AI shoppers, a PHP warning and airline forecasts

The U.S. National Security Agency said two critical holes in PHP can let attackers reach a server's files or its database, and that a site that cannot be patched right away should be taken offline until it can. The holes have been in every PHP version since version 5, from 2004. PHP 8.1 and older are no longer supported, and the recommended version is 8.5.12. OpenAI says researchers found the flaws before attackers did, and there are no reports of them being used.

A Nielsen survey of 1,700 directors and senior managers in seven countries, paid for by Monday.com, found that more than half say evaluating employees' work has become harder since adopting AI. 58% expect to oversee more AI agents than human employees within a year, 46% worry about losing control of what the agents do, and 35% fear being held responsible for decisions AI made.

Recursive, a startup, released Flint, a coding model you can download free under an open license and run on your own computer, so code stays private and there are no usage fees. In its own tests on a MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip, Flint produced about 131 tokens a second, against 58 to 69 for similar models. Recursive says it needs more guidance than large paid coding assistants, so big jobs should be split into smaller steps.

Southwest Airlines now expects to earn $2.60 to $2.85 a share on an adjusted basis this year, down from $3.25 to $4.25 in its July forecast, and it blamed higher fuel prices. It is the third carrier to trim its profit guidance this month, after Delta and United. Separately, American Airlines forecast deeper losses for the year.

SpaceX said revenue jumped 161% in the third quarter to $14.58 billion. Elon Musk also said SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss a merger. Shares of SpaceX rose after the report, and so did other AI-related stocks.

Blackstone's Jas Khaira said fears about the debt behind the AI buildout are overblown, since most data centers are built for large companies with strong credit. The article notes credit spreads have widened so even Meta and Microsoft pay more to borrow, CoreWeave's debt has reached about $50 billion according to a CNN report it cites, and Firmus cancelled a planned Australian IPO that aimed at a valuation of roughly $30 billion.