A new warning about the pace of global warming

Plus: AI could help bring back the dodo  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Richard Hall | October 15, 2026     Hello readers. It’s choose-your-own-adventure here in The Brief, as you get to decide which apocalyptic scenario to worry most about. Should it be a warning from scientists that climate change is accelerating faster than we can respond, or the threat of self-improving AI? We also have footage of a confrontation between a Republican congressman from Maryland and a reporter over the right to film in public. IN TODAY’S BRIEF Climate change warning Self-improving AI AI could help bring back the dodo School violence and social media Inflation bites Reporter vs. Representative         READ THIS FIRST Climate change is accelerating faster than we can respond David Swanson—Getty Images According to a new report published Oct. 14 in the journal BioScience, “Earth’s climate system is moving deeper into uncharted territory.” The State of the Climate, an annual report that tracks the Earth’s “vital signs,” monitors several climate-related indicators—ranging from greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature changes to tree cover loss due to wildfire. The researchers found that, of the 16 planetary vital signs, seven are currently at record extremes. This includes sea levels and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, several others, such as areas burned during wildfires and ocean heat levels, show evidence of acceleration or abrupt shifts.  The researchers warn that the rate of global warming appears to have accelerated, from about 0.05°C per decade between 1880 and 1970 to roughly 0.36°C per decade between 2010 and 2024—and that the 2°C threshold meant to limit planetary damage could be reached before 2050. These accelerating and intensifying changes could raise the risk of reinforcing feedback loops and crossing tipping points—critical thresholds that, when crossed, can lead to accelerating and often irreversible environmental changes. "Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits," the report states, "with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond." —Simmone Shah Read the full story here.         SPONSORED REVERB Live concerts bring millions of fans together through music. Behind the scenes, REVERB channels that energy into environmental action. See how REVERB has helped eliminate 4.6 million single-use bottles and is driving an entire industry to make sustainability part of every show. Watch the episode         TECH TAKE Inside the secretive race to build self-improving AI Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images For months, Anthropic and OpenAI have warned that AI may be on the verge of improving itself.  This tipping point, known as “recursive self-improvement,” or RSI, could mean that new AI capabilities arrive faster than ever. But the advent of RSI might also be highly perilous for humanity, potentially marking the stage at which developers lose control of AI systems entirely. Even as AI companies warn about the potential dangers of RSI, they have shared remarkably little about how they’re pursuing it. A new report, published Wednesday by the firm Gladstone AI, attempts to change that. The report, exclusively shared with TIME ahead of its publication, emphasizes that AI companies are “actively working on” automating all parts of the AI development pipeline, including generating new ideas, running experiments to test those ideas, and interpreting the results. Most of the insiders Gladstone spoke to “believe RSI will start within the next 3 to 12 months, and possibly sooner,” the report states.  “There's a fair amount of [disaster] prepping and bio-bunker purchasing going on” among these researchers, says Edouard Harris, Gladstone’s chief technology officer. —Billy Perrigo Read the full story here.         HAPPENING NOW AI is helping bring back the dodo Colossal Biosciences Researchers at Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences have just announced that AI may help hasten the return of the extinct dodo, with the flightless bird, which vanished from the world more than 350 years ago, likely walking among us again sometime in the early 2030s. With so few ancient samples of dodo DNA surviving—and that which does exist having degraded over the centuries—the analytic and number-crunching power of AI is just what’s needed to fill in the genetic blanks. “De-extinction is as much a data problem as a biology problem,” said Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm in a statement. “[AI] learns how regulatory DNA shapes living birds, then identifies the genetic switches that may have contributed to the dodo’s distinctive anatomy.” Colossal established its de-extinction bona fides in 2025, when it announced that it had sequenced ancient DNA from the long-extinct dire wolf, used that to rewrite the genome of the extant gray wolf, and brought the Ice Age dire wolf back to life, more than 10,000 years after it vanished. —Jeffrey Kluger Read the full story here.         SPONSORED SEABOUND Nearly 90% of the world’s goods travel by ship. From the food on our shelves to the packages at our doors, shipping touches nearly every part of our lives, and so does its carbon footprint. Seabound is betting on an unexpected solution: a box of rocks. By turning limestone into a sponge that captures CO₂ emissions, the company is proving that small innovations can help change the course of global shipping. Watch the episode         IN FOCUS How school violence prompted the Philippines to crack down on kids’ social media use Jun Pinzon—Getty Images School shootings used to be rare in the Philippines. But a spate of incidents involving students this year seems to have prompted the Southeast Asian nation’s lawmakers to swiftly pass bills cracking down on what they deem to be a cause of the deadly trend: social media. On Monday, the Philippine House of Representatives passed a bill banning children under 13 from social media platforms, while those between 13 and 17 would have limited access, with 287 members voting in favor and only three against the measure. The latest bill follows its Senate counterpart, which passed last week but has a higher age threshold, barring people under 18 from social media platforms and services classified as “high-risk.” Lawmakers must reconcile the two bills before they head to the President for signature. Their passage follows steps taken by other countries such as Australia, the U.K., and more in introducing age-based restrictions on social media amid concerns over these platforms’ impact on children’s mental health and safety. Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said that it was not “surprising at all” that Congress took action amid concerns that social media is believed to have influenced children to take part in violent acts. However, Marcos said his Administration would still study whether such a ban could work in the Southeast Asian nation of more than 110 million people. “That’s also something that we’re studying really hard,” Marcos told reporters in Singapore on Sunday. “It has its advantages,” he said, but he warned it could also “simply make children hide their use.” Age-specific social media bans have been up for debate in the Philippines since at least 2019, but they gained momentum earlier this year, following reports of a foiled mass shooting plot by students in February as well as shootings and stabbings in other regions in the months that followed. Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara said harmful online influences were a possible factor behind those incidents, saying in July that experts have pointed to “exposure of young people to damaging social media sites, negative influences, groomers, and terrorist groups online actively recruiting (children).” Critics have questioned whether such bans are effective. Australia was the first country to ban social media for children, but a community-based study published in June 2026 showed “limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention of social media restrictions” in the three months that followed the ban taking effect in December 2025. —Chad de Guzman Read the full story here.         ONE NUMBER 34.2% Gas prices rose 34.2% from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. High energy costs driven by the Iran war have pushed overall consumer prices up 3.7%, as persistent inflation strains budgets for millions of Americans.  SOURCE: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS         A VIRAL MOMENT First Amendment dispute Rep. Andy Harris (R, Md.) berated a reporter and incorrectly claimed she was breaking the law by filming him following a debate with his Democratic challenger. Watch the confrontation below.         SPONSORED AMINI Across the Global South, Amini is working to ensure nations are not left out of their digital future. From climate intelligence to sovereign AI, Amini is building the infrastructure countries need to own their data, strengthen public services and create economic opportunity on their own terms. Watch the episode       Linked In this addictive word-association game, find the steps that will unite two seemingly unrelated words in just four moves. PLAY NOW       ALSO WORTH YOUR TIME WORLD What to Know About Pope Leo's Lung Cancer Diagnosis HEALTH   The Best Way to Respond to Passive-Aggressive Comments       More Newsletters from Click to sign up. D.C. BRIEF +FUTURE PROOF +HEALTH MATTERS +INSIDE TIME +IN THE LOOP +WORTH YOUR TIME + Subscribe to TIME Email us: thebrief@time.com Received this from a friend? Sign up here Connect with TIME   PRIVACY POLICY     © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved. TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508 Boone, IA 50037-0508, United States Unsubscribe