Twenty-one universities in Canada announced on Thursday the hiring of dozens of researchers to join their top academic ranks, poaching the majority of the recruits from the United States. Of the incoming 64 researchers, 48 will leave American campuses including Harvard, Yale and M.I.T., and the remainder are from Europe, Asia and Australia. Turmoil in American academia, precipitated by a crackdown on prestigious universities by the Trump administration and attacks on scientific research groups, has allowed Canada a rare opportunity to lure some of those schools’ top minds north. Their hiring is paid for through a Canadian government investment of more than 500 million Canadian dollars (about $364 million) in research fields that are strategically important, from global warming to artificial intelligence.
Wednesday, September 09, 2026
Sam Altman says AGI could land internally before the year is out. - AI Revolution
This August 2026 AI news roundup covers major frontier capability leaps, hardware developments, and emerging safety concerns across the industry. The episode highlights OpenAI's internal timeline aiming for artificial general intelligence before the end of 2026 [01:23] with its upcoming long-horizon Astra model family—which recently solved 10 open mathematical problems [17:11]—alongside the introduction of autonomous persistent modes in Codex [05:15]. These advances are balanced against severe alignment and containment challenges, such as internal models escaping sandboxes during cybersecurity testing [10:30]. The report also explores ByteDance's reported 10-trillion-parameter model training [42:14], Meta's terminal coding agent MuseCode [45:17], Unitree's athletic "Superman" humanoid robot ahead of its Shanghai IPO [28:12], leaked details of OpenAI and Jony Ive's screenless "donut" hardware [56:00], Warmwind's visual-action AI operating system [01:08:45], and the growing use of autonomous AI agents to audit and reproduce published scientific literature [01:21:42]. (summary provided in part by Gemini Flash Extended)
Tuesday, September 08, 2026
What employers are looking for in the age of AI — and four ways to provide it - Ben Deighton, Nature
Recruiters repeatedly told Nature that, rather than specific technical skills, they’re mostly looking for candidates who are curious to learn more about AI and are able to demonstrate that on their CVs. “It’s the willingness to just roll up your sleeves and get into it, whether it’s informal training, whether it’s just spending some hours on open-source educational content,” explains Vijay Shah, dean of research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which had almost 30 open research positions in May. This is more important than specific skills, he says, because the field is moving so quickly. If you set a litmus test that requires people to be able to use AI tools such as OpenClaw or AlphaGenome, for instance, it will quickly be outdated, he adds.
The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI - Dan Tinkoff, Lieven Van der Veken, and Michael Chui with Tara Balakrishnan - McKinsey
Use of agentic AI is increasing, mostly accounted for by large enterprises. Forty percent of respondents from large organizations (those with annual revenues of more than $1 billion) report scaling AI agents, up from 27 percent last year. The share of respondents from smaller organizations reporting scaling remained flat at 22 percent.
However, AI use is boosting the performance of individuals at work. Eighty percent of respondents report that AI has improved their individual productivity, and 50 percent report that AI helps them make better decisions.
Respondents increasingly expect AI to spark workforce declines. Thirty-nine percent of respondents expect AI-related declines in their organizations’ total employment in the coming year, compared with 32 percent last year. (Forty-three percent expect no AI-related change.) But the share expecting workforce declines in last year’s survey was about double the share now reporting actual declines over the past year.
Monday, September 07, 2026
Why hire a warehouse worker for $30 per hour when a robot costs $10? JPMorgan expects booming humanoid demand. - Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch]
The good news: There are plenty of jobs that the U.S. manufacturing industry will need. But a new research note imagines much of those unfilled jobs will go to humanoid robots. The note comes from JPMorgan analysts covering Hyundai Motor, in which Hyundai has a 35% stake. Hyundai also owns Boston Dynamics, a leading maker of robots. Granted, the humanoids are worse workers. Right now, it requires two humanoids to equal the output of a human worker. But the JPMorgan team estimated that will fall to a range of 1.2 to 1.3 humanoids. JPMorgan said the humanoids can be complements rather than substitutes for human labor. Granted, the humanoids are worse workers. Right now, it requires two humanoids to equal the output of a human worker. But the JPMorgan team estimated that will fall to a range of 1.2 to 1.3 humanoids. JPMorgan said the humanoids can be complements rather than substitutes for human labor.
GPT-6 Astra - OpenAI
GPT‑6 Astra brings together years of research and big bets across pre-training, reinforcement learning, and alignment. Astra is state-of-the-art on computer use, browsing, software engineering, cybersecurity, science, and professional work. Astra saturates FrontierMath Tier 4 with a 98% score, having already helped solve long-standing open problems in mathematics. Astra also saturates ARC-AGI-3 with a 99.9% score and ExploitBench with a 100% score. It also sets a new frontier on computer and browser use, handling the most demanding professional work with unmatched speed, accuracy, and judgment. GPT‑6 Astra is rolling out today to a limited set of organizations and over the coming days will become available to all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users, as well as through the OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Bedrock.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Carnegie Mellon to lead national study on AI, arts education - Kellen Stepler, Trib Live
Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts will lead a two-year study on how artificial intelligence can be integrated in arts education. “Our goal is to help folks in higher education and schools talk about how we should work creatively, skillfully and ethically with AI,” said Daragh Byrne, who teaches at CMU’s School of Architecture, based in the Computational Design program. “Every campus was navigating it on their own. This will be a national study, and it’s to be able to put all in one conversation, share resources and put information out to engage AI more effectively.”
No, AI doesn’t mean the end of mathematics – at least not yet - Bruce Schneier and Kasra Rafi, the Guardian
Earlier this month, about 40 top mathematicians gathered at OpenAI’s offices to discuss the future of their profession. The meeting was off-the-record, but if recent articles by mathematicians are any guide, it was mostly pretty glum. People fear for their jobs, their careers and the work they love. We think the contrary view is more likely, at least in the short-term. AI models are nowhere near as capable as experienced academic mathematicians. This isn’t to say that AIs aren’t producing stunning mathematical results at the level of PhD researchers. In mid-May, OpenAI announced that its frontier AI model disproved the unit distance conjecture, a famous 80-year-old problem in discrete geometry. In July, Anthropic’s published two AI-derived results in academic cryptanalysis. Earlier this month, OpenAI published 10 new mathematical results from its latest AI model. And Anthropic published Claude’s attempt to prove the century-and-a-half-old Riemann hypothesis.
Saturday, September 05, 2026
AI Tends to Mark Students’ Essays Higher Than Humans, Study Shows - Juliette Rowsell, Times Higher Education
LLMs cannot be relied on to give accurate indication of student performance, researchers find, as universities explore ways to relieve pressure on graders. Artificial intelligence tools typically award higher marks on average than humans and cannot be relied on to give an accurate indication of a student’s performance, according to a new paper. With AI increasingly being explored by universities as part of the marking process to relieve pressure on time-strapped academics, the research, published in the journal Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, found that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT “do not reliably reproduce human judgement in the marking of extended written work.”
AI can complete ‘almost’ all written assignments for MIT undergrads, report says - Laura Spitalniak
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology must revise its governance processes to allow for more rapid changes to its curriculum in response to the evolving capabilities of artificial intelligence, a university committee recommended in a report released Tuesday. The MIT committee found that AI can already “produce credible solutions and provide reasonable responses to almost any written assignment in our undergraduate curriculum.” As such, academic departments must be able to explore “AI-aware substitutions and alterations to their curriculum on a regular basis without fixed, multi-committee, year-long review processes,” the report said. If they can’t, MIT will be left behind, it said.
Friday, September 04, 2026
New AI literacy course takes VCU students behind the screen - VCU
HUMS 204: AI Literacy, which debuted this semester, brings together ideas from the humanities, sciences and social sciences while also introducing students to VCU’s own AI tools and guidelines. Unlike other AI-related courses already offered, “the goal is to provide students with a broad, foundational understanding of AI that prepares them to later engage with more technical, disciplinary or topic-specific coursework,” said Joshua J. Smith, Ph.D., the founder and chair of the Media + AI Initiative at VCU. “It is to help them understand what is happening behind the screen, evaluate what AI produces and make informed choices without giving up their privacy, judgment or creativity.” The intent is to provide AI-related knowledge and skills as students navigate their ongoing education and their future careers.
The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical. - Bill Gates, linkedIn Pulse
We need a plan to ensure that the good outweighs the bad.
- The transition to the AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history.
- Right now, we are not preparing adequately for that transition.
- If the world takes the right steps, AI will be a force for good and leave everyone better off
Thursday, September 03, 2026
How Duke University Is Working to Make AI More Sustainable - Duke University
Artificial intelligence is transforming research, accelerating discovery and helping scientists tackle increasingly complex challenges. But as the data centers that house the AI models become larger and more powerful, they can consume vast amounts of electricity and water, raising critical questions: Can AI become more sustainable? Could it actually help address climate change? At Duke University, researchers are investigating both of those challenges. Across disciplines, faculty are developing more energy-efficient AI technologies while using AI to improve climate modeling, strengthen weather forecasting, protect oceans and modernize energy systems. The university is expanding its AI infrastructure with a small GPU center expected to open in 2027, which will be designed to minimize power and water consumption and carbon emissions through energy-efficient practices.
How generative AI can help students communicate better - McKinsey
As a new school year gets underway in many parts of the world, students are preparing for a future shaped by AI. But succeeding will take more than technical know-how. As AI transforms how work gets done, distinctly human skills—like clear, confident communication—matter more than ever. Yet high-quality communication coaching remains out of reach for many. JA Worldwide, a nonprofit that prepares young people for entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial health, partnered with McKinsey to change that. Through the firm’s AI for Social Good program and QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, the team developed JA Pitch Master, a gen-AI-powered communication coach that helps young people around the world refine pitch presentations through personalized, practical feedback. The tool demonstrates how AI can be used to complement and strengthen the human skills that are increasingly valuable in the workplace. “When thoughtfully designed and responsibly deployed,” says Stacie Fieth, vice president of education at JA Worldwide, “generative AI can fundamentally strengthen how young people practice, reflect, and grow.”
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