Inside Elon Musk’s Midterm Spending Spree
This week on Uncanny Valley, we discuss where Elon Musk’s PAC is spending millions, the latest ideology Trump claims is dangerous, and the backlash against the designer behind Muse’s logo.
Zoë Schiffer
Why AI Isn’t Ready to Tackle Our Convoluted Genomes
The DNA inside our cells isn’t just a series of instructions, but something far more dynamic. Like scientists, AI models don't yet have the data to properly decode it.
Philip Ball
This Startup Is All In on Recursive Self-Improvement. Its Latest Model Is Scary Good
Recursive makes the case that the benefits of using AI to build AI outweigh the risks.
Will Knight
Mistral Says Its AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Has Leapfrogged China in the Open-Weight Race
The French AI lab claims its latest release matches or outperforms even the best models from DeepSeek and Z.ai in coding and cybersecurity.
Joel Khalili
We Got Hot and Heavy With Meta’s Muse—and Baffled by Apple’s HomeView
This week on Uncanny Valley, we dive into an unexpected Muse feature, shadowy spending from the largest pro-AI super PAC, and men’s tendency to lie about how much they know about AI.
Brian Barrett
OpenAI Invests in Startup That Uses Brain Implants to Detect Cancer
It’s the latest in a growing wave of bets that AI companies are making on brain data.
Emily Mullin
These Researchers Made AI Drive a Toyota Corolla to Get In-N-Out
Three engineers put GPT, Claude, and Grok in charge of a real car. Only one of them was successful.
Will Knight
These AI Experts Want to Do High-Stakes Research Out in the Open
Many frontier labs keep their risky research locked away. Trillium Labs wants to show off its work when it comes to self-improvement and model behavior.
Will Knight
Hugging Face’s New AI Biology Model Lets You Chat With DNA
The new open-source model speaks the language of DNA and can help researchers understand the effects of any changes on gene activity and health.
Emily Mullin
Mistral Says Its New AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Is the Best Open-Weight Offering Outside of China
With the release of its new trillion-parameter model, Mistral is hoping to demonstrate it’s “still in the race” to build frontier-level artificial intelligence.
Joel Khalili
The Science Behind the Nobel-Winning Technology That Controls Neurons With Light
Optogenetics revolutionized neuroscience, but its origins come from an entirely brainless organism—an alga.
Fernanda González
The Anthropic S-1 Filing Is Also an AI Doomsday Primer
Anthropic thinks “closing the loop” is the best path to AI triumph—and a recipe for “existential” threats to humanity.
Brian Barrett