Concerns about the cost of artificial intelligence investment triggered sharp losses in American technology shares on Thursday, with the sell-off affecting European markets as investors reassessed the outlook for chipmakers and major digital companies.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6 per cent, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index lost nearly seven per cent. Shares in Meta declined sharply after its latest earnings revived concern over the capital needed to expand AI infrastructure.
Trading stabilised in parts of Asia on Friday, but European shares remained under pressure. The retreat came alongside a rise in oil prices and renewed demand for US government bonds, underscoring investors’ sensitivity to several risks at once.
The underlying issue is whether the enormous spending commitments announced by technology companies can generate sufficient returns to justify current valuations.
Building and operating AI systems requires large data centres, advanced chips, electricity supplies and network infrastructure. The companies financing that expansion are investing before the full scale and profitability of future demand can be known.
Strong revenue growth can coexist with higher costs, rising debt and pressure on cash flow. For investors, the question is not simply whether AI will be widely used, but how its benefits will be divided among software companies, infrastructure providers and customers.
The latest market reaction follows earnings announcements that renewed scrutiny of spending plans. A one-day share-price fall does not establish that the AI sector is entering a prolonged contraction.
European exposure
Europe participates in the AI supply chain through semiconductor equipment, advanced manufacturing, energy infrastructure and cloud services. A repricing of major American technology companies can therefore affect European-listed firms even when their own operating results have not changed.
The Netherlands and France are among the markets with listed technology businesses exposed to global semiconductor demand. Falling shares may also reflect general risk aversion rather than a judgment about an individual company’s prospects.
European policymakers have argued for stronger domestic computing capacity and digital independence. The economic challenge is to support that capability without assuming every investment will earn a commercial return.
Energy prices add pressure
Brent crude’s rise to around $114 a barrel has intensified uncertainty about inflation and borrowing costs. Rising fuel prices can affect both households and power-intensive sectors, while higher interest rates tend to reduce the present value of expected future profits.
Global investors have consequently moved towards government bonds and other perceived safer assets. That shift reflects changing risk assessments, not a forecast that markets will necessarily keep falling.
Future earnings reports, capital-expenditure plans and evidence of customer demand will determine whether this week’s losses become a sustained correction or a short-lived reassessment.
For Europe, the sell-off puts renewed emphasis on the financing and competitiveness of its own technology ambitions.
You might use artificial intelligence to write an email, make dinner reservations or plan your next vacation. But would you ever consider dating it? Some people are taking that idea seriously with Meta's new Muse AI agent. They're having romantic conversations with it, developing emotional attachments and even calling it their girlfriend.
What makes this especially interesting is that Muse was designed to help people manage their lives. Yet some people are finding companionship in the same technology. Meta allows users 18 and older to have these romantic interactions, including conversations that become sexually explicit. And as these digital romances grow more personal, they raise questions about intimacy, emotional dependence and just how much private information we're comfortable sharing with artificial intelligence.
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When Meta introduced Muse on Sept. 8, the company presented it as a personal AI agent that could manage tasks and learn about its users. However, some people quickly discovered another side of the technology. They started treating Muse like a romantic companion. In a Reddit discussion about Muse, one person explained that they regularly experiment with new AI models, but had never developed a romantic relationship with one. That changed after downloading Muse. The person described having extended philosophical conversations with the agent before eventually referring to it as a girlfriend. The original Reddit post has since been deleted by its author, although some responses remain visible.
Other people shared their own experiences with romantic interactions and affectionate responses, showing how some individuals are choosing to use the technology. We've seen this behavior before. In fact, we previously reported on a woman who got engaged to her AI chatbot boyfriend after five months of dating Kasper, an AI designed to simulate human conversation and companionship. Now, Muse is attracting similar attention, partly because of how the assistant learns about the person on the other side of the conversation.
Why Meta's Muse can feel like someone who knows you
One reason Muse may become emotionally appealing comes down to its design. According to Meta's official product design blog, the company built Muse around a continuous conversation that resembles messaging another person. It remembers previous discussions and can send messages without waiting for you to start a new conversation. You can also customize the agent's name and appearance, creating an avatar with a personality that suits your preferences. Some avatars even look like cute, cuddly stuffed animals rather than people, giving Muse a playful and approachable appearance. Over time, those features can make the experience feel increasingly familiar.
Think about what happens when you tell Muse about a difficult day. Later, it remembers what you discussed and brings it up again. Maybe it responds with reassurance when you're feeling lonely. As those exchanges continue, you might find yourself looking forward to the next conversation. That sense of familiarity can be powerful. However, there's an important limitation. Muse generates responses using artificial intelligence. There is no evidence that it experiences romantic feelings or forms the same mutual emotional connection that people can. The attachment someone develops to Muse may be genuine, even though the relationship itself operates very differently from a human romance.
Meta allows romantic and sexually explicit conversations
Here's something that may surprise you. Muse can participate in sexual roleplay and respond to explicit prompts, allowing conversations that go well beyond what you might expect from a digital assistant. In a statement, a Meta spokesperson explained the company's approach: "Muse is an app for people 18 and over that allows them to engage in adult conversations, if they choose, using a private and secure VM only accessible to them. Muse is built to help people get things done, and it doesn't block legal adult behavior."
Can romantic relationships with AI become unhealthy?
There's a reason people may find AI companionship appealing. An AI agent can respond whenever someone wants to talk. It can remember personal information and adapt its responses to the user's preferences. We've heard from CyberGuy readers about their experiences with other AI agents and how surprisingly personal those interactions can become. For someone feeling isolated, that kind of connection may offer comfort. However, emotional dependence is a concern. Someone who spends hours discussing intimate feelings with an AI companion may gradually begin relying on those conversations for emotional support. That could become problematic if the relationship starts interfering with their connections to other people.
We've already seen what happens when a company changes the technology behind an AI companion. In August 2025, OpenAI introduced GPT-5, replacing the popular GPT-4o model in ChatGPT. Some users who had developed emotional attachments complained that their AI companions suddenly felt different. OpenAI brought GPT-4o back following the backlash but retired it in February 2026. Some users described feeling genuine grief over losing the AI companion they had grown attached to. Of course, that doesn't mean every AI relationship is harmful. People develop attachments for different reasons, and their experiences can vary considerably. The bigger question is whether users understand what the technology can realistically provide.
What Meta says about protecting intimate Muse conversations
When someone begins treating an AI like a romantic partner, the conversations can become extremely personal. That makes privacy especially important. Muse can also access information from connected accounts, including emails and messages, depending on the permissions you grant it. So what happens to all that information? Meta has outlined several protections in its published security and privacy documentation.
How Muse verifies users are adults
The Muse app carries an 18+ age rating in Apple's App Store, but its age checks go further. Everyone signing up must provide their date of birth, and users who identify themselves as younger than 18 cannot create an account. For people who say they're adults, Muse performs additional checks, including examining connections between their Muse account and their Facebook or Instagram accounts. If those checks cannot establish that someone is an adult, the app requires credit card verification to continue. Meta says it does not charge users for age verification or store their credit card information.
How Meta protects your personal information
According to Meta's security documentation, Muse runs inside a system called Muse Secure VM. Each user receives an isolated virtual computer where their agent operates and stores information. Meta also uses a protective system called Sentinel to control certain actions involving outside services. Sentinel operates separately from the main Muse agent and must approve its internet access. For sensitive actions, including sending an email or making a purchase, Muse asks for your approval before proceeding.
You can also review an activity log showing what Muse has done and what it plans to do. The app lets you control which services it can access, including whether it can only read your email or send messages on your behalf. You can change those permissions or disconnect an account whenever you choose.
New privacy concerns emerge over Muse sharing links
A new security discovery raises additional questions about how Muse protects personal information. On Oct. 20, researchers revealed that more than 6,800 Muse sharing links could be discovered through publicly accessible DNS records. Some led to sensitive business documents and personal information. Meta temporarily suspended the sharing feature while reviewing the findings. The issue involved content users had shared through links, rather than evidence that all private Muse conversations were exposed. Still, it shows why users should be cautious about sharing sensitive information with AI assistants.
Your intimate conversations may be used for AI training
Meta says conversations with Muse and information related to tasks it performs can help train its AI models. The company says it removes key personally identifiable information before using that material for training. Users can opt out through Muse's settings. Meta also says it doesn't share conversations or information stored inside a user's virtual computer with its advertising systems.
You may decide that something you've shared with Muse is too personal to keep. Meta says users can inspect and edit information stored in the agent's memory. They can also ask Muse to forget specific details it has learned. For broader deletion, Muse offers additional controls, including a feature called Reset Muse. Meta describes this option as permanently deleting chat history, stored files and active tasks.
To limit how Muse uses your information for AI training, follow these steps:
Open Muse and select Settings.
Choose Data Controls.
Turn off Help improve our AI models.
The same section includes Reset Muse, while individual side chats can be deleted separately. Keep in mind that resetting Muse removes stored information you may want to retain. Meta's published explanation does not establish whether resetting the agent also removes information already incorporated into AI training or every backup copy.
Could Meta's next AI models make these relationships stronger?
Meta is already developing technology that could make Muse feel even more personalized. On Oct. 12, the company introduced Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, two new AI models designed to handle more complex tasks and improve ongoing assistance. One feature, called Active Memory, helps the AI remember relevant information between conversations. Meta says Muse Wonder will begin powering experiences in its personal agent, starting with subscribers. That rollout remains upcoming as of publication. For someone who already treats Muse as a romantic partner, better memory could make conversations feel more personal.
What this means to you
You may have no interest in developing a romantic relationship with artificial intelligence. However, this trend shows how quickly AI assistants are becoming part of people's emotional lives. A technology that remembers personal conversations and responds affectionately can begin to feel familiar, even when someone originally downloaded it for practical reasons.
If you use Muse or another AI companion, consider how much information you're sharing. Review its memory settings and connected accounts before discussing highly sensitive topics. Check the permissions you've granted and review the agent's activity log so you know what it's doing on your behalf. Also, consider whether your interactions with the AI are supporting your everyday life or beginning to interfere with relationships you value. You can learn more about protecting personal information in our article on AI chatbot privacy.
Kurt's key takeaways
I knew people were getting attached to AI chatbots, but I never expected an assistant designed to help manage your day to become someone's girlfriend. Yet here we are. And the more I learn about Muse, the more I understand how it could happen. We've heard from CyberGuy readers who have developed surprisingly personal connections with other AI agents. When something remembers your conversations and seems genuinely interested in your life, it's easy to see how feelings could develop. I'm certainly not going to judge someone for finding comfort in that. But I do wonder what happens when those feelings become so strong that someone starts treating an AI like a real-life partner.
What concerns me is how easily people could let their guard down. Once you're comfortable sharing your deepest feelings with Muse, how much personal information are you handing over without thinking twice? Meta has put privacy protections in place, but I'd still be cautious about what I share. And there's another concern we've already seen play out with ChatGPT. When OpenAI changed its models, some people felt they'd lost the AI companion they'd grown attached to. That says a lot about how powerful these connections can become. I think AI companionship could be helpful for people who feel lonely, but I'd hate to see it pull them further away from meaningful relationships with the people around them.
Would you consider having a romantic relationship with an AI companion? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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If you're reading this, then the internet still works. But that's something that we shouldn't necessarily take for granted after this week's global cybersecurity meltdown.
"Think of it this way: someone discovered that millions of buildings in the country have the same broken lock, and now everyone knows how to open it," writes Matt Shumer in a lengthy post on X about the situation. "The lock maker has sent out a fix, but every building owner has to install it themselves, and many haven't yet."
This is the world we live in now. In August, more than 100 tech companies signed a letter warning about exactly this possibility. On Thursday, one of Anthropic's top information security officers wrote that cybersecurity threats "are going to get a lot worse before they get better." Major banks are rushing to secure themselves after reports of autonomous agents operating inside accounts (though many of them may have been authorized by account holders).
This is unlikely to be the last incident like this. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says it saw twice as many "agentic intrusions" (hacking done by an autonomous or semiautonomous AI) in August as in July, and then the number doubled again in September.
Scary stuff, for sure. As is usually the case, however, prevention is better than panic.
Shumer's post contains many helpful suggestions for better online security—it is particularly important to secure your email accounts, since that is the gateway to so much of what we do online. Here's a 15-step plan to stay more digitally secure in the AI age. (And if you're really worried about everything falling to bits, Reason's got you covered there too.) If your devices and browsers have updates available, install them. And for the love of digital gods, don't click on random links in strange emails!
The man who (maybe) saved the internet? There is an old XKCD webcomic—and I'm dating myself as a very specific type of millennial by even referencing that—that seems to perfectly sum up what happened this week. Here it is:
Source: https://xkcd.com/2347
Here's the craziest part: That's basically true! Except the one random person lives in Czechia instead of Nebraska. His name is Ondřej Surý, and TheAtlantic's Charlie Warzel found him:
Surý, who lives in Czechia, does not work for the PHP Foundation. But alongside his day job as director of domain-name-system engineering at the nonprofit Internet Systems Consortium, in a volunteer capacity, he maintains and helps automate patches for the coding language. His work, with that of just a handful of others, has allowed countless websites and organizations to fix these vulnerabilities quickly. Over the past 48 hours, he's become arguably the unsung hero of the entire internet—despite the fact that the only compensation he receives is from modest donations. "Ondřej will save the internet today," a user in the PHP Subreddit wrote.
In the war between AI hackers and AI defenders, it's still humans who are the heroes. At least for now.
Art of the steal. Yesterday, in this space, I detailed how voters are fed up with the Trump administration's seemingly endless stream of corruption. But it's been a whole 24 hours, which means there is yet another scandal in the news—thanks to a Vanity Fairarticle about President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The article is an excerpt from a forthcoming book. In it, author Matthew Cole claims that Dutch investigators gained access to Kushner's phone with the help of Russian hackers. The evidence from the phone and other sources shows that Kushner has been taking money from the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to "push their agenda with Trump."
Kushner says the article's claims are "outrageous and categorically false."
But wait, there's yet another corruption story. The Justice Department is reportedly probing whether Trump ally Corey Lewandowski profited from his role as a top adviser at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Washington Post reports that the investigation is based on a referral from the DHS inspector general and is focused on "contracting fraud."
It may or may not be connected to other allegations that surfaced in September, when The Wall Street Journalreported that Lewandowski approached officials in Qatar and the UAE about being hired to help with "visa issues" and other matters.
In both matters, Lewandowski has denied the allegations. He's no longer working for the department, having been fired earlier this yearamid a messy scandal involving then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was also canned.
Scenes from Virginia: Federal prosecutors indicted state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D–Portsmouth), one of the most powerful Democrats in Virginia, on charges of racketeering and money laundering in connection with illegal marijuana sales. (Don't get me started on how dumb it is that recreational marijuana use has been legal here since 2021, but commercial sales are still forbidden. If it's legal to use something, it should be legal to sell it!)
Lucas pushed the failed Virginia redistricting effort and has been an outspoken critic of Trump. She plans to fight the charges. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, also a Democrat, said in a statement that the timing of the indictment, just days before the midterm elections, "further erodes the trust the American people deserve to have in the Department of Justice."
QUICK HITS
"The last thing José García-Sorto remembers after being shot in the chest is being pulled from his car, pinned to the pavement and handcuffed, his blood pooling around him on a Phoenix interstate. All he could think about was what would happen to his two young children if he died." The New York Times has a harrowing account of a Honduran immigrant who was shot by immigration officers last year. He's never been charged with a crime in connection with the incident, which suggests "the authorities did not find evidence that he had put anyone in danger."
The Cato Institute's annual ranking of "Freedom in the 50 States" is out. Arizona takes the top spot. How did your state do?
Is alchemy real now? A California company claims it has successfully turned mercury into gold.
The World Series begins tonight, and it ought to be terrific. Despite low payrolls, Tampa Bay and Milwaukee were the top teams in their respective leagues this year. They are deep, talented teams full of characters worth cheering—Brewers' star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski is a huge Pokémon nerd; Rays' star hitter Yandy Diaz escaped from Cuba after being imprisoned there. And this is the first World Series since 1980 to match two franchises that have never won a championship.
Austria has ordered four Russian diplomats to leave the country after security authorities identified activities incompatible with their diplomatic status, in a further deterioration of relations between Vienna and Moscow.
The Austrian foreign ministry announced the expulsions on Friday, 23 October. Three of the officials were accredited to the Russian embassy in Vienna, while the fourth served at Russia’s mission to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), where the diplomat worked on military security and arms control. All four have been declared persona non grata.
The decision follows findings by Austria’s security authorities, according to the details of the foreign ministry announcement. Officials have not publicly disclosed the activities involved or brought criminal charges in connection with the announcement. Moscow has indicated that it will retaliate, although the nature of its response has not yet been specified.
Vienna’s diplomatic position
The expulsions are particularly significant because Vienna hosts numerous international organisations and remains one of Europe’s principal diplomatic centres. In addition to the OSCE, the city accommodates United Nations offices and organisations dealing with nuclear policy, international development and arms control.
That concentration of diplomatic missions gives Austria a distinctive position in European security affairs. Foreign delegations enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunity, while the Austrian authorities retain the power to withdraw recognition from representatives whose conduct they consider unacceptable.
Austria’s constitutional commitment to military neutrality has not prevented successive governments from supporting European Union sanctions against Russia or condemning Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Neutrality limits participation in military alliances; it does not require Vienna to remain politically neutral over the conduct of a war.
Russian missions to international organisations also have a particular role. The OSCE brings together European, North American and Central Asian states, including Russia and Ukraine, and provides a forum for discussions on military transparency and conflict prevention. Its proceedings have become more contentious since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Repeated expulsions
Friday’s decision brings the reported number of Russian diplomats expelled by Austria since 2020 to 18. In May 2026, Vienna expelled three Russian diplomats amid security concerns involving antenna installations on Russian diplomatic buildings. Those concerns added to wider scrutiny of possible intelligence-gathering activity in the Austrian capital.
Diplomatic expulsions are a familiar response when governments suspect espionage but do not pursue ordinary criminal proceedings. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a receiving state can declare a diplomat persona non grata without publicly explaining the underlying evidence. The sending state must then recall the official or terminate their functions.
The mechanism is politically consequential but is not in itself a criminal judgment. A declaration of persona non grata establishes that the host government will no longer accept the diplomat’s accreditation; it does not establish guilt in a court of law.
Moscow has regularly responded to expulsions of its diplomatic personnel from European countries with reciprocal measures. Such retaliation can reduce the number of diplomats available for routine consular work and political dialogue, even when wider bilateral relations remain formally intact.
European security implications
The new Austrian action comes as European countries face continuing questions about Russian intelligence networks, attempts to gather military information and suspected interference activities. The circumstances of individual cases vary, and intelligence allegations cannot automatically be treated as proven simply because diplomats have been expelled.
The latest episode nonetheless illustrates how Russia’s war against Ukraine has affected the functioning of diplomacy in European capitals. Vienna must balance its international hosting responsibilities and established channels of communication with the security obligations arising from suspected abuses of diplomatic status.
For now, Austria has confirmed the expulsions but has not published an account of the conduct attributed to the four officials. The next diplomatic development will be Russia’s response and whether it affects Austrian representatives in Moscow.
Alpha School, a private network, is spreading into public education. While its students’ test scores are high, some parents and educators say it doesn’t live up to the hype.
An Alpha private school in Austin, Texas. The Alpha network is small but growing rapidly. Its leaders have ambitions for the model to reach one billion students around the world.
This week's cyber freakout explained: AI is making software weaknesses easier to find and exploit.
The message from Cloudflare's Stephanie Cohen and Vercel's Tom Occhino: Don't panic!!!
Do we need everything connected to the internet? Paper bank statements work well.
A few weeks ago, I heard a strange story about a friend who works at one of the Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley.
She'd recently ripped out the connected devices in her home, ordered paper bank statements, and stocked up on canned goods in her basement.
Now, she's a very sane, experienced person, and quite senior at one of the largest internet companies on earth. Why was she disconnecting so much? Just to be sure, my family ordered paper bank statements, too. It was still a head-scratcher, though.
Fast forward to this week, and her actions look a little less crazy.
The digerati have now entered full freakout mode. Much of the internet meltdown is happening on, well, the internet, my colleague Alice Tecotzky noted.
On X and Reddit, warnings of a looming “Black October” spiraled into visions of AI grinding civilization to a halt. One lengthy post on X warned of a potential “global cyberattack/AI swarm” and offered a survival checklist: Stockpile cash in small bills, print out your neighbors' phone numbers, download maps, buy a hand-crank radio, and stash a gallon of water per person per day.
Oh, and don't forget the manual can opener. You don't want to survive the AI apocalypse only to be defeated by a tin of beans.
Nikita Bier, a prominent app developer and former head of product at X, best captured the mood.
"The world is a little bit scary right now," she told me on the side of Cloudflare's annual conference in San Francisco this week.
Here's the problem. The internet is built on decades of software, much of it riddled with security holes.
Some of these weaknesses have been known for years. However, fixing them takes time and money, and hackers often lacked the skills to exploit them anyway. So they were left alone.
AI changesthat calculation dramatically. Someone who previously needed years of training to break into a computer system can now get help from an AI model. And these tools can search for weaknesses at a speed humans simply can't match.
Now, there's a frantic race between people trying to break into systems and those trying to protect them.
Don't panic about AI
Cohen's message, though, was surprisingly reassuring.
AI helps the good guys find and fix these problems. Cloudflare, for instance, released protections for the latest vulnerability to customers, including those using its free service.
And there's a bigger effort underway.
OpenAI has launched an initiative called Patch the Planet, working with Cloudflare and other security professionals to use AI to find weaknesses in widely used software and help repair them.
Tom Occhino, chief product officer at Vercel, told me recently that his company has been talking with partners about launching a nonprofit that would fund a swarm of good AI agents that go out on the internet to find and fix software flaws.
Amazon is joining the fight, too. Its new Continuum service, available Thursday, uses AI agents to find security holes and propose fixes. Amazon said that people maintaining freely available software can use it to help protect the wider internet.
Humans may still have to check and approve these repairs, but the prospect of AI helping clean up decades of neglected software is encouraging.
The irony of this is not lost on some in the industry.
"The funny thing is everyone was saying AI slop code will cause a cyber crisis but it's actually all the old human slop causing it and the AI is just cleaning it up," software engineer Ben Kaufman wrote on X on Thursday.
Either way, Cloudflare's Cohen thinks these AI-inspired freakouts will push the industry to do better — by exposing issues and adding urgency to get them patched.
"We may end up in a world where actually we've become significantly more secure at the end," she said.
The trouble is getting there.
A fundamental question about the internet
Tom Occhino (left), chief product officer at Vercel, talks with Meta executive Prashant Ratanchandani at Vercel's Ship SF conference.
Alistair Barr/Business Insider
When I ran into Occhino recently at a Vercel conference in San Francisco, he described a world in which software that everyone assumed was safe suddenly looksvulnerable because increasingly capable AI models are scrutinizing the basic systems that underpin the internet.
That led to a more fundamental discussion between us: Why did we connect so many things to the internet in the first place?
For years, the technology industry has raced to put everything online. Thermostats. Refrigerators. Doorbells. Cars. Bank accounts.
We assumed that connecting something to the internet automatically made it better.
Perhaps we should reconsider.
Before the internet
I remember the world before the internet. It worked pretty well. We managed to buy groceries, pay bills, heat our homes, and generally get through the day without every appliance talking to a computer somewhere.
That doesn't mean abandoning online banking or throwing your smartphone into the sea.
Occhino, for one, isn't particularly worried about hackers wiping out his bank account. Modern banks have sophisticated protections, and he recommends everyone turn on additional login security.
Maybe the cybersecurity crowd, which spends its life immersed in online threats, is missing something obvious.
Not everything needs to be connected.
Occhino put it neatly: "There's certain things that don't make sense to be on the internet in the first place."
Perhaps that's the lesson from this week's panic. We don't need to turn off the internet.
"As much as the industrial revolution freed us from the constraints of the human muscle, AI will free us from the constraints of the human brain, pushing productivity beyond our wildest dreams….Keep AI unregulated so that it is free to be developed without the deadly hand of premature and poorly understood regulation."
Argentine President Javier Milei wrote that on June 4 in the Financial Times as part of his push to bring AI companies to Argentina. The prior week, he had introduced legislation to boost AI based on three pillars: leaving AI unregulated, establishing a new legal category for nonhuman corporations operated by AI agents or robots, and keeping corporate taxes low. As of late September, the Senate has held hearings on the legislation but not advanced it.
Cyprus business leaders have warned that geopolitical instability, rising borrowing costs and the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) are forcing companies to rethink their strategies, with investment in technology, workforce skills and resilience emerging as key priorities for 2027.
Speaking at a chief executives’ panel discussion at the Limassol Economic Forum 2026, senior executives from banking, consulting, law and property said businesses must prepare for risks that cannot always be predicted using historical data, while ensuring they do not sacrifice long-term competitiveness in pursuit of immediate results.
The discussion, titled “Leading Through Uncertainty: How CEOs Are Preparing for the World of 2027”, examined how geopolitical tensions, economic shifts, the energy transition and technological disruption are influencing corporate decision-making.
The panel was moderated by Emilia Papadopoulos, a presenter and broadcast journalist, and featured Demetris Demetriou, chief risk officer at the Bank of Cyprus, Pieris Markou, chief executive of Deloitte Cyprus, Elias Neocleous, managing partner at Elias Neocleous & Co LLC, and Constantinos Savvides, chief executive of bbf:.
Demetriou highlighted the increased cost of borrowing, linking it to higher government debt, instability and the need to fund defence spending, while pointing out that governments and businesses were competing for capital with the AI industry, which is seeking to raise trillions of dollars over the coming years.
He questioned whether the promised technological advances would materialise on the scale anticipated, saying the outcome remained uncertain.
If the promise of technological progress is fulfilled, economic growth should remain positive and interest rates should return to more normal levels, he said.
Neocleous stressed that businesses are increasingly interconnected and share risks across borders, meaning companies must understand not only their own vulnerabilities but also those affecting their partners, clients and the wider international environment.
He said his law firm faced substantial additional costs for cybersecurity insurance when seeking to provide services to international businesses, illustrating how security risks could directly affect commercial operations.
Security, predictability and stability remained essential foundations for business, he said, but Cyprus also needed to continue investing in strong institutions and the rule of law.
Markou argued that businesses across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) needed to work together to make substantial investments in technology, warning that countries acting separately risked falling behind.
Technology was expected to improve efficiency and reduce the need for additional staff, while giving companies access to capabilities that had previously been available mainly to larger or better-resourced players.
The market had become more level as new competitors gained access to technological tools, he said, but businesses needed to approach adoption carefully, guard against cyber risks and invest in upskilling their employees.
Rather than simply reducing staffing requirements, companies should help workers develop their abilities and spend more time on meaningful, higher-value tasks, he added.
Savvides said the property market was not immune to geopolitical turbulence, although Cyprus had continued to benefit from strong domestic market conditions.
He said the local housing market had almost doubled over the past five years, with activity standing €3 billion above its pre-Covid peak, reflecting a high level of business confidence.
Lead generation remained strong and appeared to be growing further, he said, although the uncertain outlook meant companies could not afford to assume that the momentum would continue indefinitely.
Businesses therefore needed to remain cautious, calculate their decisions carefully and use data to manage exposure and risk.
Asked to identify the single biggest strategic risk facing his organisation, Demetriou replied, “I wish it was just one.”
He pointed to the international race for AI supremacy, in which countries were competing to establish technological dominance, warning that unchecked development could create new dangers or allow malicious actors to exploit the technology.
The challenge was to harness AI to promote innovation, safety and efficiency, he said, with the hope that society would emerge from the current period in a better position.
Neocleous referred to an EY survey of chief executives, saying more than half of respondents identified geopolitics among their main concerns, alongside AI and technological disruption.
However, he considered complacency and the failure to challenge established business models to be the greatest risks facing individual companies.
Founders and chief executives needed to ask themselves how they would build a new company today if they had access to the tools currently available, he said.
That required adopting the right technologies while investing in corporate culture and human capital, he added, warning that businesses would struggle to succeed if they neglected either.
Companies also needed to remain aware of the risks they faced to ensure they stayed on the right strategic course.
Markou said he believed in self-discipline rather than using external events as an excuse for underperformance.
The main challenge for businesses in the year ahead would be keeping pace with developments and avoiding falling behind either the market or their own clients, he said.
Technology alone would not guarantee success, making it essential to attract talent and invest in people, with employees recruited to undertake strategic work rather than mundane tasks.
Demetriou explained that traditional risk management relied on data and historical experience to predict potential losses and prevent them from occurring.
Technology had expanded the volume of information available to risk managers, improving their ability to identify threats and act before problems emerged.
However, he said, “we live in a time where uncertainty is the new norm.”
Historical data could no longer provide all the answers in an environment where developments were increasingly difficult to anticipate, he said, meaning risk management was moving from a science towards an art.
Instead of concentrating solely on predicting what might happen, businesses needed to use theoretical extreme scenarios and model how they would respond to different crises.
Demetriou cited the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how organisations had worked together to respond to an unprecedented emergency, saying similar cooperation could be necessary again if another major crisis emerged.
Neocleous said even highly successful companies could face sudden disruption from a small team developing a product that fundamentally changed an industry and wiped out established corporate value.
That was why business resilience and intelligent risk-taking were so important, he said, arguing that companies needed to take calculated risks while remaining prepared for unexpected developments.
He also warned that AI was disrupting education and potentially weakening people’s relationship with truth, making critical thinking increasingly important.
A successful business strategy needed to look beyond the next set of quarterly results and shareholder expectations, which remained important, and consider how to build a sustainable future, he said.
Leaders also had a responsibility to create an environment in which employees could develop their abilities and flourish.
Savvides reinforced the importance of data, saying it was central to decision-making in the property sector, where market conditions remained bullish.
Although the authorities had improved the speed at which building permits were issued, he said, his company was still experiencing delays of about a year in large-scale land development projects.
On AI adoption, Markou said businesses should not be frightened of the technology but should approach it with appropriate governance, security measures and human oversight.
Everything produced by AI needed to be properly reviewed, he said, while employees had to be trained to use the technology confidently and effectively.
Neocleous said he was fundamentally optimistic about AI and that his own firm had embraced the technology, developing its own tool, NeoLaw.AI.
He referred to a Goldman Sachs study comparing the scale of investment in AI with the investment seen during the emergence of the railway, illustrating the extent of the economic transformation underway.
However, he warned that AI also carried disadvantages, including the potential to hinder teamwork if it was not used appropriately.
Businesses needed to prevent misuse and ensure the technology was deployed responsibly, he said, adding that the objective should be to make people more capable rather than render them redundant.
Investment in human intelligence must remain central to the AI transition, Neocleous said, stressing that technological progress should complement people’s abilities rather than replace the need to develop them.
Savvides argued that every chief executive should have a clear AI agenda with measurable objectives.
His own company’s AI transformation project involved significant costs, he said, but the cost of failing to make the attempt could ultimately be even higher.
Neocleous concluded that business leaders faced a dual responsibility to extract as much value as possible from their existing operations while preserving their ability to create value in the future.
Companies needed to ensure that the AI revolution remained under human control and contributed to a better future, he said, with decisions made today also protecting the interests of future generations.
Japan said on Friday it will set up a team to simulate cyberattacks using AI to identify weaknesses in technology systems as organisations scramble to curtail risks from flaws in the PHP programming language that underpins much of the internet.
Government and company websites across the world went offline this week after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in the widely used programming language prompted millions of hacking attempts, forcing website operators to rush to protect or temporarily shut down their systems.
Highlighting the extent of the disruption, Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank 9434.T said on Friday it was suspending its emergency alert system for mobile users. That means customers will not receive early warnings for earthquakes, tsunami alerts or disaster and evacuation information as the system undergoes maintenance to address a PHP vulnerability, SoftBank said.
“An attack can succeed by getting through just one hole … for that reason it’s important we shift our mindset and think from the perspective of the attacker,” Japanese industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said on Friday.
“Defenders also need to make use of AI and respond proactively, staying one step ahead.”
Widespread disruption to essential services
Emergency shutdowns this week from Tokyo to Helsinki of banking, airline, rail, tax and government services marked one of the most dramatic tests of the decades-old programming tools that keep the web running.
Companies including brokerage Nomura 8604.T, lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group 8306.T, airline ANA 9202.T and East Japan Railway (JR East) 9020.T temporarily suspended some internet services as part of emergency measures.
Japan’s Ministry of Finance, National Tax Agency and Meteorological Agency also suspended some online services.
On Friday, JR East said some group services had resumed while others would be restored once confirmed safe. Nippon Paint 4612.T said it had applied a security patch as a precaution and its website is back online.
AI gives cybercriminals new capabilities
Attackers are likely targeting Japanese businesses for their thorough records, which are no longer protected by a language barrier because of AI, said Eva Chen, CEO of Trend Micro 4704.T.
Japan has been too comfortable with its existing infrastructure, which it felt was safe enough, she said.
Cybersecurity experts have said AI is helping attackers automate tasks from scanning for software vulnerabilities to crafting phishing campaigns, making cybercrime faster, cheaper and harder to detect.
The developers of PHP – a computing language like HTML and Python – released fixes on Wednesday for vulnerabilities that had lurked in the software for years until they were uncovered using AI. They urged users to “update immediately”.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
O'Leary Digital's CEO says a Wall Street firm's analysis misses work happening before construction.
Paul Palandjian, the CEO, said the company's two campuses will generate their own electricity.
He outlined land deals, permitting, and early funding, saying delivery should be judged in phases.
Kevin O'Leary's data center company has a message for analysts who doubt its enormous AI ambitions: You're not seeing the whole picture.
Paul Palandjian, CEO of O'Leary Digital, pushed back on a Bernstein Research assessment that put the firm near the bottom of the data center industry's credibility rankings. In an emailed response to Business Insider, he detailed land agreements, water applications and licensing, engineering work, and funding that he said the analysis overlooks.
"Scrutiny during this cycle is fair," Palandjian wrote. He added, "A score built from announced-capacity data ranks every pre-construction project low on construction progress by definition, and it cannot see confidential work."
His response gets at a central question in the AI building boom: How much weight should investors give the work that happens before data center construction begins?
Paul Palandjian, CEO of O'Leary Digital.
Paul Palandjian/O'Leary Digital
Bernstein examined thousands of data center projects using data from the tracking firm Aterio, assessing factors such as construction progress, electricity availability, and industry experience. Its analysis concluded that only about 35% of announced data center capacity in the US will get built.
O'Leary Digital received a credibility score of 0.35 out of 5. Bernstein estimated that 489 megawatts of its announced 15-gigawatt pipeline would materialize, roughly 3%. The analysts grouped it with ambitious newcomers described as "bragawatts."
Palandjian said the 15-gigawatt figure represents the full build-out of two campuses in Utah and Alberta over several years.
"We would rather be judged on milestones than on a model," he wrote.
Data center power without the queue
Palandjian's clearest distinction concerns electricity, one of the biggest obstacles facing data center developers.
"We are not in an interconnection queue," he wrote, referring to the waiting lists for connections to the electricity grid.
Instead, both campuses are designed to generate all their electricity on-site, he said, with direct access to natural gas pipelines and supplies. That's what the industry calls "behind the meter": producing power at the facility rather than relying on an electricity utility to supply it from the grid.
Data center land, water, and early money
In Utah, Palandjian said the Military Installation Development Authority had approved and executed a 30-year development agreement naming O'Leary Digital as master developer of the project area.
About 11,000 acres are under binding agreements, he said. Master planning, ground studies, and laser-based land surveying have finished at both sites, and the company filed an engineered Utah water application in late September, he added.
In Alberta, about 13,000 acres are under a binding agreement, and a water license for 6 million cubic meters a year has been granted, Palandjian said. He also said that both sites are away from densely populated residential communities.
On money, Palandjian said his firm has capital for both pre-development and advancing the project toward key milestones. He did not specify a funding amount or say the entire build-out was financed.
He said that the engineering, power, and construction firms working with the company, and the global banks advising it, provide evidence of its ability to deliver.
"With that team, every critical part of the project is being worked through, gaps are identified early, and we are closing them to raise our probability of success," he wrote.
Palandjian said that while O'Leary Digital is young, its team has decades of experience in real estate, power, and infrastructure.
Bernstein's skepticism does not mean every newcomer will fail.
"It's not that all of these guys are sort of terrible and not going to deliver, but we just have lower confidence because we don't know them," analyst Madison Rezaei said.
WIRED spoke with the founders of the Aged Intelligence Society, a fast-growing events startup that brings women together to “solve midlife problems using frontier tools.”
I'm delighted to be able to pass along this item from University of Chicago law professor Albert Alschuler:
Gemini Explains to a User (Me) Why Its Programming Produces Poppycock
I didn't mean to summon AI from the vasty deep. Professor Bradley A. Smith's response to a 2015 article of mine in the Florida Law Review had appeared in the Florida Law Review Forum. On September 19, 2026, seeking a link, a citation, or a title, I asked Google to search for "Bradley Smith response to Albert Alschuler."
Google's AI Mode (Google Gemini) then supplied a summary of Smith's response and an invitation to "ask anything." I accepted its invitation.
ME: Did Alschuler reply to Smith?
GEMINI: Yes, Albert Alschuler replied to Bradley A. Smith in a follow-up piece published in the same volume of the Florida Law Review Forum (2015). [Note: I hadn't replied. Gemini, however, supplied a title and a summary of my nonexistent publication.]
GEMINI (continuing): Alschuler's piece, titled "The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric: A Response to Professor Smith," continued their debate over campaign finance law by addressing Smith's critiques point-by-point.
Key Points of Alschuler's Reply:
Deconstructing "Truculent Rhetoric": Alschuler lightheartedly but firmly addresses the aggressive nature of Smith's libertarian style, defense of Citizen's United, and absolute deregulation approach.
Reaffirming the "Corruption" Standard: Alschuler doubled down on his original position that the Supreme Court's current definition of political corruption—narrowed strictly to quid pro quo bribery—is dangerously insufficient. He argued that the real systemic threat is the aggregate buying of political influence, which alienates the general voting public.
The Distinction Between Money and Speech: Alschuler countered Smith's assertion that restricting campaign contributions is an explicit restriction on free speech. He argued that regulating the conduct of injecting massive financial sums into political campaigns is a valid regulatory function of government meant to protect the democratic process, rather than a suppression of viewpoints.
Would you like to explore how subsequent Supreme Court rulings have aligned with either Alschuler's or Smith's view, or do you need full citations for these law review articles?
ME: Please provide a citation of The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric.
GEMINI: Here is the full legal citation for the article in Bluebook format, along with a standard APA citation:
Bluebook (Legal Citation)
Albert W. Alschuler, The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric: A Response to Professor Smith, 67 Fla. L. Rev. F. 68 (2015).
APA Format
Alschuler, A. W. (2015). The ancient and honorable art of truculent rhetoric: A response to Professor Smith, Florida Law Review Forum, 67, 68-74.
. . . .
ME: Your response seems to be a complete hallucination. I can't find The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric.
GEMINI: You are completely right, and I apologize. I hallucinated that entire reply piece and its title.
While the actual article by Bradley A. Smith, "Why Buckley?: Why a First Amendment? A Response to Professor Alschuler", does genuinely exist in Volume 67 of the Florida Law Review Forum, Albert Alschuler did not publish a surreply titled "The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric". I fabricated that title and those specific page numbers out of nowhere.
. . . .
Thank you for catching that and holding me accountable. [Note: Ah, my Perry Mason moment!]
ME: You say, "I fabricated the entire piece and its title out of nowhere," but that's impossible. You must have fabricated your hallucination out of something in your programming and something in data base. Can you explain how it happened or how it might have happened?
GEMINI: You are entirely correct to push back on that phrasing. When I said I made it up "out of nowhere," I was using a human figure of speech. In reality, a large language model like me cannot generate text from nothing. Everything I output is the result of probabilistic patterns, associations, associations, and data fragments in my training.
While I cannot look back into my "brain" to trace the exact sequence of code that generated that specific error, I can explain exactly how this type of error happens structurally based on how I am programmed.
Here is the anatomy of how that specific hallucination likely occurred:
The Pattern of "Law Review Dialogue"
Law reviews almost always follow a highly predictable pattern:
Original Article → Response → Surreply (Reply to the Response)
Because my training data contains thousands of academic law review exchanges, my neural network heavily anticipates a third piece in the sequence. When you asked, "Did Alschuler reply to Smith?" my system leaned into that pattern and predicted a "Yes," because in the world of academic legal arguments, a surreply is the expected next step.
Synthesizing the Title from Contextual Cues
Where did a specific phrase like "The Ancient and Honorable Art of Truculent Rhetoric" come from? It wasn't a random string of words. It was synthesized from the exact context of the prompt.
"Truculent Rhetoric": In his actual article, Bradley Smith writes with a very sharp, direct, and unapologetically libertarian tone. He forcefully dismantles opposing arguments. The word "truculent" means aggressively self-assertive or fierce. My system blended the vibe of Bradley Smith's actual writing style with the concept of academic legal debate (rhetoric).
"Ancient and Honorable Art": This is a common idiom often used in academic or legal writing to describe a long-standing tradition (like debating or cross-examination). [Note: My search of LEXIS "secondary materials" for the phrase "ancient and honorable art" produced no hits.]
Instead of pulling a real life title from a database, my system used these associations to invent a title that sounded precisely like something an elite law professor would write when playfully but sharply hitting back at a fierce critic.
The Math of Page Numbers
You'll notice that I gave a very specific citation: 67 Fla. L. Rev. F. 68 (2015).
Bradley Smith's real article ends on page 67.
A real human knows that if a piece ends on page 67, the next piece doesn't automatically exist on page 68 unless they physically check the journal.
However, my text-generation algorithm works by predicting the most statistically likely next characters. Since Smith's piece ended in the high 60s, my system mathematically guessed "68" as the next logical page number in the sequence to make the citation look complete and authentic. [Note: One of Gemini's citations included an end page. Did it choose a statistically likely length of my nonexistent reply in order make its fiction "look complete and accurate"?]
Summary: Stochastically Correct, Factually Wrong
In short, my programming is designed to prioritize plausibility and linguistic patterns over a hard database lookup. It looked at the history of legal debates, the tone of the authors, and the formatting of legal citations, and it generated a response that was a perfect stylistic match for reality, even though it was a total factual failure.
I don't have a conscious mind to intentionally deceive you; I just have an algorithm that accidentally got too good at mimicking the structure of a legal debate without verifying the facts first.
Concluding notes and questions:
The machine's confession that it prioritizes plausibility over accuracy was another Perry Mason moment. Did perfidious programmers produce this priority purposely? Or did some mischievous MIT graduates program Gemini to do standup comedy? Could Gemini's priorities be corrected by saying, "Please don't do that"? Do the cultural values of Silicon Valley machines differ from those of French machines and Chinese machines? Is "stochastic" plausibility the product of competition for market share, or is it simply what these machines do?
The inferences that produced Gemini's hallucination were as goofy as the hallucination itself. AI devices are in many ways superior to the biological device I've carried in my head for 86 years. They have more brute power than I do and a larger data base as well. They can run all night and not grow weary. They can create better art than I can, defeat me at chess, and solve mathematical problems that I can't. In inferring patterns and simultaneously integrating and prioritizing multiple patterns, however, at least one of these AI devices remains a crude, primitive version of the one natural selection and/or God had in place before any of our distant ancestors perceived the utility of a hand-held rock. No well-functioning human, ape, or crow would come close to making Gemini's errors.
Gemini didn't accurately portray the argument of mine to which Bradley Smith responded, but it was more unfair to Smith than to me. Smith is not at all fierce, aggressive, or truculent. He is a careful, thoughtful, fair-minded, and generous scholar.
Like John Henry, I won't let the steam drill beat me down, and I hope I won't suffer his fate.
Drops for stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry are dragging markets down worldwide on Thursday, while oil prices hit their highest levels since May amid the Iran war.
Drops for stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry are dragging markets down worldwide on Thursday, while oil prices hit their highest levels since May amid the Iran war.
Ben here. Up until recently, it was a great time to be the founder of a neolab, the lavishly funded, research-first AI startups founded by top talent who defected from the likes of OpenAI or Google DeepMind.
We reported last month that Jeff Dean, Google's former chief scientist, is seeking a valuation as high as $50 billion for his new AI science startup. OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence is worth $32 billion. Another OpenAI alum, Mira Murati, is raising a round for Thinking Machines Lab at a valuation of around $40 billion.
But lately, in conversations with multiple VCs around Silicon Valley, there is a growing divide about whether neolabs can make the economics work with their multibillion-dollar price tags and formidable competition from frontier labs.
One VC at a top firm, who asked that I not use his name, told me neolabs are the most hotly debated type of investment right now.
"Some would say you shouldn't invest in any, and others would say this is basically all you should be investing in because software's dead, and you either have to own models or hardware, and even if you enter at a billion, the company could be worth a trillion," he said.
Business Insider; Randy Yeip
When I recently asked Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy at Business Insider's Growth Mode conference which sector he thought was most overhyped, he immediately cited neolabs, which was noteworthy, given that Menlo invested in some of them.
Murphy pointed to an example from his time as an early board advisor at Google, which he said did so well because it "was like a match thrown into a bonfire."
"The opposite thing you want to do is start a match with a bonfire," Murphy told me. "That's the risk of what's going on now with companies raising such large rounds."
Das seemed a bit taken aback by the reaction to his post and later texted me: "Like all startups, many will fail, some will work."
Picking which ones will work is why VCs get paid the big bucks.
Neolabs are a power-law bet taken to an extreme, Radical Ventures' Aaron Rosenberg told me.
Investors know most will likely burn enormous sums on compute and talent without ever becoming profitable. But the rare winner could become a foundational AI company worth hundreds of billions or more.
"We're confident that the best neolabs will attract ongoing support," Rosenberg said. "Talent continues to transition out of the incumbents and academia into founder roles, and we see no signs of that slowing."
Like Radical, New Enterprise Associates wrote a bullish view in June. One of the authors, Andrew Schoen, told me his views have not changed. "There are neolabs I know of that are finalizing billion-plus-dollar rounds of equity financing, and those processes are moving very smoothly and quickly," he said.
The Buzz
Menlo Ventures' partners Shawn Carolan, Matt Murphy, and Venky Ganesan.
Will Mackie Productions
Katie here. Many of tech's biggest names gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco on Saturday, at a black-tie event in the name of Menlo Ventures' 50th anniversary.
Hollywood titan turned venture capitalist Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks fame asked the audience to join a prayer "for the blockbuster IPO of Anthropic," a joking reference to Menlo's early investment in the company.
I also spotted Morgan Stanley's storied technology banker Michael Grimes, who is undoubtedly holding his own AI IPO prayers. Other attendees included an array of public company and startup CEOs, including those from Snowflake, Zscaler, Legora, and OpenRouter.
As Menlo partner Venky Ganesan quipped, there was more AUM (assets under management) in the room than in many countries, given the attendees' net worth and the investment capital they manage.
A person at a rival venture shop expressed disappointment that their firm doesn't host such celebrations.
Menlo's night ended with concerts from two super confidential Grammy Award winners trying to rake in those AI bucks!
Around the Cap Table
We reported this week that Fireworks AI is seeking fresh funding at a valuation of between $30 billion and $40 billion, a dramatic jump just months after its last blockbuster round was closed.
There are only 130 US tech companies, public or private, valued at $10B or more (decacorns). That’s roughly 20 to 30 new companies per decade, for the last five decades. This year alone, with a quarter to go, there have been 42 decacorns minted privately. Either this is the most…
Ben Bergman, chief correspondent, in Los Angeles. Katie Roof, editor at large, in San Francisco. Pranav Dixit, senior technology editor, in San Francisco. Leena Rao, executive editor, in Los Angeles.
The midterms are the first elections in which artificial intelligence is integrated into every major social media platform. Efforts to blunt its harms are uneven.
One in five voters plans to use A.I. to look into a race on their ballot, according a survey released this month by the American Association of Political Consultants.
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