In the past week, some of the researchers tasked with building safety guardrails inside the worlds most powerful AI labs publicly walked away, raising fresh questions over whether commercial pressures are beginning to outweigh long-term safety commitments.

At OpenAI, former researcher Zo Hitzig announced her resignation in a guest essay published Tuesday in The New York Times titled OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made. I Quit.

Hitzig warned that OpenAIs reported exploration of advertising inside ChatGPT risks repeating what she views as social medias central error: optimizing for engagement at scale.

ChatGPT, she wrote, now contains an unprecedented archive of human candor, with users sharing everything from medical fears to relationship struggles and career anxieties. Building an advertising business on top of that data, she argued, could create incentives to subtly shape user behavior in ways we dont have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.

The erosion of OpenAIs principles to maximize engagement may already be underway, she wrote, adding that such optimization can make users feel more dependent on A.I. for support in their lives.

OpenAI has previously said it is exploring sustainable revenue models as competition intensifies across the AI sector, though the company did not respond to Scripps News request for comment.

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Meanwhile, at Anthropic, the companys head of Safeguards Research, Mrinank Sharma, also resigned, publishing a letter on X that read in part: I continuously find myself reckoning with our situation. The world is in peril.

While Sharmas note referenced broader existential risks tied to advanced AI systems, he also suggested tension between corporate values and real-world decision-making, writing that it had become difficult to ensure that organizational principles were truly guiding actions.

Anthropic has positioned itself as a safety-first AI lab and was founded by former OpenAI researchers who cited governance concerns in their own departure.

The exits come amid broader turbulence in the AI industry; xAI has faced backlash over outputs from its Grok chatbot, including explicit and antisemitic content generated shortly after product updates.

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Taken together, the developments underscore a mounting tension inside AI labs: how to move quickly in a fiercely competitive market while maintaining robust guardrails around systems that are becoming more powerful, and more integrated into everyday life.

This, all as the 2026 International AI Safety Report has been released, highlighting risks to human autonomy and labor market impacts due to AI development.

As artificial intelligence transforms the workplace, a growing number of young people are turning to blue-collar and skilled-trade jobs as a faster, debt-free path to building a career.

Erika Miguel, for example, left the tech world behind for free training in upholstery, an industry short on skilled workers.

"I wanted to work with my hands, I wanted to be more creative," Miguel said. "When I was working in tech, I felt like I was just a cog in the wheel."

Chris Anderson is general counsel at Rayburn Electric Cooperative, whose front line includes lineworkers, power plant operators and field technicians. He said the economy and technology are pushing more young people to the company's apprenticeship program.

"You're being paid while you're being trained. You're doing the work. You're getting an income," Anderson said, "and you're getting great benefits. You're starting your investment in your own future very, very early on."

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Dubbed the "toolbelt generation," more than half of Gen Z workers, 53%, are seriously considering blue-collar or skilled trade work, according to a survey by the career site Zety. In the survey of 1,000 Gen Z workers, 65% said a college degree won't protect them from AI-related job loss.

"Young people are looking at this and saying, 'Hey, if I go to school for four years and I get out, where is AI going to be?'" said Matt DiBara, co-founder of The Contractor Consultants, a construction hiring service.

DiBara said Gen Z's interest is welcome, with older generations of workers on the path to retirement.

"What keeps me up at night is the statistic that 40% of the workforce is expected to retire in the next decade," DiBara said. "They're the ones who have put in 15, 20 years, 20 years plus in the trades. And they're the ones that pass down the knowledge."

Lisa Countryman-Quiroz is CEO of JVS in the Bay Area, a nonprofit that trains job seekers. She points out that choosing the trades early doesn't shut the door for a future education.

"College can always be there for you," Countryman-Quiroz said. "You may be better informed about what you really want to do after you've done some other kinds of work out in the world. That's a possibility."

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DiBara agrees that skilled trades can serve as a stepping stone to other opportunities.

"You can wake up having put three, four, five years into a hands-on side of a trade and then say, 'You know what? I want to move into management, or I want to move into estimating, or sales,'" DiBara said.

Experts agree the stigma long associated with blue-collar work is fading, helping to attract new workers to companies like Rayburn.

"Blue-collar work is not shunned. It's very well-paying, good jobs, good people," Anderson said.

The pandemic accelerated this shift. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that trade school enrollment grew about 5% from 2020 to 2023. During that same span, undergraduate enrollment fell nearly 1%.

For Miguel, learning the ropes in upholstery is building life-long skills and independence.

"I wanted to support myself in a way that I didn't know was possible before," she said.

We've known for years that Jeffrey Epstein cultivated relationships with powerful people in tech and science, but newly released government records are now giving a much clearer look at how broad and how recent some of those connections were.

The latest document release includes millions of pages of emails, schedules and correspondence that reference major figures like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

The records suggest that Epstein wasn't just socially adjacent to Silicon Valley, but actively sought out influence in these tech circles. He was pursuing investments, introductions, as well as invitations well after his 2008 conviction for sex crimes.

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For example, while Musk has said that he declined invitations to Epstein's private island repeatedly, emails in the files now show him asking at one point what night would be the "wildest party" there, and Reid Hoffman is also referenced in emails discussing visits and gifts sent both for the girls and for the island, though the context of some of those messages remain unclear.

The files also highlight Epstein's outreach into the scientific community. According to reporting in Nature, Epstein kept contact with roughly 30 scientists and academics. Some of them were reaching out for funding or professional opportunities, while others had more troubling exchanges, including one scientist who proposed a study involving undergraduate students to "test our horny virus hypothesis." There were not any further details about what exactly that meant.

There was another scientist who visited Epstein's private Caribbean island.

Both of those scientists mentioned said they regretted continuing their relationship with Epstein.

It's important to note being named in these files does not mean that anyone is being accused of being involved in or aware of Epstein's criminal abuse, and no one's been charged with that.

Meanwhile, Hoffman and Musk have engaged in public social media posting since more details have emerged. Hoffman posted on X that he "deeply regrets" interacting with Epstein post-conviction and has said that it's largely for a fundraising relationship, while Musk maintains that his email correspondence "could be misinterpreted."

Still, what stands out is the timeline. Many of these interactions happened after Epstein was already a convicted sex offender, raising renewed questions about judgment, ethics and how a man with his history remained welcomed in some of the world's most elite tech and academic circles for years.

Artificial intelligence is quickly making its way into city halls across the country, helping local governments sort service requests, manage information and communicate with residents.

"There was general enthusiasm at first, particularly from elected officials, to try to integrate these tools quickly, to get more organizational efficiency out of them, and to try and scale," said Chris Jordan, program manager for AI and innovation at the National League of Cities.

Jordan helps city leaders navigate AI development through his work at the National League of Cities, which has found that AI tools can be most effective in enhancing city services, supporting employee tasks and helping cities make sense of their data.

With 96% of mayors expressing interest in using generative AI, Jordan said building public trust often comes down to establishing clear, uniform standards, including AI-specific privacy policies and labeling when AI is used in public-facing content.

"Public listening sessions or task forces can also be appropriate for cities to use if there's a general sentiment of anxiety or distrust about certain technologies," he said.

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Some cities are going further when it comes to transparency. Lebanon, New Hampshire, posts a public list of every AI tool it uses, while San Jose conducts an annual review examining how its algorithms affect residents.

"For the most part, constituents want faster and more effective city services that make them feel good about how their tax dollars are being spent," said Joe Scheidler, who is building Helios, an AI tool designed for policy work.

A major hurdle, however, is both the perception and reality that AI systems can make mistakes.

"Workforces do not trust generative AI outputs in many contexts and sensitive use cases. And so we've been really laser focused from a product mission perspective on solving the issue of hallucination, AI drift and baking verification, traceability and provenance into the user experience," Scheidler said.

Despite those concerns, successful use cases are already emerging. Dearborn, Michigan, uses a translation bot to better serve non-English-speaking residents. Washington has tested an AI tool to make its open-data portals easier to search. And Tucsons water department in Arizona uses AI to identify which pipes are most likely to fail before problems occur.

For residents curious about how their city is using artificial intelligence, experts recommend asking questions, attending public meetings and paying close attention to how those tools are explained.

Nearly a quarter of working-age adults have health insurance that leaves them underinsured, according to recent estimates. While having some coverage might seem better than none at all, experts say the potential risks are remarkably similar.

"We always see people who avoid the hospital because of costs," said Dr. Anahita Dua, vascular surgeon, associate professor of surgery, and founder of the medical community coalition Healthcare for Action.

Dua says health care providers are seeing more patients skip or delay care out of fear they won't be able to afford it, even with insurance coverage.

"Patients are concerned that if they come in with their wrists sprained, and then they tell the doctor, 'Well, I sprained my wrist by falling down the stairs,' the doctor might say, 'Well, did you hit your head? We need a CT scan of your head,' which we do," Dua explained.

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The numbers paint a stark picture of America's health care coverage crisis.

In findings from the Commonwealth Fund, roughly 9% of working-age adults are uninsured, but another 23% are underinsured meaning the coverage they pay for doesn't provide affordable access to care.

"What we're really saying is that maybe their deductible is too high. They can't get to that high number before their insurance kicks in," Dua said. "Or their insurance doesn't cover the things that they need. It'll cover one doctor's visit, but not four doctors' visits."

As president of Accessia Health, Tiara Green says she sees this issue firsthand. The nonprofit provides support for people living with rare or chronic health conditions.

"They need access to specialty medications and treatments and specialty providers," Green said. "They become underinsured or considered underinsured when they don't have access to those things."

Green says Accessia Health works to close the gap so patients can access the care they need.

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Dua says free clinics can also help bridge coverage gaps. But most importantly, she urges patients to never delay care.

"The most important thing is your life. Everything can be worked out. Hospitals do eat major costs, so do not delay," Dua said.

The situation may worsen with the expiration of enhanced tax credits for those who purchased plans on the ACA marketplace. Experts fear more new cases of people going uninsured and underinsured.

"It could lead to a number of individuals choosing high-deductible plans that may not necessarily cover their costs and lead to higher out-of-pocket costs," Green said.

Immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota over the weekend are now reverberating far beyond the state. Protesters are now forcing new questions about when, and how, corporate America chooses to speak up.

More than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies including executives from Target, 3M, Best Buy and General Mills signed and released an open letter organized by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce calling for calm and an immediate de-escalation of tensions though the letter did not specifically call out ICE, nor did it directly criticize federal enforcement tactics.

That omission is drawing backlash from immigrant advocates and grassroots organizers, who are urging consumers to pressure or boycott companies they say do business with immigration enforcement agencies. Multiple calls for actions have been circulating online, listing corporations like Amazon, Fedex, and AT&T.

Organizers argue that corporate neutrality isn't neutral at all that companies wield influence over policy through contracts, lobbying and public messaging, leaving companies to decide whether neutrality actually protects their brand, or if silence, or omission becomes its own statement.

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The delicate dance for corporations to balance corporate social responsibility has been a tough one over the last several years some businesses choosing to step up and comment on political issues like the overturn of Roe v. Wade, siding with the desires of their customers. While more recently, weve seen some of these same companies pull back DEI initiatives at the request of the federal government, despite anger from consumers.

In a sharp contrast, several tech CEOs including Apples Tim Cook, were at the White House this weekend for a private-screen of a new Amazon-produced documentary about Melania Trump, underscoring how closely some business leaders remain tied to the administration.