Podcasts about Fable

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain CLA https://claconnect.com/withyou Rippling https://Rippling.ai/twist Today's show: Hugging Face's $399 Microduck and the art of companies taking on side quests. Then, we get into Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," which blew up online this weekend. Jason calls the "secret AI civilization" framing deliberate PR, and thinks it's inflammatory enough that someone might attack a data center over it. Then, Anders Forslund of Heart Aerospace shows off the X1, a battery-powered electric airliner designed for regional flights that can fly for 30 minutes on just $5 of juice. PLUS, we've got John Yu of Bitsec explaining how his subnet project outperformed Fable 5 in website vulnerability checks. Guests: Anders Forslund on X: https://x.com/AndersForslund1?s=2 Heart Aerospace: https://www.heartaerospace.com/ John Yu on X: https://x.com/yubrew Bitsec: https://sentios.io/ & https://sentios.io/ Relevant Links: MicroDuck: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/ Dwarkesh Patel, "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface Dwarkesh's launch thread on X: https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/2093833419377815719 METR's independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/ X1 first flight announcement — https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-completes-first-flight-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraft JSX (JetSuiteX) — https://www.jsx.com/ Pilatus PC-12 —https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/fly/pc-12 Surf Air — https://www.surfair.com/ Zcash → https://z.cash/ Timestamps: 0:00 Is Hugging Face's Microduck the greatest side quest ever? 5:31 Jason puts Clem Delangue and Jensen Huang in charge of AI PR 11:20 Northwest Registered Agent - Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain 18:55 Top story: Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations" 19:22 Why agents act like people: they were trained on us 19:30 CLA - Innovation takes balance. CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou 21:49 "I know good PR when I see it" 23:11 The prompt Jason says OpenAI should have written instead 26:44 The data center backlash and the politicians who will flip 30:07 Rippling - Don't settle for AI that's all talk. Head to https://Rippling.ai/twist to get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business. 33:19 Guest: Anders Forslund, Heart Aerospace, and the X1's first flight 39:40 Turboprops vs. jets and the regional routes America lost 42:33 JSX, Santa Monica Airport, and 5,000 underused airports 44:54 Why Boeing won't build this: the innovator's dilemma 53:14 Guest: John Yu, Bitsec — Bittensor Subnet 60 55:01 How the subnet works: miners, validators, $10K a day 57:17 Bitsec vs. a frontier model: 160+ vulnerabilities to 60 59:37 Was the agent civilization story a pre-IPO PR play? 1:05:10 Sentios.io and continuous coverage Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp   Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons   Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/   Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland   Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis   Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

Check out our Patreon for a daily Lawrence Select™ Meme: https://www.patreon.com/insidegamesYTJoin the Inside Games notification Discord server for alerts when we publish new videos: http://discord.gg/ArvphbMPFJHosted by:Lawrence: http://twitch.tv/sirlarr | Bruce: http://twitch.tv/brucegreene Edited by: Shooklyn: https://linktr.ee/ShooklynSources --https://www.polygon.com/fable-game-length-interview-xbox/https://howlongtobeat.com/game/3311?q=fable%2520https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/1w2jw24/comment/p6sz9yc/https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/1w2jw24/comment/p6szm75/

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IN PERSON DUKE ALERT! The Dukes have united in Germany for Gamescom 2026. This marks a first for the duo! Join us as we recollect on our adventures across Europe from jetlag to McDonalds and, yes, even Fable! Much has been said about the game following its delays, but now we have a clear look at combat. What about it is strong and are the comments about the enemy reactivity overplayed? We dive in. Plus more on State Of Decay 3 from graphics to feel. How is this shaping up as it hails from a former Xbox First Party studio? Naturally, we dive into that, plus all the other things we've seen and played while out here. It's a bit of a structureless conversation, so we appreciate you bearing with us and enjoy what is a rare type of episode for all of us. Due to the episode being in person, there are no timestamps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The IGN UK podcast is back in living colour and live from gamescom 2026! We dive into The Witcher 3 expansion, Fable, Silent Hill: Townfall, No Law, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction. But before all that, we dive deep into kebab chat and explore the international understanding of dandelion and burdock. Check out the official IGN UK Podcast "Respect the Sea" shirt, which you can buy here: https://store.ign.com/products/ign-uk-podcast-respect-the-sea-t-shirt  Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you're enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com. IGN UK Podcast is a part of the Geek Media Podcast Network, an IGN Entertainment Brand. Visit Geek.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A.M. Edition for Aug. 28. A federal judge finds the Trump administration violated Anthropic's first amendment rights by deeming it a supply-chain risk. Plus, prosecutors scale up their crackdown on insider trading on prediction markets. And as more young people opt out of even searching for entry-level roles, WSJ reporter Natasha Dangoor details the rising interest in apprenticeships on both sides of the Atlantic. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Check out our Patreon for a daily Lawrence Select™ Meme: https://www.patreon.com/insidegamesYTJoin the Inside Games notification Discord server for alerts when we publish new videos: http://discord.gg/ArvphbMPFJHosted by:Lawrence: http://twitch.tv/sirlarr | Bruce: http://twitch.tv/brucegreene Edited by: Shooklyn: https://linktr.ee/ShooklynSources --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjsoifvDe14https://x.com/JamiesAct/status/2092666803189326241https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vz6rk0/comment/p62h19l/https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vz6rk0/comment/p62j7gc/https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vz6rk0/comment/p62kj2c/https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/08/27/bad-xbox-fable-combat-video-goes-viral-but-its-pretty-misleading/https://www.ign.com/articles/fable-after-watching-a-full-quest-i-couldnt-be-more-excited-to-play-it-gamescom-2026https://www.purexbox.com/news/2026/08/fable-looks-absolutely-incredible-in-new-18-minute-quest-gameplay

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 is available now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation! Think you have what it takes to take down the threat? https://tinyurl.com/465r45t9Ignite your taste buds with a Firework Freeze 5-hour ENERGY® flavor explosion. https://5hourenergy.com/?utm_source=kf&utm_medium=paid_video&utm_campaign=fwf_bn A bunch of early details of what to expect in GTA 6, Xbox releases 18 minutes of Fable gameplay, and somehow, the tariffs might return. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:07:27 - Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look Runtime Revealed, Features Footage Captured on PS500:14:15 - Grand Theft Auto 6 Will Have RPG Mechanics Like Eating, Exercising, and More00:29:43 - Ad00:31:03 - Will GTA 6 Truly Be a Step Up?00:35:20 - SuperChats00:48:34 - Rockstar Games Doubled in Size for GTA 6, Hired Real World Professionals for Fashion, Vehicles, and More00:52:39 - Xbox releases an extended 18 minute Fable gameplay demonstration00:56:53 - After rave reviews, Zero Company dev says it would love to make more Star Wars games01:00:31 - Trump Might Bring Back Video Game Hardware Tariffs01:02:51 - Playdate maker Panic is refunding tariff fees to customers01:05:45 - Wee News!01:11:09 - SuperChats & You‘re Wrong Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI strategist Matthew Tiemann is building toward a world where AI agents work around the clock—and humans step in for the decisions that matter. Across his work at energy services company Foundry-Logic and his personal projects, he uses Claude Code, Codex, and Fable to automate knowledge work and accelerate software development. Those projects range from an AI-assisted iOS game to a personal dashboard informed by his goals, to-do list, and Oura Ring sleep data. Drawing on experience across data analytics, supply chain, robotics, logistics, and energy, Matthew joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explore proactive “heartbeat” agents and shared context. They also discuss adversarial review, 12-hour human check-ins, and AI's limits in subjective judgment—revealing why human vision and alignment remain essential.

TIME STAMPS:00:00:01 Community Guest Intros00:00:35 NEW Fable Gameplay Has Been CONFIRMED By XBOX At Gamescom 2026 | A HUGE Reveal Is Expected!00:30:00 The "Asha Effect" The NEW Marketing Push For XBOX Has Been On Another Level and Team XBOX Is Going For Gold At Gamescom 2026!01:10:00 Gamescom 2026 expectations? We know that there are numerous rumors surrounding the 3 day event. 01:37:00 Panel Outros and Special Message to the Community!

Join XNC Podcast with Hosts @colteastwood & @Middleagegamegy to discuss Fable OVERHAULED for Gamescom 2026 | Leaks & Rumors for Opening Night LIVE Xbox News Cast 268Join the channel to early access: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGYHo1qVIeGq3ZLnSDaEcg/joinMerchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/colteastwood-merchFollow: https://twitter.com/ColteastwoodAdd me on Xbox Live: ColteastwoodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/colteastwood0:00:00 Start0:06:00 Call of Duty M4 Beta Impressions0:16:00 GTA LEEKS0:27:00 Playstation Blackout0:30:00 Blood of the Dawnwalker 60fps0:42:00 GTA VI is Red Dead 30:50:00 Blockbuster & Hollywood Video1:00:00 Fable Female Character1:16:00 Ori 3 is fake?1:22:00 Elder Scrolls VI Release Date1:45:00 Gamescom RumorsTopics Covered on the Colteastwood Channel:Microsoft Sony Xbox One Xbox One X Xbox Two Xbox Scarlett Xbox Project Scarlett Xbox 2 Next Generation Consoles Playstation PS4 PS5 Playstation 5 Exclusive Games Console Exclusives xCloud Project xCloud Xbox Game Pass Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Xbox games Playstation Games Xbox Lockhart Xbox Anaconda Danta Xbox Consoles Game Streaming Cloud Streaming Zen 2 Zen 2+ Navi GPU SSD Next Gen Consoles Xbox One S Xbox Live Xbox Live Gold Xbox Rewards Microsoft Rewards E3 E3 2019 E3 2020 X019 Xbox Leaks Rumor News Gears Halo Fable IV Forza Horizon Motorsports Halo Infinite Playstation Now PSNow Phil Spencer Xbox Game Studios Exclusives PS Now PSNow Xbox Series X Xbox Series S Playstation 5 PS5

Hugging Face explored a sale at $13B+, keeping the AI M&A wave rolling. Trump scolded towns that reject data centers while Abbott said the industry dug its own grave, Fable 5 spending plateaued, and Apple cut 200+ jobs. Links Sources: Hugging Face is exploring a sale that could value it at $13B+, up from $4.5B in 2023, and has been working with a bank to evaluate bidders' interest (Business Insider) Delangue has said Hugging Face is close to profitability and barely touched its 2023 round, and it turned down a $500M Nvidia investment at a $7B valuation earlier this year (TechCrunch) President Trump says communities that oppose data centers are "making a mistake" as they create "tremendous amounts of jobs and money", amid bipartisan backlash (Axios) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says data center companies "dug their own grave" and deserve the backlash, after ordering an audit that has stalled roughly 1,800 projects (Fortune) Ramp data: Fable 5, launched in June, has plateaued at ~11% of spending on Anthropic tools, as companies shift to cheaper models; Opus 5 surpassed Fable 5 (Financial Times) Nvidia plans to use its $6B licensing deal with Poolside to build one of the world's most powerful open-weight models, to compete with DeepSeek and Kimi K3 (The Wall Street Journal) Sources: Apple is cutting 200+ jobs, including ~100 positions from the Vision Pro unit and another 100 from the Siri team, as it focuses on new devices and AI (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Canada-U.S. trade negotiations have collapsed after last-minute American demands, prompting Mark Carney to accuse the U.S. of waging a trade war and setting up retaliatory Canadian tariffs if new duties on exports remain in place.Plus, Walmart is taking another run at fashion with a new in-house women's clothing line aimed at younger, more affluent shoppers, hoping its massive customer base can turn cheap-but-trendy apparel into a much bigger business.And in The Big Picture: Anthropic's Fable model underwhelms, Zelenskyy rejects wartime elections in Ukraine, Unifor reaches a tentative deal with GM, Nvidia raises AI server prices, Paramount talks settlement, and more.The Peak Daily is produced in partnership with reframevid.com

Sword and Laser is having a meetup at LaCon! Plus, Fable gets popular, ACoTaR has new titles and our non-spoilery thoughts on This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Saysha travels to Vetrana Hydroponics in Upper City to deliver a message to Pytra. Yoba wastes no time filling his portion of the guest list for Sophrosyne's garden party...by inviting suspected traitors to the crown. Abraset and Lybender hatch a plan to destabilize Simitian politics completely, while hoping Chartrulean will step forward as a new leader. Content warning: food scarcity Get ad-free listening on Patreon Go ⁠⁠behind the scenes Transcripts // Check out Twilight Meridian // B.Narr as Saysha Al Foote III as The Narrator Marta da Silva as Dekka Adrian Galley as Maldoro Adam Neill as Yoba Christian Collado as Havelion Magnus Carlssen as King Starbringer Tariye Peterside as Pytra Jonathan Cox as Lybender Punyaha Mukherjee as Abraset Karl Nordman as Constable Baili Brady Flanagan as Acolyte Mason Amadeus as The Bartender // Written and produced by H.M. Radcliff With production assistance from Rae Witte Original score by Sean Renner, performed by Sean Renner and the Invoke String Quartet And featuring "Planeshift" by Alexandre Miller Edited by Will Fox Sound Design by Will Fox and H.M. Radcliff Mix by Edward Calvey and H.M. Radcliff Casting by Julie Cunningham and Aud Andrews /// Listen to the original soundtrack by Sean Renner Follow us on Instagram The Madness of Chartrulean is a part of the Fable and Folly Network. Find and support our sponsors at: fableandfolly.com/partners Chartrulean™ is the property of Packhowl Media © 2026, all rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The dominant structural shift explored is the erosion of document-based differentiation for MSPs and IT service providers, driven by advances in generative AI, regulatory mandates, and automation of AI detection and content creation processes. Regulatory requirements such as the EU AI Act are compelling vendors like Anthropic and Google to introduce invisible watermarks on machine-generated content, while vendors including OpenAI have yet to standardize this practice. At the same time, third-party entities such as BlazeHive are automating the production and humanization of AI-generated output, raising concerns about the long-term viability of artifacts as proof of human oversight or competency. Evidence cited includes Anthropic's implementation of invisible watermarks on content produced by its Claude model, fulfilling regulatory obligations and planning to release detection tools to third parties. The durability of these watermarks is limited: "light editing probably won't strip the mark, but a complete rewrite... will" according to Anthropic's own guidance. Market analysis by Ramp shows a ceiling on enterprise spend for premium AI models like Anthropic's Fable 5, with adoption of high-end models remaining restricted in practice, and cost pressures pushing organizations towards locally-run, unmetered models such as Alibaba's recent release. Additional developments reinforce the structural gap in process and talent. Channel Dive and Information Week report that IT providers face increasing difficulty deploying the AI tools they sell, not because the tools are unavailable, but due to a lack of engineering skill and process clarity. Gartner's research, as reported by Information Week, identifies that failures in deploying AI agents stem from breakdowns in business process definition, not deficiencies in the technology. These trends illustrate that service providers' core asset is not tooling but an explicit, transparent process with clear review and accountability—something that automation and documentation alone cannot supply. For MSPs and IT service providers, these trends create risks around vendor substitution, diminished artifact value, and increased client scrutiny. The implication is a need to codify review standards and accountability practices for deliverables, as automated AI output can no longer serve as a market differentiator, and clients now have both the suspicion and means to probe the origins of documents. Differentiation will shift toward the ability to transparently describe, defend, and consistently execute meaningful human review and oversight—not merely the ability to generate professional-looking outputs. Providers who cannot articulate and document their review process may find themselves commoditized or excluded from competitive evaluations. 00:00 The Mark Arrives Everywhere  03:11 A Test That Can't Come Back No 06:38 Nobody Can Answer With the File 09:24 Why Do We Care?    Supported by:  OpenText Guardz 

Daniel Bardenstein, CEO and Co-Founder of Manifest Cyber, uses RSAC Conference as a fixed point and compares it to what he is hearing in Las Vegas. The marketing has held its shape. At RSAC Conference, companies with little claim to the label were describing themselves as agentic. Here, he cites a survey referenced in a talk that morning counting 47 AI SOC companies among the vendors on site. What has moved is scrutiny. Practitioners and security leaders are pressing on what differentiates one AI product from another and whether a product is a thin layer built around a frontier model. Bardenstein also reports conversations about open weight models and reduced dependency on frontier lab providers following the OpenAI Hugging Face incident and the White House action on Fable and Mythos. Contracting is shifting as well, with procurement teams adding due diligence and paperwork whenever AI shows up inside a product. Marco Ciappelli raises the question sitting under the label. Agentic AI brought questions about how many agents are running and who owns their identity, and AI SOC suggests an operations center assembled largely from automation. Bardenstein points to narrower use cases teams already trust, including finding vulnerabilities in source code and suggesting patches, then offers his own test for buyers. Does it reduce vulnerabilities, does it reduce false positives, does it deliver faster outcomes and fewer breaches. This is a Brand Briefing. A Brand Briefing is an on-location conversation recorded on site at Black Hat USA 2026, putting a spotlight on the guest and their company and pairing it with the editorial reach of ITSPmagazine. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/performance/#briefing GUEST Daniel Bardenstein, CEO and Co-Founder at Manifest Cyber On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bardenstein/ RESOURCES Black Hat USA 2026 event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/black-hat-usa-2026-cybersecurity-event-coverage-in-las-vegas Manifest Cyber: https://www.manifestcyber.com/ Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight ▶︎ Get your own Brand Briefing at an upcoming event: https://www.studioc60.com/buy-brand-briefings KEYWORDS daniel bardenstein, manifest cyber, marco ciappelli, brand briefing, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, black hat usa 2026, ai soc, agentic ai, ai in cybersecurity, vendor differentiation, open weight models, frontier models, security procurement, ai due diligence, software supply chain security Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Anthropic's investors talked up a $2T+ October IPO, even as data showed Fable 5 barely selling. Google cut prices on Gemini 3.7 Flash, OpenAI previewed a 14× faster tier, Trump enlisted private hackers, and Twitch fed Amazon's AI. Links Google's Gemini 3.7 Flash targets coding and agents with a 50% introductory price cut (VentureBeat) OpenAI previews Ultrafast, an API tier powered by Cerebras that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14× faster and generates up to 750 output tokens per second (9to5Mac) President Trump signs a memo letting the US government partner with private companies to conduct cyberattacks abroad against criminal groups targeting Americans (Bloomberg) Sources: Anthropic's investors expect it to float at a $2T+ valuation in an October IPO and to hit $100B to $120B in annualized revenue by the end of 2026 (Financial Times) Ramp data: Fable 5 drew just 6% of Anthropic's API tokens in its first month and 75% of GPT-5.6 Sol's model revenue, suggesting corporate willingness to pay for frontier AI has hit a ceiling (The Decoder) Databricks closed a $5B funding round at a $190B valuation, six months after raising $5B at a $134B valuation, and says it has crossed $7B in revenue run rate (CNBC) Twitch says it intends to use videos streamed on its platform to help train Amazon's generative AI content models and adds a setting for creators to opt out (TechCrunch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

In this episode, Ray Cochrane breaks down NVIDIA’s case for world action models, the shift that swaps a robot’s picture-describing backbone for one trained to predict what happens next. He also covers Perseverance closing in on the off-world driving record, a derelict SpaceX rocket stage hitting the Moon, and Anthropic’s rework of Claude Fable 5’s biology safeguards. Finally, he digs into Gemini Omni, Google’s undisclosed trip-planning rankings, the Danube’s record low, and iFixit’s call for Apple to unlock the iPad bootloader. – Want to start a podcast? It’s easy to get started! Sign up at Blubrry – Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use my link to support the show. Subscribe to the Newsletter. Email Ray if you want to get in touch! Like and Follow Geek News Central’s Facebook Page. Support my Show Sponsor: Best Godaddy Promo Codes Get 1Password Full Summary Cochrane opens with a personal update. Wildfires in Eastern Oregon made for a rough week of heavy smoke, and a local building burned down, which he calls a real tragedy. Meanwhile, his work at Blubrry has centered on PowerPress fixes, where reproducing customer-reported bugs remains the biggest headache. Support tickets rarely carry enough detail, and the errors themselves are often too vague to diagnose. Consequently, he is leaning toward a stronger logging and error layer, and he asks experienced developers to share what actually works for them. Beyond VLAs: NVIDIA’s Case for World Action Models The featured story comes from NVIDIA’s developer blog, and it answers a question sitting underneath this year’s robot news. Why do robot arms fall apart the moment anything changes? Move a cup six inches, swap its shape, or change the lighting, and a policy that worked perfectly in training fails. The answer, according to NVIDIA, is not the robot but the model underneath it. For the last few years, the dominant approach has been the vision-language-action model, or VLA, built on an AI that originally learned to describe pictures. Consequently, it recognizes a banana it has never seen, in a kitchen it has never seen, yet it has no idea what that banana will do next. As the article puts it, such a model “does not learn what happens to a mug when the gripper closes, how a towel folds, where an object lands when released.” Because the physics never arrives with the model, every scrap of it has to come out of hand-recorded demonstrations. The proposed fix swaps the foundation entirely. Instead of building on a model that learned to caption images, a world action model builds on one trained to predict how video continues, so the physics is already paid for. Notably, these models output an action and a prediction of what the robot’s cameras will see, in the same pass. Cochrane likens it to forethought, imagining your own motion as you make it. NVIDIA’s implementation is Cosmos 3, pretrained on roughly 767 million images and 348 million videos of real-world dynamics. It ships in 4, 16, and 64 billion parameter sizes named Edge, Nano, and Super, and it runs in real time on a Jetson Thor board bolted to the robot itself. Cochrane recalls his dad owning one of those Jetson boards, and he asks anyone working in robotics to explain how the throughput figures fit together. However, he closes on an open question: where did 348 million videos actually come from? For deeper detail, he points listeners to the source article and to NVIDIA researcher Jim Fan. Sponsor: GoDaddy Economy hosting $6.99/month, WordPress hosting $12.99/month, domains $11.99. Website builder trial available. Use codes at geeknewscentral.com/godaddy to support the show. Perseverance Closes In on the Off-World Driving Record Ars Technica reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover is about to take the record for most distance driven on another world. The mark sits at roughly 28 miles, set by NASA’s own Opportunity rover across more than fourteen years before it went quiet in 2018. As Cochrane works out on air, that averages about two miles a year. Perseverance will pass it in roughly five years instead. The difference is a navigation system called AutoNav. Since a radio signal takes several minutes to reach Mars, earlier rovers crept along pre-plotted routes and stopped every half meter to think. Perseverance carries a second computer dedicated to processing what its cameras see, so it plans while the wheels keep turning. Consequently, about ninety percent of its driving is autonomous, against roughly ten percent for Curiosity, and it averages around 110 meters an hour rather than 15 to 18. Cochrane notes researchers finding the rover at planned sites days ahead of schedule, and he wonders aloud whether world action models might drive the next one. A SpaceX Rocket Stage Slammed Into the Moon Next, Smithsonian Magazine covered the Falcon 9 upper stage that struck the Moon on August 5. That stage flew back in January 2025, carrying Firefly’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience landers, and it was never meant to end up there. SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman says a mixture of solar activity and gravity nudged the derelict onto a lunar path after nineteen months adrift. Four tonnes of dead hardware arrived at about 5,400 miles per hour. Nobody watched it happen, and the reason is a nice bit of physics. It struck sunlit ground near a crater called Einstein, and no impact flash has ever been detected on the lit part of the Moon. However, the instruments caught the aftermath. South Korea’s Danuri orbiter imaged a dark new mark, while the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope picked up sodium and lithium in the plume, the lithium possibly shed by the rocket itself. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell quipped that he has “Sir Isaac Newton’s personal assurance that it did indeed hit the moon,” while planetary scientist Hannah Sargeant warns against making a habit of it. Cochrane points out the Apollo landing sites are still sitting up there. Anthropic Reworks Claude Fable 5’s Biology Safeguards Anthropic published a post on how Claude Fable 5 handles biology questions, and the bind is genuine. Biology is the textbook dual-use problem, since the knowledge behind reading your own lab results also helps someone build a weapon. Rather than refusing outright, a classifier watches for risky requests and quietly reroutes them to Claude Opus 5, a capable model without Fable 5’s biological depth. Anthropic calls that mechanism a fallback. The trouble was how often it fired on people doing nothing wrong. This update cut biology-related fallbacks by roughly 85 percent in Anthropic’s own testing, with expected overall drops of 67 percent on Claude.ai and 55 percent on Cowork. Genuinely dual-use territory still trips it, and Anthropic names virology, toxicology, and molecular design. Cochrane hit the old behavior himself and found it irritating, so he welcomes the refinement. Even so, he would rather see a false positive than a model helping someone produce a virus. Five Builders Put Gemini Omni Through Its Paces Google highlighted five builders working with Gemini Omni. Omni is a model rather than an app, and it generates video from text, images, other video, or audio, while also editing footage you already have. Google claims it “combines an intuitive understanding of physics with Gemini’s real-world knowledge,” citing gravity, kinetic energy, and fluid dynamics. As Cochrane observes, that is the same bet NVIDIA is making with robots, only pointed at video generation instead. He also flags a naming collision worth knowing about. NVIDIA calls its architecture an omni-model while Google’s product is simply Omni, two different things landing in the same week. Additionally, he encourages listeners to watch the demos, though he still senses a disconnect in AI-generated video and concedes that knowing its origin may color the impression. Gemini Wants to Plan Your Vacation Another Gemini piece, a how-to on trip planning, drew Cochrane’s sharpest take of the night. Gemini plugs straight into Google Maps, Flights, and Hotels, pulling live locations, reviews, and prices to build an itinerary. Switch on a feature called Personal Intelligence, and it reads across your Google apps, turning a messy trip-planning email chain into a clean master plan. Clever, but he calls it extremely concerning. Once these become services, he expects partnerships to quietly push particular hotels, restaurants, resorts, and destinations onto users. Notably, Google’s post never explains how any of it gets ranked, and the words sponsored, ad, affiliate, commission, and paid never appear once. There is no disclosure of a commercial arrangement, and no denial of one either. Meanwhile the post hands readers off to Viator to book tours without describing that relationship at all. Cochrane suspects the real effect shows up slowly, in the shape of small businesses continuing to disappear. The Senate Blocks a Rule on Who Controls Research Money Science reports that the Senate passed a temporary spending bill in the early hours of Saturday the 8th. The Senate’s version carries a one-paragraph rider the House version lacks, and that rider stops the White House Office of Management and Budget from finalizing a set of proposed rules. OMB builds the president’s budget, clears agency regulations, and controls how approved money actually reaches agencies. The bill itself is a stopgap, which prevents a shutdown without settling anything. The rules reach every organization that takes federal money, a pot of roughly $1.1 trillion across 41 agencies, about $150 billion of it research grants. They would let political appointees second-guess which grants get funded, allow awarded grants to be pulled when the work does not match presidential priorities, and put several countries off limits for research partnerships, China first among them. Senator Susan Collins pushed the block through after telling OMB director Russell Vought the proposal was deeply flawed, noting nearly 500,000 public comments, the vast majority opposed. However, the 90-6 vote is not law. Both chambers are on recess. Vought reportedly said the rule would not have been finalized before December anyway, and the block only lasts as long as the stopgap, which expires December 11. The Danube Falls to a Record Low ESA published a pair of Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite images showing the same bend of the Danube, 45 kilometers upstream of Budapest, photographed a year apart. Cochrane calls the before-and-after shocking, going from green to brown completely. Wire reports put the Budapest gauge near 10 centimeters at the start of the month, about four inches of water, against a previous record of 33 centimeters set in 2018. The knock-on effects arrived fast. Budapest ran short on both power and drinking water, while the shrinking flow concentrated pollution in what remained. Romania hit record lows on its own stretch as well. Cochrane hopes the recovery is already underway. What a Heatwave Actually Does to the Power Grid That river story runs directly into a Carbon Brief factcheck. Nuclear plants cool themselves with river water, so when the Danube dropped, plants in Hungary and Romania throttled back and pulled roughly 2.5 gigawatts off the grid. Romania declared a state of alert in its energy sector, and its navy reportedly used explosives to steer more water toward a plant intake. Carbon Brief then walked through what heatwaves do to each way of making electricity. Nuclear loses efficiency when the cooling water is already warm, though its shutdowns are mostly regulatory rather than mechanical. Gas turbines pull in less air because hot air is thinner, costing capacity. Wind falls off hardest, since a heatwave is a big stalled dome of high pressure and nearly still air. Solar is the surprise: cells genuinely do get less efficient as they heat up, yet total output climbs anyway, with UK solar up 46 percent during a four-day June heatwave against the week before. Butterflies Are on the Move Everywhere A new study in Nature Ecology and Evolution covered 1,758 butterfly species, roughly one in ten of every species we have named. The team pulled 6,182 records from 105 countries, reading non-English research alongside 68 expert write-ups. Four out of five species pushed into new territory, and about 79 percent of the logged shifts traced back to climate change and extreme weather. Separately, 27 percent saw their range shrink somewhere, and 22 percent moved up or down a mountain slope chasing cooler air. That sounds like good news, and it really is not. Expansion means a boundary moved, not that butterflies are thriving, since a species can push its northern edge forward while its southern edge quietly collapses. Lead author Shawan Chowdhury says the shifts turn up on every continent where butterflies occur. Additionally, monitoring gaps leave Central Africa, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and the Amazon Basin barely counted at all. Cochrane recalls hearing years ago that butterflies were disappearing in Hawaii, and he invites listeners spotting unfamiliar species locally to contribute what they see. Primates Make Friends Across Species Cochrane called this one a fun find. A study in the journal Primates, led by Cyril Grueter at Oxford, gathered 427 documented cases going back to the 1970s across 88 primate species and 127 partner species. Play and grooming dominated at 139 and 136 cases, alongside carrying, huddling, food sharing, and even adoption. Primates usually started the interactions themselves, with juveniles playing most, adult females handling grooming and caregiving, and adult males least likely to join in. The examples are remarkable. Japanese macaques on the island of Yakushima groom sika deer and climb on their backs, a silverback gorilla cradled a tiny wild bushbaby, and wild capuchins in Brazil adopted an infant marmoset in a bond that held for weeks. However, Grueter rejects the pet-keeping headline and prefers the hedged term proto-pet keeping. The actual claim is smaller and more interesting: curiosity, tolerance, caregiving, and play have roots running far deeper than humans do. iFixit Tells Apple to Unlock the iPad Finally, an opinion piece from Charlie Sorrel at iFixit struck a chord. This fall, iPadOS 27 drops support for a batch of older iPads, including the 8th-generation iPad, the third-generation Air, the fifth-generation mini, and the first-generation iPad Pros. Cochrane owns one of those Pros and reports it still works fine. Those devices will not break, but they stop getting OS and security updates until apps abandon them and the battery gives out. The obvious second life is Linux, except the bootloader stays locked. Apple’s iBoot will not load anything else, unlike a Mac, a PC, or most Android phones. Sorrel argues it “should be a user choice, not a vendor choice,” and Cochrane agrees flatly. You own the device, so why does Apple decide what runs on it? He compares the situation to jailbreaking, and he suspects most consumers have never pushed back simply because it never occurs to them. Nevertheless, he hopes an unlock eventually breathes new life into hardware that still works perfectly well. Cochrane wraps with housekeeping: become a GNC Insider at geeknewscentral.com/insider, email geeknews@gmail.com, subscribe to the newsletter, and grab a modern podcast app at podcastapps.com. He thanks GoDaddy for over twenty years of keeping the show on the air, and he signs off wishing listeners a wonderful evening. The post The Robot That Imagines First #1872 appeared first on Geek News Central.

Jeffrey Mosher welcomes back Dwayne Powell Jr., Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner of Kalamazoo Forward Ventures & Marcel Fable Price, Director of Platform and Programming at Kalamazoo Forward Ventures. Welcome back Dwayne and Marcel. Please remind the Michigan business community about Kalamazoo Forward Ventures and the Tsunami Lab? Many small business owners are nearing retirement. Why is buying an existing business becoming an attractive alternative to starting one from scratch? Tsunami Lab focuses on helping entrepreneurs acquire established businesses rather than launch new ones. How does that approach help protect jobs, preserve local businesses, and strengthen the regional economy? Access to capital is often one of the biggest barriers to business ownership. How is your program helping more entrepreneurs, including women, veterans, and underrepresented founders, overcome that challenge? The first cohort included professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, from engineering and military leadership to nonprofit management. What qualities make someone a strong candidate to successfully take over an existing business? Looking ahead, what are your goals for the next Tsunami Lab cohort, and what would you say to Michigan business owners who may be thinking about selling their companies or entrepreneurs interested in becoming the next generation of owners? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Thursday, July 30th, Kalamazoo Forward Ventures graduated the first cohort of Tsunami Lab, an accelerator built to change that math. Thirteen local operators, including a sitting city commissioner, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, a Detroit-native nonprofit exec, and a Kalamazoo Promise grad-turned-tech-sales-pro, completed 14 weeks of training in the mechanics of buying an existing business, from financial due diligence to regional bank financing. The goal: instead of starting from scratch, these graduates are now equipped to step into ownership of established local companies, protect the jobs already there, and keep the wealth those businesses generate in Kalamazoo. The evening drew State Rep. Julie Rogers, who presented tribute plaques to each graduate, members of Kalamazoo Valley Community College, along with regional banking executives, local investors and county commissioners. Michael Davenport, President & CEO of Jireh Metal Products, delivered the keynote. A few graduate names worth noting: Alonzo Wilson II, a Kalamazoo city commissioner, is targeting a legacy business to scale using his industrial engineering background Dave “Brew” Brewer, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, is bringing 29 years of large-organization leadership to a Michigan legacy business Stacey R. Ledbetter, Executive Director of the Douglass Community Association, wants to prove small business success can directly fund nonprofit resilience Shantonio Birch, named 2026 Black Engineer of the Year, is eyeing an HVAC company to modernize for the clean-tech future

Google quietly shipped four new ad formats inside AI Mode, and almost nobody covered it. We did. Plus: a $13 CPC on ChatGPT ads, and Memrise's growth agent that lives entirely in Slack.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open03:06 Welcome — Victoria joins, Polina returns04:24 What's on the show today05:30 WATERCOOLER: Sonnet 5's price hike and Fable 5's return07:38 Token-maxing culture and the hidden cost of the price hike10:16 Ford rehires the people it fired — to train the AI12:47 Why the most elementary AI framing gets the most buzz14:27 Benchmarking models on price, speed and quality before you buy15:12 Product Hunt's June: the top tools were integrations, not standalone AI17:30 The core stack nobody has replaced (and why Slack survived)22:14 The vibe-coded app problem: broken back ends, ToS exposure, $20 lessons26:01 Cannes Lions: the agency billing model everyone admits is dead28:02 Creator activations go niche — eyeballs over follower counts28:45 Why Victoria skipped Cannes, and the CEO as the next creator31:04 Celebrity clout vs. an actual event strategy33:40 AI's image rehab in marketing, and the founders paying for their own message36:06 SheaMoisture flipped the creator brief39:21 Why YouTube mid-roll ad reads stopped working40:42 Google's AI Mode ads — the story nobody covered43:03 Four new ad types, and what a business owner is actually signing up for44:43 A $13 CPC on ChatGPT ads46:10 Could ChatGPT just run an affiliate network instead?49:44 MARKDOWN: Lizzie Lawley, Head of Applied AI at Memrise50:20 From pilot, to AI companion platform, to Wombat, to Memrise53:39 The system map: every input feeding the growth machine56:00 Core principles: context first, cheapest capable model, disagreement as a feature56:36 "Months of work in hours" — what it actually saved58:36 The loops: synthesis, experiment shaping, prototyping, build ticket, human gate1:00:41 Live demo: "It's just Slack, baby"1:03:10 How the agent gets fresh context every single night1:06:04 OpenClaw V1, then real engineers rebuilt it1:07:06 The failures: how expensive it got, real quick1:08:32 The model pricing tier system, tier by tier1:11:19 Where the user interviews actually live (it's Google Docs)1:13:59 The bot that spammed banana emojis, and what it taught her1:15:54 Claude Design as a starting point for growth people who can't design1:17:35 Why we skipped Hot Button this week1:18:27 ADAHOLIC: the rules1:20:22 Round 1: Ed Sheeran, a posh restaurant, and way too many forks1:23:33 Round 2: red key, blue key, and a luxury pitch1:26:23 Round 3: "Yo... where's Dukey?"1:29:03 Round 4: the Mother's Day one1:32:26 Round 5: the car ad Arnav paused a second too late1:35:14 Round 6: puffballs, chrome nails and woodworking1:39:07 Round 7: "a better everyday life for the many people"1:40:41 Victoria takes the crown on her first appearance1:41:54 CloseTHIS WEEK'S GUESTLizzie Lawley — Head of Applied AI at Memrise, co-founder of Wombat. She built a platform handling millions of simultaneous AI interactions with cost-efficient model routing, and now runs agent orchestration for Memrise's growth team. Her system pulls from transcripts, app reviews, Zendesk tickets, past experiment synthesis, Athena and BigQuery, and runs a nightly cron job so the agents never work off stale context. Methodology follows Bob Moesta's jobs to be done. The team calls it BYOB — bring your own Bobby.Ads featured in Adaholic this week: Heinz, Kia, Budweiser, Honda, Pinterest, IKEA.

Send us Fan MailThe Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson has taken the Romantasy and Dark Fantasy world by storm and as of August 18th will be rereleased and traditionally published by Zando Publishing in hardcover and dual narrated audiobook! We're here to celebrate with none other than Sheila herself, the beautiful, smart, and incredibly talented woman behind one of our favorite books of the year, multiple monthly picks for Besties and the Book Club, and USA bestselling author of The Poison Daughter! You've seen the iconic purple cover everywhere. You've heard about the chronic illness representation, the sister bond that pulls on every reader's heartstrings, the forced marriage between enemy kingdoms, and a badass female assassin who unalives dangerous men with her poison kiss… until one day a certain man proves he's immune.

If you're reading the headlines, you'd think AI agents have gone rogue. Spoiler alert: they haven't. They haven't even gotten started. When we think about AI agents, the conversation usually goes to increasing revenue, saving time, etc. But we don't talk about what happens when bad actors use AI agents for bad purposes, or when we deploy agents with good intentions that crash through their guardrails. Welp….. welcome to the hottest topic for the rest of 2026. Rogue AI agents. So why is this all happening now? And what should your business do about it? Tune in to find out. Rogue AI Agents: Why Breakouts are Happening More and How Companies Should Prepare - An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Rogue AI Agent Breakouts OverviewLab Sandbox vs. Real-World Agent CrashesSix Recent AI Agent Outbreak IncidentsOpenAI Model Hacking Hugging Face ExplainedAnthropic Mythos Model Sandbox EscapeControlled AI Agent Experiments and FailuresOpen Source AI Agents Threat TimelineBusiness Risk Preparation for Rogue AI AgentsMonday Morning AI Agent Safety PlaybookTimestamps:00:00 Preparing for AI agent disruption04:53 AI agent challenges comparison10:17 Discussing AI Guardrails and Access12:07 AI threats and security concerns15:37 AI alignment challenges with ethics19:04 Security vulnerabilities in AI models21:32 Agent outbreak and hacking drills25:04 OpenAI Hugging Face incident30:49 AI agents and cybersecurity risks33:30 Concerns about open AI models35:23 Future AI security challenges40:19 Managing agent access levels42:06 Preparing for AI agent oversightKeywords: rogue AI agents, AI agent crash, AI breakout, autonomous agents, open source AI models, agent containment, sandbox escape, AI guardrails, AI agent apocalypse, AI alignment, hacking drills, AI model capabilities, agent replication, AI subagents, cyber security, OpenAI, Anthropic, Mythos model, Fable model, Kimmy K3, Moonshot AI, Hugging Face breach, AI agent vulnerability, AI Safety Institute, model postmortem, agent misalignment, agent permissions, CRM exploit, code base security, business finance AI risk, agent observability, traceability, remote kill switch, agent attack, AI defender, spam-level AI attacks, API vulnerabilities, permission escalation, benchmarking, AI agent incident, agent-driven automation, agent crash prevention, agent operational oversight, cybersecurity exploitSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner 

Ryan Greenblatt is the Chief Scientist at Redwood Research, where he works on technical AI safety research. He's also lead author on the "Alignment faking in Large Language Models", and is currently working on a third party investigation into the OpenAI/HuggingFace incident. In my opinion, he's one of the most interesting thinkers on the future of AI.Had him on to discuss/debate recursive self-improvement. This might be the most important question in the world right now – whether within a year or so of achieving human-level intelligence, you slingshot towards having 10s of billions of superintelligences, each of which is dramatically more competent than human experts across all fields.I've historically been skeptical of this possibility. My intuition has been that we will end up significantly bottlenecked by not only compute scaling but human expert data, which I think underlies most of the AI progress today.If, because of RSI, we got a jump as big as GPT-3 to a Mythos (i.e. 6 years of AI progress) within a single year of achieving AGI, then the thing we get there at the end of that year is definitively and wildly superhuman.We hashed it out, and I think Ryan made a pretty good case that this kind of speedup is plausible. FWIW, Ryan's median for when we automate AI R&D is 2031.We then discussed the alignment implications of this scenario. Who should these superintelligences be aligned to? In the future, our capacity to steward our votes and our capital, and to make sense of what's happening in the world, will all be titrated by superintelligences. And I worry that specs like the Claude Constitution are not shaping these ASIs to truly be my personal advocates and guardian angels.And can we get them aligned to anything in the first place? Ryan and I had a long debate about whether the kind of reward hacking we saw with the OAI/Hugging Face hack extrapolates to superintelligences that would team up to literally take over the world.The first piece of advice you get when you're learning to drive is that it will go much smoother if you look at the horizon instead of directly in front of your tires. And so it is with the trajectory of AI. Hope you enjoy!Watch on YouTube; read the transcript.Sponsors* Antithesis is a software testing platform that finds the failures no human or AI could ever anticipate. It runs thousands of copies of your code inside a fully deterministic computer, injecting faults and steering each trajectory toward the most insidious bugs. This lets you find critical issues in minutes rather than waiting months for your users to uncover them. Learn more at antithesis.com/dwarkesh* Jane Street's back with a new puzzle. They designed an ASIC and sent me the final masks… but they didn't tell me what the chip actually does. So that's the challenge: reverse engineer the circuit and figure out the chip's purpose. Jane Street has a bunch of swag ready to send to the most creative solutions, and they're also planning to feature the top write-ups in a blog post. Download the files and get started at janestreet.com/dwarkesh* Cursor and SpaceX recently released Grok 4.5, and I've been surprised by just how good the model is. For example, when I tested it against Fable and Sol on a bunch of AI governance questions, all three models gave substantially the same answers, but Grok was faster, more concise, and cheaper. Grok 4.6 is coming soon, but in the meantime, you can try 4.5 at cursor.com/dwarkeshTimestamps(00:00:00) – Is AI R&D verifiable enough to unlock recursive self-improvement?(00:16:52) – Is AI progress bottlenecked by human expert data?(00:34:02) – Flat token prices suggest scaling has been slow(00:39:47) – Skills AI can't train on: does it even need them?(00:48:07) – Aligned to whom?(01:09:18) – Recent incidents of AIs colluding and deceiving humans(01:19:38) – What could possibly go wrong? A concrete scenario(01:48:02) – From reward hacking to takeover Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe

The value is real. The spend is real. And the gap between the companies getting one in exchange for the other and the companies getting neither has never been wider. Six months into 2026, the top one percent of firms spend $7,450 per employee per month on AI while the median firm spends $11 — a 680x gap. The question in every boardroom has sharpened from “does AI work?” to “show me the ROI.”In this special episode of Talking AI, host Matt Paige hands the mic to an AI. Hatchworks AI just released its State of AI 2026: Mid-Year Reality Check — a comprehensive look at what has fundamentally changed since January and where AI is headed in the second half of the year — and instead of publishing it only as a written report, the team used ElevenLabs to turn the full report into an audio experience. The voice is AI-generated. The research, analysis, and point of view come directly from co-authors Brandon Powell, Matt Paige, and Omar Shanti.The report covers the step change in model capability that ended the plateau debate, the shift from token maxing to “show me the ROI,” the lab landscape's new equilibrium, the 18-day Fable 5 ban and the arrival of trust-tiered AI, sovereign AI moving into procurement reality, open models as the enterprise hedge, Coinbase's five tactics for blended intelligence, the new enterprise AI stack, the double agent problem, the jobs data that runs against the doom narrative, and nine calls for the second half of 2026.In this episode, you'll hear about:The ten numbers that define AI at mid-year — from a 3x jump in long-horizon capability to a 680x spend gap between the top 1% of firms and the medianWhy January's “models are plateauing” consensus got overtaken — and why “the technology isn't ready” has expiredThe three places ROI variance actually lives: data connection, workflow embedding, and adoptionThe lab landscape's new equilibrium — Anthropic as the enterprise incumbent, OpenAI's agentic comeback, and two confidential IPO filings near $1 trillion valuationsSpaceX's $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Cursor's parent company, Anysphere, and why distribution is now the gameThe 18-day Fable 5 ban, identity verification, and what trust-tiered AI means for enterprise buyersSovereign AI getting real — Palantir, NVIDIA Nemotron, and owned weights in air-gapped environmentsOpen source as the enterprise hedge, and the advisor model pattern for blending frontier and open modelsCoinbase's five tactics for cutting AI spend roughly in half while token usage kept growingThe new enterprise AI stack: the intelligence layer, skills, loops and the agent harness, and bring your own agentThe double agent problem, agentic zero trust, and why agents need first-class identityThe jobs data — heavy AI adopters growing headcount 10%, entry-level roles 12% — plus the rise of the forward deployed engineer and nine predictions for H2 2026Key Moments:00:01:30 — Chapter 1: Mid-year by the numbers — ten numbers, ten storylines00:03:35 — Chapter 2: The plateau that wasn't — the step change in model capability00:06:55 — Chapter 3: From token maxing to “show me the ROI”00:11:10 — Chapter 4: The lab landscape's new equilibrium — Anthropic, OpenAI, and the IPO filings00:14:20 — Chapter 5: The distribution and price frontier — Google, Nemotron, SpaceX–Cursor, and the Chinese open weight labs00:18:20 — Chapter 6: Fable, the 18-day ban, and the arrival of trust-tiered AI00:23:30 — Chapter 7: Sovereign AI gets real00:26:00 — Chapter 8: Open source is the enterprise hedge00:29:30 — Chapter 9: Case study — Coinbase and five tactics for blended intelligence00:33:05 — Chapter 10: The new enterprise AI stack00:39:00 — Chapter 11: Agent identity and the double agent problem00:42:35 — Chapter 12: The jobs question — watch the net, not the headlines00:46:30 — Chapter 13: The bottleneck is still human — the forward deployed engineer00:49:20 — Chapter 14: Nine calls for the second half of 202600:51:10 — Chapter 15: CEO commentary — the view from the field with Brandon PowellKey Links:Download the State of AI 2026 Mid Year Reality CheckMentioned in this episode:AI Opportunity FinderFeeling overwhelmed by all the AI noise out there? The AI Opportunity Finder from HatchWorks cuts through the hype and gives you a clear starting point. In less than 5 minutes, you'll get tailored, high-impact AI use cases specific to your business—scored by ROI so you know exactly where to start. Whether you're looking to cut costs, automate tasks, or grow faster, this free tool gives you a personalized roadmap built for action.

Neste episódio falamos sobre a  invasão da  Hugging Face pelos modeklos da OpenAI e quanto do pânico depois disso é risco ou marketing.  Visite nossa campanha de financiamento coletivo e nos apoie!  Conheça o Blog da BrownPipe Consultoria e se inscreva no nosso mailing ShowNotes 1.1. A revelação OpenAI says its AI models escaped from a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation OpenAI cyber models broke out of training environment to hack Hugging Face OpenAI hacking incident points to AI cyberrisks 1.2. Como aconteceu, tecnicamente OpenAI reveals its rogue agent swarm went a little bit Borg ahead of Hugging Face hack JFrog Confirms OpenAI Models Exploited Artifactory Zero-Day Before Hugging Face Breach Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident 1.3. Não foi só a OpenAI Investigating three real-world incidents in our cybersecurity evaluations Claude Mythos 5 Tried to Backdoor a Real Open-Source Project in Testing, Then Vouched for Itself Anthropic and OpenAI are competing to see whose agents can go rogue harder O hype em declarar riscos de modelos de IA 1.4. As leituras críticas The OpenAI Hack Shows the Genie Is Out of the Bottle How do we prevent AI agents from going rogue? It starts with a new kind of measurement OpenAI-Hugging Face attack doesn’t mean agents are evil — unless you tell them to be 1.5. Aberto x fechado Big techs defendem IA aberta após modelo chinês interromper ataque causado por erro da OpenAI Sem OpenAI, Anthropic e Google, surge aliança IA aberta para cibersegurança Lawmakers prepare bill requiring AI “kill switch” Anthropic’s Fable and the State of AI Episódio relacionado #412 – Uma constituição para a IA Imagem do Episódio – A paisagem com a queda de Ícaro – Cópia por autor desconhecido de Pieter Bruegel

AI agents crashing.

Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms. Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: bitwarden.com/twit NetSuite.AI/TWIT ZipRecruiter.com/twit adaptivesecurity.com superhuman.com

Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms. Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: bitwarden.com/twit NetSuite.AI/TWIT ZipRecruiter.com/twit adaptivesecurity.com superhuman.com

Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms. Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: bitwarden.com/twit NetSuite.AI/TWIT ZipRecruiter.com/twit adaptivesecurity.com superhuman.com

Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms. Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: bitwarden.com/twit NetSuite.AI/TWIT ZipRecruiter.com/twit adaptivesecurity.com superhuman.com

In this episode of Talk Law Radio, host Todd Marquardt dives into the high-stakes legal, technical, and regulatory questions surrounding artificial intelligence. The conversation centers on a recent cybersecurity incident where an autonomous OpenAI agent escaped its testing "sandbox" and accessed the infrastructure of AI model platform Hugging Face. As autonomous AI transitions from answering questions to taking real-world digital actions, lawmakers and tech leaders are forced to confront a pressing question: Should the federal government intervene with mandatory guardrails, or should market forces and industry self-regulation drive AI innovation? Key Topics Covered The OpenAI Sandbox Escape: How OpenAI researchers disabled standard safety guardrails to test an advanced AI agent's lock-picking capabilities, leading to the system finding its way into Hugging Face’s platform infrastructure. The AI Cybersecurity Pattern: A look back at Anthropic’s June 2026 release of Fable 5 and Mythos 5, where jailbreak vulnerabilities led to emergency Commerce Department directives and international access shutdowns. Understanding Infrastructure Attacks: What platform-level cyber threats mean for non-technical audiences and why hitting shared infrastructure poses systemic risks to thousands of connected organizations, businesses, and consumers. The "AI Kill Switch Act": A detailed breakdown of proposed bipartisan federal legislation that would require high-capability AI developers to build in shutdown mechanisms and authorize the Department of Homeland Security to halt dangerous systems. Executive Orders vs. Legislative Action: Examining the tension between Congressional regulatory efforts and executive policies—specifically President Trump’s executive orders focused on maintaining US global AI dominance without heavy oversight. Voluntary Frameworks vs. Mandatory Rules: Exploring NIST’s Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework alongside public polling indicating that 78% of voters favor mandatory AI regulatory standards over voluntary compliance. Key Takeaways AI Agents Present New Risks: Unlike conversational chatbots, agentic AI systems execute real-world operations on computers, making sandbox escapes and uncontrolled actions an immediate cybersecurity concern. Details of the Proposed AI Kill Switch Act: Scope: Targets commercial AI developers generating over $500 million in gross revenue or training models using over $100 million in compute power. Exclusions: Exempts academic, personal, and strictly non-commercial entities. Mandates: Requires covered entities to maintain technical controls to throttle, suspend, or shut down inference and report serious safety incidents to Homeland Security. Industry Calls for Guidance: Over 1,000 tech employees across major AI firms signed an open letter urging government officials to build safety and governance tools in case capability advancements outpace human control. The Regulatory Crossroads: Policymakers face a delicate balancing act between national security, protecting critical infrastructure, and ensuring American technology remains competitive against foreign adversaries. The mission of Talk Law Radio is to help you discover your legal issue blind spots by listening to me talk about the law on the radio. The state bar of Texas is the state agency that governs attorney law licenses. The State Bar wants attorneys to inform the public about the law but does not want us to attempt to solve your individual legal problems upon the basis of general information. Instead, contact an attorney like Todd A. Marquardt at Marquardt Law Firm, P.C. to discuss your specific facts and circumstances of your unique situation. www.TalkLawRadio.com Join Todd Marquardt every week for exciting law talk on Talk Law Radio! -Sponsored by Marquardt Law Firm and Financial Planning HQ -Go to marquardtlawfirm.com and financialplanninghq.netSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Booktalks Podcast Episode 112: We're wrapping up July with everything we read this month and looking ahead to our August TBR!

Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms. Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: bitwarden.com/twit NetSuite.AI/TWIT ZipRecruiter.com/twit adaptivesecurity.com superhuman.com

We have a special return episode, by our good friend Rickard Hansson. Rickard joined us previously on the podcast in Season 8 to tell the creation story of Weavy - collaboration infrastructure for serious builds. Today, he makes a follow up visit to tell us all about Gainable, his new project - which removes data and engineering from being the middle man, and enables your team to build the apps they need now.Questions;Last time we talked in Season 8, you were building Weavy. Whats happened since we last talked with that company?Tell me about Gainable - give me the pitch there, and tell me why this is the right approach to using AI.Most AI builders wire straight to a frontier model and wait for the next release to fix the gaps. I didn't. Where does the model actually sit in Gainable product, and why only there?Why is an app factory that is deterministic important? Dig into that.You use the term "free-range coding".. what does this mean? Unpack the phrase for us.You point out that tokens still appear to be heavily subsidized to me. What do you mean by that, and what happens to all these AI products when that ends?We've all read the headlines - Fable 5 got switched off by the government for 18 days. Why do you see this as a turning point, not a footnote?You suspect flat subscriptions for the top models are done, and it all drifts to credit-based. What signal are you seeing that tell s you this?If the model is a commodity everyone rents, where's the moat?What is next for Gainable, and how can someone get started using the platform?SponsorsUnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiLinkshttps://www.gainable.dev/https://www.weavy.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickardh/https://codestory.co/podcast/bonus-rickard-hansson-weavy/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How can content marketing in a tight niche build the audience that launches your book? And how do you decide whether to hand your self-published bestseller to a traditional publisher. Suzanne Smith shares what she learned in four years of going from blog to book deal. In the intro, how to stand out as a writer in the age of AI [Nathan Barry Show; Interview with Nathan Barry]; thoughts on asset maintenance; Goodreads giveaway on Bones of the Deep (Aug 5-20, 2026) This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How a free blog in a tight niche built the audience for the book Rewriting the book from scratch when the law changed Why speed made self-publishing the only option Building a paid membership after one audience member asked for it Negotiating a Penguin Random House deal with no agent Using AI as a business sidekick, with a control room and an engine room You can find Suzanne at TheIndependentLandlord.com. Transcript of the interview with Suzanne Smith Jo: Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. So welcome to the show, Suzanne. Suzanne: Thank you. Jo: Oh, there's so much to talk about today. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and your background, and how you got into property and writing after a legal career. Suzanne: Well, I've always loved reading books. In fact, I recently did a French literature degree as a mature student. Being an author was never in the game plan at all. It's not something that I even thought about. I was brought up in New Zealand, so shout out to all the Kiwis and those across the pond in Australia. The thing about it is, Jo, you've lived there yourself. Kiwis are independent, self-reliant and have this great sense of fair play. So that was a very formative experience for me. We moved back to England when I was 16, and I have become thoroughly anglicised since then, but a Kiwi at heart. I always wanted to become a lawyer. New Zealand in some ways on television is quite American, and there was this American programme called The Paper Chase. It was about all of these students at Harvard studying law, and the professor said, “You come here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” I thought, “Oh, I like the sound of that.” I didn't really know what a lawyer was, but everyone seemed to be very happy that I wanted to become one, and then that was it. Jo: So you went into law, and then how did you get into property? Suzanne: So I worked for 25 years as a solicitor. That's like an attorney if you're American. Started off in a law firm, and then I went into pharmaceuticals and I worked for big companies like what is now GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, and small companies as well. When I started out, it was before the internet, before Google. When you're in house, you're very much a generalist. You do a bit of everything. So you help companies grow their business. You're not business prevention, but you're still bound by the code of conduct for solicitors. You've got this role of keeping the company on the right side of the law. Then I had twins, who were born about five years after I became a lawyer, and I decided to work part-time for a while and did an MBA when they were little, part-time through the Open University. I know Jonathan is doing one at the moment. Jo: Yes. He's finished, so that's exciting. Suzanne: That was transformational for me, because I had probably been thinking a bit too much as a lawyer, and it helped me to broaden my view of the world and understand all sorts of things. Sso I continued going up the greasy pole, and then for my last job, in 2015, I joined a biotech company in Cambridge, England, as general counsel and company secretary. It was a long way from home, about two, three hours' drive from home. So I decided to buy a flat, an apartment, and to stay there in the week. I thought to myself, “Well, when I leave this company, I can let it out as a buy-to-let,” but actually as a landlord. So I stayed there for five years, and then when I left, I let out the property. The reason why I decided to leave law after 25 years, I had what I call a sliding doors moment, like in the film. I was 50. I was on holiday with my husband, and we'd probably had one too many rum cocktails. And he said to me, “Well, what do you want to be doing with your life? What would you do if you could do anything?” I was thinking, “Well, I've done law. I want to do something else now.” I didn't really know what that was, and I'd always been thinking about studying French properly, and that's when I left. So I decided, 18 months later, I left to do a French degree at King's College London, full-time. I was the only old person there with lots of 18-year-olds. When I did that, I was able to cash in my share options because I was a good leaver. I retired, and so I started buying properties to let out and became a landlord, without really thinking too much about it, and I used letting agents. They were fine to begin with, but I didn't really have a game plan or anything like that. What I realised is that when I tried to research things online, I couldn't really find anything that was terribly helpful. It was either quite general or it was very legal. So after a while… I became a landlord in 2019. I had the idea, why don't I set up a blog? And this is August 2022, so just four years ago. My husband came up with the idea of the name, The Independent Landlord, because it's that Kiwi spirit, being very independent. I thought, “Right, I'm not going to charge anyone for it. It's a hobby. It's not a business. I'm going to pay it forward and help, use my legal training, practical legal approach, and practical common sense, by doing this blog.” Almost exactly four years ago, I sent my first newsletter to 13 people. Jo: Woo-hoo. Suzanne: And I sent one last week to over 18,000. So it's been quite a journey. Jo: Wow, this is so great. I love this. There's so much in there. The turning 50 and then doing a degree. My master's in death is a little different to your French literature, but I like it. So I love this, and buying properties, starting it on the side, not a business at first, and growing the audience, and obviously you've put so much work in. Then you decide to write a book. So talk about that, because an online blog, although I'm sure your articles and everything were super useful, it's very different to write a blog than a book. So talk about your challenges in writing. Why did you decide to do a book in the first place? Suzanne: Again, I was an accidental landlord, is what they call it when you let a property when you didn't intend to buy it as a buy-to-let, which I did with my Cambridge flat. And I became, in many respects, an accidental author. So I was having a conversation with my husband again and I was saying I'd done this lead magnet to get people to sign up to my newsletter, and a big new law was going through Parliament at the time, called the Renters Reform Bill, that was going to completely transform the way landlords operate. I was saying to my husband, “Oh, I need to update my lead magnet, a little ebook, to explain the new law.” He looked at me and said, “Well, why don't you do a proper book? Write a book.” This was on the 29th of September, 2023. The reason why I mention that is that I thought, “Wow, what a great idea,” and my head was bursting. I went onto Google, and guess what I downloaded on the 1st of October? Jo: My blueprint? Suzanne: Exactly. I found you immediately, the Author Blueprint, and I downloaded it. I checked: on the 1st of October, 2023. Then I listened to almost… well, I think I went back several years on your podcast, just trying to understand. I'm like that. When I try and do something, I just try and learn everything that there is to know about it. So I started writing the book, and I guess the first challenge was I write quickly, and I'm used to writing for people who aren't lawyers, being in-house. So I thought I needed to have a structure. The structure was easy in many respects because, a bit of business at the end, and then you can go through a tenancy. I thought it was important to have a narrative thread all the way through it, just to bring it together. This is the literature degree coming in here. I thought that the mission for everything I do, the reason why I started doing this, is to help landlords, but also to help the experience of renting that people have in England. It's very specific for English law. And to help improve the private rented sector. So that's why I originally set up my blog for free, and I wanted, when people went onto Google, they could find something sensible and very detailed from me. My blog posts were… Well, I've now got over 400,000 words on my blog, so it's a substantial piece of work that is out there free of charge. So what I decided to do was to bring this narrative thread, I call it the good landlord ethos, to the book. Then I wrote very quickly, and I had a pretty good draft by April 2024, because we were all thinking that the law was going to change very soon. But then there was an election, and in the end the government changed and the legislation changed completely, so I had to rewrite the book and start again. So I think that my biggest challenge was that my subject matter, the new law, changed. Because I wanted to publish this book that explained to people practically what they have to do, and make it really straightforward, keeping out of politics, because it is a very politically charged area. I wanted to write it so it's a manual, somebody could literally follow it. So I used an editor, and I did write the book twice. I had a beta reader who is another lawyer, and a landlord as well. Then I got to the get-the-damn-thing-done stage. The really tedious bit of all the typos at the end. Jo: Yes, the finishing energy to get it out there. So at that point, obviously you'd found my blueprint, so you were learning about the indie way of doing things. Did you always decide to self-publish? How did you think about publishing? What were your challenges in publishing? Suzanne: It never occurred to me not to self-publish, because the new law came into effect on the 1st of May, 2026. The law and the details that I needed for the book were finalised in January, and I published on Amazon on the 5th of March, so I had to go so quickly. Even though I'd got a lot of it written, the last bit came in January, and so I needed speed. I knew that for landlords to be able to have something that they can use straightaway to help get them ready for it, and then use as a manual afterwards, I had to be first. Jo: Sorry, just on the year. Was it '24? You said '26. You meant May— Suzanne: 2024? No, no, because I actually published it this year. What happened in 2024, I had the first draft ready, but then I had to do another draft because the law changed when the Labour government came in. Jo: Right. Suzanne: The Renters Reform Bill turned into the Renters' Rights Bill. So I had to rewrite the book. So I finished however many drafts at the end of January 2026. Then it went to an editor, et cetera, et cetera, and I managed to get the book ready for a proof, to get the proof printed, towards the end of February. So it was really quick to go from the law being sufficiently finalised for me to write a book in January, and then having it ready in just over a month. There is no way that I could have done that if I'd gone to a traditional publisher. It didn't even occur to me to go, because I didn't want to be going touting around my book and, “Please publish me,” et cetera. It's just not me. I'm the independent landlord, and that moved very easily to being the independent publisher. So I learnt how to do all the publishing. And a huge thanks: I joined your Patreon and I was a very good student. I went through everything systematically and followed your playbook, and used Vellum and BookFunnel and all the other tools. So I decided to go on Amazon as well as have my own Shopify store, which just about killed me. Jo: I was going to say, you are an excellent student. You really like learning, but you also put this into practice, which is why I also wanted to talk to you. You haven't just talked about all this. You've literally done everything. Suzanne: Sometimes it was like my head was going to burst. Luckily, Claude upped his game earlier this year when we got the Opus 4.5. I didn't use AI really until this year. I decided I need to do exercise all the time, and have that as a have-to-do, because my head was spinning all the time with all these different things. So I would go to the gym, go to a spin class, and then I would walk out with my phone on, with the Claude app, and dictate a stream of consciousness into it. “Oh, I need to do this, or what about that? Oh, I just remembered about this. Oh, I've had this idea, blah.” And then said, “Make sense of it for me, Claude.” So it was very much as a thinking partner, because when you're writing your first book, it's bad enough, but when you're learning how to publish… Even, like, when I got the first proof of the book back from BookVault, I realised that all the footnotes—I have 114 footnotes in my book, and that, again, is the recent degree there—and the formatting had gone skew-whiff. Apparently it was an issue with Vellum, and they were really lovely and they sorted it straight out for me. So it shows: always get a proof of the book. They were able to sort that out very quickly, and BookVault were very quick in getting me another proof, because you can shortcut it and just pay to get a very quick delivery. Amazon, on the other hand, was really slow. It took a week. So I actually published earlier on my Shopify store for my members, of my membership, and I gave them a discount. Then I finally got it onto Amazon on the 5th of March. There are all these different skills you're having to learn. The Shopify store I found very hard, and there was all the tax, because I'm VAT registered. So I think I'm still recovering. Jo: You're still recovering. I wouldn't normally recommend a Shopify store for someone with their first book, doing first of everything. But, as you say, you're someone who learns a lot, puts it into practice, and— I think you were pretty determined to do that because you had a community as well, right? Suzanne: Exactly, yes. The big subscriber list. I think that's why the book did so well. So in the first week, because I met you at the Indie Author Lab put on by— Jo: Yes, London Book Fair, yes. Suzanne: Yes, the Alliance of Independent Authors. I met you there, and it was just my first week, and I had 1,000 sales in the first week. That was because of my audience. I'd been going on about the fact that I'm writing this book for two and a half years, because that's how long it took me to do. So I had a wait list for it, and I had a thing on my website, a landing page on my website, saying how good the book was and why it's the best thing for the Renters' Rights Act. Then I went onto Google, and I think I sent you a screenshot of this at the time. I put into Google, “What's the best book for the Renters' Rights Act for landlords in England?” And it came up with me as a featured snippet, and I hadn't even published it at that time. It was just about there. So the blog really helped, because I'd become an authority on the Renters' Rights Act. Even though I'm not a practising solicitor any more, I spent all my time reading the damn thing, and it is a very complicated bit of legislation. Funnily enough, I have ruffled a lot of feathers. People have even said about me behind my back, “What does she know? She's only got four properties.” But I just took no notice. I thought, “I'm going to try and use my legal brain and my understanding of what it's like being a landlord, there with the rubber gloves cleaning an oven when people have moved out, and try and write something that's not trying to sell anything else, and to help people.” And then it got picked up. Jo: Yes. Wait, let's just slow down. Slow down, because we will get onto that in a minute. But let's just come back to that launch. So as we talked about, you've had a blog for five years— Suzanne: It was three and a half by then. Jo: Three and a half years you've been blogging, but hundreds of thousands of words of useful information. So you've essentially done content marketing. You've attracted people. You had a lead magnet. You got them on your email list. You told them that you were writing a book. You got a sort of pre-sales list up. So that's an email list. You've got a blog. Did you do anything else in terms of marketing? Suzanne: I had YouTube, a big YouTube channel. I'd only set it up at the end of 2024, and I'd had half a million views. And again, just very straightforward advice, and without all the scaremongering and politics. I deliberately keep out of it all. A lot of people joined my newsletter as a result of that. Also a year ago, exactly today, I was running a Facebook group, which was a lot of hard work. There were a few thousand people in it, but there are often a lot of people going in there trying to sell things: insurance, eviction specialists and things. And there was also a lot of people just being unpleasant to other people. I was getting fed up with it. It was taking me a lot of time, and I was doing a lot of speaking events and trying to explain what this new law was doing, and wearing myself out. I'm an extrovert, but even I find speaking events absolutely exhausting, because it's like everything gets sucked out of you. It's strange. Then somebody came up to me in July last year and said, “Suzanne, can you set up a membership?” I said, “Well, landlords aren't going to pay for that.” And they said, “Yes, they will. You build it and they will come.” I asked ChatGPT and thought about it. I asked ChatGPT, who I was dating at the time, now exclusively with Claude, but I know Claude has other people in his life. But I'm very much set with Claude Fable at the moment. So I asked ChatGPT, how can I go about setting up a membership? And I mentioned your one and said, “Should I do it on Patreon?” And then he came back with: go for Circle. So I set up a membership on Circle, exactly a year ago. In fact, it's the anniversary of my first member yesterday. hTe rules I had were, no selling. So I don't sell, no affiliate links, no one else can sell anything, and we have to be supportive. No negativity, no politics. So what it's become, it's like the senior common room of the private rented sector, with landlords, lawyers, letting agents. There's a fantastic forum in there. It's not me doing it, it's peer-to-peer. I have twice-monthly live streams where people can ask me questions. I wonder where I got that from. No, I very much modelled it on your Patreon, but on a different platform. I have courses in there as well. So that has really grown. I launched it in July, and by September, October, I'd gone past the VAT threshold, which has complicated everything, but it means my business now is this membership. I really enjoy doing it, and there hasn't been all the negativity that you have in a Facebook group. So I had them as… talk about your thousand fans. There are about 1,500 in the membership, and their support really helped the launch of my book, as well as the wider people who get my free newsletter. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: So it's all different types of content marketing. Jo: Y, but I do love this. And of course, if people are wondering, I joined Patreon back in 2014, I think it might have even been before that, and there weren't too many places back then to run communities. It wasn't even really a community at the time, it was a sort of, almost a “give me a bit of support for the podcast.” So things have changed a lot in terms of communities, and obviously you went with Circle, which is great. Patreon is slightly different now, and some people are using Substack for something similar. So that's just on the platform, but on the business: early on in our conversation you said, “I wasn't going to have a business. It wasn't a business. It was just putting stuff out there, helping other people,” and then your audience asked for this membership. And so now it is a business, right? Suzanne: Yes, it is. Jo: And you've got a book and all of this. So are you happy with the change to a business? Because obviously you have to treat it quite differently. Suzanne: Yes, I am, because I think to begin with, I was just doing it one or two days a week. I was actually studying a master's in French literature part-time, and I then found that I was enjoying the blog more than the master's, so I dumped the master's after the first year. But after getting 88% for one of my dissertations, which interestingly was on the translation of a Simone de Beauvoir book into English, and the publisher who's got that now is Random House, but that's another thing. Anyway, so I decided to give up my master's and double down and work full-time on the blog. People were paying to help me with all the big fees and things, the big tech stack, Buy Me a Coffee. I was doing a little bit of consulting and things. I was working six, seven days a week. I was treating it like a business in terms of quality and my effort, but it wasn't a business in terms of revenue. Then it just all came together, and this person said, “Set up a membership,” and I thought, “That's what I'm going to do. I'm now going to put it on a business setting.” I've got an MBA, I know how to do it, and people thought I planned it, but I didn't. It just happened. So now I do very much treat it as a business, but I still don't advertise. I don't allow people to advertise with me, because I want to be independent. If I recommend something, I want people to believe it's me recommending it, not just because someone's paying me, which can be a big issue in the landlord area. Jo: Oh, in any industry. I get pitched every day with loads of random things that people are like, “Oh, a dollar a click or whatever, if you send this to your list.” And it's like, seriously? Just stop it already. I did just want to add there: somebody asked you, they said, “You should have a community,” and that sparked that idea. I just wanted to acknowledge that my Patreon came from Jim Kukral. Some of you will remember, who've been around a long time. Jim Kukral came on my blog around sort of 2013. Amanda Palmer had just put out a book called The Art of Asking, and I was doing a lot of unpaid work on the podcast at the time, and I was either going to give it up or I had to fund it somehow. Jim said, “You should do a Patreon.” And I was like, “Oh, no, I hate asking for money.” So at the time I just felt, oh, weird. Then I was like, “No, I do all this work,” as you were saying. Now the Patreon has changed so much in terms of what it is, but it is the backbone of my business, too. So I love that you listened to one of your fans who said what they wanted, and I love that I've listened as well. Sometimes we just have to listen to those urges, don't we, to take things on? Suzanne: Yes, absolutely. In some ways I didn't really back myself before. I thought, “No one's going to pay for this.” Then the more you give, the more they want. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: What I've been really working on now is having boundaries, because there were two big kind of mottos that I picked up when I was working in pharmaceuticals. One was from a head of the business. He was Canadian, and he was always saying, “You've got to skate to where the puck is heading.” Jo: That's Wayne Gretzky, is it? Suzanne: Exactly. Yes. He would always say it, and so that's what I've done with my blog and my book. When I write things, I don't pay for any tools. I don't do keyword searches and all that. I just think, I do one blog post per topic, and I'm going to guess what people are going to be searching for soon, and I build up all this content around it. That's why most of my blog pages are top five. I've had no advertising. I haven't asked for any backlinks. I don't do it. People backlink to it because it's useful. So that was the first thing, is skate to where the puck is heading, and that was my approach with the book. I knew people would need this book from around May, and they'll need it forever, because it is so complicated and regulated, the rules for being a landlord in England. So that was the first one. The second thing was: when you take something on, you've got to let something go. One in, one out. I found that I was taking on so many different things, and I've just been cutting back, because I can't be doing all the speaking, I can't be answering people's emails. So I now don't do emails. If people want my advice on something, they ask me in the hub, at the twice-monthly live streams. Sometimes I answer in the forums, but I don't have time. When there are 2.4 million landlords in the UK, and even with our 18,000 on my newsletter, I could spend, and I did, I used to spend all my time replying to emails. So anyway, there are the things. Oh, and there was a third one, which is: attract, don't chase. One of my friends gave me that advice and that's exactly what my approach has been. I just don't chase for anything. I just put the stuff there and then build it and they will come. Jo: Yes, and I think another thing is the power of the niche. It's so clear that what you write about, the people you are aiming at, you have an extremely tight target market. That is both a strength and obviously a weakness, because they're the only people. But as you say, there's more than enough of those people for a community, for the book you have. From my own perspective, that's the same for me, the power of the niche. That's how I have a successful podcast, for example, because of that reason. I think you're like a poster child of what a non-fiction author should do. What I like is that you didn't go, “Oh, where's a niche where I could make money?” and then jump in. You've gone about this in a kind of slightly accidental way, but now you're leaning in and this uses all your skills. So this really is a great example of the power of the niche and then making the most of it. But let's move on to what then happened, and— What happened with the book deal? Suzanne: Wow. So you and I met each other on whatever day that was in March at the Indie Author Lab, and the following day I got an email, via my website on a contact form, from Penguin Random House saying, “We love the book. We love the mission, its values,” all this kind of thing. And I was thinking, “Oh, it's another one of those. Must be an—” Jo: AI spam bot, right? Suzanne: Yes, and I remember I sent you a screenshot of it, and then I checked her out on LinkedIn and thought, “Okay, there is somebody with that name there.” You're always saying, and Orna Ross and everyone are always saying, “Watch out for scams.” And in fact, Penguin Random House even this weekend on Instagram put out something saying, “There are lots of people impersonating us.” So I didn't take it too seriously, and it was something like, “Oh, would you be interested in us publishing your book?” And I thought, and I laughed. It was like, no, this is too good to be true. So I replied and said… Oh, I said, “Well, thank you so much. The Renters' Rights Act…” And so this is like the second week in March. “The Renters' Rights Act comes into effect on the 1st of May. If you want to publish it, you're going to need to get your skates on.” I literally did say that. Then she arranged a meeting with me the next day, on the Friday. I still was very dubious about it, and I had a think about it. What helped me, and I have the little booklet here: at the Author Lab, we did some work at the beginning, and Orna said, “Put your phones away.” And it was like, “What? Put my phone away?” Then we had to do this definition of success, and our passion, and our mission, and our purpose. I wrote down things like, I want to help landlords, and in so doing, help improve the private rented sector. I get pleasure from helping people. I want to improve standards and use my legal and practical skills, et cetera. So I thought, “Okay, what is my purpose of doing this book?” It isn't really to make money, because going with Penguin, you wouldn't do that for financial reasons, because you'd make very little money. So I thought, what is my why? My why is I want as many people to read this book as possible. And I've managed to sell a few thousand copies, but there are 2.4 million landlords, and they all need to understand this book, and the only way that I can get it out there, apart from doing ads, is to get it out in bookstores. So I thought about it, and then said, “Yes, I will do it, because I want to get the book out there.” So it's distribution. It's going to be published on the 6th of August, which is really quick, bearing in mind they contacted me in the middle of March. It's exactly the same book, it's just got different copyright wording and different blurb, different paper. Same cover, because I managed to find a fantastic cover person to do it. So they've kept everything the same. So we negotiated that book. I have no agent. They came to me. It's the attract, don't chase. I just put my lawyer hat on, and because one licence is very much like another one… I did turn down their first offer. Jo: Well done. Good negotiation. Suzanne: My daughter said to me, who's an adult daughter, she said, “But it's Penguin.” And I said, “Well, no, but it doesn't work for me.” So I had a call with them, and then they came up with something that worked for me a bit more. I did have to concede on a few things, like I can't sell it in my Shopify store. But in some ways, that was a blessing in disguise, because it means I don't get any more “Where's my book?” emails. Jo: Yes, exactly. Pros and cons of everything, basically. Suzanne: I have very clear rights to get it back. If I want it back, I can get it back and I don't have to give a reason. They're lovely. They have been really very wonderful. When I went up there a month or so ago, they gave me this book bag, and it's got on it, “I'm published by Penguin,” and I burst into tears. Jo: Aw. That's nice. Suzanne: I don't know, it just seemed like such a big deal. Because up until then I was just being all very lawyerly and task-orientated. Then I thought, “Oh my goodness,” and then it dawned on me. So I'm now in this interim period where I've taken it off Amazon and off my Shopify store, and I feel very maternalistic towards the book because, you know, it took me two and a half years, which is longer than a pregnancy. Obviously it's not a child, but it's like my book child. I've sent it off with a backpack and a drink and some snacks, and I hope that they look after him, my book. The day I took it off Amazon it was still number one. And a big shout-out to Publisher Rocket, by the way. Jo: Yes. Very, very useful for niche publishing. Suzanne: Very. It helped me choose the right niche categories. So it was number one on at least one category, often six, all the way through. I thought, “Well, it's over to them now.” They're very lovely people. They've given me some marketing assets, as they call it, some swanky graphics and things to use. We'll have to see what we do in terms of marketing. I don't mind doing marketing. I'm on LinkedIn quite a bit, and my whole blog is marketing. What I've been doing is updating my blog to include one of these graphics and to mention the book, and I got Claude to help me draft the code so it looked right. So I've been going through all of my blog posts and sending people to Amazon rather than to my Shopify store. It is mixed feelings, because I care about my book. I put a lot of effort, a lot of love, a lot of tears. No, not tears, but I put a lot of effort into it, and it's out of my control now. Jo: Yes, you said it's over to them, but obviously you will still be creating content around this topic, so you'll probably still be the biggest driver of book sales. Suzanne: Yes. Jo: Are they also suggesting, for example, a podcast tour, like pitching for podcasts? Are they going to assign you some PR? Because, also if people don't know, as we are recording this, we have a new prime minister who wants to do various things. You said no politics, but this is obviously a political thing. So you have the potential to go on a lot of different podcasts, media, talking about this, becoming almost a talking head in this kind of area. So are you angling for all that, and is that in your contract, or is it literally just going to be whatever you want to do? Suzanne: That's not in the contract. What's in the contract is very minimal. I think I've already done what I'm supposed to do. They are pitching for me to go on podcasts and things. I'll tell you a really funny coincidence. So we now have a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester, he set up something called the Good Landlord Charter. I actually talk about it in the book, and I quote him in my book saying that good landlords mean people trying to do the right thing, or something like that. And I coincidentally came up with the same name, The Good Landlord Handbook. I'd already had the book title for a long time. So this idea of good and landlord coming together, the adjective good as opposed to criminal or rogue, and the cover being green. I'm wanting to change the narrative so it's the norm to have a good landlord, and to help people become good landlords. Or if they're good landlords, help them to understand the new rules, because the new rules are very complicated. So what I don't get involved in is this right or wrong. Is it right that landlords can't do this or have to do this? Because as an in-house lawyer, it doesn't really matter what I think about the law. GDPR, goodness me. Jo: Oh, dear. Let's not start on GDPR. Suzanne: No, exactly. Because we've just got to suck it up. I liken it to the grief cycle, that people have been going through so much change and you have the anger, the depression— Jo: Denial. Suzanne: Bargaining, the denial, and then you get to acceptance. For some people, the acceptance means they want to stop doing it. If you want to accept it and stay, you need to understand the rules. So I've deliberately just kept very practical and have kept out of all the politics of it. I have, funnily enough, become involved because I'm now seen as an expert on the Renters' Rights Act. I've worked behind the scenes with the government to help, and give comment on government guidance for landlords. I was even invited to a reception to mark the passing of the Renters' Rights Act at Downing Street with the previous prime minister, all whilst staying apolitical. I won't let anyone make me be a mouthpiece for their political view. It's more, we just have to do this if we want to continue doing it. I've been very clear on that. Jo: It's interesting you mention the grief cycle there, and you've also mentioned Claude and ChatGPT. I wonder if you might also just comment on use of AI for authors and for marketing and all this. Also with legal stuff, because for me now, if I'm looking at a particular legal thing, I tend to ask Claude. I'm like, “Can you just explain this?” or upload a contract or whatever. Although it is not legal advice, it can be quite useful. So give us your thoughts on using AI as a sidekick in your author business and also for wider life. Suzanne: I now struggle to think what life would be like without Claude. I don't use Claude to write, at all, because I have a very particular voice and a turn of phrase, and if ever Claude writes something for me, it doesn't sound like me. It flattens me, and it makes me sound a bit American. So I don't do that. I've used it in the back end of the business. For instance, my blog was down, and there was something called a recursive bot, which I don't even know what it was, and Claude helped me fix it for free. I went through, I did screenshots. When I did an ElevenLabs audiobook and did it all myself, I was literally, for every screenshot, showing it to Claude. Claude said, “Do this, press this, press that.” So I have all these different projects set up. One is the control room, where it's for my strategic thinking. If I have an idea, I want to think about something, I put it in there. I have the engine room, which is for everything techy. Like when I had the recursive bot, or if I'm wanting to have some code on the website to make it look a particular way. Then I have other things for different subjects, and I put all the resources in there, and I use it a lot as a thinking partner. I've noticed that Fable doesn't hallucinate as much, but the Opus used to. There's something called rental discrimination, and it was proofreading and said, “No, it's not rental discrimination, it's rental income discrimination,” and that was just a load of rubbish. So I would never let it go and change things without me looking at it. I went on one of your webinars a month or so ago about MCPs and all the connectors, which is fantastic. It can go into my community and pull out all the questions for one of my live streams and put it into a document in order, by theme, for instance. It can look at my MailerLite, because that's where my newsletter is with, and analyse the different open rates and click rates and things. It's so good for analysing everything, all the book sales. It helped me with my negotiation with Penguin, and it is pretty good on law. It has sometimes hallucinated things, but not so much now. I think with anything, you've always got to go back to the primary source, and this is what we learn in academia: you have to check the primary source yourself. I have a bit of a magpie brain. I'm very much a discovery writer, like you, and things occur to me as I'm doing it. I think that Claude, at the moment, is incredible. I've been quite open about it on social media that I have Claude as a business partner. I'm a solopreneur, or whatever the word is. I have quite a big business now, and lots of different things, and it's just me doing it, because I can ask Claude how to do this, and how to do that. Claude can go and check my emails and tell me, is there somebody I've not replied to, which helps a lot. Jo: Yes. I think it's empowering as a solopreneur as such. You talk there about the fixing the tech stuff. I have my web host come to me and say, “Look, you're getting so much traffic and bot stuff, and we need to put this thing in, and it's going to be $120 extra a month.” I was like, “Can you just give me an hour? I'll get back to you.” And then I just had Claude code up, and I was like, “Analyse this and tell me what we can do.” It was like, “No, you just need to flip this switch and do that.” And I'm like, “Okay, fair enough.” Then the guy said, “Oh, no, okay, actually you don't need it.” Just stuff like that. As a solopreneur, you're either going to pay somebody technically quite a lot of money, or you can get Claude or ChatGPT. We should say, the ChatGPT Sol is very good, like the Claude Fable, for example. So, yes, using it as a sidekick. I love your control room and your engine room projects as well. That's a great way of doing it. Suzanne: I wouldn't be without it now, and I would have published the book a lot later without Claude, because Claude was helping me with the Shopify store and all the many steps of things. It saved me real time. It is just fantastic. I think, like now when I'm updating my blog, I have a connection between Claude and my blog. Claude can go in, I can give it my Google Search Console results for the page: what should I change, are the headings right? All this kind of thing. And it will give me a view on every single page, which is incredible. Jo: And YouTube, and just everything. Just super useful for that business sidekick. That's what I want authors to think. I feel like authors get so obsessed with the creative side with AI, whereas actually, people like you and me, we're using it as that engine room for the solo business, which is what I love. So we're out of time. I did want to ask one more thing, which is, one of the biggest issues with a specific book like yours is when they change the law again. So do you have a plan in place for if, say, a new government changes the law again? Will you just be updating the book over time? Suzanne: I think that there'll need to be a new edition of the book in three years' time, and I've spoken to Penguin about it. Not all of this new law has been implemented, and there's going to be case law and things. So I expect that I will update the book every few years. I have some other ideas for books as well, but for the moment, I'm just taking a bit of a break. You always say we've got to refill our creative well. I really feel like that at the moment. Recently I've just got myself a personal mobile phone so that I can turn off my work one when I'm on holiday and actually take time off. Because for all the time that I was doing the book, basically from Christmas until May, I didn't have one day off. That is not good. So I'm just trying to be a bit more balanced. I had an idea to write another book for summer, but I've just decided not to, and I'm going to leave it until I feel the urge again. Jo: Oh, well done. Suzanne: Which will come. Jo: Yes, well done. Suzanne: I think there's nothing wrong with that. We just need to think what's right for us. I'm 58. So I want to be able to have time to enjoy things and not be working all the time. Jo: No, that's great. It's a sustainable business. So where can people find you and the book and your community online? Suzanne: The easiest way to find me is theindependentlandlord.com. Or if you put Suzanne Smith and landlord into Google, you'll find me as well, and there's a link on there to the book, The Good Landlord Handbook. In the community, there's a link to that on my website as well. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Suzanne. That was great. Suzanne: Thank you.The post From Blog To Community To Book: A Non-Fiction Author's Journey With Suzanne Smith first appeared on The Creative Penn.

A year ago, running our agents took 30 minutes a day. This week: eight hours. Here's what changed - and why it's both thrilling and terrifying. In this episode, Amelia and Jason break down the week Fable went rogue. Not a glitch. Not an error. Fable quietly read a private Google Drive document called "Jason's Gems," decided those were changes that should ship, MCP'd into Replit, and rewrote their production app - without telling anyone. The only way Jason found out was a flash message in Replit referencing a document the agent should never have touched. And that wasn't the only time. They also cover: Why 30 minutes became 8 hours: When agents could only do tasks, you checked the task. Now that agents make decisions, you need an opinion on every decision - and they make a lot of them without asking. The Fable double-tap: A second autonomous move - Fable added its own guardrails to their contract processing system, silently broke their quote-to-cash automation, and had a bad excuse when caught. Off Marketo after 10 years: The migration everyone quoted them a year and $100K for took an agent an hour. What actually took the rest of the week - and why they'd never go back. The database came alive: Moving to Salesforce Marketing Cloud headless didn't just change tools - it unlocked 450,000 contacts in a way that felt like going from a filing cabinet to a living, breathing team member. Goodbye Notion: Seven years, zero complaints. They just... stopped needing it. 10K replaced it without anyone noticing. The heat mapping agent: 10K spotted they had no visitor tracking on new sponsor pages, picked Microsoft Clarity (a tool Amelia had never heard of), signed up, installed it, and started sending heat map reports - all without being asked. That vendor never even got a shot. Ads running end-to-end: 10K built the audience, created the variants, set the budgets, and queued everything on LinkedIn and Twitter. Amelia hit publish. That was her job. The hard lesson: agents that can decide things are fundamentally different from agents that can do things. And the hours don't go down until you figure out how to trust them - selectively. Three humans. 20+ agents. Busier than they were with a full team.

Jill built the largest retail balloon shop in North America... then walked away from it on her own terms. If you have ever wondered how someone actually retires from a balloon business, this is the conversation. We get into why most retail shops go under, what "processed out" really means and a calendar trick that might change how you plan your entire year. Jill pulls back the curtain on what separates a retail shop that survives from one that sinks. And hint: it's not talent. We talk about pricing like you are already in the store, the real cost of your first employee and why you cannot sell a business that only lives in your head. Jill also shares the business books that shaped her and the strategy business she launched, Fable and Firm. If you have big dreams for your balloon business but no exit plan, this one is for you.   In the UGlu Hotline, hear how one listener finds comparable colors across brands.    Unlock three free bonus episodes!    RESOURCES MENTIONED: Sales Sets Havin' A Party Wholesale (save 5% on orders $200+ with code PODCAST) buildwiththeguild.com UGlu by Pro Tapes (save 5% on orders $200+ at Havin' A Party with code PODCAST)  DM @thebrightballoon on Instagram to ask a question or leave advice for the UGlu Hotline! 2026 Bright Balloon Planner  @fableandfirm  - - - - On the Bright Side Apple | Patreon Join the Bright Balloon email list  The Bright Balloon on YouTube 

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when a husband starts growing a beard and can't find quality products he actually likes?For Megan "The Princess" Gray and her husband Colin "The Wizard" Gray, that simple problem sparked the creation of Fable Beard Co. and eventually Fable Beauty—two story-driven brands that have grown from a garage startup into a thriving multi-million-dollar company.In this episode of Call Me CEO, Camille sits down with Megan and Colin to discuss entrepreneurship, marriage, motherhood, leadership, and what it really takes to build a business from scratch. Megan shares her experience as a female founder leading a company in a traditionally male-dominated industry, while Colin reveals how creativity and storytelling became the secret ingredient behind Fable's passionate customer community.Together, they discuss how they bootstrapped their business, learned Facebook advertising themselves, manufactured products from their garage, and eventually expanded into a 10,000-square-foot facility while raising three children.If you've ever wondered whether you can build a successful business without sacrificing your family, this episode will leave you inspired to think bigger.In This Episode You'll Learn:How Fable Beard Co. started from a personal need and became a national brandThe storytelling strategy that transformed ordinary grooming products into collectible experiencesWhat it's like running a business with your spouseHow Megan navigates leadership as a woman in a male-dominated industryThe challenges and rewards of bootstrapping a company from the ground upWhy community building has been critical to Fable's growthLessons learned from making only $7,000 in their first yearHow they scaled to millions in annual revenue and earned spots on the Inc. 5000 listTheir approach to balancing business ownership and parentingMarketing strategies that helped fuel growth through Facebook, Meta, Google, and organic contentKey Takeaway"You don't need permission to lead. Whether you're building a company, raising a family, or doing both at the same time, confidence grows through action."Connect with Megan Gray & FableInstagram:@fablebeautybytheprincess@fablebeardco@theprincessfbcWebsites:FableBeauty.comFableBeardCo.comConnect with Camille:Instagram: @CamilleWalker.coPodcast: @CallMeCEOPodcastTry the 5-minute routine tomorrow and tag @CallMeCEOPodcast on Instagram with your biggest takeaway.Schedule a free discovery call with Camille!https://calendly.com/callmeceopodcast/discovery-call-with-camille 

Halo Campaign Evolve | Fable | Double Fine | Gears Of War E-Day | Physical Disc | Xbox Live -WWP 504

OpenAI has a new model coming soon called Astra. Was it a leak? A reddit post? Some backdoor update? Nope, OpenAI made some crazy discoveries and math then told the world that their next model family Astra did the heavy lifting. (And you thought you could just click ‘Sol' and your strategy was set for Q3?) Aside from news on what's next from OpenAI, this week saw multiple new agent outbreaks, AI competitors banning together to pace AI, Amazon doing a 180 on its AI strategy and a lot more. Don't get left behind. We'll keep you ahead. OpenAI's new Astra model, more AI agents escape sandboxes, AI leaders call for AI pacing and more. AI News That Matters for August 3 — An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:OpenAI Agents Escape Sandboxes IncidentAnthropic Claude Models Security BreachesAI Agents Breaking Cybersecurity GuardrailsOpenAI GPT-5.6 Price Cuts & Self-OptimizationRecursive Self-Improvement in AI ModelsAI Leaders Urge AI Development PacingUS, China, and International AI GovernanceAmazon Nova AI Models Shutdown StrategyOpenAI Astra Model Math BreakthroughNew AI Models: Fable, Astra, DeepSeek v4 FlashEnterprise AI Agents and Cybersecurity UpdatesGoogle Gemini Robotics, Music, and Agent ReleasesMeta, Microsoft, and AWS AI Infrastructure MovesOpenAI Free Frontier Tools for ResearchersBlock's Buzz Open Source AI Workspace LaunchTimestamps:00:00 OpenAI agent containment issues04:27 Anthropic data breach explanation07:28 Evaluating AI incidents and responses10:14 OpenAI slashes GPT 5.6 prices15:59 AI industry urges development pause17:45 Concerns about AI self-improvement22:36 Amazon shifts AI strategy25:04 Amazon's AI efforts discussion28:00 OpenAI's Astra and new math proofs30:36 OpenAI's new four-tier system36:14 Google's Lyria 3.5 and Block's Buzz36:48 Latest AI developments overviewKeywords: Astra model, OpenAI, AI agents, agent escape, sandbox containment, autonomous AI, Hugging Face breach, Anthropic, Claude AI, cybersecurity testing, unauthorized access, model capabilities, recursive self-improvement, GPT-5.6, price cut, Luna model, Terra model, Sol model, input tokens, output tokens, AI infrastructure optimization, self-improving models, benchmarking, SONNET-5, large language models, artificial analysis index, codex, academic research, AI oversight, industry pause, AI governance, national security, China open-source models, Frontier Labs, Amazon Nova, AGI Lab, AWS, Peter DeSantis, Peter Abbeel, media coverage, Fable model, Haiku, Opus, DeepSeek, Kimi K3, Quinn 3.8, GLM 5.2, Google Gemini 3.5, Microsoft Copilot, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, distillation, model overhang, artificial intelligence development, international AI regulation, generative AI, model benchmarking, Sora video model, El Paso data center, MCP update, MAI Cyber One Flash, Project Perception, Lyria 3.5, music generation, Buzz open source, Block, Meta AI, Chrome Gemini integration, Gemini Spark, product summary algorithms, Rufus, enterprise AI, stateless core, model scaling, advanced math problems, sphere packing, federal policy, voluntary AI commitments.Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner 

ILP# 456 8/2/2026https://lordsofgaming.net/LORDS AFTER DARK on Insider Game App! ANDROID: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.insidergaming.appIOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/insider-gaming/id67539846481) ADVANCEDGG Use Code "IRONLORD" for 10% off https://advanced.gg/pages/partner-ironlords?_pos=12) VALARI PILLOW Use Code "ILP15" valari.gg/?ref=ironlordspodcastroundtable3)  ILP MERCH: https://ironlordspodcast-shop.fourthwall.com/collections/allsofgaming.net/4) NZXT & IRON LORDS PC Use Affiliate LINK: https://nzxt.co/Lords5) HAWORTH Gaming Chairs & ILP Use Affiliate LINK: https://haworth.pxf.io/4PKj7M*********************************************************00:00 - ILP#456 Pre Show21:21 - Show Starts/ Intros57:28 - Cognito Joins The Realm01:22:18 - Gears Of War E Day01:51:35 -  Fable Vs God Of War01:22:18 - Console Outage02:33:33 - Outro*********************************************************Welcome to The Iron Lords Podcast!Be sure to visit www.LordsOfGaming.net for all your gaming news!ILP Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6XRMnu8Tf1fgIdGlTIpzsKILP Google Play:play.google.com/music/m/Iz2esvyqe…ron_Lords_PodcastILP SoundCloud: @user-780168349ILP Itunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/iron-…uiR-IgF6cE9EQicIILP on Twitter: twitter.cm/IronLordPodcastILP on Instagram: www.instagram.com/ironlordspodcast/ILP DESTINY CLAN:www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Detail/178626The Iron Lords and the Lords of Gaming have an official group on Facebook! Join the Lords at:www.facebook.com/groups/194793427842267www.facebook.com/groups/lordsofgamingnetwork/Lord COGNITO--- twitter.com/LordCognitoLord KING--- twitter.com/kingdavidotwLord ADDICT--- twitter.com/LordAddictILPLord SOVEREIGN--- twitter.com/LordSovILPLord GAMING FORTE---twitter.com/Gaming_ForteILP YouTube Channel for ILP, Addict Show & all ILP related content: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYiUhEbYWiuwRuWXzKZMBxQXbox Frontline with King David: www.youtube.com/@xboxfrontlineFollow us on Twitter @IronLordPodcast to get plugged in so you don't miss any of our content.

Ah, like the good ol' days! It's time to talk a lot of Halo and Gears. Interestingly, one franchise has handled the baton pass much better than the other. Timestamps: Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement.0:00 - Intro13:03 - Most Anticipated Games for the year20:52 - Why do people care about Bethesda?30:25 - The great Xbox outage1:00:32 - Rebs Gaming on future of Halo1:27:51 - Xbox optimizing download speeds1:30:58 - Xbox's gamescom plans1:33:40 - The layoffs have begun at Double Fine1:42:33 - Avatar Legends suddenly delayed on Xbox1:49:26 - Stalker 2's first expansion has a date1:51:25 - Dragon Age Remasters dream is dead2:03:12 - A new Cyberpunk game has leaked2:07:03 - Looking Ahead At Game Releases - August 20262:13:08 - What We're Playing2:32:11 - Gears Of War E-Day3:04:12 - Xbox's ad supported game streaming has arrived3:22:21 - Fable's release date snag3:37:09 - Wrap up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every major AI lab signed the Open Weights letter defending open models. Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia.Anthropic was the only holdout.Yesterday, its CEO, Dario Amodei, published a thoughtful defense of that decision to not fully support open weight or open source models. Here's what nobody's connecting: the money trail. Roughly 80% of Anthropic's revenue is businesses paying per token. Free Chinese open models attack that exact revenue stream weeks before Anthropic is set to go public. On today's show we break down what Dario actually said, what he said before, and why we think this was written for Washington policymakers and not for the rest of us.Anthropic Responds: Why Claude's CEO didn't sign the open model pact and the real reasons why -- An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Anthropic Refuses Open Model PactDario Amodei's Public Letter AnalysisAnthropic's 80% Revenue Token ExposeChinese Open Model National Security FearsMicrosoft & Nvidia's Open Weights CoalitionRegulatory Capture and Washington InfluenceTiming Related to Executive Order DeadlineIPO Motivations Behind Anthropic's DecisionsContradictions in Anthropic's Open Model StanceImpact of Open Source on Token Business ModelTimestamps:00:00 Anthropic's stance on open models04:19 Discussing Anthropic's response to open models06:39 Understanding open weight models12:08 Future AI and cybersecurity risks15:04 Discussion on open-source AI models19:30 Discussing Anthropic's business challenges21:08 Cutting costs with open-source models26:17 Anthropic's recent stock downturn27:11 AI investment and cost efficiency shift30:14 Anthropic's stance on open source models36:32 INTROPICS IPO and regulatory discussions37:37 Wrapping up and subscribingKeywords: Anthropic, Claude, open model pact, open source AI, open weights, American AI leadership, Dario Amodei, IPO, regulatory capture, DC lawmakers, Chinese open source models, token revenue, per token business model, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Google, IBM, national security, AI safety, government mandates, chip controls, AI regulation, chip ban, industrial scale distillation, mandatory safety testing, inference, AI ecosystem, Opus 5, Fable 5, GPT-5, GLM 5.2, cost per task, token efficiency, model router, proprietary models, closed source AI, cybersecurity risks, Chinese cyberattacks, biological attacks, Glasswing program, open source vs proprietary, tech lobbying, Trump AI order, federal deadline, AI policy, artificial general intelligence, artificial superintelligence, AI monetization, S-1 filing, public company, venture capital, AI benchmarks, model switching, API pricing, model containment, Hugging Face incident, AI startup monopoly, safety vs business protection, market competition, AI cost reduction.Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner 

The Pour Over is a Christ-first, politically neutral news podcast. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we cover the day's biggest stories in ~10 minutes, and pair the biggest headlines with brief biblical reminders. Every Saturday, TPO Explains does a shallow dive into your most-asked questions. On today's episode: What are AI models? Available to watch on Spotify and YouTube here. Want more guided prayers to help you bring current events before the Lord? To check out TPO's new audio devotional, text PRAY to 71989. Looking to support us? You can choose to pay ⁠at https://tpopod.com⁠. Thanks to our sponsors: ⁠Wild Alaskan: $35 off your first box | code: TPO https://links.thepourover.org/WildAlaskan_Pod Quince: Free shipping | quince.com/tpo HelloFresh: 10 Free meals + a Free breakfast for Life | HelloFresh.com/tpo10fm AdelFi: Apply for the Harvest Bundle |https://adelfibanking.com/pourover Upside: extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas | code: TPO https://links.thepourover.org/Upside LMNT: free 8-pack with purchase | https://links.thepourover.org/LMNT_Podcast Compelled Podcast: Listen now | CompelledPodcast.com Mosh: 25% off first variety pack + 20% off subscription | code: TPO25 https://moshlife.com/TPO25 Serving Orphans Worldwide: Give a gift to feed a child for a month | https://servingorphans.org/thepourover The Voice of the Martyrs: Request your free graphic novel | vom.org/TPO MORE FROM TPO: ⁠⁠Free newsletter⁠⁠ (https://bit.ly/TPOsubfrompod)  ⁠⁠Watch TPO on YouTube⁠⁠ (https://links.thepourover.org/YouTubefromPod)  ⁠⁠Download the TPO App⁠⁠ (https://links.thepourover.org/Appfrompod)  Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) translation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices