Karsten Lemm

How OpenAI Uses Complex and Circular Deals to Fuel Its Multibillion-Dollar Rise (Gift Article) Here are seven unusual financial agreements helping to drive the ambitions of the poster child of the A.I. revolution.

Meet Sam Altman’s version of a #CircularEconomy.

#OpenAI #economy

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

All chips in! Would a fall in AI-related asset valuations have financial stability consequences? The purpose of Bank Overground is to share our internal analysis. Each bite-sized post summarises a piece of analysis that supported a policy or operational decision.

“AI stocks now account for roughly 44% of the S&P 500 market capitalisation…

This is a fast-evolving topic, and the future is highly uncertain…”

#AI #analysis by @bankofengland.bsky.social

www.bankofengland.co.uk/bank-overgro...

Reasoning Models Reason Well, Until They Don't Large language models (LLMs) have shown significant progress in reasoning tasks. However, recent studies show that transformers and LLMs fail catastrophically once reasoning problems exceed modest com...

Recent studies show that transformers and LLMs fail catastrophically once reasoning problems exceed modest complexity:

arxiv.org/abs/2510.22371

Big Tech Is Spending More Than Ever on AI and It’s Still Not Enough Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon have all said they will increase spending in 2026. But investors have given mixed signals.

Guess who’s ultimately going to pay for the billions & billions that Big Tech is pouring into #AI?

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/big-...

AXA and Ipsos have published the 12th edition of the Future Risks Report, a report based on a global survey of 23,000 citizens and 3,595 risk experts.
What do both experts and citizens rank as greates risk?
*** Climate change ***
So do I, after over 35 years experience in climate science.

Exclusive | Artist Behind Duct-Taped Banana Has New Test for Art Market: A Gold Toilet The 18-karat toilet, now valued at $10 million, is a rare and wry test of art’s appeal beyond its material worth as a precious metal.

The new White House east wing needs this, right?

www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

AI browsers are a cybersecurity time bomb Your smart browser is a dumb security risk.

AI browsers are a cybersecurity time bomb

Trump Is Very Confused About Nuclear Weapons The president says he wants to resume nuclear testing but doesn’t seem to know why.

“Nuclear tests don’t make much sense for U.S. national security, but they’re a *great* way to raise international tensions.”

@radiofreetom.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers A new benchmark measures how well AI agents can automate economically valuable chores. Human-level AI is still some ways off.

#AI researchers “gave several leading AI agents a range of simulated freelance work and found that even the best could perform less than 3 percent of the work…”

#AgenticAI #work #study

www.wired.com/story/ai-age...

Boeing Books Nearly $5 Billion Charge for 777X Delays The company pushed back the first delivery of its new 777X model to 2027 after falling behind schedule on some certification milestones.

Traveler alert: #Boeing is once again doing safety checks itself, e.g. on the 737 MAX.

“The FAA last month started loosening its grip on the production process… giving company workers authority to approve some safety checks.”

#aviation #travel

www.wsj.com/business/air...

Dutch result evinces wider European trend: consolidation of nationalist right's rise accompanied by reconfiguration (or: outright power struggle) within its ranks. FvD & JA21 rising at cost of PVV, FdI eclipsing Lega, factional contests within RN, Konfederacja challenge to PiS...

Binance Boosted Trump Family’s Crypto Company Ahead of Pardon for Its Billionaire Founder The giant crypto exchange facilitated a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty’s stablecoin and built its technology. The clemency for Changpeng Zhao—the tycoon known as CZ—surprised some in the adminis...

Trump’s expected pardon of #Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao “marks the most distinct instance yet of Trump using the powers of his office to benefit someone at the center of deals that have enriched his family”, @wsj.com writes.

#crypto

Gift link. 🎁

www.wsj.com/finance/curr...

Binance Boosted Trump Family’s Crypto Company Ahead of Pardon for Its Billionaire Founder The giant crypto exchange facilitated a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty’s stablecoin and built its technology. The clemency for Changpeng Zhao—the tycoon known as CZ—surprised some in the adminis...

Trump did something in return for personal gain? Can you believe it?

www.wsj.com/finance/curr...

US to Suspend China Sanctions Expansion for a Year, Beijing Says President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to a yearlong delay of a sanctions framework that would have dramatically expanded the number of Chinese companies subject to US trade restrictions, ...

China says Trump has agreed to delay by a year the 50% rule placing Nexperia on the US entity list. If confirmed, this will be hugely frustrating for Dutch government, whose Nexperia intervention was triggered in part (but not exclusively) by the initial US move

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The significance of a D66 win in 🇳🇱 (if it transpires) will need some explaining outside the country. The Netherlands, like Denmark, has two liberal parties: one rooted in the classical liberal tradition, the other in the radical liberal one. D66 is the latter, ie the left-of-centre liberal party.

How will the dismantling of USAID affect U.S. relief efforts in Jamaica? USAID was the lead American agency in disaster response. Now that it's been dismantled, questions are arising about how effective U.S. relief efforts will be in Jamaica after the hurricane.

USAID was the lead American agency in disaster response. Now that it's been dismantled, questions are arising about how effective U.S. relief efforts will be in Jamaica after the hurricane. n.pr/47ePf5R

The Innovation That’s Killing Restaurant Culture Delivery has turned America into a nation of order-inners.

Yet another way #society is falling apart: ever more people ordering food for delivery instead of going out.

Probably not cheaper – but you get stay in your bubble of #convenience and #solitude.

www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Toxic Wastewater From Oil Fields Keeps Pouring Out of the Ground. Oklahoma Regulators Failed to Stop It. Salt water laced with cancer-causing chemicals, a byproduct of oil and gas drilling, is spewing from old wells. Experts warn of a pollution crisis spreading underground and threatening Oklahoma’s drinking water.

NEW: Salt water laced with cancer-causing chemicals, a byproduct of oil and gas drilling, keeps shooting out of the ground in Oklahoma.

Experts say it means even more wastewater is spreading underground, poisoning the state’s water supply.

Toddler concedes he doesn’t want ice cream after all, right now. Would you believe him?

Surprising that the Israeli government went with US cloud services at all.

Usually Israel is a tech *exporter*, not importer.

Worried about shutdown of the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC? The collapse of the subpolar gyre is a likely step on the way to that and could happen a lot sooner. Not quite as bad as full AMOC shutdown, but could bring major impacts already in 10-20 years. Important study on the mechanism ⬇️!

How U.S. Billionaires Stack Up With the Rest of the World There are 3,508 billionaires on the planet. Americans dominate their collective wealth.

Some 3,000 billionaires own “$13.4 trillion in collective wealth, up 10.3% from a year earlier”, @wsj.com reports.

Comforting that in these troubled times some people are still doing well.

(Sarcasm alert.)

www.wsj.com/business/bil...

At this rate of job losses, half the U.S. will shout “Bernie for President!” next year.

Six Words Every Killer Should Know: ‘I Feared for My Life, Officer’ The number of legally sanctioned homicides has grown substantially in states with expanded self-defense rights under stand-your-ground laws.

“It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it.”

First sentence of this @wsj.com article:

www.wsj.com/us-news/homi...

Tens of Thousands of White-Collar Jobs Are Disappearing as AI Starts to Bite Companies ranging from Amazon to Target are sending workers into an unwelcoming market.

#AI is becoming a serious threat to #society at breakneck speed.

White-collar job cuts are leaving “fewer opportunities for experienced and new workers who had counted on well-paying office work to support families and fund retirements…” @wsj.com reports.

🎁 Gift link

www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

Et tu, William?

The U.S. president’s family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone, a Reuters examination found, on top of potentially billions more in unrealized gains reut.rs/4ovbCdD

The end of the rip-off economy From finance and medicine to used cars, artificial intelligence is radically improving market efficiency

Intriguing idea: #AI will empower consumers by making markets & pricing more transparent, @economist argues.

Except: Sellers will always find a way to get the upper hand, esp. big companies.

E.g. influencing gen AI in their favor (“data poisoning”).

🎁 link 👇

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

How climate change is fueling Hurricane Melissa's ferocity The warming of the world's oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa's wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday.

The warming of the world’s oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa’s wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday. https://to.pbs.org/49lwC1l

This story is highly myopic.

First, in all wealthy nations population tends to level out.

Second, more than 8 billion people on this planet is not enough?

Whoever is afraid of population decline and “replacement” needs to zoom out and take a look at the entire picture.