At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.” - Amy Coleman, Microsoft's Chief People Officer — Striking the balance of doing layoffs because of AI but not replacing people with AI.
Bloomberg
Microsoft's Xbox plans to cut ~3,200 jobs over the next year, including 1,600 on Monday, and divest up to five studios, including Ninja Theory, in a “reset”
Compulsion and Double Fine studios will become independent; Undead Labs and Ninja Theory will be sold.
2026-07-06
It's the end of an era. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a classic instance of “fake it until you make it.” — Instead of faking artificial intelligence by hiring people in low income countries to perform basic data entry or data processing tasks, it's now cheaper to perform those tasks with AI using LLMs.
The Register
AWS says Mechanical Turk will no longer accept new customers and that it is placing the crowdsourcing service in maintenance, signaling its future retirement
Workers who use OG crowdsourcing platform say AWS is closing accounts — Amazon Web Services will stop accepting new customers …
“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI...At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.” - Amy Coleman, Microsoft's Chief People Officer — Striking the balance of doing layoffs because of AI but not replacing people with AI.
Bloomberg
Microsoft's Xbox unit plans to cut 3,200 jobs over the next year, including 1,600 on Monday, and divest up to five studios, including Ninja Theory, in a “reset”
Compulsion and Double Fine studios will become independent; Undead Labs and Ninja Theory will be sold.
“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI...At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.” - Amy Coleman, Microsoft's Chief People Officer — Striking the balance of doing layoffs because of AI but not replacing people with AI.
The Verge
Microsoft is laying off ~4,800 employees, or ~2.1% of its workforce; most are in sales or Xbox, where ~20% of jobs are set to be cut by the end of FY 2027
Most of the job losses are in Microsoft's Xbox and commercial sales organizations. … A year after cutting around 9,100 employees …
2026-07-05
It's the end of an era. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a classic instance of “fake it until you make it.” — Instead of faking artificial intelligence by hiring people in low income countries to perform basic data entry or data processing tasks, it's now cheaper to perform those tasks with AI using LLMs.
The Register
AWS says Mechanical Turk will no longer accept new customers and that it is placing the crowdsourcing service in maintenance, signaling its future retirement
Workers who use OG crowdsourcing platform say AWS is closing accounts — Amazon Web Services will stop accepting new customers …