Jim O’Neill, a prominent longevity enthusiast, has become Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s right-hand man, poised to take a significant leadership role that influences key US health agencies overseeing biomedical research and drug regulation. While O’Neill maintains a mainstream stance on vaccines, his expected policies at these agencies may diverge from traditional paths, as he brings with him the optimism and ambitions of the tight-knit and increasingly well-funded longevity research community. More than 20 voices from within this field expressed a collective confidence in O’Neill’s forward-thinking, if sometimes controversial, vision for how health innovation should be governed and advanced.
In the world of Artificial Intelligence, journalist Karen Hao has released a comprehensive new book, ´Empire of AI´, charting OpenAI’s dramatic ascent and the organization’s sweeping global impact. Hao is engaging with readers in a live, subscriber-only roundtable, dissecting the Artificial Intelligence arms race, the strategic leadership of Sam Altman, and the nuanced implications OpenAI’s technologies could have for society moving forward. Attendees will even have a chance to receive Hao’s book, emphasizing the appetite for rigorous, insider reporting on how world-changing Artificial Intelligence research shapes policy and public life.
Elsewhere, a range of notable developments showcases technology’s increasingly complex interplay with policy and society. Former President Donald Trump claims to have sourced buyers for TikTok, yet China’s approval is an open question; meanwhile, Canada has dropped plans for a tech tax to reboot U.S. trade negotiations, even as the nation clamps down on select surveillance companies. In technological innovation, breakthroughs range from AI-driven brain implants that translate thoughts into speech, to the promise—and ethical mystery—of millions of IVF embryos in frozen limbo. The ongoing debates around digital privacy, platform governance, and the power of generative models reveal a landscape simultaneously brimming with potential and challenge, as emerging research and regulatory shifts reshape the future of health, media, and Artificial Intelligence.
