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Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Commanders activate Terry McLaurin off PUP list, All-Pro receiver's contract situation still up in the air
The Washington Commanders announced Saturday that they have activated All-Pro wide receiver Terry McLaurin off the physically unable to perform list. The move is unrelated to McLaurin's contract negotiations, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. And, so, although McLaurin is making progress in his return from an ankle injury that bothered him late last season, his contract situation is still up in the air. The Commanders star wideout is in the third year of a three-year, $68.4 million contract with an average annual salary (AAV) of $22.8 million. He skipped spring practices and mandatory minicamp and then held out the first week of training camp before reporting as a hold-in. The seventh-year receiver was fined $200,000 for his four-day holdout. McLaurin, who turns 30 in September, is looking for a new deal that reflects a surging wide receiver market and his WR1 value in a Commanders offense led by now-second-year quarterback Jayden Daniels. More specifically, McLaurin is targeting the $33 million AAV the Pittsburgh Steelers are now paying DK Metcalf, ESPN's John Keim reported Saturday. It's important to note, though, that Metcalf is 27. And as Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson pointed out, only two wide receivers in league history have signed contracts the year they were 30 or turning 30 that earned them more than $23 million annually: Tyreek Hill in 2024 with the Miami Dolphins ($30 million AAV) and Davante Adams ($28 million) with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. McLaurin has been vocal this offseason about his desire to continue his career in Washington. He did, however, request a trade on July 31 as contract frustrations boiled over. McLaurin, now a two-time Pro Bowler, ranked second in the NFL last season with a career-best 13 touchdown catches. He also led the league with 24 contested catches during the regular season, according to Pro Football Focus. While spilling over 1,000 receiving yards for the fifth year in a row, McLaurin made 82 grabs, at least 37 more than every other Washington wideout during Daniels' NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign in 2024. Now that McLaurin's activated off the Commanders' PUP list, he's eligible to practice. That said, his return will likely begin with work off to the side with athletic trainers.
Geek Wire
3 minutes ago
- Geek Wire
Building an AI-first company: What these two business leaders learned from top experts
Adam Brotman, left, and Andy Sack, authors of the book, 'AI First.' (Photo Courtesy Forum3) This week on the GeekWire Podcast, our guests are Adam Brotman and Andy Sack, co-authors of AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand. Brotman was Starbucks' chief digital officer and later co-CEO of Sack is a founder, investor, and longtime advisor to tech leaders. Together, they run Forum3, a Seattle-based company that helps brands with customer loyalty and engagement. For their book, they interviewed experts including Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and Ethan Mollick, and spent time with companies and leaders that have seen early AI success. We talk about the shocking prediction that Altman gave them, how Moderna achieved 80% employee participation in an AI prompt contest, the CEO who supercharged sales by using AI to analyze call transcripts, and what businesses can do to roll out AI successfully. Listen below, and continue reading for my 5 top takeaways. 1. Leaders need their own 'holy shit' moment. AI has a better chance of being adopted when executives personally experience and use the technology themselves. 'It doesn't mean that the CEO has to become an expert in AI,' Brotman said, 'but they have to at least demonstrate that mindset, that curiosity, and a little bit of passion for what they don't know, and empower the organization to go ahead.' 2. Formalize AI efforts with a dedicated team. Instead of ad-hoc adoption, create an internal group to lead the charge. A good starting point is a cross-functional 'AI Council' or task force composed of passionate employees and at least one C-suite member. Brotman and Sack were challenged by Wharton professor Ethan Mollick to push companies even further, to establish internal 'AI Labs' to truly go all-in on experimentation. 3. Treat AI like an evolving intelligence, not static software. Unlike traditional technology implementations, AI capabilities change weekly. Companies need an 'always-on experimentation mindset' rather than a deploy-and-maintain approach. 'This is a new thing. This is not software,' Sack said. 'It's a being, an alien intelligence.' 4. Make AI adoption fun and experimental. Moderna succeeded by turning AI learning into a 'prompt-a-thon contest' with prizes, making employees feel comfortable with experimentation. This tapped into human psychology and removed the fear often associated with new technology. 'They really integrated the launch of that contest in the culture of the company,' Brotman said. 'The ROI has been off-the-charts in terms of productivity for them as a company.' 5. The transformation is happening faster than you think. When Brotman and Sack interviewed Altman, the OpenAI CEO casually dropped a bombshell prediction: 95% of marketing as we know it today will be done by artificial intelligence within three to five years. That shifted their thinking and approach to the book. As Brotman noted, 'If you look at how the technology has progressed since we've had that interview, it's right on schedule.' AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand, by Adam Brotman and Andy Sack, is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
TechCrunch
3 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Anthropic says some Claude models can now end ‘harmful or abusive' conversations
Anthropic has announced new capabilities that will allow some of its newest, largest models to end conversations in what the company describes as 'rare, extreme cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions.' Strikingly, Anthropic says it's doing this not to protect the human user, but rather the AI model itself. To be clear, the company isn't claiming that its Claude AI models are sentient or can be harmed by their conversations with users. In its own words, Anthropic remains 'highly uncertain about the potential moral status of Claude and other LLMs, now or in the future.' However, its announcement points to a recent program created to study what it calls 'model welfare' and says Anthropic is essentially taking a just-in-case approach, 'working to identify and implement low-cost interventions to mitigate risks to model welfare, in case such welfare is possible.' This latest change is currently limited to Claude Opus 4 and 4.1. And again, it's only supposed to happen in 'extreme edge cases,' such as 'requests from users for sexual content involving minors and attempts to solicit information that would enable large-scale violence or acts of terror.' While those types of requests could potentially create legal or publicity problems for Anthropic itself (witness recent reporting around how ChatGPT can potentially reinforce or contribute to its users' delusional thinking), the company says that in pre-deployment testing, Claude Opus 4 showed a 'strong preference against' responding to these requests and a 'pattern of apparent distress' when it did so. As for these new conversation-ending capabilities, the company says, 'In all cases, Claude is only to use its conversation-ending ability as a last resort when multiple attempts at redirection have failed and hope of a productive interaction has been exhausted, or when a user explicitly asks Claude to end a chat.' Anthropic also says Claude has been 'directed not to use this ability in cases where users might be at imminent risk of harming themselves or others.' Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $600+ before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW When Claude does end a conversation, Anthropic says users will still be able to start new conversations from the same account, and to create new branches of the troublesome conversation by editing their responses. 'We're treating this feature as an ongoing experiment and will continue refining our approach,' the company says.
