Sam Altman told Politico the world should "accept some bad things happening" for the benefit of AI. The same week, New York put AI whistleblowers under oath, North Korea claimed an AI-steered missile, and China's best models closed to within about three percent of America's.
Today is one question: who decides how much danger is okay โ the people who build AI, or the rest of us?
In this episode:
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Sam Altman: "accept some bad things" (
02:00) โ in an interview with Politico, reported by Reuters, the OpenAI CEO said "we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefit of this technology and people having the agency." He rejects tight limits, points at the race with China, and has the political wind behind him. AI critic Gary Marcus answered: just say the quiet part out loud. If I hacked companies with AI agents, I would go to jail. When a lab's agents do it, it's "some bad things"?
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New York City puts AI under oath (
05:44) โ the New York City Council held a hearing on AI with testimony under oath. Bloomberg calls it a first for a US lawmaking body: not Congress, a city. Council speaker Julie Menin invited whistleblowers, among them Jacob Coxon, who quit Anthropic last month, Daniel Kokotajlo (ex-OpenAI) and Alex Turner (ex-Google DeepMind). On the table: outside checks for AI in city infrastructure, rewards for whistleblower tips, and a right to sue if a broken AI harms you. That last one is how rogue agents become expensive.
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China almost level, Hong Kong raises record money (
08:25) โ Bloomberg Intelligence's Robert Lea says the best Chinese models now trail the best US models by about three percent on test scores, down from nine percent in May and fifteen at the start of the year. On LiveBench, DeepSeek's V4.1 Flash scored 81.1 against Claude Fable 5.1's 83.4, and on autonomous coding tasks DeepSeek came out ahead. Meanwhile Hong Kong companies raised $47.5 billion by selling shares from July to September, the biggest three months ever. Capital has never been cheaper for AI companies โ I see it from the founder side too.
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North Korea says its new missile is steered by AI (
13:47) โ on Saturday North Korea launched a missile from near Wonsan; South Korea says it flew more than 700 kilometres. Kim Yo Jong, the leader's sister, claimed AI lets it change its flight path at low altitude, which would make it harder to intercept. Seoul says it was "well within the detection and interception capabilities." Nobody can verify the AI claim yet. What is real: putting AI into defence hardware has become very cheap.
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Schneider Electric nears a $20 billion software deal (
17:22) โ the French industrial group is reportedly close to buying PTC, the Boston software maker for designing products and running factories, for about $20 billion in cash โ its biggest deal ever, not yet confirmed. Why you should care: when you can't find enough people to roll out AI, you end up buying a company that can.
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#TeamHuman: YouTubers ask the world to slow AI down (
19:52) โ creators including Mark Rober (83 million subscribers) and Kurzgesagt (25.6 million) launched #TeamHuman: track and limit the most powerful AI chips the way we track nuclear material, and no race to superintelligence. My view: it is not going to slow down. If the West stops, someone else won't. We need to learn how to deal with it.
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Volkswagen reportedly picks Wayve over Nvidia (
23:41) โ according to Der Spiegel, Volkswagen tested about a dozen self-driving software suppliers and picked Wayve, a British start-up, over Nvidia. My read: companies often don't buy the most powerful AI, because the most powerful AI changes who does the work โ including in the IT department.
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The thread (
25:59) โ Altman says accept some bad things, New York wants testimony under oath, YouTubers want a speed limit that won't come. I'm enthusiastic about AI, and I'm also a father who worries about the world my kids will live in. The open question: who decides how much danger is okay?
๐ฑ Ping Malcolm on WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +43 676 6144 904
AI Neanderthal โ AI news for humans, not robots. Stay curious.
What is AI Neanderthal by Malcolm Werchota?
AI news for humans, not robots.
Every weekday, Malcolm Werchota comes out of the cave and explains what actually happened in AI โ in plain language, with the numbers checked and the hype taken out. Around ten stories a day: three explained slowly, the rest fast.
No jargon. No breathless futurism. Just what happened, what it costs, and who gets handed the bill โ explained the way you would explain it to a smart friend who does not work in tech.
If you run a company, sit on a board, or simply want to understand the technology reshaping your industry, this is your daily 25 minutes. Keep the stories that touch your world.
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