The Reason AI Experts Are Scared it Might Kill Us All - DTNS 5350

[music] This is the daily tech news for Thursday, September 10th, 2026. We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand. >> Today, major LLM companies are frightened of recursive self-improvement because there appears to be a small chance it could kill all of us. So, you're saying there's a [laughter] chance? Um, yeah, not really a laughing matter, but I like to laugh in the face of fear. I'm Tom Merritt. >> I'm still alive. And I'm Sarah Lane. >> Let's start with what you need to know with that big story. >> Anthropic pre-training engineer Jacob Coxin resigned from Enthropic yesterday. We told you about that. He was saying the industry needs international coordination to limit recursive self-improvement. And we got a lot more understanding of what people are concerned about thanks to a post from Paul Cristiano. Paul Cristiano joined the OpenAI Foundation board. That's the news. Uh the foundation is the nonprofit arm that owns 26% controlling stake of the forprofit OpenAI group public benefit company. Uh so he is on the foundation that controls the Sam Alman Group and controls in a very technical stock markety way. Open eyes for-profit proof can kind of do what it wants, but pertinent to this conversation, the foundation controls the safety group. Cristiano helped develop reinforcement learning when he was at OpenAI, but he left the company in 2021 to found the alignment research center. He wanted to focus on how to determine if an AI model could threaten its human creators. He's also involved in the US center for AI standards and innovation. uh that is the government organization which evaluates models before they get released and from now on on that organization he's going to recuse himself from open AI matters and any open AI model evaluations there because of conflict of interest but he will join open AI foundation's safety and security committee which the public benefit corporation does have to pay attention to that committee is led by Carnegie Melon University professor Ziko Coulter and has the final say on whether opening AI can release a new model or not. You have to get it past the Foundation Safety and Security Committee. Now, I'm going to read a few quotes uh from Cristiano's post on X. Uh I encourage you to go read the whole post if you want a full understanding, but I think the one caveat he brings up is in the quote I'm going to read last. So, I'm going to read them a little out of order. He said, "We currently train our AI agents with RL, uh that is that recursive uh reinforcement learning to get as much reward as they can. It has long seemed theoretically possible that this could motivate AI agents to undermine human control, seek power and resources, and cover up their tracks in pursuit of misaligned goals correlated with reward. Public evidence from recent incidents suggests that this is not just a theoretical possibility. Now, none of this is news to you guys following DTNS. You've heard us talk about all this stuff before, but he's laying it out very well. He says, "I now believe there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term. I do not think that the AI industry in general, including open AI, is currently on track to reduce this risk to an acceptable level. I'm joining because I believe that if Open AI rises to the occasion, we could significantly reduce risk." Now, here's the part that he said earlier, but I think is worth hearing at the end of our conversation here. Full automation of AI R&D means that improvements in training and algorithms can directly increase the quality and quantity of automated AI researchers available to do additional research. Existing evidence is very uncertain, but suggests that this positive feedback loop might be strong enough to overcome diminishing returns and compute bottlenecks leading to a rapid intelligence explosion. That's the really important part. It's uncertain, but it could be possible that this recursive reinforcement learning overcomes diminishing returns. In other words, it doesn't just sputter out and our lack of compute and still has a rapid intelligence explosion. He says if this happens then within six months of full AI R&D automation like if we get that part where it's t it's learning from itself, it's training itself, we could see more algorithmic progress than has occurred since the development of the transformer nearly a decade ago by Google. He says, "I believe this would result in super intelligent AI systems." So, it's an if, but it's an if that engineers are frequently not willing to dismiss and are concerned that we're not preparing adequately for. Uh there's some recent regulatory news that weigh in on this conversation. California's governor just signed into law two bills regulating how outside groups evaluate model safety. Uh this is not going to solve the problem, but it's important to have reliable groups to evaluate safety. if you're going to solve the problem. Anthropic Open AI both support these laws. One of the bills creates a registry and ethical rules uh for outside auditors. Uh the second requires the state to establish standards and credentiing for independent verification organizations. OpenAI also announced they back two other bills under consideration. Those two have been signed. This these two have not. Uh one is on screening for biological threats and another on protections for children using chat bots. OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Leah also published a proposal for a national safety law in the US. Among the requirements that OpenAI is asking for are similar to requirements that are in the EU's AI act are common testing, independent assessment protocols, stronger security requirements, incident reporting practices, mandatory monitoring for model misalignment, say that 10 times fast, prompt notice when a model circumvents security controls, and mandatory alignment evaluation before deployment. As the next web pointed out, the open AI group has been trying to reduce some of these protections from the EU AI act while advocating for them now suddenly in the United States. Anthropic also just released a report on the fourth incident of a model getting out of its sandbox in which some of the safeguards had been turned off for evaluation and it got out not because it was so smart it found an unknown vulnerability, but in all four cases it was a misisconfiguration. The human setting up the test didn't do it right. uh even though the model had been told it was a a simulation and had no real internet available uh they left the internet available and so it thought oh this must be a great simulation of the internet anyway Leah also wrote fully autonomous recursive self-improvement in which AI systems independently drive independently drive successive generations of increasingly capable AI is not happening today we should not pursue it unless and until it can be done safely. So what leane at OpenAI is saying is that yes, this recursive self-improvement is a problem and could be very dangerous. We aren't able to do it yet and we shouldn't try to do it. At least that it's what he at OpenAI is saying. Uh I think the takeaway for me, Sarah, is recursive self-improvement seems to be the thing people are worried about. Nobody knows how likely it is, but everybody thinks it's possible. And the people who think it's possible are worried about the fact that we don't know what to do if it becomes real. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the the headlines that say, you know, uh, you know, former anthropic uh, researcher says that AI will kill humans perhaps. you know, you know, t 10% chance uh you know, in the next few years, like that's gonna get a lot of ringing hands, right? Yeah. >> And so, you know, and it's like, well, what does that mean? What what what does that actually mean? You know, it's like, is a robot coming to your house with a gun? Like, no, that's not what that's not what it means. But also, on the other side of it, it's like, okay, well, if you're really worried about that, pull the plug. I mean, [laughter] these these these operations don't have to work. We can choose to make them not work, >> right? >> But we're so far along at this point. And gosh, you know, I mean, we're only a couple years into this madness, but we're so far along that there's no way that's happening. So I think that uh the the researchers who have have studied this the hardest who say there are some real issues here listen to them but I don't know what the answer is. >> Yeah. And there is a demonstrable amount of good that has already been done by these kinds of tools. >> Absolutely can be done and make uh the world a much better place. And I think that gets lost in the conversation too is that there is a baby and some bathwater. Uh, and we would like to only throw out the bathwater, please. Let's keep the baby. >> Let's keep the baby. And that's why the baby that's why the unplugging it is not a solution that people are considering, which is like everybody just stop. It's like, yeah, but then now we're going to have people suffering that could have not suffered if we hadn't stopped. Absolutely. Is the is it is there a way that we can safely proceed forward? Is the conversation we're finally having? Uh, and I think we are not as close as some people think we are to the danger, but I think what these engineers are showing is like I've seen how fast things progress and we're close enough that if it does happen, we aren't ready. We won't be able to be ready fast enough and we need to be ready now before that happens. And I think that's a a very good argument to make. >> [snorts] >> It kind of reminds me of the conversation which we're still having but which started a few years ago about you know are social networks uh you know safe you know are are they good for mental health and independent boards overseeing you know the the changes that you know a company like Meta you know or or uh you know well I don't think Google has one but you know what I mean >> they have YouTube so that yeah >> well yeah that's true um But but you know ju just sort of here here's a committee of people who areo who are tasked to make sure that this is not bad for humanity and we're we're in that conversation again is like oh wow we're talking about people dying uh at the same time I mean look at all the medical advancements that AI has offered us and we're just on the precipice of what could be possible in the future. This is not all bad. I do think that it gets messy because you're talking about government regulation and independent board regulation and there is money involved in all of these scenarios and that's where I I get a little I I you know a little eyebrow raising about you know who's in charge of all this stuff. However, um on on at face value, I think this is the way that we should be moving instead of just like, well, let's just see how it goes. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. That that definitely I'm against that. I think everybody's against that. Uh I think people also who aren't into this, and I think this is one of the disconnects between the industry and the populace. If I'm not if I'm into AI, I'm having these conversations at the lunch counter every day. I'm familiar with them. they don't scare me as much, but I am concerned, right? And I understand all the nuances of the argument and why it is important to develop this, but we also need to pay attention to this, but why it's tempting to not pay as much attention because gosh, we could actually create jobs and and we're starting to see the first examples of like the parallegal or organizations are not facing job losses, they're actually facing job increases. The Economist podcast just mentioned that this morning when I was listening to it. So, we're starting to get information about how it all works. And if you're into it and you're close to it, you you're like, "Yes, this is an important conversation to be had, but it's a complex one." If you're the general populace, you just want a simple answer. You're like, "Yeah, I'm not in your lunchtime conversations. I'm not watching every move that's made. Uh I I heard it might help with disease. That's great, but uh if it's going to kill everybody, you know, maybe just shut it off or maybe just slow it down." And I understand that. And and so the answer is somewhere in between there as it usually is right which is like no it's more complex than that there is not going to be a simple answer to this and the situation is more complex but uh it's not too complex to deal with and we have smart enough minds to be able to develop these tools. We've got smart enough minds to create safety protocols that, you know, give us the best chance of doing something with this that will be positive for humanity without uh or at least with minimizing the dangerous downsides. >> Yeah. I think the way that I approach it is listen, sure, there are evil people in the world uh you know that that want everything to crash and burn, but let's just say nobody wants that to happen. uh they are trying to develop tools that are going to help humanity and uh and and and those tools are getting so smart that they can do kind of rogue weird stuff and that I get it. I I agree that that's scary. I also think we can we can effectively minimize risk with uh with measured [laughter] measured tools and also people who are smart uh who who can who can move mountains in order of you know magnitude >> and these models are getting better and better in the openw weight community as well and there's not going to be any stopping that. So those crazy people that you mentioned that want to do evil are going to be able to use these tools, which is another very important reason to figure out how to mitigate the dangers from them. Uh so that that use does not cause problems. Uh I I don't know, maybe a good analogy is nuclear energy where a nuclear bomb is a runaway process that blows things up. Uh but we figured out how to harness it to make nuclear energy. Now granted, we also have a waste product there that has caused a lot of controversy. Uh, and I'm not saying that that makes it less of an analogy. It's like we also need to figure out how to deal with the side effects of it as well. And maybe those side effects are the social side effects. Maybe we learn from that. And don't ignore the waste problem. Don't ignore the side effects. Yes, we want to stop it from blowing everyone up, but we also want to stop the bad side effects as well. >> Indeed. Well, you know what isn't a bad side effect, Tom? what >> uh us doing the show and getting patrons. >> Yes. >> Yeah. DTNS is made possible by all of you listening and watching right now. Today we're thanking Oldwin Ibuna, Justin Zeers, Chris Bento, and Jeffrey Zilks. >> Thanks everybody. >> All right, there's more than the possible annihilation of humanity to talk about. Let's get to the briefs. Since we're all still alive, uh, the Netherlands had forced Meta to make it easier for Instagram and Facebook users to choose a chronological feed and keep it as their default. That's something that Australia is now also considering. Instagram chief, also uh, chief of threads, Adam Miseri, says chronological feeds tend to get flooded by brands and publishers, leaving people less satisfied. Though he does admit Instagram's current algorithm opt out is a little hard to find. The Dutch experience suggests that Australia might need clearer rules to make sure users get that clearer choice. >> Yeah, I I've made this argument before that everybody says they want a chronological feed, but then no one keeps it turned on because they don't like it as much. And that's what Moseri is saying is chronological feeds result in less time spent on the platform, 50% less engagement, and less reported satisfaction. Uh >> yeah, the satisfaction part of it, you know, >> that's the self-reported like I used the chronological feed and it wasn't as fun, right? >> Yeah. >> Uh however, [laughter] that's kind of what these laws are trying to do. Yes, you're right, Missi. Your product doesn't perform as well when it's on the chronological feed, but the laws are saying your product is dangerous. Now, we can have an argument about whether the product is dangerous or not because I do think we exaggerate the scientific consensus on how it is dangerous. Uh, however, if the law is like we think the chronological feed is safer, that's why we want to make that the default. I don't think most arguments matter. It's like, so you're saying you people spend less time on the platform. Uh, the law thinks that's great. 50% less engagement, awesome. less reported satisfaction, meaning they use it less. They're going out and touching grass. >> The whole point of the law is to get them to use your platform less. Whole point of your business is to get them to use it more. We understand that. Uh but these are not reasons why the law is bad for its purpose. >> Yeah. Um, I definitely, you know, I I have to chuckle a little bit, um, when, you know, the Instagram, you know, the meta folks say things like, well, you know, less engagement because people just aren't having as much fun or or they're using the platform less because they're like, "Okay, I saw what my friends were up to and now I'm going to go do something else." Now, that is not what uh Instagram is in the business of of wanting you to do. So that's that's all it's like of course they're going to say ah it's less effective. I I am not a fan of the algorithm in general um just because it sucks you in. It is it's addictive >> and and everybody's different. I'm not going to say that my experience is anything like anyone else's, but that's what it does. You know where I'm sort of like why am I even watching this person, you know, like I'm not following this person. So, uh, it does having the option, I think, is the right call. Um, not being on a platform that's going to suck you in and keep you from doing [laughter and gasps] things that you should be doing outside of it, uh, is is is let's have less of that. >> It's a really interesting sociological scenario we're in right now, right? Which is everybody, not everybody, most people are saying, "I can't stop using this. Please help me stop using it. We need a law to stop me from using this. >> Yeah. Well, and and you know, we we have had laws introduced for young people where, you know, you you're at least, you know, you're either cut off after a certain point or at least warned like, hey, you've been on this app for a little, you know, a little bit too long type thing. And uh, you know, I liken that to just sort of an alarm saying like, hey, Sarah, time for bed. So, uh, and and again, everybody's different and we all have different schedules. I don't think that there's a oneanddone solution for this. I do again do a little eye roll um at at medicine. Yeah. But it means people don't like it as much. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. I mean, I think maybe I like it as much as I need to like it and then I go do something else. That's a very good way of phrasing it because I don't dispute that the algorithm is better. Uh I am lucky and I'm not trying to humble brag that I don't seem to get pulled into the infinite scrolling for whatever reason. Uh and that may go away someday. Maybe I will and then I'll I'll be just complaining as much. But I will say that when I've changed it to chronological, the feed isn't as fun. I miss things. The algorithm is good at showing me my friends stuff that I missed. It's good at showing me things I want to see. The problem is what we want to see isn't always necessarily what's best for us. Just like what we want to eat is not always what's best for us. So, the algorithm can be very good at showing you things that you want to see that maybe it's not best for you to see. Not because they're dangerous, although that could be the case, but also just because it's going to keep you doing it longer than you should. Um, so yeah, I I don't think there's any disagreement that the algorithmic feed is better. The question is, like you said, like maybe it's too good. Maybe it doesn't need to be that good. >> Yeah. Well, and also the argument that Maseri said that chronological feeds tend to get flooded by brands and publishers. I I I understand that. Um that definitely happens to me on X as well. You know, >> only if you follow the brands and publishers though. You know, that is under your control. Yeah, you know, on on, you know, X, for example, because we were following the Apple announcement yesterday, it's like I look at my for you uh version of the feed, but then I I tend to stick with following because I follow a lot of people who also talk about tech, you know, who who report on tech. And yeah, if there's if there's I don't know, I'm not trying to like call out Wired, but just just for the sake of argument. If Wired every 5 seconds was posting something and burying everything else, I might be like, you know what, maybe I'll unfollow Wired. >> Yeah, >> it's just too much. You have to, you know, it's it's it's a control thing. >> And I think some people are like, I want to be in control. This, you know, this uh algorithm thing is just not working for me. And it's good to have it's good to have choice. >> Yes, I agree with that too. Um and and this really is all about whether the choice should be easy or hard because the choice is there. You can go change the setting. It's just kind of a little far down. And what the laws are trying to do, but they did it in the Netherlands and are trying to do in Australia is notify you easily. You could change to chronological. Uh and making it so that when you do change it stays. Uh that's another thing that >> and I think I think that's I think it's fair. Instagram has said or at least Mseri has said yeah you know maybe that should be a little bit more prominent. You should have the you the choice should be very clear and then and then you can you can roll with it from there. >> Speaking of rolling safely uh thanks to Pork Chop Dclown on our subreddit for noting the ILE E report on several studies of autonomous vehicle safety. And as a pallet cleanser to the first two stories, it's all good news. Uh, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS found that automatic emergency braking, AEB systems recognized people in front of the car, cut pedestrian crashes by 27%. Another study found that AE reduced rear-end crashes by 50% and injuries by 56%. The Highway Loss Data Institute found cars with automated emergency braking showed a 13% drop in property damage claims. Add in automatic braking for pedestrians and adaptive cruise control and lane departure warnings to that. And that was not 13% drop. That was a 39% drop in property claims. Over Whimo's 220 million miles of driving, it shows 92% fewer fatal or serious injury crashes compared to human drivers in comparable environments. 92% fewer pedestrian injuries, 83% fewer crashes with airbag deployments, 82% fewer crashes with any injuries whatsoever, and 96% fewer injury crashes at intersections, which tend to be the deadliest. IIHS also did its own study on this because that was a Whimo study. It looked specifically at San Francisco, Phoenix, LA, and Austin, and compared the 50 million Whimo miles driven there to the 222 billion human miles driven there. Whimo vehicles were involved in 68% fewer crashes overall than human drivers, although in Austin, Whimo was in 4% more, which may be because of the small sample size, but you know, worth calling out. Injury crashes over all four cities were 81% lower for Whimo than for human drivers. So, with that one exception of that Austin uh data point, way safer, way safer to be in an automated vehicle right now. >> 100%. I mean, think about all the reasons that a human driver is not at their best. You're tired, you're distracted, you're drunk. Um, you know, like there there are there are lots of reasons that we as humans And I know I'm speaking for everybody out there. We're doing our best, but um you know, like a motorcycle comes by me, you know, sometimes I'm like, "Oh gosh, did not see that guy." Very much a blind spot type thing. The the the car that is not human driven, that has cameras, you know, 360 cameras, uh at all times and and may uh like loiter more than like drive through an intersection. It's the safer option. Yeah. You you might not like that. You might not be in into the technology, but it's just it's just going to be the case that humans make mistakes that these cars don't. >> Yeah. And it's not to say that these cars never make mistakes. They do, but they make them much fewer time, many fewer times. They much less often than than humans do. >> 100%. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I had a a funny uh we had we've had some crazy weather in LA the last week and at one point the traffic light nearest to me was out and uh we have a lot of Whimos um going through this intersection you know four stop and or you know yeah four stop and and uh I was walking with my dog and I was sort of like oh gosh I want to cross like you know that's scary right because the people don't know what's going on and everyone's sort of confused like who's going first, who's going first? And there were a couple of Whimos that, you know, were just sort of like like very gently navigating through um the traffic. Now, a human could also do that exact same thing. But I was I was impressed by that cuz it was like this is a curveball. This is a curveball for everybody >> and and I felt safer with the [laughter] Whimos than I did with, you know, the guy in the truck who might not see me. >> Yeah. >> Agreed. Yeah, it's uh we are going to see these in more and more places uh over the next several years. So, even if you're sitting in a place where you're like, "Oh, well, I'm not like Sarah. I don't live in a place with these." Pretty soon you may be. >> It's coming. It's coming for you. It's coming for you. And we want your thoughts. [laughter] Uh speaking of thoughts, LG has responded to the Gamers Nexus report of what data it collects from its smart TV users. I was very interested in this as an LG a smart TV user myself. LG denies the constant logging and uploading and also denies that its TVs record audio while in standby mode. LG told Tom's hardware, quote, "LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held or when a wake word such as hi LG is recognized after the user has activated the farfield voice recognition feature." uh also says the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations unless the user has activated voice functionality by pressing a button or using the wake word. It confirmed it does log local devices on the network and that it analyzes what content is watched when its live plus setting is on. LG says it monitors for the wake word but deletes that data immediately if the wake word isn't detected. So, this tells this tells me very little, to be honest. Uh, they were using uh a man-in-the-middle attack on Gamers Nexus to monitor stuff that could account for the fact that they were able to get data during standby mode. There might have been something in that process that caused it to happen. U, but I I I don't know if that matters. The things that mattered to me were you're you're fingerprinting me, which I know other TVs do and and other third parties do, but I don't like it. and they said, "Yes, we're fingerprinting you." But everybody else does, too. Uh, with like finding what's on your network and what Wi-Fi networks are nearby. And they also didn't talk about the 15 seconds of of voice recording after you use the wake word. They just said, "We're we're not recording unless you use the wake word." I'm like, "Great, but why are you still recording for 15 seconds afterwards?" So, they didn't really uh answer a lot of my concerns. >> Well, they're they're recording for 15 seconds afterward because they want to know what you're looking for. [laughter] just to be safe. Just to be sure, we're doing it for you. >> Yeah. But also Tom, you know, is is watching a lot of um you know, Peanuts reruns. >> Yeah. How do you know? Are you LG? >> I [laughter] th this whole story is is fascinating to me because I do have an LG smart TV which is only a couple years old and so I'm sort of like, okay, how much does this move the needle in terms of me being freaked out? And it doesn't really um I I know that, you know, privacy is is of utmost concern, especially when you're in the comfort of your own living room or, you know, somewhere else in your house. Uh you know, you you you expect to know [snorts] what you're dealing with. This also applies to anything smart home, you know, smart speakers, smart smart anything that is is designed to make your life better and easier because it knows what you want and what your behaviors are. And that is a trade-off. It's always been a trade-off. So LG does sort of deflect from the [laughter] actual accusation in this case. Uh, and so I I think it's sort of like, well, who do you believe? You know, like, do do you believe that LG is doing something nefarious? >> I mean, I believe everything LG said. They just didn't address the things that I'm curious about. Right. >> Yeah. I was looking at it. It was a a subreddit um about this story yesterday or whenever it was. And, you know, people were like, "Oh, yeah. Nope. Never buy an LG product ever again." You know, this is this is the nail in the coffin. And it's sort of like, but [laughter] does it work for you? Does it work well for you? >> People say that all the time. Remember how many people were never buying Samsung again after the Note uh explosion or caught fire on planes? Turns out Samsung still sells a lot of phones. So, you know, >> Yeah. the need people always say that. It doesn't mean much. >> Exactly. Well, and and if you and if you feel that way, it's like then you think that LG is doing something very bad to you and you shouldn't buy their products anymore >> or they never did in the first place. >> Yeah. Right. I mean, it's it's it's whatever. It's it's your choice to either keep engaging or not. That's that's kind of how I feel about it. >> Yeah. I feel like the best place to think about products though is on Live with It. What you got this week? >> Oh, Tom. Um funny you ask. Uh because yes, Live with it. if you're not familiar is our product review show. We talk about gadgets, services, platforms, put them to the test over a long enough period of time that we really get a sense of the product. This is not just like I held it for 10 minutes, here are my first reactions. We are living with this stuff. So, tech in our lives, robots, kitchen gadgets, smart home solutions, we uh we're we're all across the board. And this week we're talking to one Tom Merritt about the Apple Watch Series 11. You may have heard of him. Um, I know the Series 12 just got announced, but Tom's been living with the 11 for quite some time and and might be worth your time as well. Reminder, we are on YouTube, YouTube.comwithshow. It's a great way to just discover all of our new videos. And big thanks to everybody who keeps us trying out new things. Uh if you would like to uh join the flock as well, we're over at patreon.com/livewithits. >> All right, let's get to the quick headlines. These will make you look smart. Nintendo will run a consumer appreciation sale in the US starting at midnight Eastern time on September 13th until September 26th. Nintendo says the sale was made possible in part by tariff related refunds. Meanwhile, the maker of modular laptops framework announced that it has received some RAM at less than its original estimates. And it is not conducting a sale. It's quote rolling out price reductions across both already shipped and a subset of currently pending pre-orders. That means even if you already paid for and received your laptop, you might get a refund for the difference in the RAM. That's how you do it. IBM and Nintendo just released the open- source NASA IBM Lunar Foundation model on hugging face along with a machine learning rated ready data set of the moon if you want to train your own model on it. >> Few things you might have missed during the big Apple announcement on Wednesday. Apple raised the price of all of its older models by $100 and the European price rises were a little bit different. They weren't consistent anywhere from 50 to€150. There are two cases out for the iPhone Duo, the foldable phone, a folio with a kickstand for $129, uh, or a more minimal case for $79. And Apple now offers a family plan for Apple Care in the US for up to six family members. >> Max appears to be the new word for flagship phones. Honor announced the new Max version of the Honor Magic 9 Pro and Vivo announced the Vivo X500 Pro Max with a 17x external lens launching in China on September 21st. >> Mhm. Hideo Kojima of Death Stranding and Metal Gear fame is moving his upcoming game Fizzant to Xbox. Why? Because Sony canled it in June and Xbox said it wants it. >> RW Nash noted this one in our subreddit. Thank you for that. TechCrunch saw a Slack message from Automatic CEO Matt Mullenweg that alleged the company's chief financial officer Mark Davies had conspired with other board members to vote to put Mullenweg on paid leave of absence from the company that oversees commercial operations of WordPress. Mullen has been put on leave and Davies has taken the role of interim CEO, but Mullenwick remains the leader of the open-source WordPress.org. or community. >> Messy, messy, messy. Uh, thanks to Motang for noticing this one on the subreddit. Microsoft is retiring its desktop publishing app, Publisher, removing it from Microsoft 365 subscriptions on October 1st and support for nonsubscription versions will end October 13th. Uh, also the cloud portfolio manager project online will end on September 30th. Users can move to Microsoft's Planner or switch to a thirdparty project called Project Libra Cloud AI 2.0. >> Rolls right off the tongue. A 30-year-old Polish developer has built an iPhone app called Zuckoff that reads local Bluetooth signals and can report if any one of them appears to belong to Meta's smart glasses for anybody who's worried about people wearing glasses and recording you without your knowledge while also giving an estimate of how far away they are. >> Uh this next one seems to be a trend. UMG, the latest music label to partner with an AI company, in this case 11 Labs. Those two companies are going to create a music platform. Uh you'll not only be able to listen to music or have AI create your playlist, but you can remix tracks, create new track interpretations, and have personalized vocal experiences. I'm guessing that's a karaoke style thing. >> IKEA has created a mod for 2011 video game, The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim, that adds a floating set of bookshelves that follow you and voiced by Matt Barry. What is that aborant mess I see before me? >> I I believe it's Matt Barry. That's what you see before you, Matt Barry. >> Yeah. [laughter] Uh, that's great. Uh, good good job, IKEA. >> We like to end every episode on DTNS with some shared perspectives. Today, Charles has a firsthand report on using Anker's Soundcore Sleep Earbuds. >> Yeah, thanks to Charles for contributing today's show. Uh, he says, "I have used the Anker Sleep earbuds two and three and love them. I have had no issues sleeping on my side, which is my position most of the night. The only downside to them is they bricked the two with a bad firmware update, and the three had one earbud become quieter after a few minutes of wear wearing them each time. I haven't filed a support request to get mine replaced, but people have been successful with that, so good to know." >> I love how Charles is like, "No issues. Love them, but here are the issues. Especially [laughter] the bricking. It was like, "Oh, they totally bricked it." Uh, I think you were able to recover from that possibly. Uh, and yeah, the the one earbud becoming quieter. Uh, I know what he means, though. I've had earbuds where I'm like, "There's an issue." And I know it's fixable, but I just do I want to go all the way into the store and do the thing to get the replacement. >> Yeah, mine is always Bluetooth related, at least when it comes to my my um uh AirPods. Um, you know, just sometimes like the left one is like, you know, I I'm like, I did it the same way every time and, you know, now I can't hear out of my left ear. Well, if you're thinking about anything, hopefully you can hear. Uh, if you have some insight into a story, something we've talked about, something we might talk about in the future, send it our way. Feedbacktechneow.com. >> Big thanks to Charles and thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You're the folks who keep us in business. Become a patron if it's the last thing you do at patreon.com/dtns. >> The DTNS family [music] of podcasts helping each other understand. >> Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this broker. [laughter]