AI-FRONTIERMarch 25, 20261 min read14 views

The AI Hype Index: AI goes to war

AI has entered a new era of conflict as tech giants compete for military contracts, while a parallel trend sees AI agents becoming increasingly autonomous and viral.

AI is at war. Anthropic and the Pentagon feuded over how to weaponize Anthropic’s AI model Claude; then OpenAI swept the Pentagon off its feet with an “opportunistic and sloppy” deal. Users quit ChatGPT in droves. People marched through London in the biggest protest against AI to date. If you’re keeping score, Anthropic—the company founded to be ethical—is now turbocharging US strikes on Iran.

On the lighter side, AI agents are now going viral online. OpenAI hired the creator of OpenClaw, a popular AI agent. Meta snapped up Moltbook, where AI agents seem to ponder their own existence and invent new religions like Crustafarianism. And on RentAHuman, bots are hiring people to deliver CBD gummies. The future isn’t AI taking your job. It’s AI becoming your boss and finding God.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

A “QuitGPT” campaign is urging people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions

Backlash against ICE is fueling a broader movement against AI companies’ ties to President Trump.

Moltbook was peak AI theater

The viral social network for bots reveals more about our own current mania for AI as it does about the future of agents.

How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world

Exclusive: Niantic's AI spinout is training a new world model using 30 billion images of urban landmarks crowdsourced from players.

OpenAI is throwing everything into building a fully automated researcher

An exclusive conversation with OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, about his firm's new grand challenge and the future of AI.

Source: MIT Technology Review AI

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