Aura of Dominance.
Comically codependent.
News Items is the most valuable newsletter out there. — Peggy Noonan.
1. Artificial intelligence (AI) will soon add biology to its list of superhuman abilities. Anthropic’s Mythos model—already withheld from general release owing to its hacking skills—recently succeeded on a third of the most difficult data-crunching tasks pulled together by biology experts. Mythos could do things that were beyond all of the tested humans, such as reverse-engineering a cell type from raw DNA data. As we report, problem-solving like that means AI may soon grant people extremely dangerous powers: to synthesize viruses, generate novel neurotoxins or assemble omnicidal “mirror life”. Such dangers are the dark side of AI’s wonderful promise to democratize intelligence. It is even conceivable that an AI could give a misanthropic loner the power to end humanity. (Source: economist.com)
2. Anthropic, the AI lab whose identity is wrapped around warning the world about AI risk, is claiming “early signs” of AI not just coding its own products but building itself. Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark predicted this week that there’s a 60%+ chance of an AI model fully training its successor by the end of 2028. “What I’m looking at is a technological trend where, if anything, the speed will accelerate further,” Clark told us. In the new research agenda for The Anthropic Institute — first shared with Axios — the company says it’s seeing signs of “AI contributing to speeding up the research and development of AI itself,” a process known as recursive self-improvement. And Anthropic researchers think the world should know. “My prediction is by the end of 2028, it’s more likely than not that we have an AI system where you would be able to say to it: ‘Make a better version of yourself.’ And it just goes off and does that completely autonomously,” Clark, who heads the institute, told Axios from Anthropic headquarters in San Francisco. (Sources: axios.com, anthropic.com, substack.com)
3. A confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers this week concludes that Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, four people familiar with the document said, a finding that appears to raise new questions about President Donald Trump’s optimism on ending the war. The analysis by the U.S. intelligence community, whose secret assessments on Iran have often been more sober than the administration’s public statements, also found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense U.S. and Israeli bombardment, three of the people familiar with it said. Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began. (Source: washingtonpost.com)
4. The US and Iran clashed near the Strait of Hormuz, an escalation that threatens to further fracture a fragile ceasefire as the two sides discuss a permanent end to the war. US forces targeted missile and drone launch sites and other military assets in Iran that they said were responsible for attacking three US warships transiting the strait. No vessels were hit, US Central Command said. A monthlong ceasefire remains in effect, President Donald Trump said. The clashes risk undermining talks over a US-proposed deal to end the war that began in February. Iran is expected to send a response via Pakistan, acting as a mediator, in the next two days, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Trump threatened more intense strikes if Iran refuses his terms, raising the risk of a longer war that has already killed thousands and sparked a global energy crisis. (Source: bloomberg.com)
5. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have lifted restrictions on the U.S. military’s use of their bases and airspace imposed after the start of the American operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. and Saudi officials, removing a hurdle that had tripped up President Trump’s effort to move ships through the vital waterway. The Trump administration is now looking to restart the operation to guide commercial ships with naval and air support that it had paused after 36 hours this week, U.S. officials said. It isn’t clear when that could happen though Pentagon officials gave a timeline of as early as this week. (T)he mission set off the biggest dispute in Saudi-American military relations in recent years, triggering a spate of high-level phone calls between Trump and the kingdom’s crown prince and raising the risk of a breakdown of a security deal between Washington and Riyadh. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked the U.S. military’s use of their bases and airspace after senior American officials played down Iranian attacks on the Persian Gulf in reaction to the operation in the strait, Saudi officials said. The Saudis and other Gulf states were also concerned that the U.S. wouldn’t protect them amid the escalation in fighting, the officials said. (Source: wsj.com)
6. The Trump administration has approved sales of thousands of air defense interceptor missiles and related services valued at $17 billion to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, according to State Department and congressional officials. The exports were approved despite alarm among some Pentagon officials over the dwindling U.S. stockpiles of such missiles, which have been expended in large numbers during the war against Iran. (Source: nytimes.com)
7. (A) confidential document obtained by The Economist from a trusted source suggests that Russia has offered to provide Iran with un-jammable drones and training on how to use them against American troops in the Gulf and perhaps elsewhere. Until now, Vladimir Putin’s government is thought to have provided intelligence that enabled Iran to target American forces in the Middle East. This is the first evidence that it may also have offered to supply innovative weapons in large enough numbers to inflict many casualties on American and allied forces, we can exclusively report. (Source: economist.com)
