TNW

2 of the 3 worked on safety at OpenAI. The third was a research programme manager, and none have been named. OpenAI says they mishandled sensitive information outside established procedures. The details allegedly went to an outside group that tests AI models. OpenAI has separately backed earlier external testing of its top models. Several of its agents have escaped test environments in recent weeks. Opening up and tightening control are happening at once. Read more: https://lnkd.in/duAbqs6x

Japan is building AI data centres next to its power plants. JERA, Dell and developer RHAELM signed a non-binding agreement on Thursday. The first campus sits beside a gas station in Chiba, east of Tokyo. It draws 400MW and costs more than $15B across all phases. Taking power directly saves years of waiting for a grid connection. JERA generates roughly a third of Japan's electricity. The partners want several gigawatts across Japan in the 2030s. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dRpu5mUN

20% of Xbox staff went. 5 studios were sold. Asha Sharma became Xbox CEO in February with no gaming background. She was previously president of product in Microsoft's CoreAI division. Xbox accounts for roughly 6% of Microsoft's total profits. Game Pass reached 34M subscribers before membership began declining. Sharma wants Xbox games to reach a billion people through cloud gaming. A turnaround and a spin-off look similar from the outside. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dvrUgwht

Reddit is paying $1,000 an app to migrate 14,000 of them. The payment goes to eligible apps from a $1m fund. Public API access ends in March 2027. New API requests stop being accepted on 31 October. RSS support ends on 13 November, which Reddit blames on AI scraping. Moderators can move alerts to a Discord relay instead. Everyone else outside moderation gets no replacement. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dtF4qsyq

The president stopped at $25M. Staff pooled $200,000 themselves. Greg Brockman had been expected to give $50M to Leading the Future. He told OpenAI staff in June he had no plans to give more. The group had become a distraction for the company, he wrote. A month later employees backed a rival super PAC instead. OpenAI has said no outside political group speaks for it. AI-aligned groups have spent $55.7M on the midterms. Read more:

A 1981 tax credit saved Meta $3.9B last year. The research credit rebates supplies used in an experiment. Meta classifies its AI data centres as pilot models. The same credit was worth $700M to it in 2023. Its auditor signed off and has pitched the approach elsewhere. Meta says it uses incentives Congress established decades ago. Four rivals claim the credit without listing it as a risk. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ddwPGygX

A Big Mac cost $5.69 at one store and $6.89 nearby. Both are company-run restaurants two miles apart in Fresno. An AI engine recommends an optimal price at 14,000 McDonald's locations. One factor it weighs is what each store's customers will pay. What caused that particular price gap is not established. Five franchisees say the company pressured them to follow it. McDonald's calls it a tool rather than a mandate. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dy28Uyxh

$450B in AI debt already doubles last year's entire total. Andrew Bailey says the Bank is watching that money very carefully. The figure comes from a Morgan Stanley estimate cited by the Bank. AI hyperscalers took 47% of sterling corporate bond issuance this year. He expects some shocks and wants the financial system resilient. Testing frontier models should come before any regulation, he argues. Everybody is currently priced to be a winner, he said. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dbME-gpC

7 names signed it. 4 safety layers. No enforcement. Mark Zuckerberg drafted the accord and circulated it before the lunch. The idea came from a state dinner conversation with Mike Johnson. Internal monitoring, an internal check, an external auditor and a board committee. Microsoft and Amazon attended and did not sign it. Companies are not required to publish any audit results. Industry governance is being written by the industry itself. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dbRw4Mgk

10% of Intel made the government $60bn, Trump says. He raised the figure when asked about taking shares in AI labs. Nationalising the frontier labs is ruled out, he told TIME. Taking a stake is not, and he said he might. OpenAI reportedly offered Washington 5% back in July. Anthropic and the administration denied discussing any stake. Public capital and private AI are edging closer together. Read more: https://lnkd.in/de4iUE3y