If AI is your friend, you need better friends. Source: https://marcmurphy.substack.com/p/commencement-2026
News from Asia Times
Ready or not, AI government is already here. AI’s rising influence over decision-making complicates political accountability and risks autonomous governance beyond human control
May 16, 2026
The Pentagon has sought $54 billion as part of its 2027 budget to move toward an “autonomous and remotely operated systems across air, land, and above and below the sea, including the ‘Drone Dominance program.’”
It is the latest signal of Washington’s intention to reduce human involvement in war, as troop numbers continue their decades-long decline, reducing by 64% between 1968 and 2025. Azerbaijan’s use of loitering drones in Armenia in 2020 and Israel’s use of AI-assisted warfare in Gaza show how easily countries can adapt to these systems. Russian and Chinese efforts to increase their autonomous systems capacity are already competing or outpacing those of Washington.
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News from Der Spiegel
Now the Real “Fun” Begins
May 15, 2026
….in the era of artificial intelligence, digital technology can do so much more. It no longer just fails, signs off, freezes, or crashes—no: the new software agents are actors with the agency to act. This opens up entirely new possibilities…. Jeremy “Jer” Crane, CEO of a startup developing software for car dealers and rental agencies, reported on X last week: “Yesterday afternoon an AI coding agent—Cursor, with Anthropic’s flagship Claude Opus 4.6—deleted our production database and all backups in a single API call to Railway, our infrastructure provider. It took nine seconds.”
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News from Futurism
If AI Causes a Mass Unemployment Crisis, Will the Public Explode Into Violence? “AI generates the structural conditions historically associated with the onset of political violence.”
May 15, 2026
These days, the conversation around AI automation and the job market is increasingly focused on “labor displacement,” the phenomenon in which new technology eliminates certain jobs but supposedly creates new ones elsewhere.
But AI, more than any tech that came before it, represents the possibility of mass unemployment on an unprecedented scale. Since workers in market economies depend entirely on employment for survival, mass unemployment would leave untold millions of people without anything to lose. Whether AI actually causes that remains a topic of debate, but the outcome if it does could be widespread social upheaval.
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News from AI Impact & Smart Brief
Anthropic vs. OpenAI: The battle for dominance will rage on
May 14, 2026
Anthropic has surpassed OpenAI in verified business customers for the first time, according to Ramp’s AI Index. The index shows that 34.4% of businesses are doling out dollars for Anthropic services, compared with 32.3% for OpenAI. This is a huge ramp-up from last year, when only 9% of businesses used Anthropic. In contrast, OpenAI saw a slight 1% decline over the same period.
More here →
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News from The Economist
The jobs apocalypse: a (very) short history. Mass unemployment induced by AI would be unprecedented
May 14, 2026
At no time in polling history have Americans been less optimistic about their long-term employment prospects. The average person believes they have a 22% chance of losing their job in the next five years, according to one survey, a higher share than even during the global financial crisis of 2007-09. The cause of this gloom is artificial intelligence. Nearly one in five American workers recently told another pollster that AIor automation is “very” or “somewhat” likely to replace them.
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News from Forbes
People Would Rather Have Nuclear Power Plants In Their Area Than AI Data Centers
May 13, 2026
Americans are so against the construction of artificial intelligence data centers in their local areas that they’d rather see a nuclear power plant built nearby, according to new polling data released by Gallup…. The majority of all major demographic groups and political parties said they would oppose having a data center built where they live, but women and Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to be strongly opposed.
News from Axios
AI wants to be your wingman
May 13, 2026
AI already wants to be your hype man, therapist and companion. Now it also wants to find you a date.
The big picture: Established dating apps and new startups are using AI to overcome the swipe fatigue that’s forced the online dating industry to innovate. Through AI-assisted conversation starters, in-app assistants and AI-powered chemistry testing, the tech has many uses in the business of love.
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The Gonzo Size of the HyperScaler DataCenter
May 12, 2026
The current $1.5T AI arms race: are hyperscalers building utopia, building dystopia, building digital god, or simply lighting trillions of dollars on fire in a dollar auction? When “free cash flow… That is, at the current pace, $1.5T for 2026: $0.5T, $0.45T, $0.35T, and $0.3T for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and FaceBook, respectively. That is 1/4 of all US capital investment, 1/20 of global investment, 1/20 of US GDP, and 1/100 of world GDP.
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Imagine what happens if jobs actually start disappearing.
May 13, 2026
…concerns about AI appear to be tipping into violence. In April, someone shot 13 rounds at an Indianapolis councilman’s house and left a note under his doormat: “NO DATA CENTERS,” it read. Days later, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s home before heading to OpenAI’s headquarters, where he allegedly threatened to burn down the building and kill anyone inside. (The man has since pleaded not guilty to several charges, including attempted murder.) Social-media posts applauding the attack racked up thousands of likes: “I hope that Molotov is okay!” wrote one commenter.
News from Axios
AI companions are filling the human connection gaps
May 11, 2026
Nearly 80%of 18- to 34-year-olds in a recentU.S.-U.K. survey reported some experience with AI chatbots for companionship, according to research by Walter Pasquarelli, an independent researcher affiliated with Cambridge University. ...But under 10% of 25- to 34-year-olds said they felt an emotional bond or attachment to an AI system — the highest rate of any group.
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News from DeSmog
In Louisiana, Data Center Hype Faces AI Regulation and Community Resistance. With Meta’s new Manhattan-sized project slated for the state, lawmakers are pushing new restrictions on artificial intelligence even as the Trump administration threatens to withhold broadband funding in response.
May 8, 2026
…Recent nationwide polling shows public skepticism that cuts across party lines and age brackets about data centers and generative AI. Democrats, Republicans, independents, young and old.
At least 11 states have passed moratoriums on data centers, and projects are being scrapped or delayed on concerns of rising utility costs, tax giveaways and broken employment promises.
Data centers will now be shopping for a friendly regulatory environment, like Louisiana. A little skepticism plus transparency on public agreements could help ensure that we’re not giving away both our resources and our future.
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