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Most people are out here asking chatbots for a decent vegan cookie recipe. Meanwhile, according to a wild new report, the U.S. President allegedly asked Grok about an entire sovereign nation.
Yes, you read that right. Elon Musk’s chaotic little AI chatbot reportedly served up a full-blown pep talk to Donald Trump about capturing Venezuela's leader. That juicy tidbit comes courtesy of Time magazine, and TechCrunch.
Let’s break down the drama step-by-step:
In December 2025: Trump and Musk reportedly held a secret rendezvous. This cozy little chat went down about a month before the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, and roughly seven months after Musk bid farewell to his DOGE government gig.
A source spilled to Time that Trump spent hours picking Grok's digital brain, specifically grilling the machine on how Venezuelan citizens might react if their president was suddenly snatched off the board.
Grok’s Hot Take: The AI didn't hold back, reportedly labeling Maduro an “unpopular dictator” and predicting that the locals would pop champagne and cheer his absolute downfall.
And guess what? After the U.S. invasion actually happened on January 3, the street celebrations played out almost exactly like the algorithm predicted. Trump reportedly walked away convinced that Grok is an absolute genius. Somewhere out in the cloud, a server is frantically updating its résumé to say Geopolitical Strategist.
Quick reality check before we crown a robot king: These explosive details trace back to a single source, so treat them as reported claims rather than ironclad facts. Plus, absolutely nothing in this story proves an LLM made an actual executive command.
But if you think a chatbot advising on foreign leaders is wild, wait until you hear about the Pentagon. Back in June, the head of military AI casually dropped that the armed forces used a specialized version called Gov Grok to deploy and execute strikes during the Iran War.
Now, while Grok certainly isn't the only digital kid on the defense block, (OpenAI has a cozy defense agreement, and Anthropic has been locked in a very public back-and-forth over how its models can be deployed for military intelligence and modern warfare) Grok might just become the ultimate teacher's pet under this specific administration.
Why? Earlier this week, the Pentagon officially announced that Musk and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey have been hand-selected to co-lead a massive new study on how advanced technology is, and can be, utilized on active battlefields.
The Takeaway: Let's be real for a second. A remarkably confident answer from an AI model is never a guaranteed correct one. As these systems graduate from party tricks to battlefield logistics, the million-dollar question isn't just what the machine has to say. The real question is: Who on earth are the people double-checking the bot on safety before it changes the world?
Here’s Our Last Breakdown on YouTube.
Here's what we have for you today
🤖 Amazon Launches a Tiny Decision-Making AI, And AI Is Making Money, But Companies Can't Scale It
Amazon released Strands Decider 2B, an open-source "decision model". Think of it as an AI that picks off a menu instead of writing a whole essay, and then boldly tells you how confident it is.
It’s also Amazon's fast answer to TypeSafe's Jev, and it dropped the exact same week OpenAI announced a similar offering. Even better? It’s tiny enough to run locally on your own machine.
Who built it? Amazon engineer Marc Brooker whipped up a homebrew version after spotting Jev. It briefly dominated the Jevbench leaderboard for its size class, so Amazon polished it up for the masses.
Why bother? Brooker notes that AI users do not always need a massive, expensive brain for every single step. A compact decider is faster, lighter, and significantly cheaper.
Fun history fact: Jev gets its name from economist William Stanley Jevons, who figured out that making things cheaper usually just makes people want more of them. And honestly? The math checks out. The fact that dozens of similar models have flooded the web since TypeSafe debuted its idea proves two things. First, the tech world is obsessed. Second, maybe we all actually want lighter, cheaper tools so we can save our heavy thinking for ourselves instead of letting AI do all the lifting 24/7.
Switching gears to corporate reality, a fresh BearingPoint study reported by Reuters shows that while AI is finally paying off, scaling it is an absolute nightmare. Nearly three-quarters of surveyed companies report positive financial wins. Yet fewer than a third have made it past pilot projects, and only a small 13% are actually on track with their master plans.
What’s dragging everyone down into the slow lane?
40% point the finger at legal and regulatory rules.
34% say trying to jam new AI into ancient IT systems is a headache.
The Corporate Scoreboard:
24% of companies scored cost savings of 10% or higher.
4% managed to see revenue growth that big.
Global leaders: China (20%) and the U.S. (18%) are leading the pack in full rollouts, while Germany lags behind at 8%.
Deep integration: Companies with AI baked deep into their everyday operations bumped up to 11%, rising from 7% last year.
BearingPoint expert Frederic Gigant sums it up best: proving AI works and scaling it across an entire enterprise are two entirely different sports.
The Big Picture: AI is doing its job, but trying to scale it right now feels like driving a Ferrari through gridlocked morning traffic. Also, Tiny, lightning-fast decision tools might just clear the road. Even so, TypeSafe's CEO reminds us that making these models genuinely smart is way harder than the tech world wants to admit.
What do you think? Are you managing to scale your AI workflows, or are you stuck in pilot purgatory? Hit reply and spill the tea.
P.S. Want this broken down visually? Catch the full explainer on our YouTube, @the automated.
Forget SpaceX. These 7 Stocks Could Be Next.
You may not have gotten into SpaceX early, but the space-investing story is far from over.
Record launches, falling costs, government contracts and new technologies are turning space into a commercial market. That growth is creating opportunities across satellites, defense, communications, data and in-space infrastructure.
This free report 7 Best Space Stocks to Own in 2026 reveals seven publicly traded companies positioned across this expanding economy. It explains how each business makes money, what could move its stock and which risks investors should understand.
SpaceX captured Wall Street’s attention. Now see which seven space stocks could benefit from what comes next.
🧱 Around The AI Block
🕵️♂️ The ugly economics of consumer AI.
🧥 ChatGPT can now virtually try on clothes for you.
🙅♀️ Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots.
😳 OpenAI cuts ties with 3 safety researchers, WSJ reports.
👉 Opus 5.5 loves to tell you ‘this matters’ (and other AI writing tells).
😳 AI chatbots remove hijabs from images of Muslim women when prompted.
🤦 Chinese hackers impersonated ex-US official to steal emails from AI experts.
🤦♂️ OpenAI alerts more than 100 groups about rogue AI agent activity.
🤯 Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,800 times before space data centers get off the ground.
👩🎓 AI Tutorials
12 Ways to Use Meta Muse to MAKE MONEY.
And: OpenAI's Dots vs. Meta's Muse. What You Need to Know.
So tell us, what’s the single most annoying, tedious task in your daily workflow that you desperately wish an AI could just handle for you?
Hit reply and the next video might just be around your exact problem!
Quantitative Thinkers Are Building Ideas Worldwide on WorldQuant BRAIN
WorldQuant BRAIN is a global simulation and research platform for students, aspiring researchers and quantitative thinkers from around the world.
On BRAIN, that spirit of exploration continues through challenges, collaboration and opportunities to develop new quantitative research ideas.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the Content Creators & Visual Editors: W-Agent automates the removal of watermarks, logos, hardcoded subtitles, and unwanted objects directly in your web browser. It features automatic AI detection alongside manual brush selection to scrub distracting elements from both static photos and video clips. It provides creators and social media teams with a clean, hassle-free editor to restore original visuals without leaving the browser.
For the Global Teams & Remote Meeting Leads: LiveTranslate delivers real-time voice translation across more than 70 languages while preserving each speaker's tone, pacing, and emotional rhythm. It joins virtual calls on platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Meet via a simple QR code or web link, no dedicated software downloads needed. It allows international teams and client leads to hold natural, fluid conversations without intermediate interpreter delays.
For the Full-Stack Developers & Web Architects: Netlify provides a unified platform to build, deploy, and scale web applications straight from Git or your local command terminal. It features built-in serverless functions, database hosting, authentication, deploy previews, and native AI agent integrations like Claude, Codex, and Gemini. It offers development teams an end-to-end cloud environment to manage code deployments without wrestling with server infrastructure.
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: Locking Down Copilot, Grok, and Meta’s Data Traps
Welcome back to part two, besties. Yesterday we locked down the big three, but today we’re diving into the rest of the wild west: Copilot, Grok, and the absolute chaos that is Meta.
Grab your refill and let’s get into it.
1. Copilot: Microsoft loves to make things complicated by giving you not one, but two separate controls to look out for.
Where to look: Click your profile icon, head to Settings, and select Privacy.
The dual traps: You will find Training on conversation activity (which is suspiciously turned on by default) and Training on voice conversations (which thankfully starts turned off).
The catch: Opting out only saves your future text and voice chats from model training. It does not stop Microsoft from using your info for general product improvements or targeted advertising. Figures, right?
2. Grok: If you are using X, brace yourself. Elon Musk’s platform automatically enrolls every single account into Grok training by default, blending your public posts and your private chats into one massive data stew.
Where to look: Go to Settings and privacy, tap Privacy and safety, and find Grok & Third-Party Collaborators.
The fix: Uncheck the data-sharing option to pull your posts and Grok interactions out of future training and fine-tuning.
3. Meta: Let’s talk about the giant elephant in the room. If you are based in the U.S., Meta flat-out does not allow you to opt out.
The international exception: If you live in the UK or the EU, congratulations, you’re protected by EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You can actually object to your data being harvested by filling out a form in Meta's privacy center.
The ad machine: Since last December, your text and voice chats with Meta AI have been quietly fueling the company's ad targeting across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
The U.S. survival guide: For U.S. users, your only real defense is just refusing to engage with Meta AI entirely. Honestly? Considering the launch of Meta's AI agent, Muse, keeping your distance might just be the best self-care choice you make.
💡 Prompts To Try:
Go lock down those data strings!!Is this your AI Workout of the Week (WoW)? Cast your vote!
That's all we've got for you today.
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