June 27, 2025 News
Anthropic Launches Economic Futures Program to Study AI's Labor Market Impact
Anthropic has launched its Economic Futures Program to research AI's impacts on labor markets and the global economy, including providing grants up to $50,000 for empirical research and hosting policy symposia. The initiative comes amid predictions from Anthropic's CEO that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to 20% within one to five years. The program aims to develop evidence-based policy proposals to prepare for AI's economic disruption.
Skynet Chance (-0.03%): This initiative represents proactive research into AI's societal impacts and policy development, which could contribute to better governance and oversight of AI systems. However, the focus is primarily on economic effects rather than existential safety concerns.
Skynet Date (+0 days): The program emphasizes responsible research and policy development around AI deployment, which may lead to more cautious and regulated AI advancement. This could slightly slow the pace toward potentially dangerous AI scenarios.
AGI Progress (0%): This program focuses on economic and policy research rather than technical AI capabilities development. It doesn't directly advance or hinder core AGI research and development efforts.
AGI Date (+0 days): By fostering policy discussions and potential regulations around AI's economic impact, this could lead to more cautious deployment and governance frameworks. Such regulatory considerations might slightly slow the rush toward AGI development.
OpenAI Acquires Crossing Minds AI Recommendation Team to Strengthen Personalization Capabilities
OpenAI has hired the team behind Crossing Minds, an AI recommendation startup that provided personalization systems to e-commerce businesses and had raised over $13.5 million. The acquisition brings expertise in AI-driven recommendation systems and customer behavior analysis to OpenAI, with at least one co-founder joining OpenAI's research, post-training, and agents division.
Skynet Chance (+0.01%): The acquisition strengthens OpenAI's capabilities in understanding and predicting human behavior through recommendation systems, which could marginally increase AI's ability to influence human decisions. However, this is primarily focused on commercial applications rather than control mechanisms.
Skynet Date (+0 days): Adding specialized talent in AI systems that analyze and predict human behavior could slightly accelerate development of more sophisticated AI agents. The focus on post-training and agents suggests potential advancement in AI systems that interact more effectively with humans.
AGI Progress (+0.01%): The acquisition adds valuable expertise in personalization and recommendation systems to OpenAI's capabilities, particularly in the agents division. This represents incremental progress toward more sophisticated AI systems that can better understand and respond to individual human preferences and behaviors.
AGI Date (+0 days): Bringing in an experienced team focused on AI recommendation systems and joining them to OpenAI's research and agents division could modestly accelerate development of more capable AI agents. The specialized expertise in understanding human behavior patterns may contribute to faster progress in creating more generally intelligent systems.
Meta Pursues Acquisition of Voice Cloning Startup Play AI to Enhance Consumer AI Features
Meta is reportedly in talks to acquire Play AI, a voice cloning startup that has raised $23.5 million and allows users to clone voices for AI applications like customer service. The acquisition would enable Meta to integrate audio capabilities into its existing AI-powered creative tools and chatbot features across its social platforms.
Skynet Chance (+0.01%): Voice cloning technology could enable more sophisticated AI impersonation and misinformation campaigns, though this represents incremental risk rather than fundamental AI control concerns.
Skynet Date (+0 days): This acquisition focuses on consumer audio features rather than core AI capabilities or safety mechanisms, having negligible impact on the timeline of potential AI control scenarios.
AGI Progress (+0.01%): The acquisition represents incremental progress in multimodal AI capabilities by adding sophisticated voice synthesis to Meta's AI ecosystem, though it's a narrow domain advancement rather than general intelligence breakthrough.
AGI Date (+0 days): Meta's continued investment in diverse AI capabilities and talent acquisition slightly accelerates the overall pace of AI development through increased competition and resource deployment in the field.