Big Tech Companies

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K-12 approval plummets

Data: Gallup; Chart: Alex Fitzpatrick/Axios Americans' satisfaction with K-12 education has fallen to its lowest point in Gallup's 27-year trend, new polling finds. Only 32% of Americans are "completely" or "somewhat" satisfied with K-12 education. That's down 11 percentage points over the last two years alone. 🫏 Between the lines: Democrats are driving much of the recent plunge, with their satisfaction falling 19 percentage points since 2024. Yet a greater share (35%) still report being at least somewhat satisfied compared to Republicans (25%). Gallup says: "Republicans and independents are most likely to cite what they perceive as a lack of teaching basic skills." "Roughly equal shares of dissatisfied Democrats mention a lack of teaching basic skills, lack of funding or resources, and poor quality of education or inferiority compared with other countries." 👩‍🏫 The intrigue: Parents of K-12 students are about twice as likely to say that they're satisfied with their own child's education (66%) as they are with K-12 education nationally (32%). How it works: The results are based on an Aug. 3–24 Walton Family Foundation/Gallup telephone poll of 1,200 adults, plus an Aug. 3–17 online survey of 2,143 adults. Explore the findings.

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🤖 Controversy clouds OpenAI breakthrough

Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios OpenAI says it has solved the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem, Axios' Madison Mills reports. It's a potentially historic mathematical breakthrough — yet shadowed by questions over unpublished research by outside mathematicians. 🧊 OpenAI said today that an internal AI model produced a proof that the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations can develop a singularity in finite time. (Learn more.) Execs said they devoted enormous computing power to the effort, putting the costs in the "millions of dollars." Friction point: NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster — who has been working with Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge on closely related fluid-dynamics research — has questioned whether OpenAI raced down a research direction it learned about from their work. He raised concerns about whether private Codex material could have played a role. OpenAI says that neither its researchers nor its agents saw any of the pair's work before they released it publicly. Go deeper.

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Anthropic researcher resigns with warning about the dangers of AI development

An Anthropic researcher said he is resigning from the company over concerns the artificial intelligence firm and its competitors are not acting responsibly in AI development, echoing concerns raised inside and outside of the industry about the technology's potential to elude human control. Read More.

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Anthropic says it blocked misuse of its AI that could have supported biological weapons

Anthropic said Thursday it has blocked efforts by bad actors to use its artificial intelligence models for malicious activity such as cyberattacks, surveillance, and research that could have led to biological weapons. Read More.

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says AI industry needs to give safety measures time to catch up

NEW YORK (AP) — The CEO of Anthropic said Saturday the artificial-intelligence industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without such a slowdown, Dario Amodei warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.

https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-ai-dario-amodei-d59552edcb27892d8ee4d98a48397706?

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⚡ Altman: "pacing" not "pausing"

Screenshot from X

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted just after midnight ET that "pacing" the development of AI models, as the top labs endorsed over the weekend, doesn't mean "stopping." "Progress has been rapid and will continue to be," he wrote. "But it should be slower than it otherwise could be; interventions like safety cases and monitoring have significant costs." 💡 Why it matters: Altman thinks "pacing" — sequencing safety before release — will allow the U.S. to continue to lead in innovation. His overnight statement shows the AI giants don't plan to disarm, either against each other or against China. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei pushed a similar approach in his essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier," that triggered unprecedented statements of agreement from the cutthroat competitors building AI. In a tweet a few minutes later, Altman advocated "a narrow middle path" between accelerationists and the pause crowd. This third way would avoid "two ways AI progress could go very badly ... [F]or example, one country could gain too much power. Another example is one lab ending up with too much power."