Techmeme: Q&A with Demis Hassabis about how Google I/O became the Gemini show, Google getting “AGI-pilled”, Project Astra, Sergey Brin's shorter AGI timelines, and more (New York Times)

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May 23, 2025, 11:20 PM

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Jesse Pound / CNBC:

Trump says a 25%+ tariff “must be paid by Apple” on iPhones not made in the US, and he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US — President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

More: CNN, Reuters, MacRumors, Ars Technica, BBC, Financial Times, Engadget, ZDNET, MacRumors, Variety, Fast Company, The Guardian, CNBC, The Hill, Wall Street Journal, Android Police, Wall Street Journal, Times of India, NBC News, Tom's Hardware, 9to5Mac, The Verge, CNBC, The Economic Times, New York Times, CNBC, CBS News, Bloomberg, PhoneArena, How-To Geek, CNN, South China Morning Post, Gizmodo, FOX13 Memphis, Axios, Spyglass, Daring Fireball, AppleInsider, Sci-Tech, Raw Story, Inc, iDrop News, USA Today, NBC News, CBS News, The Information, GuruFocus, The US Sun, Los Angeles Times, Wccftech, Deseret News, Fortune, TradingView, TECHi, Investor's Business Daily, CBS News, Fox Business, Baller Alert, Financial Times, iPhone in Canada, SiliconANGLE, Reason, New York Times, AppleInsider, Yahoo Finance, Cryptopolitan, Barron's Online, Newsweek, Memphis Commercial Appeal, The Verge, Times of India, Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, Watcher Guru, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Post, Mashable, USA Today, Daily Kos, CBS News, Al Jazeera, CBS News, Gizmodo, Time, Investopedia, The Economic Times, BetaNews, Fortune, Metro.co.uk, Bloomberg, Neowin, PhoneArena, RetailWire, Associated Press, Techstrong IT, iDownloadBlog.com, People, UPI, CNET, Pocket-lint, PetaPixel, Cult of Mac, TechCentral.ie, Times of India, Newser, Semafor, Breitbart, Fox Business, TechSpot, Townhall, ABC News, CNBC, Newsweek, Fortune, The Wrap, Mobile World Live, Fierce Electronics, Yahoo Finance, Patently Apple, The Independent, Rolling Stone, 9to5Mac, Forbes, Investor's Business Daily, TechCrunch, Analytics India Magazine, MeidasTouch News, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Macworld, Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, MarketWatch, New York Times, Fox Business, Quartz, City A.M., The Guardian, The Indian Express, Fortune India, NewsNation, The Hill, The Irish Times, Inc42 Media, New Republic, Associated Press, FreightWaves, Business Insider, Gulf News, and Benzinga

Bluesky: @quillmatiq.com, @craigipedia, @tomcoates, @ericfoltz, @tomcoates, @petertl, @timeforchange, and @mrsdeborahlynn. Truth Social: @realDonaldTrump …. Mastodon: @cafechatnoir@mastodon.social

X: @mingchikuo, @truthtrumpposts, @pitdesi, @spencerhakimian, @atabarrok, @devahaz, @mgsiegler, @rolfewinkler, @markgurman, @zacksjerryrig, @pkafka, @rakeshsfnyc, @atrupar, and @tomwarren

Bloomberg:

President Trump says that the tariffs he has threatened against Apple would also be aimed at “Samsung and anybody that makes that product” — “It would be more,” Trump said when asked at the White House whether his tariff threat would only apply to Apple.

Financial Times:

Sources: Oracle will spend ~$40B on ~400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips and lease them to OpenAI at its 1.2GW Texas data center, billed as the first US Stargate project — The 1.2 gigawatts infrastructure project will be one of the largest in the world — Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT …

More: PYMNTS.com, Reuters, WebProNews, SiliconANGLE, ZeroHedge News, TipRanks Financial, Wall Street Pit, and CNBC

Bluesky: @edzitron.com and @edzitron.com

X: @elonmusk and @sundeep

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Tim Cook called Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week urging a veto or changes to a bill that would require Apple to verify users' ages on its devices — Apple's CEO called Greg Abbott after law passed requiring app stores to verify user ages — Apple stepped up efforts in recent weeks …

More: 9to5Mac, NewsMax.com, PhoneArena, The Mac Observer, New York Post, iPhone in Canada, AppleInsider, The Verge, Yahoo Finance, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Michael Tsai, and MacTech.com

Bluesky: @peark.es. Threads: @documentingmeta. X: @amrithramkumar, @meghanbobrowsky, @zerohedge, @schilling1776, @taylorlorenz, and @zamaan_qureshi

Forums: r/technology and r/apple

Bloomberg:

Sources: Salesforce is in talks to acquire cloud data management company Informatica, reviving discussions that stalled in 2024; INFA closes up 17.45% — If a deal is reached, it could be announced as soon as next week, according to the people, who asked to not be identified because the discussions are private.

More: SiliconANGLE, The Information, Reuters, MarketWatch, and Barron's Online. LinkedIn: Brody Ford

Kylie Robison / Wired:

A look at Anthropic's first developer conference, where CPO Mike Krieger said 70%+ of Anthropic's code pull requests are now written by their AI model Claude — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said everything human workers do now will eventually be done by AI systems.

More: ZDNET, Business Insider, and Inc

Bluesky: @edzitron.com, @karlbode.com, @kylierobison.com, and @stevekovach

X: @kyliebytes, @kyliebytes, @kylebrussell, and @alexalbert__

Emma Roth / The Verge:

CEO Anil Dash says Glitch will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8; Glitch launched in March 2017, and Fastly acquired it in May 2022 — The collaborative coding platform will no longer host projects starting July 8th. … Glitch, the coding platform where developers …

More: Glitch Blog, Tech in Asia, and The Register

Bluesky: @schul.dev, @pomdtr.me, @fionawh.im, @kylebrussell, @kylebrussell, @taggart-tech.com, @jos1264.social …, @waxy.org, @pvh.ca, and @anildash.com

Mastodon: @mttaggart@infosec.exchange and @TheRealPomax@mastodon.social. X: @kylebrussell

Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot

Wall Street Journal:

Trump hosted a gala dinner for top buyers of $TRUMP, including Justin Sun, and said he was fulfilling his promise to make the US the world's “crypto capital” — The president hosted the biggest investors in his memecoin at his golf club outside Washington

More: Wired, NBC News, NBC News, New York Times, Reuters, Mediaite, New Republic, MSNBC, The Block, Business Insider, Gizmodo, South China Morning Post, Fox News, and PREVAIL

Bluesky: @repcasar, @jtheman, @mrsdeborahlynn, @thacalebdume, @lesleyabravanel, @hollia, @kevincollier, and @bethtoja

Mastodon: @GottaLaff@mstdn.social and @cbarbermd@med-mastodon.com

X: @calltoactivism, @chrismurphyct, @eleanorterrett, @mikeisaac, @wutangkids, @danprimack, @krassenstein, @nprinskeep, @pitdesi, @darrigomelanie, @giantbabycorn, @adamscochran, and @themainewonk

Forums: r/politics, r/inthenews, and r/politics

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan used an AI avatar for his initial comments on Zoom's Q1 earnings call on May 21; Klarna's CEO used an AI avatar to deliver earnings on May 19 — CEOs are now so immersed in AI, they're sending their avatars to address quarterly earnings calls instead of themselves, at least partially.

More: TechCrunch, Livemint, and Business Today

Bluesky: @carnage4life and @prietschka

X: @brij, @klarnaseb, @thetranscript_, and @thetranscript_

LinkedIn: Georg Zoeller, Ilana C. Alberico, and Matthew Moynahan. Forums: r/technology

New York Times:

Q&A with Demis Hassabis about how Google I/O became the Gemini show, Google getting “AGI-pilled”, Project Astra, Sergey Brin's shorter AGI timelines, and more — A few years ago, most Google executives didn't talk about A.G.I. — artificial general intelligence, the industry term for a human-level A.I. system.

More: Benzinga and Blockchain.News

Bluesky: @dell. X: @sama, @vitrupo, @modestproposal1, @modestproposal1, @demishassabis, and @officiallogank

Reuters:

Sources: DOGE is using a customized Grok to analyze US government data, including at DHS where it has not been approved, raising security and privacy concerns — Billionaire Elon Musk's DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the U.S. federal government to analyze data …

More: Wired, Wired, Ars Technica, Raw Story, The Independent, Cryptopolitan, New Republic, and PhoneArena

Bluesky: @katie-drummond, @moreperfectunion, @brbarrett, @originalsp.in, @leahmcelrath, @rimaanabtawi, @stopspyingny, @mollymckew, @amysiskind.com, @dek1, @marypcbuk, @brunojnavarro, @richburroughs.dev, @karenavo, @karenavo, @texasyankee, @stahl, and @justinhendrix

Mastodon: @bruno_j_navarro … and @Gurre@mastodon.nu. Threads: @kolchak

X: @birdyword and @moreperfectus

Forums: r/TrueReddit, r/fednews, r/politics, r/technology, and r/feddiscussion

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on the trade-offs with Route Share, Uber's business structure, autonomous vehicles, working with fleet operators, and more — Today, I'm talking with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. We recorded this conversation the day Uber announced a big set of product updates …

Bluesky: @edzitron.com, @martinsfp, @marypcbuk, and @reckless

X: @sarthakgh, @sarthakgh, @dannyocean555, and @laurakmiller. Forums: r/SelfDrivingCars

Joseph Menn / Washington Post:

Experts say some Trump officials' plans to amp up cyberattacks against China would risk retaliation the US is increasingly unprepared for amid budget cuts — Some Trump administration officials want to hit back at China for its hacks on U.S. infrastructure — a risky strategy, experts say, amid budget reductions.

Bluesky: @joemenn. LinkedIn: Dave Schroeder and J. Michael Daniel

Bloomberg:

Sources: CommScope is exploring a sale of its broadband connectivity and cable arm CCS for up to $10B, seeking to unload assets to repay debt — The company is working with an adviser to gauge buyer interest in the business, known as CCS, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

More: Reuters

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

RevenueCat, which offers tools for devs to add subscriptions to their apps, raised a $50M Series C led by Bain Capital Ventures, valuing the company at $500M — RevenueCat, a company so tied to the mobile economy that now one-in-three new subscription apps launch with its software under the hood, is preparing to expand its business.

More: Business Wire, Reuters, Bain Capital Ventures, Axios, PYMNTS.com, FinSMEs, and RevenueCat Blog

X: @elwatto, @jasonlk, and @emcro

LinkedIn: Jacob Eiting, Bain Capital Ventures, Jacob Eiting, and Matt Berry

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”, after CBS aired a Late Show rerun in which Colbert mocked Trump

Henry Blodget / Regenerator:

Bari Weiss' 60 Minutes decision may have been a way to both signal that she's serious about shifting CBS' sensibility to the right and “improve” a story

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:

Disney crosses the $6B milestone at the box office for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic; no other studio has managed to reach $6B since 2015

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More News

Bloomberg:

A US judge vacates Avraham Eisenberg's convictions for fraud and manipulation related to a $110M theft on Mango Markets in 2022 due to insufficient evidence

Katie Roof / Bloomberg:

CB Insights: OpenAI's acquisition of Jony Ive's io for $6.5B sets a new record for venture-backed acquisition by a private buyer

X: @katie_roof. LinkedIn: Katie Roof

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

OpenAI says Operator, its AI agent that can use the web to perform tasks, will soon use a model based on o3 after previously using a custom version of GPT-4o

More: BleepingComputer, OpenAI, and VentureBeat

X: @openai, @reiinakano, @sama, and @danshipper

Hugh Son / CNBC:

Monarch, which makes a personal finance app, raised a $75M Series B at a $850M valuation, says its subscribers grew by 20x since Intuit closed Mint in 2023

More: Monarch Money and PYMNTS.com

LinkedIn: Wesley Chan and Christina L.. Forums: r/MonarchMoney

Todd Spangler / Variety:

First Lady Melania Trump releases an audiobook of her memoir, with her “official AI voice” created by ElevenLabs, available exclusively in the ElevenReader app

More: Mashable, HOLA!, Cryptopolitan, Washington Times, and The Daily Beast

Bluesky: @harlanbelle. Forums: r/technology

Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Discord SVP Peter Sellis says the app is exploring forums and LLM-powered summaries to make discussions easy to follow and shareable outside the platform

More: TechCrunch and Neowin

Bluesky: @dryad.technology and @jaypeters.net. Mastodon: @mcc@mastodon.social

Francesca Stevens / Bloomberg:

Vietnam orders ISPs to block Telegram for allegedly failing to stop illegal content and “anti-government” activities being carried out by its users on its app

More: Reuters. X: @durov

Harry McCracken / Fast Company:

An interview with Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood about diversifying Roku's business beyond hardware, its services business, the Roku Channel, ads, and more

Bluesky: @harrymccracken.com. Mastodon: @joesteel@duck.haus. LinkedIn: Sarah Saul, Jason Korosec, Sarah Novatt, and Jack Evans