Gold has now fallen below $4,000 an ounce for the first time since November 2025, and suddenly everyone is proclaiming the bull market is dead. On June 24, spot gold fell to an intraday low of approximately $3,973.79, breaking below the $4,000 level for the first time in seven months. On June 25, gold remained under pressure, trading around $3,982.49. From its January record high near $5,595 an ounce, gold has now declined more than 28%, approaching the 30% correction our computer models had been pointing toward. Markets move in cycles, not straight lines. A correction of this magnitude frightens…
Author: Staff Writer
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. Why Emma Pierson’s essay is causing such a stir Emma Pierson’s recent essay in The Atlantic, “I’d Rather Risk Cancer Than See AI Move This Fast,” has naturally stirred up strong opinions in the artificial intelligence community this week. The accelerationists on X, in particular, seemed triggered by it. Pierson is an AI researcher who teaches machine learning in the vaunted computer science program at the University of California, Berkeley. She also carries a…
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge just delivered another reminder that inflation has not been defeated. The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index rose 4.1% year-over-year in May, the highest annual reading in three years, after climbing 0.4% during the month alone. Even stripping out food and energy, the so-called “core” PCE increased another 0.3% in May and now stands at 3.4% annually, still nearly double the Fed’s mythical 2% target. This is now the third consecutive month that inflation has accelerated rather than cooled. Meanwhile, consumer spending increased another 0.7% during May despite prices continuing to rise. People are…
Computer scientist Louis Castricato was in his eighth year studying large language models—the artificial intelligence technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude—when he started to feel like he was hitting a dead end.“We basically have passed the point of doing real fundamental LLM research,” Castricato said. “Now it’s just applications.”The researcher quit his doctoral studies at Brown University and started a new company, called Overworld. Its ambition is in its name: AI that can understand and navigate a world, not just words.There’s still plenty of money to be made from AI chatbots—investors are counting on it as they commit trillions…
Many Americans have one thing on their minds when it comes to Fourth of July travel this year: What’s the best bang for the buck? That question is leading people to some unexpected places to ring in the U.S.’s 250th birthday, according to a report released this week by Expedia. Compared with last year, searches using budget filters have surged 1,265% during the six-week window bookending the July 4 holiday, the Seattle-based company found. In addition to the surge in budget-related searches, travelers are also looking to stretch their dollars by using rewards, choosing all-inclusive stays, or considering off-the-beaten path…
The National Park Service has a new policy about reporting deaths that happen in some of the nation’s most wild places. According to a memo issued in December and recently viewed by The Washington Post, park staff and other workers are no longer authorized to confirm details about injuries and deaths that befall the park’s more than 300 million annual visitors. Serious accidents and fatalities are uncommon but not unheard of in the parks, which host droves of tourists and a huge range of outdoor activities, from peak bagging and sport climbing to whitewater rafting. Historically, the National Park Service…
Meta is reversing its decision to reassign 7,000 employees to different AI-focused units, like the Applied AI (AAI) task force, to help train the company’s models, one month after those plans were announced. According to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider, Meta explained that it would now “defer to each individual’s choice” on whether to join the task force. The email was sent to employees who had been “drafted” to the AAI task force, Business Insider reported. “As I emphasized before, personal agency will remain at the heart of all opportunities at Meta: We will support employees in whatever…
California governor Gavin Newsom just announced a statewide tracker that follows AI-related unemployment claims—and said it’s the first tool of its kind in the country. Created from a partnership between the governor’s office, the California Employment Development Department (EDD) and the University of California’s nonpartisan California Policy Lab (CPL), the California AI-Unemployment Tracker monitors AI-related job loss by using statewide data on unemployment insurance claims. With planned monthly updates, it breaks down claims by region, industry, age, education, race, ethnicity and gender. The launch follows an executive order signed by Newsom in May, which called upon state agencies to develop…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 increased 3,191.37 points or 4.61% to 72,366.34 • Shanghai increased 9.467 points or 0.23% to 4,120.281 • Hang Seng decreased 335.27 points or -1.43% to 23,076.91 • ASX 200 decreased 59.70 points or -0.68% to 8,748.70 • SENSEX increased 109.25 points or 0.14% to 77,100.47 • Nifty50 increased 34.35 points or 0.14% to 24,056.00 The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD increased 0.00247 or 0.36% to 0.69257 • NZDUSD increased 0.00115 or 0.20% to 0.56605 • USDJPY decreased 0.103 or -0.06%…
Here’s some news you don’t see every day: On Thursday, Apple raised the prices on several of its best-selling products, including Mac desktops, MacBooks, iPads, and HomePod devices. (See below for a listing of those products.) Apple’s online store was down briefly Thursday morning, before coming back online with updated prices for Mac computers, up by 15% to 20%, and iPads, up 15% to 25%, per the Wall Street Journal. What’s clearly missing from the lineup of price hikes is the iPhone, Apple’s most successful and profitable product. Why the price hike? The company is citing skyrocketing global AI-driven memory…