3 Shifts Edition (May 2 2025): The flurry around robotaxis, AI players inch towards ads, Interpretability & how AI models think

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version]. We’re opening this one up to everyone because of the importance of some of these topics. Feel free to forward and share. First, Waymo is pulling away in the robotaxi race with now 250K+ paid robotaxi rides per week, amid a flurry of industry activity and Tesla in hot pursuit. If Waymo is not just better and safer but also getting better and safer faster, its leadership may already be sealed.Next, OpenAI is rolling out shopping in ChatGPT, as it inches closer to advertising. Its search results are “organic” for now but OpenAI has avenues for making money from this that are not sponsored ads. Its moves are a threat to Google, Amazon, and media companies’ affiliate-marketing sites.Finally, researchers are learning that AI models “think” like bags of heuristics. Mechanistic interpretability researchers, led by Anthropic, are racing to make AI models more understandable – before models take on higher-stakes responsibilities as autonomous agents.Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com