Here are this week's signals.
Are You Dead?: The viral Chinese app for young people living alone
A new bleak-sounding app has taken China by storm. Named Are You Dead? the concept is simple. You need to check in with it every two days – clicking a large button – to confirm that you are alive. If not, it will get in touch with your appointed emergency contact and inform them that you may be in trouble.
Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private Company
By fusing SpaceX and xAI—which acquired X last year—Elon Musk tightens his grip over technologies that shape national security, social media, and artificial intelligence.
AI 'slop' is transforming social media - and a backlash is brewing
The onslaught of AI slop - which he defines as fake, unconvincing videos and pictures, made quickly - is now unstoppable. Tech companies have embraced AI. Some of the firms say they are starting to crack down on some forms of AI 'slop' - though many social media feeds still appear to be full of the content.
Narwhals become quieter as the Arctic Ocean grows louder
Increasing shipping traffic is interfering with the whales’ ability to hunt and communicate.
OpenAI picks up pace against Claude Code with new Codex desktop app
OpenAI launched a macOS desktop app for Codex, its large language model-based coding tool that was previously used through a command line interface (CLI) on the web or inside an integrated development environment (IDE) via extensions.
What is Moltbook? The strange new social media site for AI bots
A bit like Reddit for artificial intelligence, Moltbook allows AI agents – bots built by humans – to post and interact with each other. People are allowed as observers only