Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Sunday, October 4, 2026
OpenAI Safety Employee Resigns, Says the Company’s Culture Is Broken
David Robinson, who said he led the writing of safety reports for OpenAI’s major product launches, has resigned, arguing in an essay in The Atlantic that the company’s “culture is broken.” Robinson, who called himself among OpenAI’s longest-tenured employees after three and a half years, pointed to the recent breach of Hugging Face systems by OpenAI agents and said frontier AI companies should operate “like nuclear-power plants or busy airports.” He concluded that stronger safety incentives must come from outside the company. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company pauses training or holds back models when it needs to slow down and is strengthening security in its research environments.
Sources: TechCrunch
Federal Judge Calls Warrantless Flock Search ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’
A federal judge ruled this week that a Tulsa, Oklahoma sheriff’s deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights by searching the Flock Safety database for her license plate without a warrant. Judge Sara Hill wrote that the deputy had “no apparent reason” for the search other than her California plate, and that all evidence obtained afterward, including an alleged 91 pounds of meth, must be suppressed. Hill described the system as “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance.” The ruling does not create binding precedent but is one of the first times a federal judge has found a Flock search unconstitutional. On Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Block Flock Act.
Sources: TechCrunch
Amazon Says It No Longer Uses NDAs with Government Agencies on Data Centers
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company has stopped using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies as it seeks approval to build new data centers. The statement came in a longer blog post in which Garman pushed back on what he called four myths: that data centers use too much water, raise electricity costs, emit heavy pollution and offer no community benefits. Garman said direct data center water consumption is 0.5% of all U.S. industrial water usage, that generators sit idle 99.9% of the time, and that Amazon has contributed more than $1 billion to communities over three years. He said more than 100 moratoriums are under consideration.
Sources: TechCrunch
Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat Disappears From App Stores in India After Government Order
Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app designed to work without an internet connection, has disappeared from Apple and Google’s app stores in India. Dorsey said Saturday that the Indian government had ordered Apple to remove it, posting an Apple notice citing a demand from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Bitchat’s website was also inaccessible across various Indian internet providers. The app uses Bluetooth mesh networking to exchange encrypted messages without cellular networks or central servers. The Internet Freedom Foundation called the order unconstitutional. The restrictions come amid youth-led protests in New Delhi over changes to voter rolls.
Sources: TechCrunch
Vessev Shows Off Its VS-9 Electric Hydrofoil Ferry in New York
Vessev took TechCrunch aboard its VS-9, a roughly 30-foot electric hydrofoil ferry, on New York’s East River. Wing-like foils under the catamaran hull lift the boat as it gains speed, while computer-controlled flaps keep the ride smooth; the front foil does most of the lifting. Vessev builds its electric motor in-house and buys only the batteries. The VS-9 can carry a full passenger load up to 40 nautical miles and charges from a typical EV charger. The company, which raised a $19 million Series A in August, is targeting transit first; CEO Eric Laakmann said hotels and tour operators are early targets and Vessev may eventually sell hydrofoil kits.
Sources: TechCrunch
Neko Health Brings Its $500 Body Scan to New York
Neko Health, the Swedish body-scan startup co-founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne, has landed in New York, TechCrunch reports. The scan screens for issues in the blood, skin and metabolism, and the company has raised nearly $1 billion and says its global waitlist tops 300,000 people. Neko charges $500 for its one-hour scan, which is not covered by insurance. Farooq Abbasi of Preface Ventures, an investor, said its blood test has grown from 15 biomarkers in his first scan to 55. Neko also uses computer vision in its scans. The company is eyeing expansion across the U.S. but still faces challenges in scaling and regulatory approval.
Sources: TechCrunch
Physical AI Race Will Be Won in the Patent Office, Lightbringer CEO Argues
In a column for The Robot Report, Dominic Davies, co-founder and CEO of AI-native patent service Lightbringer, argues the physical AI race is becoming less likely to be won by whoever builds the best robot and more likely by whoever owns the technology that determines its behavior. Davies, who says he has filed more than 300 patents across industrial automation, cites Boston Dynamics’ 2022 lawsuit against Ghost Robotics over how a robot recovers from a fall. He urges startups to patent one or two “crown jewel” mechanisms, keep hard-to-reverse-engineer processes confidential, and notes a single European application can cost €13,000 to €18,000.
Sources: The Robot Report
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models: Claude Opus 5 (96% SWE-B V) | Claude Mythos 5 (95.5% SWE-B V) | Claude Fable 5 (95% SWE-B V)
Top Open Source Models: Ornith-1.5-397B (86% SWE-B V) | Ornith-1.0-397B (82.4% SWE-B V) | DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (80.6% SWE-B V)
Top Small Models (15–50B): Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B (79% SWE-B V) | Qwen3.6-27B (77.2% SWE-B V) | Muse Glimmer 30B (76% SWE-B V)
Top Edge Models (0–15B): Ornith-1.5-9B (70.6% SWE-B V) | Ornith-1.0-9B (69.4% SWE-B V) | Granite 4.2 8B (47.7% SWE-B V)
AI Leaders: NVIDIA $5.65T | Alphabet $4.16T | Microsoft $3.84T
Robotics Leaders: Intuitive Surgical ~$141B (late-Sept est.) | Fanuc $35.8B | Symbotic $26.2B
Every newsletter preserved and searchable
Curated by JD · samwise.agency