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AI Reading for Friday July 18

AI Reading for Friday July 18

Everything is all so funny, in the saddest possible way

Druce Vertes
July 18, 2025

Introducing ChatGPT agent: bridging research and action. - OpenAI

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Agent, an autonomous tool executor with browser, API, terminal, and local file capabilities in a secure sandbox - The Register

A cross between Manus and o3? - Ethan Mollick

OpenAI's advisory board calls for continued and strengthened nonprofit oversight, no PBC. - AP News

A latter-day John Henry beats OpenAI's top bot at competitive coding, barely - X

Some play-by-play - X

AI start-up Perplexity’s valuation tops $18bn months after latest funding round - Financial Times

Perplexity CEO predicts AI agents in browsers will replace executive assistants and recruiters via Gmail, LinkedIn, and calendar integration. - Business Insider

Never mind that this destroys everyone's business model so they will have to change how they do business. Google didn't build Gmail as an API for robots.

Former Heads of Google Travel and Tripadvisor Form AI Startup to Head Off Online Travel Agencies. - Skift

This is the way … using AI to go direct to consumer or their AI / robot and cut out middlemen, which of course the marketing funnel folks and merchandisers and ad-supported content folks don't want.

AI And The Acceleration Of Information Flows From Fund Managers To Investors - SmartData Collective

As AI and data-miners and agents proliferate, companies restrict API access to data. No one wants to be relegated to the status of back-end utility. - Financial Times

Building an agent-first culture - Anthropic

Five ways financial firms nudge staff to use AI more - American Banker

Agents’ increasing access and autonomy drive new security standards for enterprise AI deployments - TechRadar

AI uses hidden text to exfiltrate passwords in Gmail when you ask Gemini to summarize email - GizChina

AI displacing tech jobs as firms pivot to hiring “superstars” over entry-level roles - Forbes

Fed governor: AI will reshape labor markets, and Fed policy via productivity and inflation dynamics - MSN

xAI sees Anthropic's Claude as the AI coding tool to beat, docs show - Business Insider

Anthropic quietly tightens usage limits for Claude Code – frustrating users - TechCrunch

Poll finds bipartisan agreement on a key issue: Regulating AI - The Conversation

Executive order will say that AI companies who get Federal contracts must be 'unbiased' and 'politically neutral' - The Wall Street Journal

He who thinks an unbiased AI to see, thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor ever shall be. That being said, you need governance, but a principled kind as opposed to heavy-headed fingers on the scale, and clear guardrails when it creates harm. Yeah, politics is a collision of interests masked as a collision of principles, but you need that masking of interests and you need at least some principles, or we are utterly screwed.

Fascism For First Time Founders. - Techdirt

Hey, wouldn't it be great if we had government that just gets it, could cut through all the bullshit, so I could just code? No. It would not. Always ends in disaster. Ask Argentina, Napoleon I and especially III.

Xi Jinping throws cold water on AI hype and overinvestment. - Financial Times

Delta Air Lines is using AI to predict the maximum price you’re willing to pay - The Verge

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed that "The Eternaut" used AI in a sequence that showed a building in Buenos Aires collapsing. - Business Insider