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Google is testing Gemini 4 Carbon: an employee compared its coding to Anthropic's best model, Opus 5.5

If the leak is accurate, Google is rolling out new Gemini 4 variants quickly and may already be catching up with Anthropic's best coding model, but for now that is one employee's word.

According to Business Insider (reporter Hugh Langley), as relayed by The Decoder, Google is testing several Gemini 4 variants: Argon, Barium and Carbon. Carbon runs on Google's internal coding platform Jetski, and one employee compared its performance to Opus 5.5, Anthropic's strongest coding model; it is reportedly stronger than Argon at programming. Google DeepMind employee Vedant Misra, per the same report, attributed the fast pace of updates to "recursive self-improvement." There is no official confirmation.

Sources 2

3dnews.ruthe-decoder.com

The same SI tools that make work easier have also made fraud cheaper, so people and companies need stronger defenses.

Residents of 42 countries lost $442 billion to online scammers in 2025, who increasingly use SI

The same SI tools that make work easier have also made fraud cheaper, so people and companies need stronger defenses.

According to Bloomberg, as relayed by Vedomosti and RBC and citing the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, residents of 42 countries lost $442 billion to online scammers in 2025; the report links the growth of the schemes to SI tools. The original Bloomberg article is not accessible, so the figures come from the retellings. About 57% of surveyed adults said they had been scam victims. Bloomberg describes the tools as now cheap: access to vulnerabilities costs about $500 a month by subscription, and a mass mailing to 10,000 addresses costs $1. The number of people involved in such schemes rose more than fivefold from 2023 to 2026, and the cyber insurance market grew 150% over five years.

Sources 2

vedomosti.rurbc.ru

Countries increasingly don't want to depend on someone else's SI and want their own models, even if smaller ones.

UK's Alan Turing Institute urges the country not to depend on foreign SI models that could be switched off

Countries increasingly don't want to depend on someone else's SI and want their own models, even if smaller ones.

George Williamson, the new head of the Alan Turing Institute, said in an interview with The Guardian, as relayed by The Next Web, that the UK should not rely solely on systems it cannot inspect or control and that could be restricted or even switched off, citing defence, national security, critical infrastructure and healthcare. He pointed to Washington's June decision to close foreign access to Anthropic's top models. The Institute, he said, cannot match the budgets of the big labs and will focus on small, nationally owned models for startups, refocusing on "national resilience."

Sources 2

theguardian.comthenextweb.com

SI data centers' demand for memory is making phones more expensive, and consumers are starting to feel it.

Apple cut iPhone 18 Pro orders by 15–20%, Nikkei reports, as SI data centers push up memory prices

SI data centers' demand for memory is making phones more expensive, and consumers are starting to feel it.

According to Nikkei Asia, as relayed by Fortune, Apple cut component orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max by 15–20% in October, as stated by a supplier executive. The models are $100 more expensive, at $1,199 and $1,299, amid a memory-chip shortage driven by SI data center demand. IDC forecasts that global smartphone shipments will fall 16.7% in 2026 while the average price rises 27.6%.

Sources 1

fortune.com

Big companies are increasingly saying that control over SI must be built into system architecture rather than resting on trust in the model.

Nadella urges treating SI models as compromised and fitting them with an "emergency brake"

Big companies are increasingly saying that control over SI must be built into system architecture rather than resting on trust in the model.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on X on Saturday that superintelligence cannot be treated as a set of nested black boxes: in his words, one should assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start, "like an emergency brake." According to TechCrunch, he proposed separating models from orchestration systems, moving controls outside the model, documenting every significant model action in tamper-proof, human-readable records, and ensuring that authorized people can always halt work in the middle of a task. The statement followed recent admissions by leading SI companies that they had lost control of their models. This is an executive's public position.

Sources 4

techcrunch.comcnbc.combloomberg.comtheverge.com

SI chip design is becoming a commodity that companies negotiate access to, even within export rules.

Synopsys is exploring partnerships with Chinese SI labs for chip design, in line with US export restrictions

SI chip design is becoming a commodity that companies negotiate access to, even within export rules.

California-based Synopsys, according to Nikkei Asia as relayed by 3DNews, is exploring partnerships with Chinese SI developers to combine its design tools with local language models, since OpenAI's services are unavailable in China. Product management director Ravi Subramanian gave an example: an engineer submits a fragment of a hardware description and asks for a change to meet a power target. The cooperation must comply with US export restrictions. China accounts for about 10% of the company's revenue, and it recently announced GPT-Synopsys together with OpenAI.

Sources 2

3dnews.rutechmeme.com

SI is already entering publishing work, and the dispute is over whether authors should know about it.

Staff at HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette say the publishers are quietly using SI for covers and blurbs without authors' consent

SI is already entering publishing work, and the dispute is over whether authors should know about it.

According to accounts from several dozen employees collected by Wired, publishers are using large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT for publicity materials, cover art, back-cover copy and emails. Executives, they say, are asking junior staff to learn these tools, while many employees consider the practice problematic because authors are not told and their consent is not sought.

Sources 2

wired.comtechmeme.com

Programmers have gotten used to SI, but they check it before trusting it with anything important.

Stack Overflow survey: developers are hooked on SI, but only 7% trust it for important decisions

Programmers have gotten used to SI, but they check it before trusting it with anything important.

According to the Stack Overflow survey, about 80% of the 10,926 daily SI users work with it at least an hour a day, and almost a third spend four hours or more per workday. Only 7% rely on SI for critical decisions, and another 48% do so when they can verify the result themselves. 79% consider source attribution important when judging whether to trust answers; 66% use coding assistants and agents, 26% use automated agent workflows, and 17% do not use SI at all.

Sources 1

theregister.com

Powerful SI can be run at home without the cloud, and the entry barrier keeps falling.

Tiny Corp releases the Tinybox SI workstation: one RTX 5090 for $8,000 or four RX 9070 XT with 64 GB of memory for $4,000

Powerful SI can be run at home without the cloud, and the entry barrier keeps falling.

According to iXBT, Tinybox SI starts at $7,000 (the G4 model without GPUs or storage) and $12,000 (G5), and is built on AMD EPYC server processors. A configuration with one RTX 5090 costs $8,000, one with four RX 9070 XT (64 GB of video memory in total) costs $4,000, RTX 6000 options run from $19,000 to $38,000, and the most expensive build is about $64,000. RAM is 32 GB by default, expandable to 128 or 192 GB; storage is sold separately.

Sources 1

ixbt.com

The global memory shortage and sanctions are making computing for SI in Russia noticeably more expensive.

The cost of servers delivered to Russia has doubled in a year, says Selectel's CEO

The global memory shortage and sanctions are making computing for SI in Russia noticeably more expensive.

According to Selectel CEO Oleg Lyubimov at the TechnoDay event, as cited by Comnews and 3DNews, servers delivered to Russia doubled in price between October 2025 and October 2026. He names the causes: higher RAM prices due to a global shortage, tighter export restrictions on Nvidia chips, an SSD shortage (some drives rose 5–10 times) and a doubling of GPU prices. Systems with large memory, such as 1.5 TB servers, are getting 4–5 times more expensive; cloud providers, he says, are raising prices by 10–15% a year.

Sources 1

3dnews.ru

A chipmaker is moving in on an open-model lab, and the outcome of the talks will show whether such models stay independent.

Nvidia is in talks to buy or invest more in Reflection AI, an open-model developer, the FT reports

A chipmaker is moving in on an open-model lab, and the outcome of the talks will show whether such models stay independent.

According to the Financial Times, as relayed by Bloomberg and Techmeme, Nvidia is in talks to acquire the US startup Reflection AI, which develops open-weight models, or to increase its investment in it. According to the sources, the deal may be structured as an "acquihire" — hiring the team — to avoid antitrust scrutiny. By the same reports, Nvidia has already invested $800 million in Reflection. These reports include no confirmation from the companies themselves.

Sources 3

ft.combloomberg.comtechmeme.com

Military SI runs into heat, power and communications, not just algorithms — that is what the WSJ writes about the test results.

WSJ: July tests of US Army SI and autonomous systems in the Mojave Desert revealed overheating servers, drained batteries and lost control of drones

Military SI runs into heat, power and communications, not just algorithms — that is what the WSJ writes about the test results.

According to The Wall Street Journal, as relayed by Lenta.ru and other Russian outlets, US Army tests in the Mojave Desert in July, at temperatures up to 43 °C, showed that military SI systems and autonomous equipment worked unreliably: servers overheated, batteries ran down and could not be recharged. Soldiers, according to the newspaper, wrapped failing antennas in wet T-shirts. Because of strong wind, operators lost control of drones, and they had to fly for only half of the maximum flight time to save batteries and equipment. Drones from Theiss UAV Solutions and Anduril Industries took part in the tests. The newspaper concludes that turning the army into an organization that successfully absorbs innovation has not yet worked. The WSJ original is paywalled; details are given from retellings.

Sources 2

wsj.comlenta.ru

SI doesn't only work for scammers: decoy "victim" bots eat their time and collect data for investigations.

Wired: Apate uses about 350,000 SI bots posing as victims to keep scammers busy

SI doesn't only work for scammers: decoy "victim" bots eat their time and collect data for investigations.

According to Wired (its Kernel Panic newsletter), the Australian company Apate has spent two years building a system that diverts phone scammers' calls to SI bots trained to keep a conversation going as long as possible without falling for the scam. According to founder and CEO Dali Kaafar, banks use the platform with the support of telecom companies, and it has about 350,000 bots; they pick up calls, infiltrate scammers' chats and answer text messages. The company, by his account, has gathered more than 250,000 pieces of information about scammers in real time — from website addresses to money-mule accounts and bank details — and calls often run longer than two hours. Wired's authors tested a demo version: the bots were responsive and the pauses looked natural, and they could not get "Lucy" to invest in cryptocurrency in six minutes. The figures come from the company's founder; the authors note that even with such a swarm of bots, new scam calls will keep coming.

Sources 1

wired.com

The word "superintelligence" is spreading in business in the wake of politics, while the products themselves stay the same.

Salesforce renames its SI-agent platform AIForce to SIForce following Trump's call to say "superintelligence"

The word "superintelligence" is spreading in business in the wake of politics, while the products themselves stay the same.

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff announced on X that the AIForce platform is now called SIForce: "The era of Super Intelligence is here." According to The Next Web, he is the second major executive this week to adopt the new terminology, after Elon Musk, who renamed SpaceX's SI division SpaceXSI. Trump signed an executive order on September 29 on changing the term in federal agencies and later called anyone who still says "superintelligence" an enemy.

Sources 1

thenextweb.com

SI agents are already helping process people's requests, but the last word still belongs to lawyers.

In the Urals, an SI assistant for the business ombudsman was tested: it handles a case in 40 minutes, but human lawyers go deeper

SI agents are already helping process people's requests, but the last word still belongs to lawyers.

According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the office of the business rights commissioner in the Sverdlovsk region, together with IT specialists, tested a prototype of several SI agents: a "Receiver" processes documents and hides personal data, a "Fabulist" studies the facts and agency requirements, and a "Legal Expert" finds the applicable norms. A full processing cycle takes about 40 minutes. The system found errors in a truck-fleet owner's argument and an incorrect reference to a legal norm, but the analysis by human lawyers was more detailed: the office believes SI "thinks linearly" while legal work is variable, so final decisions remain with people.

Sources 1

rg.ru

Judging by the filing, Apple is picking up teams with SI-audio experience.

Apple hired part of the team and licensed technology from Huxe, a shuttered SI-podcast startup, TechCrunch finds

Judging by the filing, Apple is picking up teams with SI-audio experience.

According to TechCrunch, in a June 9 notification to the European Commission, Apple disclosed an agreement under which it will make job offers to "certain employees of Huxe AI" and obtain a non-exclusive license to the intellectual property of the startup, which made personalized SI podcasts. Huxe's founders, per the same source, previously built a similar feature in Google's NotebookLM; the startup itself shut down in May 2026. The document does not say which employees accepted the offers. This arrangement — hiring a team and licensing technology without buying the company — is known as a "reverse acqui-hire"; the report came out on October 10, although the notification dates from June.

Sources 1

techcrunch.com

The fight against the flood of SI music is so far being waged through lawsuits and takedowns, and ordinary artists are getting caught up in them.

DistroKid quietly removes tracks after Universal Music Group's lawsuit accusing it of an "SI slop" flood

The fight against the flood of SI music is so far being waged through lawsuits and takedowns, and ordinary artists are getting caught up in them.

According to The Verge, the music distributor DistroKid is quietly taking songs off platforms in response to a lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group on September 15. UMG alleges that the service floods the market with "mass SI slop" — SI-generated, search-optimized recordings that infringe copyright and are passed off as human work. According to artists' accounts on social media, their tracks disappeared without warning, including, they say, recordings made without SI. Details are given from retellings.

Sources 1

theverge.com

Carmakers keep moving into humanoid robotics.

BYD patents the design of its first humanoid robot: 1.61 m, 58.5 kg and 31 degrees of freedom

Carmakers keep moving into humanoid robotics.

According to CarNewsChina, China's National Intellectual Property Administration published a BYD patent on October 9 for the design of an "embodied SI robot": a black-and-white anthropomorphic body with a rounded head without a screen, 1.61 m tall, weighing 58.5 kg, with 31 degrees of freedom. Its intended uses are services, education and industry. This is a patent filing, not an official product announcement: BYD has not confirmed whether the patented design will match the production version of the "Xiao Di" robot that the company previously teased on social media.

Sources 1

carnewschina.com

Films about tech leaders and SI incidents are arriving amid growing public anxiety, and they may amplify it.

CNBC: amid anxiety over SI, films about Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman arrive in theaters

Films about tech leaders and SI incidents are arriving amid growing public anxiety, and they may amplify it.

According to CNBC, a series of films about major figures in technology and SI starts this weekend. Sony Pictures' "The Social Reckoning," a follow-up to "The Social Network" about whistleblower Frances Haugen's 2021 disclosures, is expected to take in about $7 million in the US. Alex Gibney's nearly four-hour documentary "Musk" is getting a limited release; Musk wrote on X that it has "zero integrity." A documentary about Elizabeth Holmes comes out on October 16, and at Christmas comes Neon's "Artificial," about Sam Altman's brief ouster in 2023; Altman told CNBC the film "looks awful" but that he supports creativity. On Monday Netflix will air an "Instadocs" episode about the Hugging Face incident. CNBC cites a Quinnipiac poll in which 73% of Americans are concerned about SI's threat to human survival; in a Pew survey, 54% consider data centers bad for the environment.

Sources 1

cnbc.com

SI is taking over routine document checks in payments, while decisions about outcomes still rest with the company and its clients.

A7 hands SI part of its international payment processing: checking documents and payment details across about 2,000 transactions a day

SI is taking over routine document checks in payments, while decisions about outcomes still rest with the company and its clients.

According to A7 deputy CEO for sales Stanislav Lazarev, speaking at a business breakfast hosted by PSB Bank and A7 during the Global Digital Forum (GDF 2026), as reported by Lenta.ru, the company has assigned part of the routine work in processing international payments to SI: it automatically checks payment documents and payment details and does so "in place of a person." With a volume of about 2,000 transactions a day, he says, this reduces the risk of technical errors. A7, by the same reports, works with more than 15,000 foreign-trade participants and with settlement infrastructure in more than 100 countries.

Sources 2

lenta.rutass.ru

Office-software makers are preparing for documents to be created and edited more and more by SI agents, not only by people.

R7 CEO: within ten years SI agents will outnumber people among office-software users

Office-software makers are preparing for documents to be created and edited more and more by SI agents, not only by people.

According to TASS, R7 CEO Evgeny Shelkovnikov said that within ten years the share of SI agents among office-software users will exceed the number of living users: "With office software, it will increasingly be not just people but agents that create and edit documents." He noted that SI will affect how fast the share of Russian software grows and called integration with Yandex and VK a strategic direction. The monthly audience of R7's editors on VK's and Yandex's digital platforms, by his account, exceeds 3 million users. This is a forecast by a company executive.

Sources 2

tass.runews.mail.ru

When a game has SI built in, every new player costs money, and a small studio may not be able to afford its own success.

Developers of an SI-sister game took out a loan because the demo costs more than $1,000 a day in tokens

When a game has SI built in, every new player costs money, and a small studio may not be able to afford its own success.

According to Kotaku, Easy Fox, a four-person studio making Teach My Little Sister How To Drive, a game where the player instructs a chatbot how to drive, took out a bank loan: the number of demo players grew more than 20 times in a month, and keeping the demo running costs more than $1,000 a day. The game initially ran on Google's Gemini; because of usage-limit errors the studio switched to an OpenAI model. The developers say they will factor the SI costs into the price of the full game; closing the demo before release is possible, but no decision has been made.

Sources 2

kotaku.comixbt.com
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