Eugen Rochko is stepping down as CEO of decentralized social network Mastodon. Felix Hlatky will now become the executive director as the company becomes structured as a nonprofit government by a board.

On Tuesday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai warned of “irrationality” in the AI market, telling the BBC in an interview, “I think no company is going to be immune, including us.” His comments arrive as scrutiny over the state of the AI market has reached new heights, with Alphabet shares doubling in value over seven months to reach a $3.5 trillion market capitalization.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC at Google’s California headquarters, Pichai acknowledged that while AI investment growth is at an “extraordinary moment,” the industry can “overshoot” in investment cycles, as we’re seeing now. He drew comparisons to the late 1990s Internet boom, which saw early Internet company valuations surge before collapsing in 2000, leading to bankruptcies and job losses.

“We can look back at the Internet right now. There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the Internet was profound,” Pichai said. “I expect AI to be the same. So I think it’s both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.”

Over the past year, some analysts and tech industry critics have expressed increasing skepticism about a web of $1.4 trillion in deals surrounding Google competitor OpenAI in particular. The company has committed to spending $1.4 trillion on infrastructure over eight years, while it expects to generate around $13 billion in revenue this year. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told reporters at a private dinner in August that investors are “overexcited” about AI models and that “someone” will lose a “phenomenal amount of money.”

Reacting to the Pichai comments, prominent AI industry critic Ed Zitron told Ars Technica, “I think that this is the first moment where a magnificent 7 feels it’s necessary to be on the right side of history, leaning on the shaky talking point of ‘there was a lot of over investment in the Internet too’ because there really isn’t a defense for the—to use his own terminology—‘excess investment’ in AI.” He added, “I imagine others will follow.”

Market concerns and Google’s position

Alphabet’s recent market performance has been driven by investor confidence in the company’s ability to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as its development of specialized chips for AI that can compete with Nvidia’s. Nvidia recently reached a world-first $5 trillion valuation due to making GPUs that can accelerate the matrix math at the heart of AI computations.

Despite acknowledging that no company would be immune to a potential AI bubble burst, Pichai argued that Google’s unique position gives it an advantage. He told the BBC that the company owns what he called a “full stack” of technologies, from chips to YouTube data to models and frontier science research. This integrated approach, he suggested, would help the company weather any market turbulence better than competitors.

Pichai also told the BBC that people should not “blindly trust” everything AI tools output. The company currently faces repeated accuracy concerns about some of its AI models. Pichai said that while AI tools are helpful “if you want to creatively write something,” people “have to learn to use these tools for what they’re good at and not blindly trust everything they say.”

In the BBC interview, the Google boss also addressed the “immense” energy needs of AI, acknowledging that the intensive energy requirements of expanding AI ventures have caused slippage on Alphabet’s climate targets. However, Pichai insisted that the company still wants to achieve net zero by 2030 through investments in new energy technologies. “The rate at which we were hoping to make progress will be impacted,” Pichai said, warning that constraining an economy based on energy “will have consequences.”

Even with the warnings about a potential AI bubble, Pichai did not miss his chance to promote the technology, albeit with a hint of danger regarding its widespread impact. Pichai described AI as “the most profound technology” humankind has worked on.

“We will have to work through societal disruptions,” he said, adding that the technology would “create new opportunities” and “evolve and transition certain jobs.” He said people who adapt to AI tools “will do better” in their professions, whatever field they work in.

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Ookla has found that Apple’s custom N1 networking chip that integrates the Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread radios in the iPhone 17 family “delivers a clear step-change in real-world Wi-Fi performance” when compared to the Broadcom chip used in the iPhone 16 models. In North America, the iPhone 17 family also outperformed flagship Android phones when it came to Wi-Fi download speeds during the same time period.

On paper, the N1 chip’s Wi-Fi capabilities appear “virtually identical to its Broadcom-based predecessor” in the iPhone 16, according to Ookla. The N1 is also limited to 160MHz channels and doesn’t take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7’s faster 320MHz channels, but for real world users that limitation didn’t have a significant impact.

Using Speedtest Intelligence data gathered during the six-week period after Apple’s latest smartphones were released, Ookla found that the median download and upload speeds of the iPhone 17 family were both up to 40 percent higher than the iPhone 16 family around the world. The N1’s 10th-percentile speeds were even faster at 60 percent higher than the iPhone 16, implying the new chip’s performance improvements are even more noticeable in “challenging Wi-Fi conditions.”

The iPhone 17 family outperformed flagship Android devices like the Pixel 10 family and the Galaxy S25 family in North America, where Wi-Fi 7 devices can use up to three 320 MHz channels, and the N1 should be at a disadvantage. The iPhone 17 family had the highest median and 90th percentile Wi-Fi download speeds of 416.14 Mbps and 976.39 Mbps, respectively. That could change as the number of 320MHz-capable Wi-Fi 7 routers increases in North America, but it reinforces the findings that the N1 can “deliver more consistent performance in non-ideal Wi-Fi conditions.”

Polestar and home energy company dcbel are rolling out vehicle‑to‑home (V2H), blackout backup, and smart charging features for Polestar 3 owners in the US, starting in California.

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Last month, a DoorDash driver in upstate New York delivered an item to a local house in Oswego—only to find the front door open and a man apparently unconscious or asleep on a couch in the front room. The man was also quite naked, with pants and underwear around his ankles, and he was fully visible from the porch.

The DoorDasher was a 23-year-old woman named Olivia Henderson, and she felt like the whole situation was some kind of creepy exploitation play. Was this guy purposely exposing himself to her? Was he even asleep? Should she have to endure the sight of random male genitalia just to make a few bucks?

She did not think so, and she decided to do something about it. Henderson filmed the man from outside the home, and she later posted the video on TikTok to shame him. Naturally, it went viral.

Henderson complained about a “sexual assault”—by which she apparently meant having to see the nude man—so the Oswego police got involved on October 13. But Henderson was not thrilled with their work.

On October 14, she said in a video that “the police are doing nothing.” DoorDash had also deactivated her account “two days after i reported my sexual assault. Hey guys, I just lost my job, and they won’t tell me why!”

Henderson eventually started screaming at the camera in frustration. “I WAS WORKING! I WAS LITERALLY WORKING!” she yelled. And yet, in her view, she was the one being punished.

On October 15, she released three more videos about the situation, including one making similar complaints. “I was a victim of SA [sexual assault],” she said in this video, and she complained that DoorDash “punished me for exposing my assaulter.”

“The only justice I’m getting is exposing this man and having posted that video,” she added. “And it has gone viral. Now he can live with shame and embarrassment if people have seen it.”

“I’m the victim!” she said. “Is this making sense to any-fucking-body?”

Her numerous videos attracted huge followings—anywhere from 5 million to 30 million views each—and DoorDash eventually felt the need to respond.

“DoorDash never deactivates someone for reporting [sexual assault]—full stop,” said the company.

But, it added, “posting a video of a customer in their home, and disclosing their personal details publicly, is a clear violation of our policies. That is the sole reason that this Dasher’s account was deactivated, along with the customer’s, while we investigated. We’ve also ensured that the Dasher has full access to their earnings.”

Meanwhile, the police were doing something—but not something that Henderson wanted.

The cops determined that the nude man in question “was incapacitated and unconscious on his couch due to alcohol consumption.” Being drunk and naked inside your own home apparently does not qualify as sexual assault on a delivery driver, and the police department said in a press release yesterday that “the investigation by the Oswego Police Department determined that no sexual assault occurred.”

As part of their investigation, the cops found that Henderson had filmed the man and “subsequently posted the video to social media, where it drew significant attention.” This shifted their attention to Henderson’s decision to film and upload the video without the man’s consent.

The police eventually arrested Henderson, who is now charged with two felonies: “Unlawful Surveillance in the Second Degree” and “Dissemination of an Unlawful Surveillance Image in the First Degree.” She was released after being charged, and her case will be heard by the Oswego City Court.

Henderson has stopped releasing videos on TikTok about the situation.

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Welcome to Whale Hunting, where we follow the money behind some of the world's most brazen financial crimes and expose the networks of people who enable them.

For months, Whale Hunting has tracked Benjamin Mauerberger's $1.5 billion criminal network – from his illegal takeover of Thai investment bank Finansia X to his partnership with KuCoin, the cryptocurrency exchange that pleaded guilty to laundering $9 billion.

Documents obtained by Whale Hunting now reveal Mauerberger went further: He secured an official government partnership to write Thailand's digital finance laws, create a state-backed crypto on/off-ramp, and deploy 500 "IT specialists" who would embed his network in Thailand's financial infrastructure.

The arrangement gave a fugitive South African crime boss and his partners at a convicted money-laundering exchange direct influence over Thai policy — with backing from one of the country's most powerful political figures.

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