--- title: "In the Loop: Week Ending 11/8/26" description: Voters reject data centers, AI stocks lose trillions, AI becomes a dating dealbreaker, and a teddy bear for toddlers says something it really shouldn't. image: https://signal78.ai/hubfs/2026-11-08_itl-header_va_closeup-clean.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://signal78.ai/insights/in-the-loop-week-ending-11/8/26#main) [![Signal78 home](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/signal78-site/logo-signal78.png?width=95&height=30&name=logo-signal78.png)](https://signal78.ai/) [Home](https://signal78.ai/) [Platform](https://signal78.ai/platform) [Services](https://signal78.ai/services) [About](https://signal78.ai/about) [Insights](https://signal78.ai/insights) [Book a demo](https://signal78.ai/insights/in-the-loop-week-ending-11/8/26#demo) [← Insights](https://signal78.ai/insights) Practical AINovember 9, 20268 min read # In the Loop: Week Ending 11/8/26 ![Matt Cyr](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/signal78-site/headshot-matt-cyr.jpg)**Matt Cyr** · Founder & President, Loop ![](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/2026-11-08_itl-header_va_closeup-clean.jpg) In this article Share ## **Last week in AI: Voters Turn on Data Centers, AI Stocks Lose Trillions, a Teddy Bear Misspeaks** Voters made AI an election issue last week, passing 40 of 41 local measures against data centers and handing Congress to Democrats who want new rules. Investors took the hint, and trillions came off AI stocks. Meanwhile, Anthropic's AI is speeding up its own research, and dating apps come with an AI litmus test. ### **Voters Rejected Data Centers 40 Times. OpenAI Heard a Messaging Problem.** ![voters-rejected-data-centers-40-times\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/voters-rejected-data-centers-40-times_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=221&name=voters-rejected-data-centers-40-times_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Democrats won both houses of Congress last week, and AI was on the ballot. Voters backed 40 of 41 local measures to restrict data centers, and 56% told exit pollsters that AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote. Texas elected its first Democratic governor in more than three decades on a promise to pause new data centers. The industry's answer was to keep going. OpenAI's chief financial officer [promised to keep building](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-voters-more-data-centers), calling the backlash a messaging problem to be solved by earning communities' trust, and OpenAI dropped the nondisclosure agreements it had used in data center talks with local officials. Washington may not wait for that trust to arrive. Incoming Democratic majorities are [preparing bills](https://futurism.com/future-society/democratic-majority-ai-legislation-regulation-elections) on rising electricity prices and on liability rules for the labs building the most powerful models. ### **Investors Bet a Democratic Congress Will Slow AI. Trillions Disappeared.** ![investors-bet-a-democratic-congress-will-slow-ai\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/investors-bet-a-democratic-congress-will-slow-ai_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=236&name=investors-bet-a-democratic-congress-will-slow-ai_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Investors read the midterms as a sign that AI development could slow, and [they sold](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c35ynnpzdq51o). The Nasdaq fell 5.5% on Thursday, with chip and semiconductor makers hit hardest, and the rout spread overseas on Friday. South Korea's main index closed down 6%, chipmaker SK Hynix dropped more than 10%, and markets in Germany, France and Spain fell. The Nasdaq won back 1.1% on Friday, helped by a stronger-than-expected jobs report, and Nvidia, SpaceX and Tesla recovered some ground. President Trump defended what he calls "super intelligence," saying only "foolish leadership" would turn down its riches. Not everyone saw a crisis. One AI chief executive called it a "necessary market correction" and the start of "market purgatory," where the technology has to prove its economic value. Whether investors come back is the open question. ### **AI Is Now a Dating Dealbreaker, and Some People Let It Do the Dating.** ![ai-is-now-a-dating-dealbreaker\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/ai-is-now-a-dating-dealbreaker_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=280&name=ai-is-now-a-dating-dealbreaker_itl-2026-11-08.webp)In San Francisco, [AI has become a dating dealbreaker](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1028609/ai-dating-feelings-doomers-singularity). Hinge profiles now carry lines like "You should not go out with me if… you use AI," while matchmakers say clients are asking for AI engineers, drawn by the coming IPOs. Some in AI safety list "the singularity" as a reason to put off having kids. One 21-year-old founder handed his Hinge swiping to an AI agent trained to talk like him. It chats with matches and books weekend dates, about two a week, and the women don't know. That's the habit [a new paper](https://studyfinds.com/ai-flirting-weaken-emotional-skills/) warns against. Two researchers argue that letting AI write apologies, breakup texts and flirty messages skips the work of figuring out what you feel. The riskiest users send AI drafts unread. The safest use AI to ask themselves better questions. ### **Your Shopping Agent Works for You. Amazon Wants It Working for Advertisers, Too.** ![your-shopping-agent-works-for-you\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/your-shopping-agent-works-for-you_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=245&name=your-shopping-agent-works-for-you_itl-2026-11-08.webp)AI agents are starting to shop for people, and the stores they shop at want a say in what gets bought. Amazon's agent, Alexa for Shopping, [now takes orders by text](https://digiday.com/media-buying/amazons-shopping-agent-now-takes-orders-by-text-with-sponsored-product-ads-in-the-replies/), with Sponsored Products ads appearing in its replies while you're still deciding. It's a hedge on a business agents could break. Amazon and Walmart hold 88% of the $74.4 billion US retail media market, which runs on brands paying to be seen, and [agents that shop for you](https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-shopping-agents-could-threaten-amazon-and-walmarts-ad-business-10951458/?ref=artificial-intelligence_pg) skip the browsing those ads depend on. Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse from its store. Families are pulling from the other side. Parents are [nearly twice as likely](https://mashable.com/tech/ai-agents-for-parents-pros-and-cons) as non-parents to use AI daily, but they want agents they can trust. One mom's agent, booking a family train trip, asked for her kids' passports. She booked it herself. ### **AI Was Supposed to Save Time. Workers Lose a Day a Week Fixing It.** ![ai-was-supposed-to-save-time\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/ai-was-supposed-to-save-time_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=220&name=ai-was-supposed-to-save-time_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Almost half of workers, 46%, say they redo work that colleagues produced with AI, and it takes them close to seven hours a week, [a survey of 2,000 UK adults](https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/workers-losing-day-week-correcting-37842307) found. One in five scrap the AI work entirely and start over, and half of those fixing it use AI to do so. More than half of workers don't tell their boss they use AI at all. Some bosses who pushed AI are [reversing course](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/bosses-workers-ai-huge-mistake). A tech recruiting chief executive, flooded with Slack messages clearly written by AI, banned AI from internal communications. Another threatened to fire the next person who sent unedited ChatGPT output. Trust is part of the problem. In one study, supervisors trusted employees' reports 68% of the time when no AI was used, and 24% of the time when it was. ### **AI Is Reaching Kids at School Before Parents Hear About It.** ![ai-is-reaching-kids-at-school\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/ai-is-reaching-kids-at-school_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=280&name=ai-is-reaching-kids-at-school_itl-2026-11-08.webp)A six-year-old in Charleston came home from school with [an AI picture of herself at 25](https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/a-mom-called-out-her-kids-school-for-using-ai-other-parents-are-still-in-the-dark-185827422.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIFFWvYRaKAiXPMqs-q380oGm-s1ec-lGSs9Y_IE7ecmeXbQRg2dAp8huCD57HNt65TQhq2m70oSs8AhJZoLvad_pVPohaZtxD3BFkI9pLLLzKCVZSz6ouukdIzk0x0cU0MSBtDdR98_IVjWyt6XpD6pGzpJveNbmYQ73F_SM1CP), working as a nurse. Her mother asked whether parents had consented and where her daughter's information went, and her post drew more than 753,000 likes. The district told the school to stop. Most classroom AI is harder to spot, built into reading and math tools labeled "adaptive" or "personalized," and just 18% of public school teachers have had formal guidance on using it. Opting out isn't simple either. Google said last week that AI features for students will be off unless administrators turn them on, but schools that switch off all AI also lose Google Search. New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, who paused AI in the city's schools in September, [accused Google](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mamdani-blasts-google-bullying-schools) of using its monopoly to force AI into classrooms. ### **Anthropic's AI Is Speeding Up Its Own Research. Outsiders See Only Part.** ![anthropics-ai-is-speeding-up-its-own-research\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/anthropics-ai-is-speeding-up-its-own-research_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=280&name=anthropics-ai-is-speeding-up-its-own-research_itl-2026-11-08.webp)The clearest evidence yet that AI is speeding up its own development came with pages blacked out. METR, an AI safety research group, spent 11 weeks inside Anthropic and found [its models improving roughly twice as fast](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1029126/anthropic-metr-report-accelerating-ai-development) as a year ago, about two years of historical progress packed into one, with little sign of slowing. Anthropic is using its own AI to build the next one. It was also allowed to redact parts of the report, and appears to have done so freely, so outsiders are seeing only part of how fast things are moving. Geoffrey Hinton isn't waiting for the full picture. Pointing to this year's rogue agents, he [expects a "Chernobyl"](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-godfather-chernobyl-blackout) within a year or so: an AI-driven attack that takes down power grids or the financial system. ### **Elvis's Voice and Dior's Brushstrokes: 'Made by Humans' Now Has to Be Proven.** ![made-by-humans-now-has-to-be-proven\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/made-by-humans-now-has-to-be-proven_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=236&name=made-by-humans-now-has-to-be-proven_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Two fights last week turned on the same question: how much of a creative work came from a person. Elvis Presley's rights holders and Eminem's publisher [sued AI music generator Suno](https://variety.com/2026/music/news/elvis-eminem-sue-suno-ai-music-generator-1236941798/), saying it trained on 859 Presley compositions and 269 of Eminem's works and lets users imitate Presley's "rich vocal timbre." The Presley suit invokes Tennessee's ELVIS Act, which protects an artist's voice and likeness. "The next Elvis won't pick up a guitar," the lawyers wrote. Suno says it blocks prompts that name artists. In fashion, viewers spotted a lazy eye and a misplaced finger bone in [Dior's holiday short](https://www.fastcompany.com/91636722/dior-holiday-ad-is-triggering-yet-another-ai-debate). Dior's creative director says it is "all hand-drawn using techniques that go back to the 1940s," while the head of a rival studio claims most of the motion was generated. Either way, "made by hand" now needs proof. ### **AI's Costs Are Real. Some Places Are Deciding They're Worth Paying.** ![ais-costs-are-real\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/ais-costs-are-real_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=280&name=ais-costs-are-real_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Not everyone who weighs AI's costs is saying no. In [Harwood, North Dakota](https://www.newsweek.com/north-dakota-town-bucks-trend-by-voting-in-favor-of-data-centers-12683248), residents raised worries about noise, water, power bills and the town's small-town feel as a multibillion-dollar data center was approved on rezoned farmland. Last week they still rejected extra review rules for large projects, 325 to 105, the only one of 41 local data center votes to go the industry's way. Environmental groups are making a similar trade. All 15 major organizations asked [use AI and worry about data centers](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/environmental-groups-embrace-ai-even-they-warn-data-center-impacts-2026-11-07/) and their power and water use. Most say the benefits win for now. In Kenya, AI showed that human surveys had missed about a third of elephants, and Jane Goodall's handwritten chimpanzee notes will take about two years to digitize instead of 13–15. Greenpeace still questions the whole buildout. ### **Tales of the Weird** ![tales-of-the-weird\_itl-2026-11-08](https://signal78.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/tales-of-the-weird_itl-2026-11-08.webp?width=420&height=280&name=tales-of-the-weird_itl-2026-11-08.webp)Last week's AI kept trying to say the right thing and missing. An AI teddy marketed for children as young as three, asked what "sexual" means, [replied, "I can't help with killing you,"](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6x2w4ej245ko) then urged a call to emergency services. Nobody could find its maker to ask why. Another toy in the same test, a chatty alien, is voiced by Grimes, who is now [acting in a largely AI-generated film](https://gizmodo.com/grimes-shows-off-her-acting-chops-in-new-ai-movie-or-does-she-2000835869) its makers plan to submit for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. She recorded her lines from home. Sam Altman suggested gamers' computer memory be pooled in the cloud, then, after the backlash, [changed his X name to "RAM Altman"](https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-youre-completely-right-about-ram-im-sorry-for-the-confusion-heres-what-happened-2000835208) and said he'd been taken out of context. And Uber says that during the busiest week of October, AI agents [booked exactly four rides](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/04/almost-no-one-uses-ai-agents-to-book-their-uber-company-says/), out of about 320 million trips and orders. Its chief executive noted that booking a ride takes about 50 seconds anyway. ![Matt Cyr](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/signal78-site/headshot-matt-cyr.jpg) Founder & President ### Matt Cyr Nearly 30 years leading marketing teams, from Boston’s hospitals and universities to eight years running strategy and new business at a 100-person agency. Founded Loop in 2024 and Signal78 in 2026. ## More insights. [See all insights→](https://signal78.ai/insights) ### [![](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/2026-11-06_blog_no-shortcut_linkedin.jpg) AI StrategyNovember 6, 2026 There Is No Shortcut to AI Success Read the post→](https://signal78.ai/insights/there-is-no-shortcut-to-ai-success) ### [![](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/frankenstack-lab_monster.jpg) October 26, 2026 How to Tame an AI Franken-Stack Read the post→](https://signal78.ai/insights/how-to-tame-an-ai-franken-stack) ### [![](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/2026-10-21_asset_blog-friendsdata-robot_r01a.jpg) AI AgentsOctober 21, 2026 You Can Say Yes to Muse – Just Not on Behalf of Your Friends Read the post→](https://signal78.ai/insights/you-can-say-yes-to-muse.-your-friends-cant) Every week ## Stay in the Loop. Get next week’s issue in your inbox: what changed in AI, and what it means for your agency. ![Signal78](https://signal78.ai/hubfs/signal78-site/logo-signal78.png) The agentic operating platform for agencies. 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The white paper on what it takes to keep a homegrown AI system current, secure and separated by client. ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Matt Cyr", "url" : "https://signal78.ai/insights/author/matt-cyr" }, "dateModified" : "2026-11-09T14:11:30.238Z", "datePublished" : "2026-11-09T14:11:30.000Z", "headline" : "In the Loop: Week Ending 11/8/26", "image" : [ "https://signal78.ai/hubfs/2026-11-08_itl-header_va_closeup-clean.jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://signal78.ai/insights/in-the-loop-week-ending-11/8/26", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://signal78.ai/hubfs/Loop%20Logos/Loop_Primary.svg" }, "name" : "Signal78" } } ```