AI News - June 2026

An overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on June 11th 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'.

Local project 1. Update on 'MyLuckyHorse'

A Claude Code instance running on a spare Macbook (laptop) continues to update the 'for fun' www.myluckyhorse.co.uk website morning and evening automatically. Meanwhile the earlier betting strategy (final profit £98.00 approx) was abandoned in favour of devising a better steadier model. This aims to train a machine learning model on a well defined common betting situation with a clear 'reward' function. Time will tell whether this will work - certainly too early yet. Diagram below is made by Google Gemini and makes things look far more complicated than they are.

Claude Code has a new flywheel for improving results


Local project 2. Update on 'Music Superstar'

More of Naida Puebla's songs are appearing on Spotify and elsewhere. We have a new artist Grim Townz, adding yet more moral questions to this exercise - but clearly marked by me on the cover and elsewhere as AI. A talk on this was given to the U3A Rock Appreciation group of about 50 members this month.

Website: Naida Puebla international music star on Spotify

Spotify page with music artists Naida Puebla and Grim Townz


Local project 3. Update on 'Church Splatting'

St Johns Church is a wonderful building. I tried various Splat related apps and eventually decided that Scaniverse from Niantic Spatial was the most effective for my needs as a Macbook user. After some trials I then spent a couple of hours in the church taking 20 or so 3 minute videos of the interior. Inbetween videos I sat in the peaceful graveyard to upload the files to the Scaniverse/Niantic website.

Website: www.nianticspatial.com/en/products/capture. I have not yet produced a web accessible version of this splat, or indeed completed it to my satisfaction. I used an iPhone 12 Pro purchased secondhand for the camera work. There are costs involved in using this method and we will run a workshop with details once we have a proven method.

Screenshot of the splat version of St Johns Church, Chipping Sodbury BS37


[1a] SpaceX goes public - first stop the moon

Probably the most exciting and potentially valuable company to go public ever, so everybody wants to know about its plans. Elon Musk explains here why a Moonbase will be useful

[1b] SpaceX goes public - the formal presentation

Worth a full view if you wish to understand the next few years.

[1c] Starlink helping the third world

Worth noting the immense contribution that Starlink is making across the world already, with much much more to come.

[1d] First look at new Starlink AI Satellite

With 70 metres of wingspan they will power AI Systems from multiple suppliers


[2a] Anthropic (Claude etc) warn of forthcoming intelligence explosion

Following the non-release of Mythos last month due to its sheer power in breaking into IT systems etc, Anthropic explains what is sees internally and the significance.

[2b] Anthropic gave example of Mythos beating human (IT) researchers

People sometimes suggest that the best combination will be a human paired with a good AI. Anthropic suggest that interim phase may be nearly over.

[2c] Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark explains Recursive Self Improvement

A Brit explains the AI Intelligence explosion to an American audience

[2d] Historian Niall Ferguson on the historical significance of the moment

[2e] Demis Hassabis of DeepMind on how AI should have been developed more slowly


[3a] First ever Longevity human trial begins

A human has been given a Longevity drug for the first time. This has been discussed here before but now the trial, to do with age related sight loss, has started.

[3b] Longevity human trial to make livers younger and so healthier

Old mice are sleepy after drinking alcohol, until given treatment to make their livers younger. This company raised more than USD400 million to progress their trials in humans. AI was a major factor aiding them to advance a solution quickly.

[3c] The sleepy old mice video

[3d] Very informative interview with NewLimit founder

Explaining the journey from the identification of Yamanaka Factors to real life treatments. In particular the development of a treatment hoped to make the livers of older people become younger, and then healthier, as in the mice.


[4a] Tesla Self-driving in China

Sit back and enjoy the scenery

[4b] Texas Robotaxi fleet moves from 42 to 69 vehicles

Elon has two favourite numbers and a unique sense of humour. The number 42 is after all the answer to the meaning of the Universe (from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).


[5] Drones on demand

Drones, Starlink communication, solar power and autonomous driving coming together


[6a] Real time motion capture powers dancing robots

Demonstrating how large numbers of robots can be controlled remotely in coordination

[6b] Humanoid robot production in volume has begun

Once you start mass producing humanoid robots there are few limits to the final rate of production (Figure Robotics).


[7a] Anthropic's Claude Fable announcement

Announced Wed 10th June 2026. This is the 'safe' version of Mythos for public consumption, with 'guardrails' that stop it answering prompts that might lead into dangerous territory. It is much much more than an image and video generator.

[7b] Claude Fable is asked to make a calorie tracker website

Simple but impressive demonstration of its capabilities.

[7c] Claude Fable 5 recreates popular app

Lovable is a popular App that gives non-technical people the ability to nake websites and apps etc by just entering prompts. Here Claude Fable clones a version in a few minutes.


[8a] Martin Scorsese involved in shaping AI Film

The new AI film companies are being sure to involve the big names from traditional film to add to credibility.

[8b] Grok's AI Video looking powerful

A complete trailer, unofficial I assume, made for the film Iliad (Troy) shows the rapid development of capability.


[9] Neural Nets effective at complex weather predictions

A demonstration that the universe must have deeper rules that we have not yet discovered, but which neural nets can use effectively. This has been seen in many fields.


[10] Cursor, Eleven labs and Lovable announce new London bases


[11] Neuralink's first brain implant for female patient

Neuralink allows an artist the freedom to paint again using only her mind, and a robotic arm of course.


[12] AI Safety worries grow

An interesting insight from a clearly concerned researcher


[14] Dario Amodei of Anthropic's latest essay 9th June 2026

"Policy on the AI Exponential" talks about many thinks but certainly encourage government to get involved with legislation.


[15 ...] The Humanoid Robot as child scarer meme

This appears to have started in China when a blue haired humanoid robot, attempting to entertain a crowd, did a martial arts kick that landed by mistake on the head of a watching child.