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Scott Aaronson said AI labs had started testing whether their newest models could break cryptography, and Vitalik Buterin urged taking it seriously. Anthropic launched Haiku 5.5, Google unveiled a universal Gemini agent, and Microsoft opened Surface Laptop Ultra preorders.

OpenAI dropped hundreds of solved open math problems from an unreleased model. HBO Max and Paramount Plus agreed to become one streamer. Apple's smart home push leaked, including LG-branded gear. Ring unveiled a dial-recharging lock. And Xreal opened Aura preorders. OpenAI releases a range of new mathematical results produced by an internal model, with details like estimations of compute spent in terms of ChatGPT Pro usage (OpenAI) OpenAI reveals solutions to long-standing math problems from an unreleased frontier model in 722 manuscripts covering 372 result families, with the "average result" using about three hours of ChatGPT Pro thinking (The Verge) OpenAI's new proofs, many checked in Lean, came from an unreleased model; some mathematicians question whether AI is finishing human researchers' work without due diligence (New York Times) HBO Max and Paramount Plus will merge into a single streamer under Skydance (The Verge) Sources: Apple's smart home push includes a doorbell, a thermostat, a deadbolt, security cameras, and accessories developed with LG that will carry the LG brand (Bloomberg) Amazon's Ring unveils the $249 Ring Smart Lock, which uses a physical dial to recharge the battery when turned, set for a Q1 2027 launch, and five new cameras (Bloomberg) Xreal opens preorders for its Android XR-powered Aura glasses with a compute puck, starting at $1,279 for 12GB/256GB, in the US, Canada, Japan, and South Korea (Engadget) Hands-on: Xreal's Aura and Meta's VR Glasses are direct competitors; Meta's feel more polished for sitting and typing, while the Aura's see-through lenses work better walking around (Wired) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Nvidia-backed Reflection unveiled Beam, a US open-weights model taking on Chinese labs. Plus, SemiAnalysis said Claude subscriptions were a better deal than OpenAI's, Meta and Microsoft cut back on Claude, Mistral dropped le Chonk, and ChatGPT faked New Yorker cartoonists' signatures.

An ex-OpenAI safety staffer quit, saying AI labs needed to get it right the first time. Plus, Western open-weight models were coming, Meta's Muse kept a page on everyone you know, SpaceXAI got renamed SpaceXSI, and Apple tightened Full Disk Access. David Robinson, ex-OpenAI safety and policy: SV lacks a safety-centric culture; labs must study other fields' safety approaches; time for trial and error's over (The Atlantic) OpenAI safety employee David Robinson quits, says AI firms should be run like nuclear power plants, with layers of redundancy; OpenAI says it is strengthening security in its testing environments (Bloomberg) Sources: several Western open-weight models are set to launch this month, including Reflection AI's first model, which will rival top Chinese open-weight models (Axios) Reflection AI's first open-weight model is a test of CEO Misha Laskin's plan to sell enterprises and governments "AI factories," backed by SpaceX and Nebius compute deals (RunTimeWire) Extracted system prompts show Meta's Muse compiles "a page for every person in the user's life", with facts, history, tips to improve relationships, and more (Wired) In an X reply, Elon Musk says that SpaceX will rename its AI unit SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, following Trump's push to replace "artificial" intelligence with "super" (Reuters) Musk's SpaceXSI rebrand follows Trump's September 29 executive order directing federal agencies to use "super intelligence" and "SI" in place of "artificial intelligence" and "AI" (Quartz) Apple says it is adding additional controls around "Full Disk Access" on macOS as AI agents have increased "the risks associated with this level of access" (TechCrunch) Billionaires Index: tech billionaires account for all of the $845B in wealth gains so far in 2026; those whose fortunes came from outside tech lost $62B total (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Download Cash App Today: ⁠https://cash.app/ ⁠#CashAppPartner. Terms apply. Bitcoin services by Block, Inc. See the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast

OpenAI fired three researchers for allegedly sharing sensitive info with an AI safety group, and the whistleblower talk started. Cloudflare launched Clef to challenge Jev, Suno added Speech, and Slovenia's .si domains boomed after Trump's "super intelligence" rebrand.