Rumors I’ve been hearing. I’ll start with OpenAI, then Anthropic. OpenAI: The internal model’s reasoning jump comes from more aggressive RL, including training in games and simulated environments. Strategies learned there transfer to research mathematics and other fields. Navier–Stokes and ETH show the scale of the improvement. The clue is in the Synthetic RL hiring: self-play, simulators, and synthetic feedback. Anthropic: Same direction with its internal Claude model. It’s trained on long, difficult tasks in demanding environments, and the reasoning skills transfer to other fields. Its ETH result shows how far the improvement has gone. The earlier Universes listing and the RL hiring around mathematical reasoning align with that. Musk’s Digital Optimus hiring explicitly calls for measuring transfer from games into general computer use. That’s why his game-playing AI push matters: games develop abilities that work far beyond the games themselves. The interesting part is where those abilities show up. Each lab’s internal model applies reasoning developed through interactive training to mathematical problems that had resisted decades of work.

Rumors persist that Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton will be named as the White House SI Czar by the end of the week. He told CNBC this morning that 'Super Intelligence is a national security issue.' He does not appear to be a fan of Pacing the Frontier.

Rumors of Negotiations Pull Oil Prices Down The simultaneous publication of positive news regarding Iran-US negotiations and the potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz once again impacted the oil market and drove prices down. Most recently, Kyodo and Reuters, citing Iranian sources, claimed that Tehran is prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 7 days if US military pressure is reduced and port blockades are lifted—a report that was accompanied by a drop in oil prices. However, Iranian sources have declared these reports to be invalid and incorrect. This occurred as oil prices dropped by about 3% yesterday, coinciding with a Pakistani official's visit to Tehran, bringing Brent down to the $100 range. The repetition of this trend—from the release of positive negotiation news alongside diplomatic maneuvers to the drop in oil prices—has turned into a recurring scenario. Under such circumstances, Iranian officials must remain vigilant and cautious regarding the consequences of publishing these narratives and their impact on the oil market.