AI News - January 2026

An overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on January 8th 2026 (meetings are second Thursday of month, 1400-1500, St John's Church Centre, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury, UK - all welcome). Note that this is a summary to act as background as the topics are discussed in detail at the meeting itself. We sometimes have extended meetings where we demonstrate other AI products and services.

The 'Introduction to AI' course we run in Chipping Sodbury now uses these News sessions to replace the original classes 5 and 6 as the topics in them (humanoid robots, self driving cars, ethics, futures) are now 'news' not 'distant futures'.

[0] Hexagon Web game easily created

PlHex is a game created interactively here with Claude Opus. The process was very efficient and shows a small example of why Claude, and in particular Claude Code is seen as a leading model. Here is the link to the live game on the web: www.plhex.com

PlHex Game

[1a] Starbase Gigabay prepares for massive production

Elon suggests they (SpaceX) aim to produce 1,000 to 10,000 reusable massive rockets per year. The higher figure was recently suggested by Elon Musk as the scale of future projects became clearer.

[1b] Huge growth of AI Powered Data Centres in Space

SpaceX has many targets for its rockets including Mars and Moon bases, and now sees huge potential in building AI Data Centres in space where there is no shortage of power and few restrictive planning rules. This is an old post but by the end of the year this was becoming accepted by many as the way forward.


[2a] Elon Musk and the Singularity

The Singularity is the period or moment of time at which AI starts to significantly improve itself, leading to a rapid acceleration of intelligence as this process feeds back.

[2b] What do we mean by AGI?

Anthropic President Daniela Amodei explaining how the whole idea of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) may be flawed.

[2c] AI Minds are converging

As AI solutions in lots of fields become more complex, they seem to start sharing the same world models

[2d] AI and Situational Awareness

This is a small example of AI standing back from the question it is given and questioning the motives of the person asking. Some suggest that it is natural for the latest AIs to have a good 'Theory of Mind' where they realise that others are capable of complex actions.


[3a] Tesla Self Driving PR Blitz continues

As Tesla's confidence in its (Supervised) Full Self Driving grows, it makes it easy for journalists and other influencers to test it. Note that Tesla will earn several thousand pounds extra per car if people purchase this optional software.

[3b] Tesla v Waymo in the Robotaxi battle

Both companies have their champions. What is undoubtedly true is that Tesla has a massive cost advantage as it prepares to produce millions of low cost vehicles (even less expensive than show below) that have AI which uses simple cameras to navigate. Waymo has a far more complex, and therefore more expensive solution.

[3c] Tesla Cybercab design

Apparently these will be coming off the production line every 5 seconds leading to a production in millions, all without steering wheels and pedals. The cost to Tesla is expected to be very low.

[3d] Nvidia demonstrate their self driving solution this week

They do not have lots of real world driving miles to use, but they have really complex virtual world models. It will be interesting to see how traditional car companies react to this tech. Will they licence it in preference to Tesla's.


[4a] Humanoid Robot demos become ever more dynamic

This Unitree H2 seems to demonstrate an impressive level of agility, and is apparently around USD 30,000

[4b] Canine Robot demos become ever more impressive

This DEEP Robotics canine is being tested for its ability to traverse difficult terrain.

[4c] Everywhere you look humanoid robots are training for their future roles

This is apparently the Chinese city of Shenzen (in China's "Silicon Valley") .

[4d] Humanoid robots will make great sports coaches

[4e] Tesla prepares to mass produce their Optimus Robot

Details of the Optimus v3, which will be the production model, have been kept very secret but we should soon see what will doubtless be an impressive product. Initial plans are for a one million robot per year production line.


[5] Futurists worry about the world we are heading to

As all of us gain the ability to produce large amounts of complex content, many are warning that this will not produce a pleasant environment.


[6] Neurolink implants as a lifestyle choice

As Elon Musk moves to make Neurolink implants available at scale, some are thinking ahead to what that means for them and their children. This is Alexandr Wang, the CEO and co-founder of Scale AI.


[7] Some AI Tools are more up to date than others

Here ChatGPT was rather behind on events in Venezuala compared to Grok. Increasingly AI training will be supplemented by an ability of 'continuous learning'. This brings its own dangers.


[8a] Chinese Drone Shows beat fireworks

Firework displays are beginning to look rather old fashioned when set against the wonderful creations seen in China once more than ten thousand drones are creatively used.

[8b] Drone Airports deliver food and more

As demand for drone delivery grows, the need for increasingly large despatch facilities grow. this is China once again, Shenzen.


[9] Google Gemini produces interactive images

Now you can get not just amazing images, but ones you can click though to get interactive teaching materials.


[10] Google NotebookLM produces great videos from any source

In this example I asked NotebookLM to research whether Vitamin D supplement recommended dosage in the UK was soundly based. It did the research and produced an interesting complex video with the arguments.


[11] The amazing Claude Code puts a complete video ad together.


[12a] Razor AI Assistant

With a hologram of a figure of your choice, coming to replace your Alexa soon.

[12b] President Trump as a Razor AI Assistant

An AI assistant with a hologram needs you to pick a character - so why not President Trump?