Anti-AI anger hits Sam Altman's front door

Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. Last week, OpenAI published a 13-page policy doc warning that AI could reshape society faster than anyone has prepared for. Days later, someone tried to set Sam Altman's house on fire.

The 20-year-old suspect reportedly believed AI would lead to human extinction — and while the attack was criminal, the anxiety behind it isn’t fringe. With societal changes just beginning, anger like this also isn’t going away soon.

In today’s AI rundown:

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The Rundown: A 20-year-old was arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home and threatening to burn down OpenAI's HQ, with Altman publishing a personal essay reflecting on AI's stakes, his own mistakes, and calling for de-escalation.

The details:

Why it matters: Anti-AI sentiment is going mainstream fast — and OAI and Altman, who himself called the fear "justified," have become the face of the tech for people to direct their anger at. Unfortunately, with 4 in 5 Americans now worried about AI and society’s transformation just beginning, that anger isn’t going away soon.

The Rundown: Whether you're building AI agents, running a storefront, or enabling commerce infrastructure, Visa’s Intelligent Commerce Connect provides a single, protocol-agnostic on-ramp into the emerging world of agent-driven transactions.

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The Rundown: The Rundown Roundtable is a weekly feature where we poll members of The Rundown staff about how we use AI in our work and daily lives.

Shubham, Editor: I used Perplexity to find the right earbuds for my iPhone, mainly for light music and calls. It compared AirPods 4, Pro 2, Pro 3, Beats Fit Pro, and Nothing Ear models, breaking down ANC, call quality, Apple ecosystem features, and prices.

It helped me see that AirPods Pro 2 gave me everything I needed—strong noise cancellation, seamless pairing, and Spatial Audio—without paying extra for Pro 3 or Beats' upgrades I wouldn't use much.

Jennifer, Tech & Robotics Writer: My first media job was as a fact-checker at a major magazine. Those jobs have already mostly vanished before AI arrived, but now I use ChatGPT 5.4 Thinking as a last-pass fact-checker on my newsletters before I hit send.

I’ll ask it to identify inconsistencies, isolate the assertions that most need verification, and check key numbers, quotes, and factual claims against original or primary sources. In other words, it does not replace reporting, but it is remarkably good at stress-testing a draft before publication — essentially fact-checking my fact-checking.

The Rundown: In this guide, you will learn how to turn raw research into an editable infographic using Perplexity, Gemini, and Canva Magic Layers, going from a data-heavy topic to a graphic you can fix and ship instead of rebuilding manually.

Step-by-step:

Pro tip: Skip the research step when you already have a memo, case study, or report. Feed it into Perplexity or Gemini and turn the strongest data into an infographic prompt.

The Rundown: Bland AI just launched Norm, a voice AI assistant that lets anyone create a fully functional phone agent by simply describing what they need. Just tell Norm what you want, and it generates the prompt, agent logic, conditions, and integrations instantly.

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The Rundown: Penn researchers published a study that fed over 400K Reddit posts about Ozempic and Mounjaro into AI models using a technique called “computational social listening”, pulling out side effects that clinical trials hadn’t caught.

The details:

Why it matters: AI is compressing parts of the drug discovery process, but it’s also increasing the novelty of what’s entering the market, making side effects harder to catch. Reddit is not a peer-reviewed journal, but thousands flagging similar symptoms is hard to dismiss — and LLMs just made it possible to listen at that scale.

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Alibaba revealed it is behind "HappyHorse," the unreleased video AI model that debuted atop global rankings and knocked ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 to second place.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Powell summoned Wall Street CEOs to an urgent meeting over cyber risks posed by Anthropic's Mythos model.

Meta is reportedly hiring recently departed OAI Stargate execs, with Peter Hoeschele, Shamez Hemani, and Anuj Saharan joining to help build the new Meta Compute group.

Anthropic hosted Christian leaders at its HQ for a summit on Claude's moral development, covering grief responses, whether AI could be a "child of God,” and more.

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Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Elle W. in Ontario, Canada:

"After two years of chronic lower back pain and no answers from specialists, I was stuck. Despite X-rays and MRIs showing osteoarthritis and degenerative discs—common findings that didn't explain my specific agony—physiotherapy and shots failed. The medical field offered suggestions, but no solutions.

I fed my symptoms, imaging, and history into Gemini to find the root cause. Together, we pinpointed the exact triggers. It built a targeted exercise program and a four-month recovery plan with weekly milestones. Now, at 3.5 months, my pain is nearly gone. Where humans couldn't help, Gemini’s ability to troubleshoot and analyze my data finally gave me my life back. I am incredibly grateful for this healing journey."

How do you use AI? Tell us here.

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown