"Anthropic says it's committing 5% of its shares to a 'public benefit fund'," reports TechCrunch, "structured as a wholly-owned entity within the company — with the option to contribute an additional 2% for every 50% increase in Anthropic's value." Important context from CNBC: The timing of Anthropic's public fund announcement is both mandatory to prepare for an initial public offering, and "beneficial from an image perspective," especially as AI reshapes the jobs market, Lise Buyer, partner at IPO advisory firm Class V Group, told CNBC... Anthropic said it will share more about the fund structure and governance in the coming months, including valuation milestones that may increase the stake. It said it will also share progress on the fund in an upcoming public benefit report. In response to Anthropic's announcement, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that he "recommend[s] giving the shares directly to the public." Anthropic's announcement hints the fund could address job-market displacements. It says the fund "might" explore "large donations to traditional nonprofits" — or, that it "might" explore "direct distributions to specific populations. One example is labor market impacts." It then argues AI could "cause instability" for many workers. And while Anthropic has already committed $200 million for "studying and addressing" this issue, Sunday's announcement says "bolder" approaches may be needed, and that the Fund "will have the versatility to pursue them." "Combined with its co-founders' pledge to donate 80% of their equity and an employee donation matching program, roughly 20% of Anthropic's shares will be dedicated to public purposes," reports Reuters, "excluding any additional shares added later."

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The Verge reports: OpenAI, Meta, Google, Instinct, and others promise their agents can scour the internet on your behalf, doing anything from booking a dinner reservation and cleaning out your inbox to buying new shoes. But what happens when the rest of the internet won't play nice? In recent weeks, users of services like Meta's Muse, xAI's Grok, OpenAI's Dots, and Instinct have reported blocks preventing their AI agents from performing tasks across top websites. Yelp told TechCrunch that it only allows AI agents that pay for its data licensing program, while Delta Air Lines is preventing them from booking tickets on behalf of users. JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab have also confirmed that they're blocking AI agents from accessing accounts due to security concerns. Some users say sites that previously worked with their AI agent are no longer accessible, including Cars.com and Amtrak, suggesting other companies could be quietly blocking them.... Muse, Meta's deceptively cute AI assistant, most recently faced the wrath of Amazon, which said its "continued access" violates its site policies. There are reports of xAI's Grok, Instinct's AI agent, and OpenAI's Dots being unable to use Amazon as well. xAI owner Elon Musk responded by saying that maybe he "should start a competitor to Amazon." The more places bots struggle to access, the greater the questions about how useful they are.... Instead of trying to fight Amazon, [Meta] has partnered with retailers like Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Best Buy, and others, allowing Muse to shop on their sites. At the same time, Shopify has also opened its network of storefronts to AI agents.

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"Even LinkedIn is getting tired of your AI-written posts," writes CNN, reporting that the Microsoft-owned, job-oriented social media site "is upping its fight against slop." A report published in July by Pangram, a research firm that tracks AI content online, found that more than 40% of long-form posts on the platform were AI-generated, compared to around 30% on X and Medium and a smaller percentage on Reddit and Substack.... LinkedIn previously offered AI tools to edit or rewrite posts, although it recently scaled the offerings back. But low-quality AI posts are a business problem for LinkedIn. They all start to sound the same, [according to LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief Dan Roth Roth]. If users see too many generic AI posts, instead of content that really teaches them something or gives them a deeper understanding of a professional connection, LinkedIn risks losing them to other platforms. In August, LinkedIn rolled out a button letting users flag when a post "seems like AI slop," which was clicked more than 1 million times within its first two weeks. Now, the company is trying to use its own AI systems to help weed out AI slop on the platform and to remind LinkedIn users how to post like humans. The company built a team largely made up of former journalists and social media experts who have an eye for recognizing generic, sloppy content. These experts help train LinkedIn's AI model on what authentic, useful posts look like. If the model flags a post as low-quality, AI-generated content, it'll be less likely to be distributed beyond that user's direct connections. Also key to the strategy is a creator management team that acts as "content therapists" for executives, subject matter experts and other LinkedIn users, many of whom have gotten accustomed to the convenience of using AI to write what, on the surface, appear to be polished posts, Roth said. "A lot of times now today, they'll run it through Claude or Gemini or wherever, they'll post it on LinkedIn and it will perform poorly. And then they come to the team and they're like, 'Why did this do badly?'" Roth said. "And the best thing you can do is give it back to them and be like, 'Did you enjoy reading this? Do you see yourself in this?" The efforts are showing early signs of success. Improvements to LinkedIn's detection systems have resulted in a 40% decline in views of content classified as AI slop, the platform said last month. That's not to say LinkedIn is entirely opposed to AI, Roth said, adding that "not everyone is a born communicator." But failing to edit or personalize content means it's less likely to reach a wide audience on the platform.

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