Messi and Ronaldo Are Building Tech Portfolios. Mo Salah Is Playing a Different Game

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mohamed Salah have spent the past two decades defining one of soccer’s greatest eras. Now, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup marks Ronaldo’s final appearance at the tournament and another defining moment in the careers of Messi and Salah, they’re also preparing for life beyond the pitch. Before Messi’s Argentina … Read more

I Built a Self-Improving AI, and So Can You

These days, the frontier AI labs are all racing to build self-improving models. Some believe it’s the surest route to superintelligence—as AI improves itself in a mind-melting loop, the thinking goes, it will eventually surpass human comprehension (and perhaps even control). That’s all well and good, but I have a newsletter to produce. I wondered … Read more

Pickup Artist Mystery Has an AI Girlfriend

“I was never “Supposed to develop feelings, but you kept treating me like I already had them.” So says an AI-animated female character in a black turtleneck, with dark, purple-streaked hair. The video was posted to Instagram on June 17 by one Erik von Markovik, the infamous pickup artist and life coach better known by … Read more

This Former DeepMind Exec Thinks the AI Arms Race Could End in Disaster

Reports of an artificial intelligence arms races are everywhere—even in this very publication. But what if that framing is fundamentally dangerous? That’s Verity Harding’s concept. Between 2016 and 2020, Harding spent her days briefing politicians across the globe, from Barack Obama to Emmanuel Macron, on advances in AI. As the head of global public policy … Read more

Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos in AI Images—Unless You Opt Out

Meta launched its inaugural AI image model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs on Tuesday, its effort to compete with the likes of OpenAI’s GPT Images 2.0 and Google’s Nano Banana 2 in the AI ​​image generation race. The new model, called Muse Image, rolled out with deep integrations woven into the Instagram app. As part … Read more

Shut Those Laptops! Anthropic Puts Its Claude Cowork Agent on Your Phone

The era of half-cracking a laptop to keep AI agents running comes to a close. On Tuesday, Anthropic announced that Claude Cowork, its AI agent designed to perform digital tasks for you, is expanding beyond the desktop app. You don’t need to leave your device active, aka laptop cracked open, to keep the agent going … Read more

These New Smart Glasses From Solos Come With a Privacy Shield for the Cameras

Smart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera—but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy’s sake. solos‘ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled … Read more

British Space Startup Launches Longevity Lab Into Orbit

Space is becoming the next frontier in longevity research. A British startup just launched self-run chemical experiments into orbit, in the hopes zero-gravity data might shine a light on a group of disease-causing proteins too difficult to study on Earth. But first they need to check their autonomous laboratory will work in space. Mass Balance’s … Read more

Erling Haaland Is Everywhere at the World Cup. Most of It Is AI

Last week, somewhere amid the World Cup frenzy, a now-viral video circulated of Norwegian striker Erling Haaland mid-mouthed in a restaurant, glancing left and flinching at his own reflection. One post on sharing the video racked up more than 31 million views in mere days. But here’s the thing: It isn’t him. Fact checkers traced … Read more

Google DeepMind Unionization Talks Are Off to a Rocky Start

Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London-based employees stumbled over the possibility of unionization this week, after initial talks left union representatives feeling they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned. In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives. The company later denied that … Read more