AI Says It Might Kill Us, Trump's $5K Bribe, & Diesel Breaks $6

Another Sunday, another week reality decided to one-up the writers' room.

Top story: an Anthropic researcher — one of the people paid to keep the robots in line — just put the odds of AI wiping out humanity this decade at over 10%. Not a guy in a tinfoil hat. Their own Alignment Science Lead, on the record.

Higher odds than an IRS audit. And somehow, not even the wildest thing this week.

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Grab your coffee — and don't forget this week's new podcast, serving up Washington's alphabet soup economy. Let's go.

Trump kicked off the week promising every adult a $5,000 check if Republicans hold the House and Senate in November — the "Trump Dividend," he's calling it, like the country just had a good quarter. Democrats are calling it a bribe. Republicans are calling it a headache. Economists are calling it inflationary. Everybody agrees it'll cost over a trillion dollars nobody's found yet, which in Washington basically means it's already halfway to law.

Meanwhile the administration struck a deal with OpenAI to hand federal employees a 50% discount on its top AI models, no minimum spend required. Nice to know Uncle Sam's getting a deal on something for once — even if it's a chatbot.

Trump also asked the Supreme Court to revive SAVE, the citizenship-check system his administration wants for auditing state voter rolls. A lower court paused it over privacy violations, and critics say it flags legitimate citizens as non-citizens. Clean elections matter. So does not accidentally purging your grandma from the voter rolls. Both things can be true.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took a shot at Ford, warning CEO Jim Farley that the company's Chinese supply chain ties are a national security problem. Fair point — though someone should mention that to half of corporate America first.

And Trump's own oil holdings quietly gained up to $4.4 million since the Iran conflict started, with trades happening on days his own decisions moved the market. The White House says it's all handled by independent managers who just happen to have great timing. Sure.

Inflation came in hot again. Consumer prices rose 0.4% in August, putting the yearly rate at 3.4%, and core inflation ran hotter than expected. So much for that "transitory" word nobody's allowed to say anymore.

The Treasury announced it'll buy back up to $6 billion in longer-dated debt this week — because apparently the plan for a $40 trillion national debt is to occasionally repurchase small pieces of it and call that a strategy.

Oil cracked $100 a barrel again as the Iran conflict escalates, the first time it's happened in weeks. Every time this administration says gas prices are under control, the Middle East seems to disagree.

And the housing market is cooling off fast — list prices per square foot dropped in 36 of the top 50 metro areas compared to last year. Sellers are finally discovering the word "negotiable."

A new lawsuit accuses Amazon of firing pregnant warehouse workers who asked for chairs and bathroom breaks. Four former employees say they got penalized for medical emergencies instead. If true, that's not "efficiency," that's just being a jerk to someone growing a human.

Campbell's is cutting 13% of its salaried workforce and closing plants, chasing $500 million in savings by 2030. Nothing says comfort food quite like layoff announcements with your soup.

Costco's expanding hard, with more than a dozen new warehouses opening across the U.S. and Canada. Somewhere, a rotisserie chicken is being loaded onto a truck at this very moment.

MapQuest — yes, that MapQuest — shot to the top of the App Store after refusing to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," Trump's preferred label following the Gulf of Mexico rename. Downloads jumped 50x normal. Turns out standing your ground is still good business, even for an app most people forgot existed since 2009.

And O'Charley's is closing its remaining locations for good. RIP to the yeast rolls. A moment of silence.

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