AI Insights

YARBROUGH: A semi-intelligent look at artificial intelligence

Published

6 days ago

September 10, 2025

Dr. Geoffrey Hinton is a British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics last year “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” Between you and me, I got hosed. I should have been a winner.

The Nobel committee obviously overlooked my own entry entitled, “One molecule of glucose bound to one molecule of fructose will make sugar and winning the Nobel Prize sure would be sweet.” I don’t think they know a lot about physics over there in Norway.

Just as I am known as a modest yet much-beloved columnist who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Brad Pitt, Dr. Hinton who looks nothing like Brad Pitt, young or old, is considered the Godfather of Artificial Intelligence. That’s like being Godfather of the Mafia. Only worse.

If somebody in the Mafia got out of hand, you would just shoot them or put them in a tub of concrete and deposit them in the East River. According to Dr. Hinton, artificial intelligence is likely to get rid of anybody left in the Mafia and the rest of us as well and it won’t need a gun or a sack of concrete to do it.

“It’s not inconceivable,” he has stated, “that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity,” saying that there was a “10 to 20 percent chance” that AI would be the cause of human extinction within the following three decades. In fact, many experts expect AI to advance, probably in the next 20 years, to be “smarter than people.”

Admittedly, I am not the go-to person on the subjects of cognitive psychology and computer science (although knowing how sugar is made is pretty impressive), but I would posit that it is not going to take 20 years for artificial intelligence to get smarter than people. That’s already occurred in some instances. Just look at Congress.

Can you see a computer saying, “Beep! Beep! Hey, I want to suck up to Donald Trump. I think I will propose changing the name of Greenland to Red, White and Blueland and then he will get me elected to the Senate where I can do other dumb stuff. Boop!” There are some things a computer won’t do, even if a member of Congress will.

Dr. Hinton also worries about the impact of AI on religion. He says, “I think religion will be in trouble if we create other beings. Once we start creating beings that can think for themselves and do things for themselves, maybe even have bodies if they’re robots, we may start realizing we’re less special than we thought. And the idea that we’re very special and we were made in the image of God, that idea may go out the window.” An interesting observation.

Theologically speaking, if computers become robots, will there be girl robots and boy robots? If so, will boy robots let girl robots in the pulpit? Or will the boy robots tell other robots that if they think girl robots should be allowed to preach, they will be condemned to spend eternity in an electronic waste disposal bin at Best Buys?

As to whether or not we are made in the image of God, I believe that’s God’s call, not mine. Creation is His thing. I will say that had God asked me, there are a few people He created that I think we could just as soon done without. I couldn’t find His image in them with a flashlight. Maybe He just put them here to show us He has a sense of humor.

I probably won’t be around to see how all this plays out but despite the Godfather of AI’s ominous warning, no robot will ever make me feel less special. I’ve got a family that loves me more than I deserve. I have friends that have stood with me through the good times and the bad. I had a rewarding career. I am blessed to live in this special state in this special country.

Most of all, thanks to a benevolent editor willing overlook misplaced commas and grammatical errors (Is it who or whom?), I have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you each week and to receive your feedback. That may come in the form of a kudo or a rap on the knuckles. I suspect robots won’t give a flying algorithm for you or your opinions. I do. And there is nothing artificial about that.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.

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AI Insights

Dulce Maria Alavez missing: Police using AI in search for girl who vanished from Bridgeton, NJ park

Published

48 minutes ago

September 16, 2025

The Editors

BRIDGETON, N.J. (WPVI) — Tuesday marks six years since Dulce Maria Alavez vanished from Bridgeton City Park, and investigators say they remain committed to solving the case.

Dulce was 5 years old when she was last seen playing with her younger brother on the afternoon of Sept. 16, 2019. Her mother, Noema Alavez Perez, stayed in her car nearby with her younger sister. Moments later, Dulce was gone.

Surveillance video shows the last known images of Dulce Alavez before she went missing.

While marking the anniversary, Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae said the New Jersey State Police have begun using artificial intelligence in hopes of uncovering new clues.

TIMELINE: The search for 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez

“Our commitment to uncovering the truth has never wavered-we will never forget, and we remain steadfast in our mission to bring closure to the family,” said Colonel Patrick Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.

The FBI believes Dulce’s abduction may have been a random crime of opportunity.

“We believe there are witnesses out there who saw the abductor, who saw the vehicle in the area of the park,” said FBI Special Agent Daniel Garrabrant in a 2020 interview with Action News. “They either haven’t come forward because they’re afraid or don’t realize how important the information is.”

Authorities have released several age-progression images of Dulce, the most recent in 2023.

Age-progression photos released Thursday (left) and Wednesday (right) show what Dulce Maria Alavez could look like today.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

No arrests have been made in the case. About a month after her disappearance, police released a sketch of a man who remains a person of interest. He was described as a Hispanic male, approximately 5-foot-7, slender build, age 30 to 35, wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a white baseball-style hat.

On October 15, 2019, nearly a month into the case, police released a composite sketch of a person who may have information on Dulce Maria Alavez's disappearance. — On October 15, 2019, nearly a month into the case, police released a composite sketch of a person who may have information on Dulce Maria Alavez’s disappearance.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office at www.ccpo.tips, the New Jersey State Police Special Investigations Section at 1-833-465-2653, or the FBI’s tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). If you speak Spanish, you can call 856-207-2732.

“This investigation is like a large puzzle,” Webb-McRae said. “There are missing puzzle pieces. We don’t know their significance or where they fit until the pieces are collected.”

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This Artificial Intelligence (AI) ETF Has Outperformed the Market By 2.4X Since Inception and Only Holds Profitable Companies

Published

2 hours ago

September 16, 2025

The Editors

For well under $100, you can buy one share of this under-the-radar AI exchange-traded fund (ETF) that looks poised to continue to outperform the market.

For this article, I asked myself: Where would I start investing if I had less than $100 to invest?

Image source: Getty Images.

An AI ETF that’s concentrated and full of leading and profitable companies

This answer to my question popped into my head: I’d want a concentrated exchange-traded fund (ETF) focused on leading and profitable companies heavily involved in artificial intelligence (AI), but with enough differences among themselves.

Why an ETF? Because I’d not want to put all my (investing) eggs in one basket.

Why AI? Because it’s poised to be the biggest secular trend in many decades or even generations.

Why concentrated? Because I believe if investors are going to buy a very diversified ETF, they might as well buy the entire market, so to speak, and buy an S&P 500 index ETF. Indeed, buying an S&P 500 index fund is a good idea for many investors, and recommended by investing legend Warren Buffett. That said, over the long run, I think an AI ETF full of only leading and profitable companies will beat the S&P 500 index.

Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS): Overview

And bingo! There is such an ETF — the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS 1.92%). It has seven holdings — the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks: Alphabet (GOOG 4.38%) (GOOGL 4.53%), Amazon (AMZN 1.42%), Apple (AAPL 1.06%), Meta Platforms (META 1.18%), Microsoft (MSFT 1.01%), Nvidia (NVDA -0.10%), and Tesla (TSLA 3.54%). This ETF closed at $62.93 per share on Friday, Sept. 12.

These megacap stocks (stocks with market caps over $200 billion) were given the Magnificent Seven name a couple of years ago by a Wall Street analyst due to their strong growth and large influence on the overall market. The name comes from the title of a 1960 Western film.

Two other main traits I like about this ETF:

Its expense ratio is reasonable at 0.29%.
It provides equal-weight exposure to the seven stocks. At each quarterly rebalancing, the stocks will be reset to an equal weighting of about 14.28% (100% divided by 7).

Since its inception in April 2023 (almost 2.5 years), the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF has returned 160% — 2.4 times the S&P 500’s 65.9% return.

Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS): All stock holdings

Stocks are listed in order of current weight in portfolio. Keep in mind the ETF is rebalanced quarterly to make stocks equally weighted.

Holding No.	Company	Market Cap	Wall Street’s Projected Annualized EPS Growth Over Next 5 Years	Weight (% of Portfolio)	1 Year/ 10-Year Returns
1	Alphabet	$2.9 trillion	14.7%	17.72%	55.9% / 677%
2	Nvidia	$4.3 trillion	34.9%	15.00%	49.3% / 32,210%
3	Apple	$3.5 trillion	8.8%	14.13%	5.6% / 812%
4	Tesla	$1.3 trillion	13.4%	13.81%	72.3% / 2,270%
5	Amazon	$2.4 trillion	18.6%	13.30%	22% / 762%
6	Meta Platforms	$1.9 trillion	12.9%	13.16%	44.3% / 725%
7	Microsoft	$3.8 trillion	16.6%	12.76%	20.3% / 1,250%
Overall ETF	N/A	Total net assets of $2.86 billion	N/A	100%	40.5% / N/A
N/A	S&P 500	N/A	N/A	N/A	19.2% / 300%

Data sources: Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF, finviz.com, and YCharts. EPS = earnings per share. Data as of Sept. 12, 2025.

All these companies are profitable leaders in their core markets, and heavily involved in AI. Nvidia produces AI tech that enables others to use AI, while the other companies mainly use AI to improve their existing products and develop new ones.

Alphabet’s Google is the world leader in internet search. Its cloud computing business is No. 3 in the world, behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The company also has other businesses, notably its driverless vehicle subsidiary, Waymo. (You can read here why I believe Nvidia is the best driverless vehicle stock.)

Nvidia is often described as the world’s leading maker of AI chips — and that it is. But it’s much more. It’s the world leader in supplying technology infrastructure for enabling AI. It’s also the global leader in graphics processing units (GPUs) for computer gaming.

Apple’s iPhone holds the No. 2 spot in the global smartphone market, behind Samsung. However, it dominates the U.S. market. The company’s services business is attractive, as it consists of recurring revenue and has been steadily growing.

Amazon operates the world’s No. 1 e-commerce business and the world’s No. 1 cloud computing business. It also has many other businesses, notably its Fresh and Amazon Prime Now (Whole Foods) grocery delivery operations.

Meta Platforms operates the world’s leading social media site, Facebook, as well as Instagram, Threads, and messaging app WhatsApp.

Microsoft’s Word has long been the world’s leading word processing software. Word is part of Microsoft Office, a suite of popular software for personal computers (PCs). Its Azure is the world’s second-largest cloud computing business.

Tesla remains the No. 1 electric vehicle (EV) maker, by far, in the U.S. despite struggling recently. In the first half of 2025, China’s BYD surpassed Tesla as the world’s leader in all-electric vehicles by number of units sold. CEO Elon Musk touts that the company’s robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robot businesses will eventually be larger than its EV sales business.

In short, the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF is poised to continue to benefit from the growth of artificial intelligence. Technically, it doesn’t have a long-term history. But if it had existed many years ago, it’s easy to tell that its long-term performance would be very strong because the long-term performances of all its holdings have been anywhere from great to spectacular.

Beth McKenna has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends BYD Company and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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OpenAI’s new GPT-5 Codex model takes on Claude Code

Published

2 hours ago

September 16, 2025

The Editors

OpenAI is rolling out the GPT-5 Codex model to all Codex instances, including Terminal, IDE extension, and Codex Web (chatgpt.com/codex).

Codex is an AI agent that allows you to automate coding-related tasks. You can delegate your complex tasks to Codex and watch it execute code for you.

Even if you don’t know programming languages, you can use Codex to “vibe code” your apps and web apps.

But so far, it has fallen a bit short of Claude Code, which is the market leader in the AI coding space.

Today, OpenAI confirmed it’s rolling out the Codex-special GPT-5 model.

In a blog post, OpenAI stated the GPT-5 Codex model excels in real-world coding tasks, achieving a 74.5% success rate on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark.

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