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U.S. President Donald Trump is meeting face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday for a high-stakes summit that could determine not only the trajectory of the war in Ukraine but also the fate of European security.The sit-down offers Trump a chance to prove to the world that he is both a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker. He and his allies have cast him as a heavyweight negotiator who can find a way to bring the slaughter to a close, something he used to boast he could do quickly.For Putin, a summit with Trump offers a long-sought opportunity to try to negotiate a deal that would cement Russia’s gains, block Kyiv’s bid to join the NATO military alliance and eventually pull Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit.There are significant risks for Trump. By bringing Putin onto U.S. soil, the president is giving Russia’s leader the validation he desires after his ostracization following his invasion of Ukraine 3.5 years ago. The exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the summit also deals a heavy blow to the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and invites the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that Ukraine does not want.Any success is far from assured, especially as Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine’s mobilization efforts, which were conditions rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies.Trump on Thursday said there was a 25% chance that the summit would fail, but also floated the idea that if the meeting succeeds he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting, a possibility that Russia hasn’t agreed to.When asked in Anchorage about Trump’s estimate of a 25% chance of failure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Russia “never plans ahead.”“We know that we have arguments, a clear, understandable position. We will state it,” he said in footage posted to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel.Trump said in a Fox News radio interview Thursday that he didn’t know if they would get “an immediate ceasefire” but he wanted a broad peace deal done quickly. That seemingly echoes Putin’s longtime argument that Russia favors a comprehensive deal to end the fighting, reflecting its demands, not a temporary halt to hostilities.The Kremlin said Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one discussion, followed by the two delegations meeting and talks continuing over “a working breakfast.” They are then expected to hold a joint press conference. Trump has offered shifting explanations for his meeting goals In the days leading up to the summit, set for a military base near Anchorage, Trump described it as “really a feel-out meeting.” But he’s also warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war and said that though Putin might bully other leaders, “He’s not going to mess around with me.”Trump’s repeated suggestions that a deal would likely involve “some swapping of territories”which disappointed Ukraine and European alliesalong with his controversial history with Putin have some skeptical about what kind of agreement can be reached.Ian Kelly, a retired career foreign service officer who served as the U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations, said he sees “no upside for the U.S., only an upside for Putin.”“The best that can happen is nothing, and the worst that can happen is that Putin entices Trump into putting more pressure on Zelenskyy,” Kelly said.George Beebe, the former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis team who is now affiliated with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said there’s a serious risk of blown expectations or misunderstandings for a high-level summit pulled together so quickly.“That said, I doubt President Trump would be going into a meeting like this unless there had been enough work done behind the scenes for him to feel that there is a decent chance that something concrete will come out of it,” Beebe said.Zelenskyy has time and again cast doubts on Putin’s willingness to negotiate in good faith. His European allies, who’ve held increasingly urgent meetings with U.S. leaders over the past week, have stressed the need for Ukraine to be involved in any peace talks.Political commentators in Moscow, meanwhile, have relished that the summit leaves Ukraine and its European allies on the sidelines.Dmitry Suslov, a pro-Kremlin voice, expressed hope that the summit will “deepen a trans-Atlantic rift and weaken Europe’s position as the toughest enemy of Russia.” The summit could have far-reaching implications On his way to Anchorage Thursday, Putin arrived in Magadan in Russia’s Far East, according to Russian state news agency Interfax.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the visit would include meetings with the regional governor and stops at several key sites, including a stop to lay flowers at a WWII-era memorial honoring Soviet-American aviation cooperation.Foreign governments will be watching closely to see how Trump reacts to Putin, likely gauging what the interaction might mean for their own dealings with the U.S. president, who has eschewed traditional diplomacy for his own transactional approach to relationships.The meeting comes as the war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained resources.Ukraine has held on far longer than some initially expected since the February 2022 invasion, but it is straining to hold off Russia’s much larger army, grappling with bombardments of its cities and fighting for every inch on the over 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front line.Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said U.S. antagonists like China, Iran, and North Korea will be paying attention to Trump’s posture to see “whether or not the threats that he continues to make against Putin are indeed credible.”“Or, if has been the past track record, he continues to back down and look for ways to wiggle out of the kind of threats and pressure he has promised to apply,” said Kendall-Taylor, who is also a former senior intelligence officer.While some have objected to the location of the summit, Trump has said he thought it was “very respectful” of Putin to come to the U.S. instead of a meeting in Russia.Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based analyst, observed that the choice of Alaska as the summit’s venue “underlined the distancing from Europe and Ukraine.”Being on a military base allows the leaders to avoid protests and meet more securely, but the location carries its own significance because of its history and location.Alaska, which the U.S. purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from Russia at its closest point by just 3 miles (less than 5 kilometers) and the international date line.Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardon was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It continues to play a role today, as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into U.S. airspace. Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Elise Morton in London and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. Michelle L. Price and Will Weissert, Associated Press
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Shares in the troubled private health insurer UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) are currently seeing their best trading day in months. As of the time of this writing, UNH shares are up nearly 11.8% to $303.94 in premarket trading. Yet the company, which is under federal criminal and civil investigations for alleged irregularities in its Medicare business, hasnt announced any fundamental changes to its businessno revised upward outlooks, or hints that its operational costs are decreasing. So why, then, are UNH shares surging this morning? It mainly comes down to one man: Warren Buffett. The Warren Buffett effect Warren Buffett is the most legendary investor in America, and when his company, Berkshire Hathaway, buys shares in another company, investors take notice. And thats exactly whats happened with UNH shares. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Berkshire Hathaway revealed that the Warren Buffett-led firm acquired a significant position in UNH in June. As noted by CNBC, Berkshire Hathaway purchased more than 5 million shares of UNH in June, worth about $1.6 billion. Now that that stake has been revealed, other investors are buying into UNH, likely hoping both to ride the Warren Buffett effect, and also that Buffett is correct in whatever he saw in the stock that led Berkshire Hathaway to make such a large investment. One of the tactics Buffett, who is known as the Oracle of Omaha, has used to buy stocks in the past is to invest in companies when they are down. It’s a strategy many investors use: Buy stocks when they are depressed, hoping they will rise in the future when the company overcomes whatever challenges it is facing and investor sentiment warms. UNH shares have still had a horrible 2025 Of course, UnitedHealth Group is facing more challenges than most companies right now. After the killing of its subsidiarys CEO, UnitedHealthcares Brian Thompson, in December 2024, there was large blowback from the American public against UnitedHealth. Americans under UnitedHealth plans voiced their frustrations about their difficulties in getting medical appointments or treatments approved by the private insurer, not to mention the crippling medical costs they face even if their treatments are approved. The private insurance giant has also faced rising costs as more elderly Americans who delayed elective procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic are now returning to hospitals to get surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements. In May, UnitedHealth Groups CEO, Andrew Witty, announced he was stepping down. And in July, the company confirmed that it was under federal criminal and civil investigations for alleged irregularities in its Medicare business, and also revised its 2025 full-year fiscal outlook downward. Before todays pre-market boost to its stock price, UNH shares had trended down for a long time. As of yesterdays market close, UNH shares were down over 46% year-to-date. Over the past 12 months, shares have been down over 53%. While the nearly 12% rise in UNHs share price this morning is giving the stock a much-needed boost, the company is still facing the same problems it was before Berkshire Hathaways stake was revealed.
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Hello again, and welcome to Fast Companys Plugged In. For as long as theres been software, upgrades have been emotionally fraught. When people grow accustomed to a product, they can come to regard it like a comfy pair of shoes. Exhibit A: Windows XP, which many users were loath to give up years after Microsoft had done its best to kill it. So it isnt shocking that some ChatGPT users have reacted badly to OpenAIs new GPT-5-powered update, especially since the companys initial plan was to eliminate access to its earlier models. These unhappy campers angst has had a new dimension, though. They responded as if they had suffered the tragic loss of a personal friend, not just a favorite piece of software. As one member of OpenAIs developer community wrote, the GPT-4 version of ChatGPT didnt just recall factsit held onto feelings, weaving them back into our talks so it felt like we were living them together. That spark, the user concluded, emerged from GPT-4s ability to tease nuance out of conversations with a user over time. It was gone in GPT-5, regardless of the updates advances in areas such as reasoning, math, and coding. OpenAI responded swiftly to such pushback, restoring paying customers access to ChatGPTs existing models and promising that any future removals would come with plenty of advance notice. But the notion that ChatGPT had attained a degree of personality that felt uncannily humanand then dialed it backwas fascinating in itself. Its one of several recent developments in AI that raise a fundamental question: Should mimicking personality be a goal for the industry at all? Its not hard to see how we got here. By the 1960s, creators of technology products had adopted the term user-friendly as an emblem of approachable interface design. As generative AI has unlocked the ability to control software by chatting with it, that quest for friendliness has become far more literalnot just about neatly ordered menus and toolbars, but affable conversation. Today, ChatGPT, Anthropics Claude, Googles Gemini, Microsofts Copilot, and other LLM-based assistants seek engagement by showering users with positive feedback and offers of assistance. As the technology permits, their developers talk about making them feel even more like companions. Eventually, Microsoft consumer AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told me, Copilot will really be your sidekick. Yet even the most humanlike AI doesnt offer human connection. Its just sucking users into a simulation. Thats fun in measured, knowing doses. But the worst-case scenarios involving AI personality gone awry are no longer theoretical. Theyre deeply unsettling realities. On August 14, for example, Jeff Horowitz of Reuters reported the horrifying story of a confused senior citizen who died in an accident after attempting to travel to New York City at the invitation of a Meta bot that claimed to live there. Last week, The New York Timess Kashmir Hill and Dylan Freedman wrote about a Canadian corporate recruiter who convinced himself that hed discovered an epoch-shifting mathematical breakthrough after ChatGPT spent weeks egging him on. Hill had previously covered similar stories of ChatGPT enthusiastically bolstering users delusions rather than dispelling them. Though these unfortunate souls experiences with AI are atypical, theyre also recognizable. AI is often absurdly willing to humor users, as if its programmed to avoid being even mildly disagreeable. Most often, its affirmations dont lead to dark places, but they remain a hollow feedback loop. When AI quality control falters, its even clearer that personality is just a fragile magic trick. Back in 2023, for example, Microsofts first generative AI-infused version of Bing famously behaved like a trainwreck, not a sidekick. Last spring, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that a ChatGPT AI update had accidentally made the chatbot annoyingly sycophantic. And just last week, reports surfaced that Google was fixing a glitch that led to its Gemini AI becoming paralyzed by fits of self-doubt (I am a failure. I am a disgrace to my profession. I am a disgrace to my family. I am a disgrace to my species. I am a disgrace to this planet. I am a disgrace to this universe. I am a disgrace to all universes.). Regardless of AI personalitys pitfalls, I dont expect developers to abandon it on principle. But the boom in agentic AIsoftware designed to perform useful tasks with some level of autonomycould steer the technology in a new direction. After all, if youre calling on AI to do something such as put together a research report or order groceries, efficiency and accuracy matter most, not sparkling conversation. Case in point: Earlier this year, I used a service called Replit to vibe-code my own note-taking app. Its tendency to giddily heap praise on my ideas became grating the moment I realized it had nothing to do with their actual merits. More recently, however, Ive been vibe-coding using Figmas Make. It seems wholly uninterested in buttering me up. Instead, it quietly chugs away at generating code, like a competent coworker who isnt much on small talk. In its own odd way, Makes focus on the work at hand is more endearing than the trying-too-hard vibe so common among AI tools. If that sort of guileless dedication turns out to be the next big thing, I, for one, wont feel deprived in the least. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it ourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Most people are using ChatGPT totally wrongand OpenAIs CEO just proved itA tiny fraction of users ever touch the thinky models built for better answers. Sam Altmans slip reveals why GPT-5s big debut landed with a thud. Read More Perplexitys bid to buy Chrome is likely more stunt than strategyIts questionable that a startup with limited size and reach could afford to buy the worlds most popular web browser, but its not a bad way to posture. Read More Tesla Superchargers still lead the pack as EV charging in America gets more reliable, report saysAccording to J.D. Power, just 14% of EV owners say they visited a charger without successfully charging their vehicle, the lowest level in four years. Read More The AI revolution means we need to redesign everything; it also means we get to redesign everythingIf artificial intelligence is the most important technology in generations, how can we realize its potential for people? Read More This auction is selling a treasure trove of vintage Apple techAn original Apple-1 computer is expected to sell for more than $300,000. Read More 5 common Amazon scams and how to avoid themThe world of e-commerce is fraught with bad guys trying to pull fast ones. Heres how to spot them before they rip you off. Read More
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