🎓 Students use more AI to avoid cheating claims

🌍 The world is trying to log off U.S. tech

💰 Amazon reportedly in talks to invest $50B in OpenAI

🧑‍🚀 Claude plots first AI-planned drive on Mars

📱 Apple is already thinking about its second foldable iPhone

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Fears of AI cheating have led professors to rely on AI detection tools, but students say these systems are unreliable and have falsely accused many people, including non-native English speakers, sometimes resulting in punishment or severe stress.

To protect themselves, some students are using new AI tools called “humanizers” that rewrite text to appear more human, even when students say they did not use AI in the first place and just want to avoid being flagged.

The back-and-forth between AI detectors and workarounds is creating anxiety on campuses, with students altering their writing style or constantly proving authorship, raising concerns that education is becoming more about avoiding suspicion than learning.

Governments and users are growing uneasy with U.S. tech companies, with moves like France limiting American tech for officials and more countries considering restrictions on social media use, especially for young people.

New and regional platforms are gaining attention as alternatives to Silicon Valley apps, driven by fears of censorship, political influence, and a lack of local control over major digital services.

While interest in tech sovereignty is rising, experts say many countries still face big challenges, including limited funding and reliance on U.S. investors, making it hard to fully break away.

OpenAI, already valued at around $500 billion, is seeking up to $100 billion in new funding, and The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon may contribute at least $50 billion, potentially pushing OpenAI’s valuation to roughly $830 billion.

Details of the deal remain limited, but negotiations are said to be led by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, with the funding round expected to close by the end of Q1.

The talks are notable given Amazon’s deep ties to OpenAI rival Anthropic, including at least $8 billion invested, AWS serving as its primary cloud provider, and a new $11 billion Indiana data center built specifically to run Anthropic models.

NASA revealed that the Perseverance rover completed the first-ever AI-planned drive on another planet, with Anthropic’s Claude helping map a 400-meter route across the Martian surface that the rover successfully navigated in December.

Engineers trained Claude on years of rover driving data and orbital imagery, allowing it to generate navigation commands, identify safe paths through rocks and sand ripples, and repeatedly critique and refine its own route plan.

NASA says AI-assisted planning could cut route-mapping time in half, freeing up rover operators to schedule more drives and gather additional scientific data, showing how AI is moving from digital work into real-world exploration.

Blue Origin will stop flying tourists on its New Shepard rocket for at least the next two years as it shifts focus to developing human lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis program.

NASA selected Blue Origin to help build human landing systems for Artemis III and Artemis V, stepping in with an alternative lander for Artemis III after delays with SpaceX’s Starship.

New Shepard, which previously flew 98 passengers including Jeff Bezos, Katy Perry, and William Shatner, will remain grounded while the company prioritizes its role in returning humans to the Moon.

A. Safer through deterrence - 6%

B. More dangerous through escalation - 94% 🏆