A robot guided by an AI just performed surgery with near-perfect accuracy and no human intervention.
In a major step toward autonomous surgical systems, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have successfully trained an AI-guided robot to perform gall bladder removal on a dead pig with near-complete autonomy.
The dual-layer AI model—trained on 17 hours of human surgery footage—translated video input into verbal commands like “clip the second duct,” which were then converted into precise tool movements.
The robot completed all 17 surgical tasks across eight procedures with 100% task success, demonstrating real-time self-correction and only limited human intervention.
While full autonomy in live human surgeries remains years away, the milestone marks a significant advance in surgical robotics.
Experts emphasize that while the robot occasionally needed tool changes or adjusted missed grabs, its ability to detect and fix its own mistakes shows the growing reliability of AI-assisted procedures. With regulators expected to weigh in heavily before human applications, researchers plan to move next toward testing in live animals. The long-term goal? Safer, more precise surgeries that reduce complication rates and ease strain on surgical teams. source
Journal reference: Ji Woong (Brian) Kim. Science Robotics. 10 (4). SRT-H: A hierarchical framework for autonomous surgery via language-conditioned imitation learning
You can relitigate the numbers all day — a source familiar with situation told the FT that a lot of those 2025 losses are a “non-cash accounting charge linked to the company’s previous structure rather than its underlying operations — but the financial pressure does seem to be taking a toll. After years of giving users largely unfettered access to its models for a monthly fee, OpenAI and many of its competitors are now debating whether to boost prices dramatically by transitioning to a token-based billing system, charging users more directly for the amount of computing power they consume instead of an open-ended monthly subscription.
OpenAI currently offers both pay-as-you-go API access and monthly ChatGPT subscriptions. But how long the latter will stick around is looking increasingly uncertain. Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman argued that “we see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
In other words, OpenAI’s behavior sounds an awful lot like a drug dealer who floods the market with addictive drugs, then jacks up the prices once users are dependent on them.
“They’ve kind of taken the crack approach to AI,” one Reddit user argued. “Give it to people for free, get them hooked, then jack up prices.”
It’s an insightful metaphor, considering where the majority of the AI industry’s biggest players appear to be headed. And as the costs of building out data centers and maintaining access to cloud compute come due, it’s likely we’ll see even more similar behavior.
The real costs behind AI subscriptions are staggering. According to a recent report by research company SemiAnalaysis, a $200 ChatGPT Pro subscription costs OpenAI as much as $14,000 if used to its maximum potential.
The financial reality is hard to ignore, with CEOs starting to reverse course on AI adoption as prices for access to the tools spiral out of control.
“Fundamentally all of these AI providers are massively subsidizing token usage on these flat rate plans,” another Reddit user wrote. “It’s simply unsustainable.”
Even with soaring token-based API pricing, AI companies’ balance sheets are firmly in the red. And they could stay there, especially considering the burgeoning AI price war that could force them to lower — not raise — prices just to stay competitive.
I’m a senior editor at Futurism, where I edit and write about NASA and the private space sector, as well as topics ranging from SETI and artificial intelligence to tech and medical policy.
President Trump signs the Iran memorandum of understanding at Versailles. Screenshot: White House via X
President Trump made the case for his deal with Iran during an hourlong press conference yesterday, while seeming to lower his own bar for success and warning he could bomb Iran again if nuclear talks fail, Axios’ Barak Ravid writes.
Why it matters: For two months, Trump has been seeking a deal to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and stabilize global energy markets.
This deal should achieve that. But some of Trump’s critics argue that making concessions just to return to status quo ante shows the war itself was a costly mistake.
The big picture: Before the war and as it got underway, Trump laid out highly ambitious parameters for any successful resolution with Iran.
That included “total surrender” and the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. No enrichment, no ballistic missiles, no funding for proxies. Trump even wanted a say in picking the supreme leader.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) — which Trump signed yesterday and senior administration officials finally unveiled on a call with reporters — is a much more modest agreement.
Breaking it down: Iran gets sanctions relief to sell oil, the strait reopens, the blockade lifts.
The parties also give themselves 60 days to negotiate a nuclear deal. Iran could see all sanctions lifted and receive billions in frozen funds and investments, if it agrees to limit its nuclear program and “dispose of” its stockpile.
Trump and his team acknowledge a final deal may never happen. But he claimed yesterday that “if it doesn’t get done in 60 days, we go back to bombing.” (He later said the deadline could shift.)
Uncharacteristically, Trump downplayed the deal somewhat, noting that it was just a memorandum. He further enraged hawks by expressing sympathy for Iran’s desire to possess missiles and pursue nuclear energy.World leaders at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images Friction point: There’s plenty in the deal for critics to sink their teeth into.
It only calls on Iran to open the strait without restrictions for 60 days, leaving open the possibility of tolls after that. A senior U.S. official told reporters that wouldn’t happen, because Gulf countries wouldn’t sign up to any deal that allowed it.
The MOU calls for a plan to establish a $300 billion fund to rebuild Iran.Trump denied that the U.S. would contribute money to such a fund.
The text makes clear that Iran will receive sanctions waivers to sell oil freely as long as negotiations are ongoing.
The MOU says nothing about Iran’s ballistic missiles or support for terrorist organizations and militias in the region, despite Trump’s insistence — dating back to his first term — that any deal with Iran would have to cover those issues.
Watch the White House’s 35-second video of Trump signing the Iran memo of understanding at Versailles.Share this story.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, US President Donald Trump and France’s President Emmanuel Macron attend a morning work meeting at G7 summit.Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. and six of its allies are tackling their dependence on China and its effective chokehold on rare earth minerals. At the Group of Seven summit in France on Wednesday, the countries pledged to ensure that no single nation can supply more than 60% of rare earth imports by 2030.
Issued by the G7 in a joint statement, the pledge looks to reduce the countries’ dependence on China for the raw materials behind military technology. The leaders of the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the U.S. said they plan to get to 50% “as soon as possible,” according to the statement. As of last year, China accounted for nearly 70% of rare earth production.
“It’s definitely a bold target,” said Cirba Solutions CEO David Klanecky, an expert with more than 30 years of experience in critical minerals. “If you don’t set a goal on a target for people to achieve, then nothing will happen,” he told Fortune.
The urgency stems from the fact that China is set to reinstate its initially postponed export controls on rare earths critical to defense systems on Nov. 10 – put in place in a yearlong truce with the Trump administration after his worldwide reciprocal tariffs set off a global trade war. Since another moment of global trade being reshaped in 1973, the G7 group of liberal democracies has met annually to set policy, and this year clearly has China on the agenda.
G7 summit participants Japan, the EU and the U.S. account for over half of global rare earth magnet imports, with China acting as the main supplier, according to a United Nations critical minerals trade report published in June. While rare earths themselves are just a group of 17 naturally occurring chemicals, rare earth permanent magnets–what the G7 explicitly named because China accounts for 95% of permanent magnet production–are made from separating and then recombining specific elements that let manufacturers build lighter and stronger motors and electronics.
These magnets are then embedded in drones and precision weapons, making them a national security chokepoint, according to Goldman Sachs. They’re also vital for the electric vehicles and wind turbines powering Europe’s energy transition goals.
The UN’s critical minerals report found that China has issued 16 trade restrictions on those critical energy transition materials since 2020, cutting off the supply to the United States and some of its allies. Most famously, this happened last year in response to U.S. tariffs. If China’s export controls were “fully implemented,” up to $6.5 trillion of economic activity outside China could be at risk annually, an 2026 International Energy Agency report found.
“The worst-case scenario would be that no new supply from China comes online within the next four years—we’re looking at a China that is increasingly aggressive in the Taiwan Strait—and that we continue to be dependent for building military technologies on Chinese imports,” Meredith Schwartz, an associate fellow for the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fortune. “China can continue to use that economic chokepoint to cut off our industries from those necessary materials.”
Opportunity for the United States to help
China dominates rare earth refining, creating a “critical bottleneck” and “high barriers to entry for new players” because of how energy and capital intensive the process is, per the UN report.
But some of the few non-Chinese rare earth refiners are based in the United States and are specifically targeting the G7’s magnet needs.
For instance, USA Rare Earth extracts, processes and manufactures rare earth elements and permanent magnets in an attempt to make the country’s first “mine to magnet” supply chain. The CHIPS and Science Act gave the company $277 million in federal incentives to build production capability for up to 10,000 tons per annum of rare earth metal alloy.
A spokesperson for USA Rare Earth told Fortune that the company is “pleased to see the continued focus of the G7 on creating a Western value chain of rare earth elements” and wants to be the “partner of choice” in the endeavor.
“We believe USA Rare Earth is well positioned to produce sintered neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets commercially and is actively building a value chain to scale production,” the spokesperson said over email.
Another company, MP Materials, has rare earths processing facilities in Fort Worth, Texas and Mountain Pass, California. Mountain Pass is the only commercial-scale rare earths mine in the country, and MP recently received a $150 million loan from the Department of Defense to enhance Mountain Pass’s rare earths separation capabilities.
When reached for comment by Fortune for the company’s reaction to the G7 pledge, spokesperson Matt Sloustcher confirmed that MP Materials “is playing, and will continue to play, a leading role in the rapid diversification of the global supply chain.”
MP is also building a second Texas-based facility that, combined with the Fort Worth one, can produce 10,000 metric tons of rare earth magnets, Sloustcher stated.
But critical minerals expert Schwartz cautioned against getting too excited about developments in the U.S. space because China still dominates heavy rare-earth mining, while the U.S. is mostly dealing with light rare-earths. She pointed to Japan, where “it’s taken over 15 years” for it to “make a significant dent in its dependence on Chinese rare earth materials”.
“There isn’t really large-scale production of those heavy rare earths currently, and we will need to increase production of those materials specifically in order to have a rare earth magnet supply chain that is really cutting dependence on China,” Schwartz said.
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Jim writes: Few AI use cases elicit more outrage than writing: Using AI makes writing duller … dumber … robotic. It kills thinking … creativity … originality. It produces sameness and slop!
Why it matters: All that’s true — if you, as the teacher or writer, allow it to be true. Lazy AI outsourcing means lazy thinking and writing. Used with persistence and skill, AI can enhance both your thoughts and expression.
I’m thinking and writing more and better than ever. But I want to be frank and useful about what I’ve learned about writing and the limits I’ve hit since turning myself into an AI lab rat:
Caution 1: I’m 55, a writer by training, went in aware of AI dangers, and am a prolific writer with or without it. Anyone lazily letting AI do their thinking or writing is playing with fire: You’re destined to create a mushy, “blah brain.” Hope the tips that follow help you build a bionic brain instead.
Caution 2, from Autumn, my wife, who’s more of an AI skeptic: “Don’t conflate the way you write and the utility of AI to convey information with soul writing that many of us need to live, breathe and understand the world around us. Living without that is like trying to live without air for many of us — it needs to be said somehow.
“Between the lines: As AI tools get more powerful, Axios will stay transparent with you about how we use them. (Our website includes a detailed explanation of how we use AI in our journalism.) This column captures my latest thinking on best practices
.So here’s the nitty-gritty of how I use AI for writing:
Set rules based on your standards, not AI’s. I write into the model’s memory: My writing flows from my thinking. So challenge me, never flatter me; press me with wise skepticism. Then write like me — always in Smart Brevity — to match my style.
Be very precise about the writing and editing style.
I have mine wired into the AI memory (just tell it to commit style to memory) and in a skills document for my AI agents. My rules: short, sharp sentences … clinical, fact-based emphasis … context flagged as “Why it matters” … and supporting points stacked in bullet form in order of importance.
Pour in examples. You need to feed in the original work you’re most proud of. It can be as simple as diary entries, memos or a school project. Make sure your writing and editing priorities are reflected in it. I’ve dumped in every Axios column, memo and strategic document, as well as four books (two unreleased).
Let’s pause for a second. Those are very clear parameters for writing and editing with AI. That will suffice for most people in most instances.
I’ve taken my own AI journey much further. I’m doing this to test limits and capabilities.
Advanced writing with AI:
Create specific advanced skills. I use both projects (mainly in Claude, but increasingly in ChatGPT) and agents (in ChatGPT’s Codex). Inside projects and agents, my thinking, writing and editing files are much more specific and richer. They’re called skills or instructions, depending on the platform or use case. I detail a fact-checking skill to double-check data points, then move outside the agent for another fact-check with a safety-net skill.
Interact with projects and agents a lot. You need to create a conversation loop, where you get better at fine-tuning the writing output, and the AI gets better at understanding your style. It definitely gets better with time. You want to find a mind meld that serves and betters you.
Put it to the test. My laboratory is my Axios C-Suite newsletter, which I publish Saturdays for CEOs and other executives. I’m testing and using two main things: I have a project inside of Claude that knows everything I’ve written for this audience, plus my thinking about business and leadership, and the high standards I have for ideas and data.
I have a similar agent that operates autonomously, powered by Codex, that constantly scans high-quality publications, data projects and research for relevant information. It writes up ideas in my style and delivers them via email before I wake up.
The items are good, smart starters or enhancers — but they’re never camera-ready, at least by my standards.
Push and pull — a lot. Funny thing: I write naturally in an AI kind of way — direct, sparse, lots of dashes. And AI naturally writes a lot like me (and naturally loves Smart Brevity). So I find the output often excellent, well-documented and edited better than my favorite human editor, Mike Allen. It still does weird stuff, but rarely. It’s wordier and less direct than I am. Increasingly, I find myself using its edits or proposed Jim-like phrases as naturally as the notes from Mike or any other human editor.
Fun new test: I’m preparing to hike Kilimanjaro, so I’m doing a lot of rucking. I’ve been using Claude in voice mode to have long conversations about things I want to write. I have Claude keep detailed notes, pull out my best phrases and ideas, challenge my assumptions, help organize my thinking. Then we go back and forth by voice before producing a draft column. That’s how I got both the idea and the output for my “Confessions of an AI lab rat” column. The end product was a hybrid of my thinking and my best phrases alongside Claude’s real-time editing and editor-like pushback.
The bottom line: I hope this inspires you to try some of these discoveries yourself .Share this column
.If you’re a CEO or on a CEO’s team: Ask to join Jim’s new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.
As global competition intensifies in the Arctic, Greenland has reemerged as a strategic focal point for the United States and its allies. From the sidelines 2026 US-Canada Summit, hosted by Eurasia Group and RBC in Toronto, Tony Maciulis sits down with Thomas Dans, chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, to discuss why the Arctic is increasingly central to national security, energy development, critical minerals, and geopolitical competition.
BREAKING!!!! The White House has released the full text of 14-point MoU The points summarised are as follows:
1. The U.S. and Iran, and their allies in the current war, by signing this MoU, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.
2. The U.S. and Iran will respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
3. The U.S. and Iran commit to achieving a final deal in a maximum of 60 days, extendable with mutual consent.
4. The U.S. will immediately begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against Iran, and will fully end the naval blockade within 30 days. During this period, the traffic will be in proportion to the number of pre-war traffic being restored by Iran. The U.S. further undertakes to remove its military forces from the proximity of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.
5. Iran will make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining, within 30 days. Iran will conduct a dialogue with Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
6. The U.S. undertakes with its regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran, as part of the final deal after 60 days. All required licenses, waivers, and permissions will be granted.
7. The U.S. will terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the UNSC resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed-upon schedule as part of the final deal.
8. Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.The U.S. and Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpile enriched materials, pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with at a minimum a downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA. The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to Iran’s nuclear needs.
9. Pending the final deal, the U.S. and Iran agree to maintain the status quo. Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the U.S. will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.
10. The U.S. undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MoU, waivers will be issued for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.
11. The U.S. undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MoU. The U.S. and Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations.
12. A monitoring mechanism will be established to supervise the implementation of this MoU and the subsequent deal.
13. After signing this MoU and subject to the beginning of the implementation of paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 10, and 11, and the continuing implementation of these measures, the U.S. and Iran will start negotiations regarding the final deal.
14. The final deal will be endorsed by a UNSC Resolution.
published 2 new AI medical agentic models that take capabilities to a new level, from end-to-end care after presentation to the emergency department and longitudinally through 3 out-patient visits. There’s a lot to unpack. Summarized in a new Ground Truths post. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/agentic-ai-comes-to-medicine
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President Trump signs the Iran memorandum of understanding at Versailles. Screenshot: 
The big picture: Before the war and as it got underway, Trump laid out highly ambitious parameters for any successful resolution with Iran.
World leaders at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Friction point: There’s plenty in the deal for critics to sink their teeth into.
Caution 1: I’m 55, a writer by training, went in aware of AI dangers, and am a prolific writer with or without it. Anyone lazily letting AI do their thinking or writing is playing with fire: You’re destined to create a mushy, “blah brain.” Hope the tips that follow help you build a 
So here’s the nitty-gritty of how I use AI for writing:
If you’re a CEO or on a CEO’s team: 
canisgallicus 