Meta has begun dismantling its $2 billion acquisition of Manus, completing an operational separation from the Chinese-founded AI startup and halting data sharing between the two companies. This is the most concrete step yet toward complying with a divestiture order Beijing issued roughly two months ago on national security grounds. Meanwhile, according to May reports, the co-founders of Manus have held preliminary discussions about raising approximately $1 billion from outside investors to reclaim the startup from Meta, a move that could pave the way for a Chinese joint venture structure and an eventual listing in Hong Kong, a venue that has seen a surge in AI listings this year for Chinese AI startups like MiniMax and Zhipu. What was supposed to be a landmark exit for Chinese AI is quickly unraveling. The move underscores Beijing's determination to retain control over strategically sensitive technology, regardless of a company's offshore incorporation. In addition to the forced divestiture, Chinese authorities have since expanded travel restrictions to researchers and executives at private firms, requiring government approval before heading abroad. China is also tightening its grip on foreign capital, with reports indicating that top AI firms, including Moonshot AI, StepFun, and ByteDance, will need government sign-off before accepting U.S. investment, adding another layer to Beijing's sweeping effort to control its AI sector....

Eugenics, broadly defined, is the use of selective breeding to improve the human race. Most people imagine it as government control of reproduction intended to improve the population's genetics by encouraging reproduction by those with good genes, discouraging or banning reproduction by those with bad; what policies qualify depends on what you count as improvement. Getting parents more nearly the children they want is in my view a better definition of 'improvement' than giving them more nearly the children the government wants them to have. Getting parents the children they want, like getting other people what they want, is best done by leaving the choice up to them. If making it easier for parents to affect the genetics of their children seems to you an odd form of eugenics, consider the equivalent issue in economics. Some people imagine that the way to improve an economy is by having the government decide how much of what is produced and invested and how, but they are wrong, as demonstrated by the countries that tried it....

The Wall Street Journal reports that Jassy told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other government officials that Amazon researchers used Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 to obtain information that could be used in cyberattacks. The government subsequently imposed an export control ban on the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that while it's 'not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel on potential security risks,' the company does not 'share the details of those discussions.' David Sacks, Trump's former AI czar who now co-chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, offered his own account of the discussions, claiming that 'a highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG ['] came forward with a jailbreak.' Get an inside look at what it takes to scale and succeed from leaders at Mach Industries, Founders Fund, and Shinkei Systems. Through candid fireside chats and high-impact networking, you'll walk away with valuable insights and new connections....

Last night, panelists joined a special edition of Washington Week With The Atlantic to discuss the state of democracy 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, and the successes and challenges of the American experiment. Compared with the nation founded 250 years ago, the United States of today appears to be in an 'epistemological crisis,' Tim Alberta, a staff writer at The Atlantic, argued.'You have people who no longer share a lived reality, or no longer operate from a common baseline of fact and information.' What's so striking, Alberta continued, is how people have 'reached the conclusion that no one is looking out for them, that no one has their best interest in mind, that no one can be trusted.' Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, in this discussion about the nation's 250th anniversary: Alberta; Stephen Hayes, the editor of The Dispatch; Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times; Idrees Kahloon a staff writer at The Atlantic; Susan Glasser a staff writer at The New Yorker; Ashley Parker a staff writer at The Atlantic....