Vol. I · No. 18THU, MAY 7, 2026
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Search the full wire by company, model, lab, or keyword. Every story we have ever aggregated.

Elon Musk confirms xAI used OpenAI’s models to train Grok

In a federal courtroom in California on Thursday, Elon Musk testified that his own AI startup, xAI, has used OpenAI's models to improve its own. The matter at question is model distillation, a common industry practice by which one larger AI model acts as a "teacher" of sorts to pass on knowledge to a smaller AI model, the "student." Although it's often used legitimately within companies using one of their own AI models to train another, it's also a practice that's sometimes used by smaller AI labs to try to get their models to mimic the performance of a larger competitor's model. Asked on the...

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Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down

Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI has always been complicated, so I expected the close partnership-turned-situationship to end in tears. After all, executive disagreements, rearranged contracts, and frustrations over AI infrastructure have all regularly been part of the partnership, creating plenty of tension along the way. But against all odds, Microsoft and OpenAI divorced this week in a way that looks strangely amicable. Microsoft announced the updates to its long-standing OpenAI deal on Monday, with the most important change allowing OpenAI to make its products and services available a...

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OpenAI talks about not talking about goblins

OpenAI is opening up about its goblin problem. After a report from Wired revealed instructions to OpenAI's coding model to "never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures," the AI startup published an explanation on its website, calling references to the creatures a "strange habit" its models developed as a result of their training. As outlined in the blog post, OpenAI began noticing metaphors referencing goblins and other creatures starting with its GPT-5.1 model - specifically when using the "Nerdy" personality option. OpenAI says the pro...

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OpenAI’s new security model is for ‘critical cyber defenders’ only

OpenAI is preparing to launch a new frontier cybersecurity model, GPT-5.5-Cyber. CEO Sam Altman said the model will not be available to the general public, but will be first rolled out to a select group of trusted "cyber defenders" in order for institutions to shore up their cyberdefenses. The limited rollout will take place "in the next few days," Altman said on X. "We will work with the entire ecosystem and the government to figure out trusted access for Cyber." It's not clear who will get access to the model first, though previous "trusted access" schemes involved vetted professionals and ...

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The more young people use AI, the more they hate it

It's been almost three years since Silicon Valley started aggressively pushing large language model-based chatbots like ChatGPT as the supposedly inevitable future of everything, and there's no group that has felt the pressure quite like Gen Z. Like with many tech trends before it, it's no surprise that young people are among the biggest adopters of AI chatbot tools. But contrary to the tales spun by tech companies like OpenAI and Google, polling data shows that Gen Z students and workers are a big part of the wider cultural backlash against AI. And even as they utilize these tools, vast swat...

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Converting Claude Code into the most intelligent Deep Research Agent

Over the past several weeks, I've been working on HyperResearch, a Claude Code skill harness that converts CC into the most intelligent deep research framework out there. HyperResearch surpasses OpenAI, Google, and NVIDIA's offerings in the agentic search space based on DeepResearch Bench. It's open-source, installable with a single command, and uses your CC subscription, so you don't have to pay for OpenAI or Gemini Pro. It uses a 16-step pipeline that creates a searchable, persistent knowledge store during each session that can be built upon in later searches. I designed it to align with ...

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Is AI video just a prequel? Runway’s CEO thinks world models are next

AI-generated video has gone from novelty to creative tool almost overnight, and Runway has a front row seat to the shift. The New York-based company has raised close to $860 million at a $5.3 billion valuation, and its models are going toe-to-toe with the most well-funded labs in the world, including Google and OpenAI. The technology goes way beyond […]

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All the evidence unveiled so far in Musk v. Altman

The Musk v. Altman trial is underway, and that means exhibits, or the evidence to be presented in court, are being revealed piece by piece. So far, email exchanges, photos, and corporate documents are circulating from the earliest days of OpenAI - and from before the AI lab even had a name. Some high-level takeaways: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave OpenAI an in-demand supercomputer, Musk largely drafted OpenAI's mission and heavily influenced its early structure, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to want to lean heavily on Y Combinator for early support for OpenAI, OpenAI president Greg Brockman an...

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Tumbler Ridge families sue OpenAI for not alerting police to the suspect’s ChatGPT activity

Seven families of victims injured or killed in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing the company and its leadership of negligence after they failed to alert police to the suspected shooter's ChatGPT activity. The families allege OpenAI stayed silent after its systems flagged activity by shooting suspect Jesse Van Rootselaar in order to protect the company's reputation and upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI "considered" flagging the 18-year-old's activity to police, which repo...

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ChatGPT downloads are slowing — and may cause problems for OpenAI’s IPO

ChatGPT is struggling to keep up its once-explosive growth as users uninstall the app or opt for rival chatbots instead. According to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, ChatGPT experienced a 132 percent increase in uninstalls year over year in April. Its uninstall rate was even higher last month, up 413 percent year-over-year, following OpenAI's deal with the Pentagon in February. While ChatGPT is still growing its user base, Sensor Tower says that growth is slowing down - ChatGPT increased its monthly active users by 168 percent in January, but only 78 percent in April. ChatGPT...

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Larry’s risky business

Oracular spectacular? | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge If you want to know whether the AI bubble is bursting, there's only one publicly traded company that will tell you: Oracle. That's right, the database company. Oracle has burned its boats and pivoted to AI, but not in any kind of usual way. It is not a foundation model builder like OpenAI or Anthropic, obviously. It's not quite a neocloud, though it has entered the same bare-metal business as CoreWeave. It is a software-as-a-service company that has made an audacious bet on a very specific future version of AI as Oracle's traditional bu...

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