AI News - July 2026

An overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on July 9th 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'.

Includes talk by our member Paul Sidnell on how to use Open Source AI on your phone or PC.

Local project. Update on 'MyLuckyHorse'

A Claude Code instance running on a spare Macbook (laptop) continues to place bets regularly and has found a seemingly steady strategy since 18th June 2026 when it developed its GOLD model (my name for it) as seen on the graph below. It updates its model every day with the new data and is generally best left to get on with it without any input from me. Strong nerves are required when watching (Wed 8th July was a loss of £21) but it is playing with past profits.

Graph of Claude Code producing steady results at the races


[0] OpenAI launch their latest models today - Terra, Luna, Sol (Earth, Moon, Sun)

Like Fable (see [2] below) the USA government has imposed restrictions.


[1a] The Five Stages of Coding

This cartoon explains the cycle computer programmers have passed through this last two or three years. It is likely to be repeated across other industries though many suggest it will create prosperity and new jobs not unemployment.

[1b] The Sixth Stage of Coding?


[2a] The Fable Saga

Anthropic first told us about Mythos, a new model so powerful it could not be released to the public. Then they introduced Fable which could be released because it was Mythos with all sorts of safeguards. Then someone showed it was quite easy to break through the safeguards. Then the USA government got involved. Dario Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic.

[2b] Fable makes a music video

Fable really is powerful. Here it makes a video to go with an AI created song. Its discussion of the song structure is too long to show here but was fascinating.

[2c] Anthropic peer inside Claude's thought process

As it becomes increasingly important to understand what an AI is really 'thinking' new techniques are being used. These J-Space experiments reveal some interesting insights.

[2d] Dario Amodei of Anthropic wants to talk risk

"We are not sure how many of the benefits will materialize. We are not sure how many of the risks will materialize"


[3a] Humanoid Robot at the World Cup

Boston Dynamics Atlas robot with Hyundai badging hands the match ball to the referee. Expect to see humanoids being used endlessly for publicity and PR from now on.

[3b] Humanoid Robots at USD 4,900 from Chinese company Unitree

Discussion of how these low prices allow massive experimentation - and leads to robots assembling robots and all that that suggests.

[3c] Humanoid Robots that look human (almost)

If lots of companies are making humanoid robots then suppliers need to find ways to make their robot more attractive to buyers. For example, if the humanoid is to work in a fashion store, it needs to look fashionable.


[4a] Top selling Electric Vehicles - Tesla and the Chinese

Traditional car manufacturers totally out of the EV market.

[4b] German Car Industry exports collapsing

The German government has introduced emergency measures such as making it easier to hire and fire staff as Volkswagon closes factories and lays off many tens of thousands.

[4c] Tesla Cybercab suitable for visually impaired

Demonstrating convenience of Cybercab with many features such as Braille marked controls and guide-dog friendly systems.

[4d] Tesla Cybercab now coming off flowline at pace

As details emerge of the ultra low cost ultra rapid production process for the Cybercab, more and more early models are coming off the flowline.

[4e] Waymo expanding to more cities

The race to establish market share is on in the USA


[5] Meta release their own AI Image creation model 'Muse Image'

An inevitable step as Meta make sure that they keep users of Facebook etc using Meta AI tools to edit their photos etc.


[6] Mathematicians struggle to understand implications of AI

During the month there were many announcements of AI solving longstanding mathematics problems.


[7] Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas explains how much resource heavy AI users consume

An explanation of how some power users spend many thousands of dollars each month on AI tokens, but still get value.


[8] Starcloud CEO explains that they already have a data centre in space

The key to this is SpaceX providing ever lower cost launch to orbit allowing this new industry to establish itself - SpaceX also has ambitions for its own orbiting datacentres of course.


[9a] USA 250th birthday shows growing drone capability

The USA was far behind China in mass drone capability but is now building capability fast - the Ukraine was has shown there is no alternative.

[9b] Google AI and the Declaration of Independence

Google did a clever video of using Gemini AI etc when writing the Declaration of Independence


[10] The move to Open Source models

The top models are expensive and the Open Source models are getting better.


Paul Sidnell on how to use Open Source AI on your phone or PC.