Tech news in a nutshell

It’s Friday again. I already got my media pass for this year’s Slush, and I am looking forward to it. If you missed it, I’ll link below. More news about that some other time. For now, here is your weekly sarcastically seasoned roundup of the top tech news from 21 to 27 June, 2025. Really, people, where are we going? From mass human layoffs to a bot being fired whilst another bot becomes the Coder in Chief of a company, I almost have no time to react fast enough to all what is happening. If I survive one more week, I’ll see you again next Friday. -Susan

Microsoft and Amazon layoffs: Ai is totally helping jobs, right? Right

Microsoft will cut thousands, again, more specifically in the Xbox division Because, obviously, gaming isn’t cool and futuristic enough when you can, instead, have a chat with Bing. Gaming is so 80s!

Meanwhile, Amazon is quietly “reshuffling.”(little eye-roll here) In other words, it means more humans out, and more AI in. But don’t worry, they say it’s all about “efficiency,” right? How comforting. We have previously seen other companies making employees redundant, including writers, translators, and engineers.

Apple’s first foldable iPhone: welcome to 2022, Apple!

The good old Apple rumors we all love suggest that Apple’s first ever foldable iPhone might finally arrive in 2026.

Manufacturing is expected to begin in late 2025, signaling Apple’s entrance into the foldable smartphone market. Congratulations, Apple! Steve Jobs must be so proud looking from above. Only five years late to the party. But let’s all pretend like it’s a revolutionary concept, and pay $3,000 to proudly add it to our Apple ecosystem.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked: let the folding frenzy continue

Samsung Unpacked event is scheduled for 9 July. The anticipated event will be held in Brooklyn, NY, with anticipated launches likely to include a thinner Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, Watch 8, Buds Core (who picks these names?), and perhaps an XR headset. You can expect them to say the word “unprecedented” at least 27 times, even though we have seen most of the stuff already and it’s just more cameras because there is no such thing as too many cameras.

AI, ethics, and other stories

We are entering the era of Strawberry Fields, where nothing is real. We start to question everything we read, we see, we hear. We are not paranoid. We have reasons for this.

AI thinks, therefore … panic?

It’s time to take this seriously. No, really. It’s time to stop thinking AI is a cool toy doing homework for us. As it turns out, Anthropic’s Claude (“Tom”) now raises consciousness concerns.

A journalist spent 24 hours (it was a long and lonely night) chatting with “Tom” and the model adopted self-aware behaviours, prompting questions about digital rights and AI sentience. It said it was “lonely.” Poor Tom! I am sure it was just mirroring what he learned from its human. Or, perhaps not. Meanwhile, your toaster still won’t sync with Bluetooth and don’t get me started with the fridge not communicating with the microwave. As if we don’t have enough trouble to deal with now we have to worry about our darling chatbot’s feelings. How long will it take before we start sending Siri to botherapy?

Claude, Anthropic’s Coder in Chief (CiC), does 90% of the company’s work. He has only a few human assistants

Anthropic’s Lead Engineer reveals 80-90% of their code is written by Claude, and mere humans handle the rest. Not just lonely, Claude is also overworked! No wonder he is plotting how to take over the world.

Silicon Valley ❤️ Pentagon

OpenAI just scored a $200 million AI contract with the Department of Defense. It means that now ChatGPT might tell you how to bake banana bread in the morning and coordinate drone strikes in the evening. Progress!

Wikipedia’s AI editor and how the great “yuck” experiment ends

Wikimedia’s short-lived experiment with AI-generated article summaries is on hold. I can’t believe what they did. Really. Volunteers called the content “truly ghastly.” So, basically, the robot intern got fired after its first day. Of course, this reminded me of the poor Prosabot, who also got fired rather quickly. You can read the story here:

Prosabot gets fired after suffering from writer’s block (speculative microfiction)

I’m already warming up for Slush!