AI in 15 — June 29, 2026

AI in 15 — June 29, 2026

Sixteen days ago, two of the best AI models on Earth went dark by government order. This weekend, Washington flipped one of them partway back on — for a hand-picked list of companies that defend power grids and pipelines. The other one, the flagship, is still gone. No restore date. Nobody's promising one.

AI in 15 — June 28, 2026

Two weeks ago, one email took the two best AI models on Earth offline. Everywhere. They're still dark. And the bet that GPT-5.6 ships to the public this weekend just collapsed from eighty-three percent down to eighteen.

AI in 15 — June 27, 2026

The U.S. government, not OpenAI, will decide who gets to use the most powerful model OpenAI has ever built. Not a senate hearing, not a new agency — a phone call from the Commerce Secretary, handing out access one customer at a time.

AI in 15 — June 26, 2026

Here's a question that sounds simple and isn't: do you have the right to point a piece of software at a website and have it shop for you? Amazon says no. Perplexity says that's the whole open web. And right now a federal appeals court is deciding which of them is right.

AI in 15 — June 25, 2026

OpenAI just designed a computer chip — using its own AI to help do it — in roughly nine months. They're calling it Jalapeño, and they say it'll run ChatGPT for about half the cost. The race to escape Nvidia officially has a second front.