AI in general: February-March 2026

Developments

OpenAI raises $122 billion to accelerate the next phase of AI — 31 March 2026 (LINK)

Bluesky's next product is an AI assistant that helps build custom social media feeds — 29 March 2026 (LINK)

Google's TurboQuant AI-compression algorithm can reduce LLM memory usage by 6x: makes AI models more efficient but doesn't reduce output quality like other methods — 25 March 2026 (LINK)

Alibaba launches AI platform for enterprises as agent craze sweeps China — 17 March 2026 (LINK)

Encyclopedia Britannica is the latest giant to sue OpenAI — 16 March 2026 (LINK)

Elon Musk orders sweeping layoffs as xAI fails to catch on — 12 March 2026 (LINK)

Assessments

Nieman Lab: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok are all bad at crediting news outlets, but ChatGPT is the worst (at least in this study) — 19 March 2026 (LINK)

Anthropic's Claude found 22 vulnerabilities in Firefox over two weeks — 6 March 2026 (LINK)

Anthropic supply chain risk, says Pentagon: company says it will sue — 5 March 2026 (LINK)

— BBC: The Pentagon's designation is the first time a US company has been labelled a supply chain risk, which means the government considers Anthropic not secure enough for it to use. It has led Anthropic, which has refused to give defence agencies unfettered access to its AI tools over concerns of mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, to move towards challenging the decision in court.

Impact

OpenAI robotics chief quits over AI’s potential use for war and surveillance — 8 March 2026 (LINK)

OpenAI loses 1.5 million subscribers in less than 48 hours after CEO Sam Altman says yes to the deal that Anthropic rejected — 5 March 2026 (LINK)

AI in action

American fraudster earns eight million dollars from music streaming platforms with thousands of AI songs that no human has ever listened to — 21 March 2026 (LINK)

— Michael Smith, 54, of Cornelius, North Carolina, admitted one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He will learn his sentence in July. Smith also agreed to pay back royalties of $8,091,843.64 obtained fraudulently. Smith set up thousands of accounts on streaming platforms and created software to continuously stream hundreds of thousands of fake songs that he generated via AI.

Former CFO sentenced to 2 years in prison for $35 million fraud, secretly transferred $35 million from his employer into a failed cryptocurrency venture — 5 March 2026 (LINK)

Controls

Book just became the first to get canceled for AI: allegations of AI-generated text have caused Hachette to scrap the US release of Mia Ballard's Shy Girl — 20 March 2026 (LINK)

OpenAI strikes deal with Pentagon after Trump orders government to stop using Anthropic — 27 February 2026 (LINK)

— Anthropic had sought stronger guarantees that the Pentagon would not use its AI systems for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. Hours after the Trump administration's order, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X Friday night that the company had struck a deal with the Department of Defense to deploy its models on the department's classified networks.

Robot girlfriends are a reality as Chinese company creates $173,000 AI companion that emits body heat — 14 February 2026 (LINK)

OpenAI's President gave millions to Trump. He says it's for humanity — 12 February 2026 (LINK)

UN approves 40-member scientific panel on the impact of artificial intelligence over US objections — 12 February 2026 (LINK)

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