My main newsletter, Complex Machinery, includes a section called "In Other News..." It's where I list one-liners about interesting articles that didn't fit into any segments.

You can think of this list as a version of In Other News, but with a wider remit than Complex Machinery's "risk, AI, and related topics."

Above the fold

1. Amazon has proven itself a powerhouse of robot-driven warehouse automation … (Ars Technica)
2. … while Walmart's bot expansion has had some run-ins with reality … (WSJ, syndicated to MSN)
3. … and in Shenzhen, automated delivery bots are learning how to navigate city streets after dark. (Bloomberg)
4. Epic Games, falling behind schedule on a major release, goes all-in on genAI for the project. (Bloomberg)
5. London cab drivers, known for their encyclopedic knowledge of the city's streets (and the years that can take to develop), are fighting the planned arrival of robotaxis. (The Register)
6. Tech-based translation tools may help in a pinch, but they're no substitute for the world-opening, mind-expanding, age-reversing impact of learning a foreign language. (Engelsberg ideas)
7. Instead of hiring an influencer, Belgian restaurant Le Pain Quotidien featured its CFO on social media. And it worked. (Les Echos 🇫🇷)
8. genAI-related trading dominates the stock market. It's practically inescapable. (FT)
9. In the current US-Iran fight, the smaller country may wield an economic weapon. (Jay Martin)
10. Society and the law differ on whether genAI companies can be held accountable for their bots' actions. (Politico)
11. Bankruptcy filings show that startup Character AI was torching cash and grasping for business. (404 Media)

The rest of the best

• Facing public backlash over its AI camera network, Flock is trimming headcount. (The Guardian)
• More than 100 AI-generated articles, allegedly linked to Iranian influence campaigns, have appeared on news sites. (Washington Post)
• Anthropic's genAI bots have been putting fake info into government web forms. (New York Times)
• Don't have a Facebook account? No matter. If your friends use Meta's Muse genAI agent, the bot may collect info on you indirectly. (Wired)
• An Instagram fan account's AI-generated video was mistaken for a real post from the celebrity in question. Part of the confusion? The fan account sported a blue checkmark of verification. (The Verge)
• Texas has implemented a genAI-based tool to scan university professors' lesson plans. Many of the affected professors claim it's a tool of authoritarianism. (The Atlantic)
• Anthropic has decided to remove bots' access to the internet during testing. (TechCrunch)
• Yet another tech startup goes for alternative math to reach its proposed valuation. Their "EV+1/EBIT+2" may obscure some risks. (Reuters)
• One genAI startup may allow restaurants to sidestep expensive middlemen. (The Verge)
• A think tank is building its case against personalized, predatory pricing. (Bloomberg)

Did I miss anything?

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