Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Effortless AI design for presentations, websites, and more with Gamma - https://try.gamma.app/tad - Consensus: AI for Research. Get a free month - https://get.consensus.app/automated_daily - Lindy is your ultimate AI assistant that proactively manages your inbox - https://try.lindy.ai/tad Today's topics: PHP Exploits Hit Public Services - Banks, airlines, railways and tax authorities in several countries shut down or isolated websites as attackers exploited a critical PHP vulnerability, exposing systemic internet infrastructure risk. AI Uncovers Surge of Vulnerabilities - AI tools are helping security researchers find far more software vulnerabilities, with recent disclosures in PHP, Node.js, Plex, LiteLLM, Railway and certificate infrastructure raising fears of more outages. Claude Proves Code Mathematically Safe - Anthropic and Theorem used Claude to produce machine-checked formal verification proofs for 123 open-source libraries, finding real memory-safety bugs along the way. AI Spending Fears Sink Nasdaq - The Nasdaq fell 2.6%, its worst day since June, as chipmakers and AI stocks slid on doubts about returns from massive AI infrastructure spending and rising financing costs. Meta Non-Voting Shares, Tesla Cash - Meta stock dropped 7% after plans to issue non-voting shares and its first cash outflow in over a decade, while Tesla posted surprise positive free cash flow and cut 2026 capex. China Clears DeepSeek, MiniMax Abroad - Chinese state media say DeepSeek and MiniMax won approval to deploy AI models internationally, signaling Beijing's backing for AI exports and sharper competition with US labs. OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers - OpenAI dismissed three safety researchers over alleged mishandling of sensitive model information after finding disappearing Signal messages with an outside AI safety researcher. Anthropic Replaces Git With Scion - Anthropic moved its monorepo off Git to a custom source control system called Scion, plus a code review tool called Antique, as AI-assisted merges jumped past 30,000 per day. Pichai on AI Building AI - Google CEO Sundar Pichai said AI agents already help researchers develop new models, but self-improving AI remains far from mature. SpaceX Pursues Fourth Wireless Carrier - SpaceX is negotiating to lease at least 80,000 US cell tower sites from Crown Castle and others to complement Starlink direct-to-phone service and become a fourth national carrier. Warhound Gene-Edited Military Dogs - Warhound, founded by Colossal's Ben Lamm and Anduril's Palmer Luckey, launched with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for military and law enforcement. L3Harris Expands Rocket Motor Production - L3Harris opened an Arkansas solid-rocket motor facility expected to help double production capacity for Lockheed Martin's GMLRS rocket artillery system. Moderna-Merck Melanoma Vaccine Results - Moderna and Merck's personalized mRNA cancer vaccine intismeran, combined with Keytruda, cut melanoma recurrence or death risk by 42% in a Phase 3 trial. JPEG XL Lands in Chrome, Firefox - JPEG XL now has support in Chrome and Firefox, boosting the image format's prospects with lossless JPEG transcoding, HDR, transparency and strong compression. Engineers Become AI Supervisors - Essays argue AI is turning software engineering into supervisory work and that slow software stems from poor design rather than slow programming languages. Episode Transcript PHP Exploits Hit Public Services Let's start with security, and an update on the PHP vulnerability story. The damage has now spread into the real world in a very visible way. Banks, airlines, railways, tax authorities and other public services in several countries have taken websites offline or walled them off while they...
