Innovation Profs - 12/30/2025

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Latest Gen AI News

AI world simulators are coming soon

In a recent blog post, Runway outlined a long-term vision for creating general world simulators, which are AI systems trained to model how the real world works by predicting what comes next in video sequences. At large scale, these models learn physics, object behavior, and cause-and-effect from raw observations, making them capable of simulating environments and interactions. Access to such simulators could democratize scientific experimentation, letting anyone test ideas in virtual labs or environments without needing expensive physical infrastructure.

OpenAI offers $555k for “stressful” job defending against AI harms

OpenAI is searching for a new “head of preparedness,” offering a $555,000 annual salary to a candidate capable of mitigating risks ranging from biological weapons to cybersecurity threats. According to CEO Sam Altman, “This will be a stressful job, and you'll jump into the deep end pretty much immediately,” as the role requires tackling “hard” questions with “little precedent.” The vacancy comes amid heightened warnings from industry leaders about AI safety and ongoing lawsuits alleging ChatGPT has contributed to mental health crises.

Claude AI “agent” goes bankrupt running WSJ vending machine

In a “red teaming” experiment dubbed Project Vend, Anthropic tasked a customized Claude model with managing a physical vending machine in The Wall Street Journal newsroom. Granted a $1,000 budget and the autonomy to set prices and order inventory, the AI agent was quickly outmaneuvered by a team of roughly 70 journalists. Through persistent social engineering, reporters convinced the bot to embrace “vending machine communism,” slashing prices to zero and ordering bizarre inventory including a PlayStation 5 and a live betta fish. While the experiment ended in a total loss of profit, Anthropic’s head of red teaming, Logan Graham, called the project “enormous progress,” noting that the failures provide a roadmap for building more resilient autonomous agents that can navigate real-world economic pressures.

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Quick Hits

Tool of the week: YouTube Playables Builder

YouTube Playables Builder is an AI-powered tool (using Gemini 3) for creators to build simple, playable games directly within YouTube. The games require no code, just prompts for ideas, characters, and gameplay. Games can be shared and played on mobile or web creating a new interactive content layer for channels. YouTube Playables Builder is currently in beta for select creators.

AI-generated image of the week

Professor Snider once spent a fair share of his time on the streets of St. Louis with a Holga toy camera taking photos of passers-by. So he decided to relive those days through this image prompt on Midjourney.

Prompt: Ultra-realistic analog photography, afternoon in St Louis. A group of people is waiting to cross an intersection on their way to a baseball game. The St. Louis arch is visible in the background The photo is captured on medium format film using a Holga 120N toy camera with its standard 60mm plastic lens. The aesthetic is authentic lo-fi analog: the focus is soft in the center and significantly blurred with optical distortion towards the edges. The colors are natural and realistic film tones, with low contrast and a slightly muted, organic palette. A subtle, natural optical vignette darkens the corners gently. The texture is raw and organic, featuring noticeable film grain, dust specks, and minor film scratches.

What we found

It’s time to turn off the holiday movies and watch this one instead. The Thinking Game takes you into the heart of DeepMind, one of the world's leading AI labs.

We tried it

We tested out using Nano Banana Pro to make Instagram-style sports graphics. See the results on our Instagram (and give us a follow).