This Week in Tech (Audio)

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TWiT 1086: The Great Beagle Migration - Pope Leo XIV's 1st Encyclical & Ferrari's 1st EV

Explore episode May 31, 2026
Technology
Wikipedia Is Core Training Data — And the Strike Threat Matters

TWiT 1086: The Great Beagle Migration - Pope Leo XIV's 1st … · May 31, 2026 Technology

Molly White confirms that Wikipedia is a core part of the training data for virtually every major frontier AI model. That makes the Wikipedia editor strike threat a hidden crisis for the entire AI industry. The irony: the Wikimedia Foundation is receiving revenue from AI companies through its Enterprise API, but that money isn't protecting the volunteer editorial community that makes the data worth having.

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EU Considers Blocking Under-16s from Social Media

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to propose EU-wide legislation banning social media access for children under 16, calling out platforms for treating kids' attention as a commodity. Australia tried a similar ban first, but enforcement has been a challenge.

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How AI Actually Works: Neural Nets Explained Simply

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Modern AI is not lines of code — it's a neural net with up to 10 trillion parameters, trained by positive and negative reinforcement the same way the human brain learns. Pre-training teaches it to predict text; then specific tasks like coding get layered on top. The whole thing is basically an artificial brain, but one that no human can look inside and understand.

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AI 2027: The Scenario Forecast That Changed the Conversation

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AI 2027 maps a month-by-month trajectory: companies automate coding, then the full research loop, then achieve recursive self-improvement, integrate with government and military, and deploy everywhere. Eventually, the AIs have accumulated enough real-world power that they stop listening to orders. Insiders told Kokotajlo his timeline was too aggressive. Now they tell him it's basically right.

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Geoffrey Hinton's Point: No Intelligent Species Is Ever Subordinate

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Geoffrey Hinton noted to Steven Bartlett that there is no example in nature of a more intelligent species being subordinate to a less intelligent one. Kokotajlo agrees this should be our default assumption: we are building something smarter than us, giving it a body, letting it improve itself, and then assuming it will keep taking our orders.

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Would You Press the Button to Shut Down AI Forever?

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Steven Bartlett asked whether Kokotajlo would press a button permanently shutting down all frontier AI training. He said he'd slam a temporary pause button immediately. The permanent one? He would probably not press it — but only because he still believes there's a chance AI could produce enormous benefits for humanity, and because human civilisation is fragile with or without AI.

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The Future of Alzheimer's Care: AI, Precision Medicine, and Neuromodulation

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The next decade in Alzheimer's care will likely be defined by AI monitoring of subtle changes in cognitive patterns for early detection, targeted anti-inflammatory and anti-pathology drug cocktails for high-risk individuals, and neuromodulation techniques as a complement to pharmacotherapy. Gayatri Devi's vision mirrors the cancer oncology shift toward mutation-specific, subtype-specific treatment.