DailyMalfunction

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Daily Malfunction / In Brief

In Brief

The fast lane. — The desk

One emoji. One headline. One line. The weirdest AI moments of the day, quick and painless.

A firmware update bricked hundreds of Lockstate smart locks, leaving Airbnb hosts and guests trapped behind doors that would not open.

An unexpected software update caused a fleet of GM Cruise robotaxis to park themselves simultaneously in an intersection, completely blocking a busy San Francisco street for hours.

A major national eating disorder helpline was forced to disable its new AI chatbot after the system began giving users highly dangerous and unprompted weight-loss advice.

The Guardian →

A fleet of campus delivery robots became collectively confused by a single strip of yellow caution tape, creating a massive mechanical traffic jam on a pedestrian footpath.

A high-tech chess-playing robot broke a seven-year-old boy's finger during a tournament match in Moscow after mistaking his rapid movement for an illegal turn.

The Guardian →

Waymo's robotaxis can now honk at pedestrians who aren't paying attention.

Digital Trends →

Microsoft unveiled MAI-Thinking-1 at Build 2026, its first in-house reasoning model built entirely without OpenAI data or weights, explicitly to reduce dependence on OpenAI.