The AI Round-up: Pink slime. What?

AI news covering...the week of September 21

The year? 2001. A long, long time ago.

The occasion? My honeymoon to Cancun. About a month after 9/11.

The issue? My license had expired and the airline attendant (no TSA then) was telling me and my bride of 16 hours that we couldn’t get on our Apple Tours chartered plane.

Why? Because ‘this is a very difficult time for our country’ and I will not be allowed back into said country.

What next? Well, after my wife stopped crying she pulled things together and we were off to a newly formed plan B.

What’s plan B? Niagara Falls!

Niagara Falls? Yep! Oh, did I mention…it was the American side? (Because, again…expired license.)

Then what? We had insured the trip (score one for me, the idiot) and were able to get in (and out) of Canada.

Why are you telling us this? Because that was October 14, 2001…and we go back to Niagara Falls every year to celebrate. That will be next week…which means…no round-up next week.

Couldn’t you have just said that? Well…yes, but where’s the fun in that?

Let’s get to it.

LinkedIn: It’s a mess.

Thanks a lot, AI.

Ok, a lot going on in the world of Li and Ai…but here are two stories you need to be aware of:

First, what is AI actually doing to our LinkedIn algos? And is traffic really down 47% YoY?

Second, can you hack AI by working LinkedIn posts a certain way?

To answer that hacking question…I tried it.

Then checked today…and yep, there we are.

Well I’ll be…

Muse! It’s so cute! How could anyone be afraid of AI???

Well, Meta is back on the AI scene with Muse…the AI agent that does everything for you and simply requires all of your info and permissions to do it. (The New York Times)

Did we mention Jollybot, the Muse mascot, is so cute tho?? (Axios)

Does this mean Copilot will bring back Clippy? (The Verge)

Maybe? I don’t know. But it does mean Copilot is coming out with a new and improved tool/agent/chatwhatever. (Technically it’s called a superapp. Not scary or weird at all.)

Claude is doing roughly 26% of its own R&D…on itself.

Maybe we have hit AGI? I mean, what’s more human than self-improvement?

I asked Claude about this. It said, ‘yea, I’m working on being a better version of myself.’

(Just kidding – but you believe it!)

Mustafa Suleyman is not happy about this or anything Anthropic is doing.

I read his book a few years back (The Coming Wave) so wasn’t surprised by his issues…especially his big second point (anthropomorphizing) which he has been very outspoken about from the start.

New, cheap AI model is trying to take on OpenAI and Anthropic (Financial Times)

Ah, I get the whole ‘we need regulation’ conversation now.

Translation, let us form a monopoly.

YouTube announces new AI tools. (Shelly Palmer)

Gemini releases new models, including an updated voice model.

Salesforce releases AIforce…meaning you can use Salesforce in any AI model.

Cool concept. Will be curious to see what this means for data privacy.

AI, pink slime and the election. (Politico)

I have this weird feeling that the ‘pink slime’ concept isn’t just spreading misinformation in the political arena…

Also, if you were curious (also from Politico)

“Pink slime” describes sites that present themselves as legitimate news sources but in fact are funded — without any disclosure to readers — by political or ideological interests that are pushing an agenda. The term is derived from the pink-colored liquefied filler used as an additive in meat. As of September 2026, NewsGuard has identified 1,179 pink slime sites in the U.S., compared to 937 remaining daily newspapers.

Pink slime operators give their sites innocent-sounding names such as “Ohio Independent,” “Peach State Post,” “Granite Post News,” “Iowa Starting Line” and “The North Carolinian.” These sites often obscure their ownership and funding to make it difficult for readers to discern who is behind the operation.

Be careful, my fellow Ohioans.

With all of this AI misdirection, news, models and overall acceleration…Seems like a good year to attend MAICON, no?

How can I save on MAICON registration?

Click the link, enter promo code BENTHINKING200 for a $200 savings.

Smarter X’s AI for Marketers course is free.

But only for September.

Some Nopes.

The Pope warns us about losing humanity to AI. I don’t have time to worry about this with all of the political ads I’m watching.
Bill Gates warns that AI could cause ‘billions of deaths’. DUDE!!

Thanks for reading and supporting!

Live life, love life,

Ben

As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.