China is not beating the U.S. in the artificial intelligence race, at least not yet. But China’s AI products are both cheaper and good enough that a number of American AI users are shifting away from homegrown products. Enter a Silicon Valley panic. The U.S. government may take action, and a new Chinese model — Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 — may be the trip wire.

‘Something good enough’
Kimi K3 can “allegedly beat some of the best systems built by U.S. companies at a fraction of the cost,” said The Verge. It is the latest in a series of cheap Chinese-made “open-weight” AI models that “anyone can download, inspect, modify and run on their own infrastructure,” said Microsoft. 

The Chinese open-weight models are “increasingly almost as good as closed systems made by leading U.S. companies,” which is why a “growing number of Americans” are moving to the Chinese systems, said The Associated Press. Kimi K3 “just seems snappier” than Anthropic’s Claude Fable chatbot, Mozilla chief technology officer Raffi Krikorian said to the outlet. AI users “just don’t need” expensive U.S.-made AI products, technology executive Curt Meinhold said to the outlet. “We need something good enough.”

‘Full AI communism’
Some American AI executives are “sounding the alarm” about the rise of open-weight models, said The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese models represent “full AI communism,” in which governments provide artificial intelligence as “digital public infrastructure” rather than a “market product,” OpenAI’s Dean Ball said on X. 

Others disagree. Restricting access to open-weight models “wouldn’t stop their proliferation — but would weaken U.S. startups” that use the technology, a coalition of 200 smaller tech companies argued last week in a letter to administration officials, per Politico. Regulation would be “great for Anthropic. We’re all going to have to spend money on Anthropic,” Suhail Doshi, the founder of AI infrastructure startup Particle, said to the outlet.

The White House is “showing signs it could ban cutting-edge Chinese AI models,” said Axios. Administration officials last year considered an executive order mandating that U.S. firms could “only host Chinese models if they could guarantee security and take liability if it were breached.”

Like all technology, video games continue to evolve. While those advancements have mostly been welcomed, Sony’s recent announcement that it will cease producing physical video games has rattled fans, particularly those who rely on selling and buying used games. The move could be a major setback for the global second-hand gaming market, estimated at nearly $7 billion.

Why is Sony ending physical discs?
The quintessential game disc is “going away, at least on PlayStation,” Kotaku said. Sony, the company behind the iconic console, is set to end production of physical discs for all first-party and third-party PlayStation games in January 2028. Games released before 2028 will “continue to have physical versions, but everything that comes after will be digital-only.”

The majority of all new games are sold digitally, but “many fans still prefer to own their games on discs,” said Kotaku. The end of discs doesn’t “necessarily preclude Sony and other companies from still selling game boxes in brick-and-mortar stores.” They would just have to “download codes inside.” But it’s unclear if the PS6 will “even have a disc drive, either built into the console or as an optional external attachment.” 

Sundowning physical media is a “natural direction” for the company to “adapt to consumer trends,” as the “general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Sony said in its announcement. The transition will enable Sony to “align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”

How will second-hand gaming be affected?
One of the biggest losers due to Sony’s decision is the second-hand game market. The market for used games will “keep shrinking and eventually disappear,” Kazunori Ito, the director of equity research at Morningstar, said to CNBC.

If this is the future of gaming, then “brick-and-mortar game retail is doomed,” even though, historically, at least one-third of games have been sold as used, Michael Pachter, the managing director of strategic planning at Wedbush Securities, said to CNBC. This is an “extremely anti-consumer decision” that has no “legitimate justification and communicates a disdain for players,” Michael Futter, the cofounder of video game industry consultancy F-Squared, told the outlet.

A polar bear rolls in a pile of ice cubes inside its enclosure at Prague Zoo, with temperatures in the Czech capital set to reach up to 98 degrees today. Keepers have already distributed 10 tons of ice throughout the zoo.
Michal Cizek / AFP / Getty Images

As wildfires and record-breaking heat ravage the planet, movie theaters offer the promise of a blessedly dark, air-conditioned escape from reality. And with audiences flocking back to the theaters in numbers not seen since 2019, they have plenty to choose from this month.

‘One Night Only’
The movie is set in an alternate-reality New York where unmarried people can only have sex one night a year. Despite the dystopian premise, director Will Gluck lets the chemistry between the stars crackle. The film features “all the raunchy trimmings of a traditional sex comedy but veers towards more heartfelt territory,” said Shania Russell at Entertainment Weekly. (in theaters Aug. 7)

‘The End of Oak Street’
What if your neighborhood became “Jurassic Park”? That’s the delightfully goofy premise director David Robert Mitchell leans into. The Platts look on with astonishment when their idyllic 1970s neighborhood appears to be transported way back in time. Mitchell’s Spielbergian film (pictured above) delivers a “truly unique premise in a fashion that's warmly recognizable,” said Bill Bria at SlashFilm. (in theaters Aug. 14)

‘It Ends’
Horror is all the rage with Gen Z, and movies featuring characters trapped in liminal spaces, like “Backrooms,” are also having a moment. Akira Jackson is Day, one of four college friends who head out for food and find themselves trapped on an endless road. This “brilliant” film serves as a “stark reflection of what it feels like to peek beneath the surface of one’s being,” said Siddhant Adlakha at Variety. (in theaters Aug. 21)