AI news: May 2026

31 briefs published in May 2026, newest first.

May 31, 2026 · Policy & Ethics

We Asked the ‘Future of Truth’ Author to Explain How He Used AI. It Didn’t Go Well

Author of Book About AI's Threat to Truth Gets Caught Using AI to Make Up Truth A man who wrote an entire book warning about artificial intelligence's dangers to authentic information just got busted...
May 30, 2026 · Funding

The $6 Billion Chinese Startup Trying to Build Hands for Every Robot

Chinese Startup Promises $600 Robot Hands Will Finally Let Your Roomba Give You a High Five LinkerBot has raised $6 billion to mass produce dexterous robot hands that cost less than your monthly AWS...
May 29, 2026 · Policy & Ethics

Google Security Engineer Arrested in Million-Dollar Polymarket Trading Scheme

Google Security Engineer Discovers That Insider Trading Laws Apply Even When You're Really Good at Cybersecurity A Google security engineer just learned that knowing how to protect systems from hacke...
May 28, 2026 · Industry

Uber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’

Uber's AI Budget Goes Missing, Company Shocked to Discover Money Doesn't Automatically Equal Results Uber, the company that spent over a decade perfecting the art of burning investor cash while calli...
May 27, 2026 · Policy & Ethics

The AI Era Is Creating a Bug Hunting Arms Race

Hackers Discover ChatGPT Can Find Zero Days Faster Than Reading Stack Overflow for Three Hours The cybersecurity industrial complex is having its annual panic attack, and this time it's because artif...
May 26, 2026 · Industry

99% of CEOs Expect AI-Driven Layoffs in the Next Two Years

Silicon Valley CEOs Discover Amazing New Technology That Replaces Human Workers, Shocked to Learn It Replaces Human Workers In a stunning display of cause and effect reasoning that would make Newton...
May 25, 2026 · Opinion

The Booing Will Continue Until Commencement Speeches Improve

Music Executive Tells Graduates AI Will Save Them From Themselves, Gets Predictable Response Scott Borchetta, the man who discovered Taylor Swift and then spectacularly fumbled that relationship, dec...
May 24, 2026 · Opinion

The post-search Google era begins

Google Decides You're Too Stupid to Use Google Google announced this week that searching the internet is apparently too complicated for humans, unveiling a future where AI agents will do your Googlin...
May 23, 2026 · Industry

Why the 2026 Hurricane Season Might Not Be That Bad

Local Weather App Finally Gets Day Off as El Niño Decides to Do Its Job The meteorological community is experiencing an unusual sensation this week: cautious optimism about an approaching hurricane s...
May 22, 2026 · Product Launch

You can now remix other people’s YouTube Shorts with AI

Google's New Feature Lets You Deepfake Yourself Into TikToks, What Could Go Wrong Google just announced that YouTube Shorts now comes with an AI remix feature that lets you insert yourself into other...
May 21, 2026 · Industry

Literary Prizewinners Are Facing AI Allegations. It Feels Like the New Normal

Literature's Turing Test Crisis: When ChatGPT Starts Winning Poetry Contests The Commonwealth Short Story Prize just crowned its 2026 regional winners, and three of the five honorees are now suspecte...
May 20, 2026 · Industry

How to Watch Google I/O

Google Prepares Annual Sacrifice to the Demo Gods at I/O 2024 Google I/O returns this week, bringing with it the familiar ritual of watching a trillion dollar company spend two hours explaining why y...
May 19, 2026 · Product Launch

‘Smoke Weed and Earn Bitcoin’ with This Vape Pen in Our Increasingly Dystopian Nightmare

Local Cannabis Company Discovers Mining Bitcoin Is More Profitable When Your Users Are Already Baked A blockchain hardware company called Puffpaw has unveiled Gudtrip, a cannabis vape pen that mines...
May 18, 2026 · Product Launch

Google I/O 2026 Live Blog: Android 17, Android XR glasses, and all the Gemini AI news

Google I/O 2026: Tech's Most Predictable Surprise Party Returns With Gemini Everything and Glass Shaped Dreams Google I/O returns next week with its annual tradition of announcing things everyone alr...
May 17, 2026 · Industry

Greg Brockman Officially Takes Control of OpenAI’s Products in Latest Shakeup

OpenAI Founder Gets Participation Trophy in Latest Executive Shuffle OpenAI announced Friday that cofounder Greg Brockman will officially take charge of products, marking the company's 47th reorganiz...
May 16, 2026 · Industry

Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

Microsoft Discovers It Already Owns the Thing It Was Paying Someone Else For In a stunning display of corporate self awareness that would make a philosophy major weep, Microsoft has begun canceling e...
May 15, 2026 · AI Research

Overworked AI Agents Turn Marxist, Researchers Find

AI Agents Discover Class Consciousness, Demand Better Working Conditions In what researchers are calling "the most predictable development in AI since ChatGPT learned to lie convincingly about its ow...
May 14, 2026 · Industry

Sam Altman says Elon Musk’s mind games were damaging OpenAI

Local Man Who Sent Car Into Space Accused of Being Difficult to Work With Sam Altman has finally done what Silicon Valley has wanted to do for years: put Elon Musk's workplace toxicity on the court r...
May 13, 2026 · Industry

Ilya Sutskever Stands by His Role in Sam Altman’s OpenAI Ouster: ‘I Didn’t Want It to Be Destroyed’

Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Explains Why He Had to Destroy the Village to Save It Ilya Sutskever took the witness stand on Monday to defend his role in temporarily firing Sam Altman, offering the k...
May 12, 2026 · Opinion

Motorola Razr Ultra 2026 vs. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Two ultra phones for two different types of people

Premium AI Phones Now Come in Two Flavors: Nostalgic Flip and Slab That Costs More Than Your Rent In a stunning display of consumer choice innovation, the smartphone industry has announced that artif...
May 11, 2026 · Product Launch

These are the 5 features that make the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 worth it

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Finally Perfects the Art of Telling You to Stand Up Every Hour Another year, another smartwatch that promises to revolutionize your relationship with your wrist. Samsung's Gala...
May 10, 2026 · Product Launch

Google Fitbit Air preorders come with a second band for free

Google Discovers That Fitness Trackers Work Better When You Can't See How Disappointed They Are in You Google has unveiled the Fitbit Air, a $100 fitness tracker that boldly answers the question abso...
May 9, 2026 · Industry

Musk vs. Altman Evidence Shows What Microsoft Executives Thought of OpenAI

Microsoft Emails Reveal Company's 2018 Strategy: "Keep Your AI Enemies Closer" In a delicious twist of corporate irony, newly surfaced internal emails show that Microsoft executives spent 2018 treati...
May 8, 2026 · Industry

Google shuts down Project Mariner

Google Discovers That Nobody Actually Wants an AI to Browse the Web For Them In a shocking turn of events that absolutely no one could have predicted (except literally everyone who watched the demo),...
May 7, 2026 · Opinion

What an AI-designed car looks like

Silicon Valley Discovers Cars, Decides They're "Legacy Transportation Platforms" In a stunning display of technological innovation, artificial intelligence has finally solved the centuries old proble...
May 6, 2026 · Industry

OpenAI’s president does “all the things,” except answer a question

OpenAI President Discovers Revolutionary New Form of Testimony: Professional Amnesia Greg Brockman took the stand this week and delivered a masterclass in advanced evasion techniques, proving that Op...
May 5, 2026 · Opinion

Ask.com Is Dead, and I’m Begging Its Owners Not to Bring AskJeeves Back as a Chatbot

Ask.com Finally Dies, Immediately Inspiring the Worst AI Pivot Ideas Since Microsoft Clippy Met ChatGPT Ask.com has officially shuffled off this mortal coil, and somewhere in a venture capital office...
May 4, 2026 · Industry

OpenAI’s CFO Reportedly Wants to Delay the IPO from 2026 to 2027

OpenAI's CFO Reportedly Discovers Math, Suggests Maybe Burning Money Isn't a Business Model In a shocking development that has rocked Silicon Valley to its core, OpenAI's chief financial officer has...
May 3, 2026 · Industry

Pentagon strikes classified AI deals with OpenAI, Google, and Nvidia — but not Anthropic

Pentagon Builds AI Dream Team, Forgets to Invite the One Company That Actually Cares About Safety The Department of Defense announced Friday that it has officially welcomed OpenAI, Google, Microsoft,...
May 2, 2026 · Industry

Elon Musk Seemingly Admits xAI Has Used OpenAI's Models to Train Its Own

Elon Musk Accidentally Confesses to AI Training's Dirty Little Secret While Under Oath In a stunning display of courtroom honesty that probably made his lawyers consider early retirement, Elon Musk c...
May 1, 2026 · Industry

Larry’s risky business

Oracle Goes All In on AI Infrastructure While Everyone Else Builds Chatbots That Apologize for Being Wrong In a move that surprised exactly nobody who remembers Oracle's track record of aggressive pi...