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I still don’t really understand how this expert helps Musk’s case, if at all.

We are now going through previous statements that Russell has made about Musk — for instance, Russell says that the “age of abundance” Musk talks about with AI robots will be great for Musk because of his pay package with Tesla. Also that Russell would not recommend that Musk be an AI adviser for President Trump.

The expert has testified in front of the US Senate about the dangers of open-sourcing AI systems. “If we open-source AI systems that are unsafe, we dramatically increase the risks,” Russell says. One of Musk’s contentions is that OpenAI is betraying its mission by not open-sourcing its models. Russell is now saying, in response to cross-examination, that open-sourcing can make it easier to remove safety guardrails that have been put in place. “It requires additional and very stringent safety measures.”

I really have no idea what it adds to Musk’s case. It seems to just be a way of running out the clock — but why bother? Is it just a way of giving OpenAI less time to defend themselves?

It’s very boring. Mainly we are establishing that the expert witness provided no specific opinions on OpenAI’s safety.

Because otherwise, this would be the guy to ask about the nonconsensual undressing and MechaHitler. We are getting slowly to the point, I think — which is that Russell suggests safety concerns would slow AI development. “Each company individually feels it needs to be in this race,” he says. “That means they can’t stop and solve the safety problem, which I think some of their employees would like to do, but the overall company police is preventing them.”

His name is Stuart Russell, and he’s getting $4,000/hr for his first 40 hours of working with the team (and $1,500/hr after that). Seems like an expensive way for Musk’s lawyers to run out the clock… Because while we are getting some testimony about AI risks, I don’t really understand how this is relevant to the dispute at hand.

We’re going through motions before the jury arrives. The motion I highlighted earlier this morning has been denied; YGR says the time to bring in the threats from Musk was when Musk was on the stand.

In response, Greg Brockman suggested both OpenAI and Musk drop their claims. Musk wasn’t interested. “By the end of this week, you and Sam [Altman] will be the most hated men in America,” he told them. OpenAI’s lawyers are trying to get the statement admitted to court as evidence that “Mr. Musk’s motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals.”

A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1.6 million accounts on the prediction market platform found that just 0.1 percent of accounts are raking in 67 percent of profits. Most Polymarket and Kalshi users are losing money — and the platforms continue to try to use journalists and influencers to bring in customers.

Former Chewy and current GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen says he plans to somehow create a competitor to Amazon “...worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
GameStop said it has a commitment letter from TD Bank for $20 billion in debt financing, but where the rest will come from is unclear, with WSJ sources citing Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds as a possibility.

The next step in the “finance is just another meme” movement will apparently include GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen making an attempt to acquire eBay.

There are compelling reasons to believe that slop is no longer just limited to the internet. From AI design tools to trend scraping and fast fashion… This video makes a compelling argument that AI plays a role in why so few fashion brands have unique identities anymore.

The day after opening up its relationship with Microsoft and Azure, OpenAI announced an expanded deal with Amazon that brings its latest AI models, Codex, and other tools to AWS.

While the Trump administration’s attempt to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air was ultimately unsuccessful last year, the president is once again demanding his removal.

It’s the numbers, too, according to a new Wall Street Journal report, which echoes The Information’s claim earlier this month that CFO Sarah Friar has expressed concern about its IPO plans and CEO Sam Altman’s datacenter spending.

Tiny — the movie-tracking social media platform’s controlling investor — has reportedly pitched its stake to potential buyers , including CNBC parent company Versant and Hollywood startup The Ankler. Tiny hasn’t modified much since it bought Letterboxd in 2023, but that could change under a new steward.

He threatened to “put a big tariff on the UK” if it doesn’t drop its tax on the revenue of tech giants, despite the Supreme Court ruling that he can’t actually do that. The president still thinks the tax, which brought in £944m ($1.3bn) last year, unfairly targets US companies.

The prediction market took action against a handful of congressional candidates: Ezekiel Enriquez (a Republican running in Texas); Mark Moran (an Independent in Virginia, who says he meant to get caught); and Matt Klein (a Democrat in Minnesota) for betting in markets related to their political races. Each was banned from the platform for five years and fined modest amounts ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Jason Bonfig, Best Buy’s chief customer, product, and fulfillment officer, will take over for Corie Barry as CEO on October 31st, the company announced on Wednesday. Barry has served as CEO since 2019, and has contended with layoffs, stagnant sales growth, and tariff-related price hikes.

Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order today dealing specifically with prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. State employees were already barred from using insider information for personal gain, but this executive order specifically bans them from using it to make bets on prediction markets.

Reporting from Bloomberg on how many Cybertrucks Elon’s other companies have been buying:

Verge favorite Matt Levine weighs in on the New Allbirds Thing. The financing is the crucial part — so some “institutional investor” is “essentially buying $50 million worth of stock at the old, defunct-sneaker-company price, and selling it at the new, AI-neocloud-company price,” maybe. Neocloud market looking frothy, imo.