News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

AI

Microsoft, OpenAI strike new landmark AI deal valuing ChatGPT owner at whopping $500B

Microsoft and OpenAI reached a deal to allow the ChatGPT maker to restructure itself into a public benefit corporation, valuing OpenAI at $500 billion and giving it more freedom in its business operations.

The deal removes a major constraint on raising capital for OpenAI that has existed since 2019, when it signed a deal with Microsoft that gave the tech giant rights over much of OpenAI’s work in exchange for costly cloud computing services needed to carry it out. As its ChatGPT service exploded in popularity, those limitations became a notable source of tension between the two companies.

CEO Sam Altman will not get equity in the restructured company, an OpenAI spokesperson said, in a reversal from discussions last year that he would receive equity. The company has no plans to focus on a potential public offering, the spokesperson said.

Microsoft will still hold a stake of about $135 billion, or 27%, in OpenAI Group PBC, which will be controlled by the OpenAI Foundation, a nonprofit, the companies said.

The Redmond, Wash.-based firm has invested $13.8 billion in OpenAI, with Tuesday’s deal implying that Microsoft had generated a return of nearly 10 times its investment.

Microsoft shares rose 2.5%, sending its market value above $4 trillion again.

The deal keeps the two firms intertwined until at least 2032 with a massive cloud computing contract and with Microsoft retaining some rights to OpenAI products and AI models until then even if OpenAI reaches artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point at which AI systems can match a well-educated human adult.

With more than 700 million weekly users as of September, ChatGPT has exploded in popularity to become the face of AI for many consumers after OpenAI’s founding as a nonprofit AI safety group.

As the company grew, the Microsoft deal constrained OpenAI’s ability to raise funds from outside investors and secure computing contracts as the crush of ChatGPT users and its research into new models caused its computing needs to skyrocket.

“OpenAI has completed its recapitalization, simplifying its corporate structure,” Bret Taylor, the OpenAI Foundation’s board chair, said in a blog post. “The nonprofit remains in control of the for-profit, and now has a direct path to major resources before AGI arrives.”

Microsoft’s previous 2019 agreement had many provisions that rested on when OpenAI reached that point, and the new deal requires an independent panel to verify OpenAI’s claims it has reached AGI.

“OpenAI still faces ongoing scrutiny around transparency, data usage, and safety oversight. But overall, this structure should provide a clearer path forward for innovation and accountability,” said Adam Sarhan, CEO of 50 Park Investments.

Nvidia to build AI supercomputers for US Energy Department, signs $500B deal in bookings for chips

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Tuesday that the artificial intelligence chip leader will build seven new supercomputers for the Energy Department, and said the company has $500 billion in bookings for its AI chips.

The first company to be worth more than $4 trillion, Nvidia is at the core of the global rollout of AI. It is striking deals around the world while also navigating a US-China trade war that could determine which country’s technology is most used around the world.

Investors are looking for clarity on what chips the tech company will be able to sell to the vast Chinese market, but Huang kicked off a keynote address at the company’s GTC event in the US capital by praising policy by President Trump while announcing new products and deals.

These included network technology that will let Nvidia AI chips work with quantum computers.

The supercomputers Nvidia is building for the Energy Department will in part help the United States maintain and develop its nuclear weapons arsenal.

The supercomputers will also be used to research alternative energy sources such as nuclear fusion.

The largest of the supercomputers for the Department of Energy will be built with Oracle and contain 100,000 of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips.

“Putting the weight of the nation behind pro-energy growth completely changed the game,” Huang said. “If this didn’t happen, we could have been in a bad situation, and I want to thank President Trump for that.”

Nvidia shares closed up 5% at $201.03 on Tuesday.

Nvidia also announced new details with Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia to target the AI communications market.

Nvidia will invest $1 billion for a 2.9% stake in Nokia and it also introduced a new product line called Arc, designed to work with telecommunications equipment.

Huang said Nvidia will work with Nokia to improve the power efficiency of the company’s base stations for 6G, the next generation of wireless data technology.

“We’re going to take this new technology and we’ll be able to upgrade millions of base stations around the world,” Huang said.

Altogether the company has $500 billion in bookings for its Blackwell and Rubin chips over the next five quarters, the CEO said.

Nvidia also announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies, a company that works closely with the US government. However, the focus of Nvidia’s partnership was on Palantir’s commercial business, where Nvidia will help it speed up solving logistics problems for companies such as home improvement retailer Lowe’s. Such corporate work was a longtime stronghold of Intel.

Nvidia becomes first $5T company powered by AI frenzy: Here’s how much CEO Jensen Huang is worth

Nvidia made history on Wednesday as the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value, powered by a stunning rally that has cemented its place at the center of the global artificial intelligence boom.

The milestone underscores the company’s swift transformation from a niche graphics-chip designer into the backbone of the global AI industry, turning CEO Jensen Huang into a Silicon Valley icon and making its advanced chips a flashpoint in the tech rivalry between the US and China.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia’s shares have climbed 12-fold as the AI frenzy propelled the S&P 500 to record highs, igniting a debate on whether frothy tech valuations could lead to the next big bubble.

The new milestone, coming just three months after Nvidia breached the $4 trillion mark, would surpass the total cryptocurrency market value and equal roughly half the size of Europe’s benchmark equities index, the Stoxx 600 index.

“Nvidia hitting a $5 trillion market cap is more than a milestone; it’s a statement, as Nvidia has gone from chip maker to industry creator,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, which holds shares in the company.

“The market continues to underestimate the scale of the opportunity, and Nvidia remains one of the best ways to play the AI theme.”

Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company rose 3% to close at $207.04, or a market cap of $5.03 trillion, after a string of recent announcements solidified its dominance in the AI race.

Huang unveiled $500 billion in AI chip orders on Tuesday and said he plans to build seven supercomputers for the US government.

Meanwhile, President Trump is expected to discuss Nvidia’s Blackwell chip with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

Sales of the high-end chip have been a key sticking point between the two sides due to Washington’s export controls.

Stock surge boosts Huang’s wealth

At current prices, CEO Huang’s stake in Nvidia would be worth about $179.2 billion, according to regulatory filings and Reuters calculations.

He is the world’s eighth-richest person, per Forbes’ billionaire list.

Born in Taiwan and raised in the United States from age nine, Huang has led Nvidia since founding it in 1993. Under his leadership, the company’s H100 and Blackwell processors have become the engines behind large-language models powering tools such as ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Universal Music and AI song generator Udio settle lawsuit, announces plans to partner on new platform

LONDON — Universal Music Group and AI song generation platform Udio have settled a copyright infringement lawsuit and agreed to team up on new music creation and streaming platform, the two companies said in a joint announcement.

Universal and Udio said Wednesday that they reached a “compensatory legal settlement” as well as new licensing agreements for recorded music and publishing that will “provide further revenue opportunities” for the record label’s artists and songwriters.

As part of the deal, Udio immediately stopped allowing people to download songs they’ve created, which sparked a backlash and apparent exodus among paying users.

The deal is the first since Universal, along with Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Records, sued Udio and another AI song generator, Suno, last year over copyright infringement.

“These new agreements with Udio demonstrate our commitment to do what’s right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond,” Universal CEO Lucian Grainge said.
Financial terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed.

Universal announced another AI deal on Thursday, saying it was teaming up with Stability AI to develop “next-generation professional music creation tools.”

Udio and Suno pioneered AI song generation technology, which can spit out new songs based on prompts typed into a chatbot-style text box. Users, who don’t need musical talent, can merely request a tune in the style of, for example, classic rock, 1980s synth-pop or West Coast rap.

Udio and Universal, which counts Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar among its artists, said the new AI subscription service will debut next year.

Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez said in a blog post that people will be able to use it to remix their favorite songs or mashup different tunes or song styles. Artists will be able to give permission for how their music can be used, he said.

However, “downloads from the platform will be unavailable,” he said.

AI songs made on Udio will be “controlled within a walled garden” as part of the transition to the new service, the two companies said in their joint announcement.

The move angered Udio’s users, according to posts on Reddit’s Udio forum, where they vented about feeling betrayed by the platform’s surprise move and complained that it limited what they could do with their music.

One user accused Universal of taking away “our democratic download freedoms.” Another said “Udio can never be trusted again.”

Many vowed to cancel their subscriptions for Udio, which has a free level as well as premium plans that come with more features.

The deal shows how the rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the $20 billion music streaming industry. Record labels accuse the platforms of exploiting the recorded works of artists without compensating them.

The tools have fueled debate over AI’s role in music while raising fears about “AI slop” — automatically generated, low quality mass produced content — highlighted by the rise of fictitious bands passing for real artists.

In its lawsuit filed against Udio last year, Universal alleged that specific AI-generated songs made on Udio closely resembled Universal-owned classics like Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” The Temptations’ “My Girl” and holiday favorites like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Amazon shares soar as AI demand boosts cloud revenue — and results fire up CEO Andy Jassy

Amazon’s cloud revenue rose at the fastest clip in nearly three years, helping the company forecast quarterly sales above estimates and driving its shares up 14% in after-market trading.

The company projected increased capital spending next year.

The online retailer benefited as businesses continue to spend relentlessly on artificial intelligence software development. Massive cloud demand is helping the tech company ease the pressure from softer growth at its e-commerce business, which is gearing up for the critical holiday season amid weakness in consumer confidence stemming from global trade uncertainty.

Amazon’s rally in extended trading lifted the company’s market value by about $330 billion. A stock rally of the same size in Friday’s official trading session would make it Amazon’s biggest one-day percentage gain since 2015.

“AWS is growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “We continue to see strong demand in AI and core infrastructure, and we’ve been focused on accelerating capacity.”

Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said he expected full-year capital expenditures to be around $125 billion, and higher next year, without providing details. The company booked $89.9 billion in capital expenditures through the first three quarters, largely on AI projects.

Cloud revenue jumps

Its cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, reported a 20% rise in revenue in the third quarter ending in September, compared with estimates of a 17.95% increase. Amazon shrugged off a tough prior week when an extended outage at AWS felled many of the most popular websites and consumer apps.

Amazon has been the worst-performing stock among the “Magnificent 7” megacap tech companies, due in part to a nagging reputation as a laggard in AI development.

“The report confirms Amazon’s operations are firing on all cylinders after a year of relative underperformance,” said Ethan Feller, stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research. He said despite the stock’s nearly flat growth this year, “the company’s fundamentals never meaningfully weakened.”

Amazon projected total net sales of between $206 billion and $213 billion for the fourth quarter, while analysts on average were expecting revenue of $208.12 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Normally subdued, Jassy adopted an exuberant tone on the call with analysts.

“I look at the momentum we have right now, and I believe that we can continue to grow and click like this for a while,” he said. “I think there are multiple places where we can expect to continue to grow,” he added, referring to advertising and retail sales.

The strong results from AWS, the world’s largest cloud provider, followed stellar cloud revenue growth reported on Wednesday by Microsoft’s Azure and Google  Cloud, the No. 2 and No. 3 players in the industry, respectively.

Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook owner Meta all announced plans for higher annual capital expenditures as they pour money into chips and data centers.

Big Tech continues AI spending

Jassy’s comments echoed those from rival CEOs, indicating Big Tech has no plans to pump the brakes on AI spending despite Wall Street expressing concern about a possible investment bubble. Companies, including Amazon, are introducing AI into nearly every facet of their operations in hopes of reducing costs and boosting productivity.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he did not believe the AI boom is a speculative bubble like the dot-com era, when many companies were “ideas rather than businesses.” Today’s AI leaders “actually have earnings,” he said. He added that AI investments – especially in data centers, chips, and infrastructure – were a major source of economic growth. He did warn about AI’s impact on the labor market.

Horrendous AI model depicts what we’ll look like in 25 years — and it’s frightening for good reason

We are sofa-king screwed.

Our sedentary lifestyles aren’t just slothful; they could wreak havoc on both our health and looks. Experts at the step-tracking app WeWard have digitally imagined what we’ll look like in 2050 if we don’t change our couch potato ways — and we’ll reportedly have poor posture, premature aging, and other sitting-induced symptoms.

Dubbed Sam, this sofa goblin was devised as “a medically grounded projection of how inactivity can affect our physical appearance and overall health.” WeWard created him by sourcing data from the World Health Organization, CDC and other sources, and then feeding it into a prompt on ChatGPT.

Indeed, the prognosis is not pretty. WeWard warns that are in the midst of a global inactivity epidemic, with the World Health Organization noting that 80% of adolescents don’t meet the requisite levels of physical activity.

“In today’s culture of convenience, simple tasks like ordering food, taking work meetings, and connecting with friends can now happen directly from your couch,” WeWard writes. “Add that to the hours spent doom-scrolling on social media, and we’re spending abnormal amounts of time sitting behind a screen.”

To make matters worse, sedentary lifestyles can heighten the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and cancer and even dementia.

But if the stats don’t scare you, Sam’s grotesque figure definitely will. “If you’re looking for something frightening this Halloween, look no further than what could be our future if we continue to place convenience over daily movement,” WeWard warns.

Take a load off Sammy

Sam’s sedentary lifestyle has caused him to gain weight as the unused energy from sitting — and perhaps doomscrolling — converts into fat and amasses around his midsection. Over time, this will increase his likelihood of suffering from heart disease and diabetes.

Scroll-iosis

Sam’s poor posture is no coincidence. Extended periods of sitting or hunching over screens result in a forward-titled head and curved upper back — a symptom colloquially known as “tech neck.”

The complication isn’t just cosmetic, often resulting in chronic shoulder and neck pain.

“Some researchers have suggested that frequent smartphone use can lead to the use of a non-neutral neck posture or the development of musculoskeletal disorders,” experts wrote in the journal Interdisciplinary Neurosurgery. “This flexed neck posture can increase the pain of the cervical spine and induce muscle strain in adjacent portions of the cervical spine.”

Digital age and not being easy on the eyes

Constantly scrolling social media for the latest aging inhibitors may paradoxically accelerate the process, as Sam’s haggard appearance suggests

Multiple studies have shown that blue-light exposure from screens can cause signs of “premature aging and hyperpigmentation to the skin,” WeWard writes.

Meanwhile, excessive screen time mitigates blinking and “forces the eyes to focus at one distance for too long”, resulting in “dryness, blurred vision, headaches, and difficulty focusing.”

To mitigate this ocular side effect, remote workers should employ the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes spent staring at a screen, work-from-homers should look away at something that is 20 feet away from them for 20 seconds, per Healthline.

No mean feet
Prolonged periods of sitting have slowed Sam’s circulation, causing fluids to accumulate in the ankles and feet, leading to swelling. Other complications include varicose veins, and in more serious cases, increased risk of blood clots.

In 2020, a 24-year-old UK man died due to a blood clot that he sustained after gaming for hours on end during pandemic lockdown.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sofa-inducted symptoms. Other complications include joint stiffness and arthritis, hair thinning and loss, skin issues and bags around the eyes.

GMAIL

183M email passwords exposed in data leak — including millions of Gmail accounts — here’s how to check if yours is safe

A massive leak has exposed more than 183 million email passwords, including tens of millions linked to Gmail accounts, in what cybersecurity analysts are calling one of the biggest credential dumps ever uncovered.

The stolen trove containing 3.5 terabytes of data surfaced online this month, according to Troy Hunt, the Australian security researcher who runs the breach-notification site Have I Been Pwned.

Hunt stated that the information originated from a yearlong sweep of “infostealer” platforms — malware networks that secretly siphon usernames, passwords and website addresses from infected devices.

The data consists of both “stealer logs and credential stuffing lists,” Hunt wrote in a blog post.

“Someone logging into Gmail ends up with their email address and password captured against gmail.com.”

The new dataset contained 183 million unique accounts, including roughly 16.4 million addresses never seen before in any prior breach, Hunt wrote.

To find out if their credentials are among those compromised, users can visit HaveIBeenPwned.com and enter their email addresses. If flagged, the site provides the date and nature of the breach.

Security firm Synthient, which collected the logs, said the records were drawn from criminal marketplaces and underground Telegram channels where hackers share stolen credentials in bulk.

Analyst Benjamin Brundage of Synthient said the findings show the staggering reach of infostealer malware.

According to researchers, most of the entries are recycled from older breaches, but millions of newly compromised Gmail accounts were verified when affected users confirmed that exposed passwords still matched their active credentials.

The leak, first detected in April and made public last week, covers not only Gmail data, but also login information for Outlook, Yahoo and hundreds of other web services.

The cache, Hunt said, shows how stolen credentials often reappear across forums for years, giving criminals fresh opportunities to exploit reused passwords.

Hunt said the breaches did not involve a direct hack of Gmail; it employed malware on users’ computers that captured their logins.

Security experts said that’s why the impact of the breaches extends far beyond email.

Many victims reuse passwords across multiple sites — from cloud storage and banking to social media — enabling attackers to infiltrate victims’ entire digital lives through “credential stuffing,” the automated process of testing stolen username–password pairs on multiple platforms.

“Reports of a Gmail security ‘breach’ impacting millions of users are entirely inaccurate and incorrect,” a Google spokesperson told The Post.

“They stem from a misreading of ongoing updates to credential theft databases, known as infostealer activity, whereby attackers employ various tools to harvest credentials versus a single, specific attack aimed at any one person, tool or platform.”

“We encourage users to follow best practices to protect themselves from credential theft, such as turning on 2-step verification and adopting passkeys as a stronger and safer alternative to passwords, and resetting passwords when they are exposed in large batches like this.”

BIG TECH

Amazon to cut 30,000 corporate jobs — 9% of worldwide office workforce: report

Amazon will slash 30,000 corporate jobs starting Tuesday, according to a report — unleashing one of the US’s biggest job bloodbaths this century as the company aggressively revamps its business with artificial intelligence.

Sources told Reuters the reductions — which amount to 9% of Amazon’s global office-based workforce of 350,000 — will begin Tuesday and could unfold over several weeks. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Seattle-based web giant’s sweeping layoffs mark the biggest in a series of major contractions for the company, which has slashed tens of thousands of jobs since CEO Andy Jassy took over from the company’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos in 2021.

In 2022 and 2023, Jassy cut a total of 27,000 jobs, Reuters reported. Those cuts targeted Amazon Web Services, its devices group and entertainment units including Prime Video and Twitch.

Reuters reported that this week’s layoffs could reach across multiple departments, among them human resources — known internally as the People Experience and Technology group — as well as devices, services and operations.

Managers in affected areas were instructed Monday to complete training sessions on how to brief employees once email notifications start going out Tuesday morning, sources told Reuters.

The latest reductions come as Amazon doubles down on artificial intelligence and robotics — technologies Jassy has described as central to the company’s next phase of growth.

In a companywide email in June, Jassy warned employees to embrace automation or risk being left behind, writing that those who “become conversant in AI” would be best positioned to “help us reinvent the company.”

He also acknowledged that Amazon expected “efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company” that would reduce the corporate workforce.

Days after massive AWS outage, some users report sequel that Amazon says is false

Amazon Web Services faced a brief wave of outage reports Wednesday, though the cloud giant said there were no such issues.

User complaints surged on tracking site DownDetector just after noon Eastern time, with most reports concentrated in the company’s US-EAST-1 region — the same area hit by technical issues last week.

AWS rejected the outage reports.

“AWS is operating normally and this reporting is incorrect,” the company said in a statement, noting that the AWS Health Dashboard showed no active incidents.

The reports coincided with connectivity problems on Microsoft’s Azure platform, though the software giant later said its networks were back to normal.

Mark Zuckerberg secretly met with AG Pam Bondi for advice on how to ‘effectively speak’ to Trump, new book claims

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg secretly met with Attorney General Pam Bondi in the spring to seek her advice on how to approach President Trump about his company’s growing legal troubles, according to a new book.

The meeting, which took place March 12 at the Department of Justice, came just hours before Zuckerberg sat down with Trump at the White House, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl wrote in his new book, “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America.”

Zuckerberg asked Bondi for guidance on how to “effectively speak” to the president about “Meta’s concerns,” according to an excerpt cited by Business Insider.

It’s not clear what advice Bondi gave the techie.

Neither Meta nor the Justice Department offered comment on the meeting when reached by The Post.

The conversation happened only weeks before the Federal Trade Commission opened its long-anticipated antitrust trial against Meta — a case that could force Zuckerberg to break apart his social media empire by spinning off Instagram and WhatsApp.

The government’s lawsuit, first filed during Trump’s first term, accuses Meta of buying rivals to crush competition in social media.

A federal judge has yet to rule on whether Meta violated antitrust laws.

Since Trump’s return to power, Zuckerberg has visited Washington, DC, several times, often turning up at high-profile White House events alongside other tech moguls.

The CEO’s charm offensive has unfolded as Meta faces multiple fronts of pressure from Washington regulators and European authorities.

The FTC has accused Meta of stifling competition, while the European Union is preparing steep fines under its Digital Markets Act targeting US tech firms for alleged anticompetitive practices.

Earlier this year, The Post reported that Zuckerberg had personally lobbied senior Trump aides to settle the FTC case before trial.

He has made at least three known trips to the White House since Trump’s inauguration and met privately with top officials, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief Stephen Miller, according to sources familiar with the visits.

Mark Zuckerberg drops in billionaire ranks after losing $29B in single day as Meta stock tanks

Tough luck, Zuck!

Mark Zuckerberg tumbled from third to fifth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after Meta’ stock plunged 11% on Thursday — wiping out $29.2 billion from his fortune in just one day.

The 41-year-old CEO’s net worth fell to $235.2 billion, his lowest ranking in nearly two years, as investors recoiled from Meta’s plan to issue $30 billion in new debt to fund artificial intelligence spending, according to Bloomberg.

The drop was the fourth-largest one-day market-driven loss ever recorded by Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Zuckerberg reportedly refused to clap Wednesday after singer Billie Eilish said at the Wall Street Journal Magazine Innovator Awards that billionaires should “give your money away.”

Meta’s steepest stock selloff since 2022 followed the company’s announcement that it would raise its total expense forecast for 2025 to as much as $118 billion — including up to $72 billion in capital expenditures — to expand its AI infrastructure, with even higher spending anticipated in 2026.

The staggering outlay triggered at least two analyst downgrades, with some warning that Meta’s AI ambitions could squeeze profits.

Zuckerberg, who saw his net worth soar by $57 billion earlier this year as Meta shares rose 28%, was leapfrogged by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google co-founder Larry Page.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sits comfortably atop the billionaires ranking, followed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

Both Bezos and Page benefited from strong earnings that drove up their companies’ stock prices.

Amazon’s shares have surged more than 30% since April amid renewed optimism about its cloud-computing unit, which has inked deals with AI startups including Anthropic.

Alphabet stock climbed 2.5% after the company posted better-than-expected third-quarter revenue, powered by demand for cloud and AI services.

Meta’s $30 billion bond sale — the biggest investment-grade offering of 2025 — was meant to bolster spending on AI, data centers and metaverse projects.

Instead, it sparked fears that the social media giant is overextending financially just as competitors gain ground in AI-driven advertising.

GATES

ON CLIMATE CHANGE]

Business leaders cheer Bill Gates ditching climate doom

After years of predicting a global warming doomsday scenario, Bill Gates is seemingly walking back those views and prioritizing innovation above alarmism.

Earlier this week, Gates released “Three Tough Truths About Climate,” a memo that marked a striking departure from his previous advocacy. He wrote that ultimately global warming “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and suggested “we should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature.”

Such sentiments mark a dramatic change from his 2021 book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” It predicted that “we are going to have a catastrophic warming of the planet” if we don’t reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Climate tech entrepreneurs and investors are cheering Gates’ new perspective.

Garrett Boudinot, founder of Vycarb, a startup developing low-carbon building materials for the construction industry, said Gates voiced something that he and his peers in clean energy have felt but haven’t seen amplified.

“He captured the optimism we know and feel,” Boudinot told me, adding that the memo “blew up [his] inbox” with interest.

He noted that potential advancements, like next-gen geothermal, an inexpensive technology harnessing the earth’s heat, seemed like far off pipe dreams not long ago. Now, they could be a reality quite soon. “These possibilities were viewed as a thing of the distant future and science fiction… they are solutions now.”

Andrew Beebe, managing director at climate technology fund Obvious Ventures, said Gates’ memo represents a crucial move away from climate paralysis.
“We’re shifting from a doomer mentality,” Beebe told me. “We can build a resilient American future … Positioning things about climate as opportunity is a better way to talk about it.”

The progress that climate innovators have made over the last few years is already visible, according to Beebe. “We are making leaps and bounds in progress at the technological level,” he said.

Implicit in the Gates memo would seem to be the idea that the private sector and free market can find solutions to climate change. It can also be viewed as an embrace of the “abundance” mindset, so popular in tech, that believes we can create solutions using human ingenuity rather than simply imposing restrictions.

After all, what is the point of innovating and striving to do better if we’re all just careening toward a fiery apocalypse?

A spokesperson for Gates denied that the memo was a reversal of his previous stance on climate change. It “remains the same as it has always been,” the spokesperson said. “The essay builds on that view. It argues that climate and development must be tackled together and that innovation is the path to achieving both.”

While critics on the right like Kari Lake and Liz Churchill have rolled their eyes that Gates has finally come around — after they were slammed as climate deniers for decades — I’d argue that his shift represents the return of reason to the dialogue and is ultimately something to be applauded.

It is also coming at a time when we shouldn’t be quibbling over the past but rather focusing on prioritizing AI innovation and keeping up with China’s efforts — a race that is fundamentally about power and energy.

RUSSIAN GIRLFRIENDS FOR TECH NERDS

Russian honeypot reveals how Putin’s sex spies seduce Silicon Valley nerds to learn secrets

A former Russian “sexpionage” trainee is warning Silicon Valley that foreign operatives are using romance scams and manufactured intimacy to pry loose trade secrets — and she’s laying out red flags she says engineers and tech executives should spot before they get burned.

Aliia Roza, a former Russian “sex spy” who defected from her native country after she fell in love with an intelligence target, told The Post in an exclusive interview that she was trained by authorities to seduce and manipulate her targets — and that she started studying the tactics as a teenager.

She says sex spies follow a sinister playbook designed to break down defenses before targets even realize they’re being hunted.

“They see the target, they need to get information,” Roza told The Post. “They need to manipulate the target, emotions, feelings, or whatever they can do, they will do it.”

Roza was responding to a recent report by the Times of London that said China and Russia were engaged in a sinister plot to deploy attractive female agents to ensnare tech executives. Russia and China have an “asymmetric advantage” since the US doesn’t use the same tactics, the report said.

Roza agreed, saying that unlike foreign governments, the US strives “to protect human rights”. The Russians and Chinese, she claimed, “manipulate their targets in a really bad way” and see their own agents as disposable.

She said the manipulation follows a predetermined script — and according to Roza, a seasoned agent never approaches cold.

“You first appear in their life — seven times, to be exact — before making contact,” she said. “You might show up at their coffee shop, their gym, or just keep liking their posts. When you finally meet, their brain already trusts you.”

Once that familiarity is built, the agent reels the target in.

“It starts with love bombing — messages full of compliments, selfies, bikini photos,” Roza explained. “They pretend to be weak or alone: ‘My parents were killed, I’m a student, I’m broke.’ It triggers the hero instinct. Every man wants to feel like the rescuer.”

Then comes what is known as the “milk technique,” she said, where operatives fake mutual connections to appear legitimate.

“The fake account follows your friends or says, ‘Bill is my brother’s friend,’ so you think, ‘OK, I can trust her.’ But it’s all fabricated.”

With trust established, the psychological manipulation escalates.

“The agent makes you doubt yourself,” Roza said. “She’ll say, ‘Your boss doesn’t appreciate you; your colleagues use you.’ It creates a bond where you feel you understand each other — and the rest of the world is bad.”

Finally, the agent begins to make threats if the desired information isn’t divulged.

INFLUENCER ON SNAP BENEFITS

Luckily, her name isn't Marie Antoniette...

Influencer calls for feeding ‘prison loaf’ to poor people instead of SNAP benefits — and sparks internet firestorm

An online influencer has sparked a firestorm debate after calling for the government to feed “prison loaf” to poor people instead of giving them SNAP benefits to buy food.

Diane Yap is going viral for suggesting that free nutraloaf — an unappetizing but nutritionally balanced mix of protein, carbs, fruits and vegetables mashed together — is the best solution to keep poor Americans from going hungry.

“The point of EBT is to ensure people don’t starve to death. That’s it. Even if we agree that’s a worthwhile goal, it can be achieved with Nutraloaf,” wrote Diane Yap, founder of the Friends of Lowell Foundation, a nonprofit formed to defend academic merit-based admissions at a top-ranked San Francisco high school.

“Nutraloaf provides the correct incentives: you won’t starve and you’ll be motivated to earn enough money to eat real food again,” she added in her viral X post.

The food, also known as “prison loaf” or “meal loaf” is often served in US prisons to inmates as punishment.

It is described as being bland in taste, but with the advantage that it contains all of the essential nutrients, while also not requiring utensils, which are often taken from unruly prisoners.

Yap suggested that many of the 42 million Americans on food stamp benefits — whose payments ran out on Saturday due to the government shutdown — are abusing the system by buying junk food or luxuries.

The average household receives $332 per month; families with kids average $574 per month in SNAP benefits.

Her viral post inspired howls of outrage from lefties online — who called her heartless.

“‘We should treat the poor like we treat misbehaving prisoners,’ is def a take I expect from u,” one X user wrote.

“They can opt out at any time by simply paying for their own food,” Yap responded.

“You’re a horrible person,” wrote a second person.

“Being poor is not a sin that must be ‘atoned’ for by suffering, you soulless ghoul,” added a third.

But others suggested Yap might be onto something.

“At any other time in history, and in much of the world today, Diane’s proposal of free nutritionally complete food would be considered extremely generous. But it’s not hot Cheeto-flavored so apparently it’s immensely cruel,” wrote one user.

Another said, “This is extreme but yes EBT should be strictly limited to rice, chicken, beans, veggie, lower carb pasta, pork to ensure people get the best value for the taxpayer buck.”