Good morning. It's Friday, May 1, and we're covering the Silicon Valley permanent underclass meme going mainstream, Google DeepMind's new doctor-assisting AI, and Elon Musk's court appearance.

Reader poll results are in: where you landed on Musk vs. OpenAI.

Musk Admits xAI Used OpenAI Outputs To Train Grok
Elon Musk acknowledges in court that xAI partly trained Grok using outputs from OpenAI models, confirming a widely suspected but rarely admitted industry practice. The testimony comes during Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman over its shift to a for-profit structure. Distillation—querying models to replicate their capabilities—has become a flashpoint as firms like OpenAI and Anthropic attempt to block it, citing risks to their compute-heavy advantage.

GPT-5.5 Matches Rivals in Advanced AI Cyberattack Simulations
OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 completes a full multi-step cyberattack simulation end-to-end, reinforcing concerns that offensive AI capabilities are advancing faster than expected. The results, published by the AI Security Institute, show the model achieving roughly 71% success on expert-level tasks like memory exploitation and cryptographic attacks. In one case, it reverse-engineers a custom virtual machine in under 11 minutes for $1.73, compared to about 12 hours for a human expert.

Meta’s AI Spending Surge Raises Costs, Pressure, And Skepticism
Meta plans to spend up to $145 billion in 2026, even as its stock drops more than 7% despite 33% revenue growth, highlighting investor unease with its AI-heavy strategy. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says rising memory chip costs are driving at least a $10 billion increase in capital expenditures, tied to global shortages from data center expansion. The company nearly doubles last year’s $72 billion spend while facing $4 billion quarterly losses in Reality Labs, which has burned over $80 billion in six years.

Taiwan Market Surges Past Canada on AI Chip Rally
Taiwan overtakes Canada as the world’s sixth-largest stock market, driven largely by a single company—TSMC—whose valuation alone reaches $1.8 trillion. The shift follows a 35% surge in Taiwan’s total market capitalization to $4.47 trillion, compared with Canada’s 5% rise to $4.44 trillion. Strong AI-driven semiconductor demand, record earnings of NT$572.5 billion ($18 billion), and planned increases in capital spending fuel the rally, alongside regulatory easing on fund investment limits.

FRIDAY FACTS

In 1868, scientists added a new entry to the periodic table, but it would be another 27 years before anyone on Earth could collect a single sample of it. Full story below.

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A growing share of Silicon Valley insiders—from engineers to executives—believe advanced AI could significantly erode workers’ economic power, potentially displacing millions of jobs and concentrating wealth among tech firms and capital owners. Public and private conversations, including statements from industry leaders, reflect rising concern that automation may outpace job creation, especially in white-collar fields, with some warning of a “permanent underclass.”

Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are beginning to explore policy ideas such as wealth redistribution, shorter workweeks, and public investment funds, but concrete commitments remain limited. Meanwhile, hiring slowdowns, layoffs tied to AI, and early labor market impacts—particularly among younger workers—suggest disruption is already underway. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)

A post on r/antiai went viral last week. A mother “caught” her 9-year-old daughter using Google's AI Mode in Chrome. According to the post, the kid had been using it to figure out how to get along with her younger sisters, improve her swim times after a meet, and plot fan fiction for her favorite book series.

The mother sat her daughter down and had a long talk. The daughter ended up "devastated." The post says the kid "now fully understands how sycophantic and insidious it is" and that she won't be using AI again, in part because they don't want her to "lose her creativity.” → Read the full article here.

Google DeepMind announced a new “AI co-clinician” research initiative aimed at augmenting doctors with AI systems that assist in diagnosis, evidence synthesis, and patient interaction. In testing across 98 primary care scenarios, the system produced zero critical errors in 97 cases and outperformed other AI tools on complex medication and reasoning benchmarks.

The model also demonstrated multimodal capabilities—using audio and video in simulated telehealth settings—to guide patient exams, though human physicians still outperformed it overall, especially in identifying critical issues. Researchers emphasize the system is designed to support, not replace, clinicians, with safeguards like dual-agent monitoring and evidence verification. → Read the full article here.

China’s State Grid Corporation announced a $1 billion initiative to deploy 8,500 AI-powered robots across 26 provinces by 2026, aiming to automate maintenance of aging power infrastructure. The fleet includes 5,000 quadruped “robot dogs,” 500 humanoid robots for high-voltage work, and 3,000 wheeled units for repairs—already capable of tasks like detecting faults and carrying heavy equipment.

The rollout positions China at the forefront of large-scale industrial robotics, with domestic firms racing to meet demand and early exports underway to countries like Chile. Officials say the move could improve grid reliability and reduce long-term costs, while also serving as a proving ground for broader autonomous systems. → Read the full article here.

Google Brings Gemini AI to Cars: Google begins rolling out its conversational assistant to vehicles with Google built-in, enabling natural voice control for navigation, messaging, and in-car tasks across millions of compatible models.

Sanders Calls for Global AI Rules: Senator Bernie Sanders urges US–China cooperation and a treaty-style framework to regulate AI, warning unchecked development could fuel misinformation, job loss, and societal risks.

Samsung Profits Soar on AI Chips: Samsung reports 57.2 trillion won operating profit, up over 750% year over year, as AI-driven memory shortages boost prices and strengthen its high-bandwidth memory business.

X Rebuilds Ads With AI: X launches a revamped advertising platform using AI-driven targeting and ranking systems to improve campaign performance, aiming to accelerate revenue growth as its ad business rebounds.

Spotify Adds Verified Artist Badge: Spotify rolls out a green checkmark requiring sustained engagement and real-world presence, excluding AI-generated personas to address criticism over fake artists.

FRIDAY FACTS

On August 18, 1868, French astronomer Pierre Janssen aimed a spectroscope at the Sun's chromosphere during a total eclipse in Guntur, India. He noticed a bright yellow emission line at 587.49 nanometers that matched no known element. Two months later, English astronomer Norman Lockyer spotted the same line independently. With chemist Edward Frankland, he concluded it was a new element and named it "helium," from the Greek Helios, the Sun.

It took 27 years before anyone held a sample on Earth. Scottish chemist William Ramsay isolated terrestrial helium in 1895 from the uranium ore cleveite. Helium remains the only element ever identified on another body before being found on our own — a peculiar honor for what is, by mass, the universe's second most abundant element.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!

— Matthew Berman, Nick Wentz & the Forward Future Team