2026-03-06 Your Staff Is Venting on ChatGPT, and Big Tech Made a Pinky Promise
Hey, I certainly feel the winter/spring transition in London. I hope your spring is treating you better!
1. Here’s Exactly How Bad Actors Are Using ChatGPT
OpenAI’s February 2026 report documented the main ways its models are being misused: romance scams targeting Indonesian men, fake FBI lawyers re-scamming people who already got defrauded, and China-linked state ops trying to silence dissidents worldwide. Useful taxonomy if you’re wondering what the actual threat landscape looks like.
→ OpenAI — “Disrupting Malicious Uses of Our Models, February 2026”
Editor’s take: One scam worker in Cambodia asked ChatGPT for tax advice and listed their occupation as “scammer.” That’s how OpenAI identified them. The lesson is… that criminals are just as sloppy with AI as everyone else.
2. Claude Now Does Your Recurring Tasks on a Schedule
Anthropic shipped scheduled tasks in Cowork — Claude can now run recurring jobs automatically at set times: morning briefings, weekly spreadsheet updates, Friday reports. It acts without you needing to be the trigger.
Editor’s take: Is this a glorified calendar reminder, or is this actually something different? Yes, this also does the thing for you, whether you’re watching or not. Which brings me to this follow-up question: name one recurring task you’d feel 100% comfortable handing to a machine, even if it gets it wrong.
3. The Love Triangle between Trump, Altman, and Amodei
The Pentagon cancelled Anthropic’s $200M contract after Anthropic refused to allow its AI to be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of American citizens. The official reason given was “supply chain risk to national security” — a designation normally reserved for foreign adversaries. Hours later, OpenAI announced a Pentagon deal...
→ BBC — “Trump orders government to stop using Anthropic in battle over AI use”
and the latest from Altman
→ x.com/sama/status/2028640354912923739
Editor’s take: On the surface, Anthropic’s contract got cancelled because they won’t let the Department of War surveil American civilians, while the DoW called it a “supply chain risk.” We never quite know if this is what happened when Trump and Sam Altman are in the same room. I’m tempted to write a deeper piece laying out the full standoff between OpenAI and Anthropic so far. Let me know in the comments if that’s a story you’d want.
4. Your Staff Uses ChatGPT to Vent, Not Work?
OpenAI’s own usage data shows 70% of ChatGPT conversations are non-work — up from 53% just a year ago. The biggest growing category isn’t coding or writing, but “expressing”: personal reflection, venting, and play. Meanwhile, 25% of global users are asking health questions every week.
→ OpenAI — “How People Are Using ChatGPT”
Editor’s take: 70% of ChatGPT conversations have nothing to do with work. mm... makes me wonder if this ratio holds when you look at Enterprise ChatGPT data? Is your staff venting about you 70% of the time or actually trying to get the report done?
5. Big Tech Promised Not to Raise Your Electricity Bill. Pinky Swear.
Seven tech giants — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI — signed Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” at the White House on March 4, pledging to power their own data centers rather than draw from the shared grid.
Editor’s take: Not sure how enforceable this actually is — and whether a voluntary pledge really protects U.S. citizens from sky-high electricity costs.
6. Anthropic Built a Tool to Steal ChatGPT’s Memories
Claude now lets you import your ChatGPT memory in under 60 seconds — copy a prompt, paste it into ChatGPT, copy the output, paste it into Claude settings. It also just made memory free for all users, including the free tier. The whole thing is transparently designed to make switching from ChatGPT as frictionless as possible.
→ Claude — “Switch to Claude without starting over”
Editor’s take: The war between AI companies is heating up — and on one hand, that benefits us as users. On the other, more competition means more data centers, more energy, and we’re back to the electricity problem.
What did you read this week that you’d like to share?
Best,
Jing