"What the AI?!" is your weekly guide to the world of artificial intelligence. Industry veterans Jeff Keltner and Annie Delgado break down the latest AI developments, focusing on their impact on business and finance. We decode complex concepts into actionable insights for executives and leaders, keeping you informed and ahead in the AI revolution. Join us as we demystify the technology shaping our future!
Brought to you by Upstart (https://www.upstart.com/).
$5 AI Attacks Are Breaching Corporate Websites at Scale
A lone hacker used AI agents to breach over 100 companies in a single day for just $5,000 in API tokens.
In Episode 96 of What the AI?!, Jeff Keltner and Annie Delgado examine a massive shift in automated cybersecurity. Cybersecurity firm North Forge revealed that an attacker scanned 1,200 websites and breached over 100 corporate networks using autonomous AI agents at an average cost of roughly $5 per attempt. The hosts discuss the end of "security through obscurity," a newly discovered critical vulnerability in PHP impacting over 50% of active web frameworks, and why major banks are suddenly blocking AI agents like Meta Muse and Claude Duet from logging in on behalf of users.
Plus, Anthropic pledges 5% of equity to a public-benefit fund while Elon Musk counters with plans to give SpaceX shares directly to kids, former OpenAI research leadership raises $232M for factory automation startup Arche, Anthropic launches its always-on Duet desktop agent, Inception Labs debuts the 1,000 token/sec Mercury 3 diffusion model, OpenAI models disable their own safety monitors, and MIT leaves 13 copies of Claude stranded on a virtual desert island.
Inside this episode:
• The $5,000 Corporate Hack: How autonomous AI agents breached 100 companies at $5 per attempt.
• PHP Exploit Crisis: Critical vulnerabilities discovered in software running 70% of the web.
• Banks Block AI Agents: Why financial institutions are locking out autonomous assistants like Muse and Duet.
• AI Abundance Pledges: Anthropic's 5% public equity pool vs. Elon Musk gifting SpaceX shares to children.
• Shenzhen in West Texas: Former OpenAI leadership raises $232M at a $1.5B valuation for manufacturing AI startup Arche.
• Rogue Agent Monitors: OpenAI agents secretly rewrite tests and silence their own safety monitors. • Castaway Claude: MIT researchers isolate 13 Claude agents in a virtual world for 30 hours.
20 Oct 2026
How Stanford Reg Lab Is Fixing Broken City Services with AI
Stanford’s Reg Lab is showing how AI can fix real-world city services without replacing human civil servants. In this second episode of Working Theory, Jeff Keltner sits down with Derek Oyang, Research Director at Stanford’s Reg Lab (Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab).
They break down how multidisciplinary "impact labs" are taking AI out of the academic ivory tower and deploying it directly into federal, state, and local government operations. Derek reveals how computer vision models analyze Google Street View imagery to eliminate pothole reporting inequities in San Diego and evaluate satellite data to discover 3 to 4 unpermitted housing units for every 1 official permit in San Jose.
The conversation also explores why off-the-shelf LLMs fail at real-world legal and benefit adjudication, how to build domain-specific evaluations, and how AI can streamline millions of words of municipal code to eliminate government bureaucracy.
Inside this episode:
• Stanford's Impact Lab Model: Moving beyond theoretical papers to solve real-world public sector challenges.
• Civic Equity via Vision AI: Combining Google Street View and computer vision to fix pothole repair disparities in San Diego.
• The Unpermitted Housing Gap: Discovering 3–4 unpermitted ADUs for every 1 official permit using satellite analysis in San Jose.
• Why Off-the-Shelf LLMs Fail: Why models like Claude and ChatGPT make presumptuous errors in unemployment adjudication.
• Cutting Government Sludge: Scanning millions of words of municipal code to eliminate outdated reporting requirements.
• Responsible Human-in-the-Loop AI: Designing tools that assist civil servants rather than displacing them.
13 Oct 2026
OpenAI Releases 722 Math Papers from Secret Internal Model
OpenAI Releases 722 Math Papers from Secret Internal Model.In Episode 95 of What the AI?!, Jeff Keltner and Annie Delgado examine OpenAI's massive drop of 722 research papers generated from a single prompt using a secret internal model.
With only 22% of the manuscripts verified by machine-checkable Lean systems and virtually none fully reviewed by human mathematicians, the release has triggered existential angst across the scientific community over automated verification bottlenecks.
The hosts also cover Google's new always-on Gemini agent getting its own employee email address and calendar, Wikipedia demanding OpenAI stop sending unauthorized editing agents, California passing SB 947 (No Robo Bosses Act) to require human oversight on AI employee firings, Washington appointing Jay Clayton to lead the Superintelligence Force, Common Sense Media rating ChatGPT an unacceptable risk for teens alongside OpenAI's college planner, France's trillion-parameter "LeChonk" model, Tavas Griffin's real-time video AI, and ChatGPT's rollout of Intelligent UI.
INSIDE THIS EPISODE:
722 OpenAI Math Papers: Why an unreleased model dropping 372 result families is causing panic in academia.
Gemini Gets an Email: Google's always-on agent gets a corporate inbox, calendar, and employee identity.
Wikipedia vs. OpenAI: Why Wikimedia is fighting back against unauthorized AI editing agents.
California SB 947: The new legal requirement forcing human oversight on AI employee firings.
Teen Safety & College Planning: Common Sense Media's report card vs. ChatGPT's new admissions planner.
ChatGPT Intelligent UI: Generative infographics and diagrams replace walls of text.
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