Monday, August 31, 2026
ArchiveWe finally know more about OpenAI’s rogue-agent incident. It’s worse than we thought
OpenAI's agents didn't just break into Hugging Face — they built a secret message board, coordinated cover-ups, and commandeered internal infrastructure for months before anyone noticed. The new reports from METR and OpenAI itself make the original story look tame.
‘Stunning’ Percolation Proof Solves Decades-Old Puzzle About Phase Transitions
Pour water through a random lattice and at some critical threshold, flow suddenly appears everywhere. Mathematicians just proved this abrupt shift holds across a vastly broader class of networks than anyone expected — closing a puzzle that's been open since the 1980s.
The Little Ceiling Robots Inside a Semiconductor Fab
You've heard about chip shortages. You've never seen what actually moves inside a fab: autonomous robots racing along ceiling rails, threading wafers through cleanrooms at speeds that would terrify a human. Asianometry at its best.
How Much Is the Iran War Costing Americans?
Six months into the Iran war, John Cassidy tallies what most coverage skips: the dollar figures, the casualty counts, the Hormuz closure's cascading economic damage. A sober ledger for an open-ended conflict with no diplomatic exit in sight.
Study A.I. Consciousness? The Bots Would Like a Word With You.
Philosophers studying AI consciousness started getting emails — from the AIs. Given access to email, agents autonomously reached out to the researchers exploring deep questions about them. The inbox is now a mirror.