“It’s the first thing I read every morning.” — Annie Lamont, venture capitalist.
1. Anthropic’s AI models are improving nearly twice as fast as before as the technology plays a bigger role in developing more powerful successors, an independent study found, amplifying recent warnings that such advances could outpace efforts to assess risks. The findings from AI safety nonprofit METR, published on Thursday, offer some of the clearest evidence yet that AI is accelerating its own development, potentially paving the way for recursive self-improvement (RSI), which enables AI systems to build more powerful versions of themselves without human intervention. (Sources: metr.org, reuters.com)
2. The Democratic House majority surged past 250 seats on Thursday as the party seized its biggest majority in nearly two decades by flipping more seats, including in Montana, where a former smoke jumper disrupted decades of Republican dominance. The last time either party held so many seats was 2008, when Democrats swept to power behind Barack Obama. (Source: nytimes.com)
3. In Mississippi, the secretary of state, Michael Watson, said roughly 3,300 absentee-by-mail ballots were still outstanding in the Senate race between Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican, and Scott Colom, the Democrat. Those have to be received within five business days of Election Day. He also said that 6,936 affidavit ballots have now been processed and roughly 80 percent have been accepted, though it is unclear how many are outstanding. At the moment, the vote count looks like this:
(Sources: nytimes.com, apnews.com)
4. In Alaska, where tens of thousands of votes are yet to be tallied, a New York Times analysis suggests that Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate for Senate, is on a path to victory. Her campaign manager just released a statement arguing the same: “The numbers are clear: when every vote is counted, Mary Peltola will be elected as Alaska’s next United States Senator.” We may not get a race call until next week or later, and the campaign of Senator Dan S. Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, released a memo on Wednesday arguing that he was the one who was favored to win.
(Sources: nytimes.com, apnews.com)
5. Democrats have won the majority of governor’s offices for the first time in 16 years after the GOP racked up major losses across the country. Democrats flipped governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas and defended competitive races in Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to unofficial results from The Associated Press and Decision Desk HQ. As of 10 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, Democrats were set to hold 28 governor’s offices compared with Republicans’ 20. Races in Alaska and Kansas have not yet been called. (Source: stateline.org)
