Mark Cuban Just Made a Surprising Anti‑AI Investment. Experts Say It Could Define 2026

Mark Cuban’s enthusiasm for artificial intelligence is well-known. He has called the technology the “ultimate timesaving hack” and bluntly stated that if you’re not learning AI, “you’re f—ed.” But with his latest investment, the billionaire bypassed the plethora of AI startups and focused instead on something more human-centered. Cuban has invested an undisclosed amount in live events company Burwoodland, which produces nightlife experiences throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The investment will make him a minority owner in the company. Founded in 2015 by Alex Badanes and Ethan Maccoby, the New York City-based company says it has sold more than 1.5 million tickets to live events like Emo Night Brooklyn, Gimme Gimme Disco, All Your Friends, and Broadway Rave, which center on DJ sets that are themed to a certain musical genre. “It’s time we all got off our asses, left the house, and had fun,” said Cuban in a statement. “Alex and Ethan know how to create amazing memories and experiences that people plan their weeks around. In an AI world, what you do is far more important than what you prompt.” That’s not the first time Cuban has touted the potential of real-world experiences in an increasingly AI-dominated environment. Last June, he took to social network Bluesky to write, “Within the next 3 years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, people won’t know if what they see or hear is real. Which will lead to an explosion of f2f engagement, events and jobs.” Burwoodland leans hard into that way of thinking, producing over 1,200 shows per year. Strategic partners of the company include music industry veterans Izzy Zivkovic (founder of artist management company Split Second, which counts Arcade Fire among its clients) and concert promoter Peter Shapiro. Klaf Companies, the investment and advisory platform founded by Justin Kalifowitz (who also created Downtown Music Holdings, which represents songwriting copyrights from John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ray Davies, and One Direction), is also a partner. “Ethan and I started this company because we know firsthand how powerful it is to find your people through the music you love,” Badanes said in a statement. “That sense of community shaped our lives, and creating spaces where others can feel that connection has always been our purpose. Having the confidence of an investor as respected and accomplished as Mark is a tremendous honor.” With concert ticket prices continuing to escalate, Burwoodland keeps entry fees low, offering a low-cost live experience for music lovers. Tickets to its events generally run in the $20 to $40 range, though some events cost more. The company has already booked 2026 events in Milan, Brooklyn, Louisville, Nashville, and Antwerp—and later this month will host the Long Live Emo Fest at Brooklyn’s Paramount theater, which holds up to 2,700 patrons. The experiences have become popular enough that some of the artists being celebrated in the various genres Burwoodland focuses on have shown up at the events, with some even performing. Maccoby and Badanes didn’t plan to start a business. The two, who have been friends since childhood, began throwing house parties in college and kept up the practice afterward, when they lived in Brooklyn. When those soirees got too big for their apartment, they took over a nearby bar to host them and Burwoodland (named after an area in London where they grew up) was born. The duo quit their day jobs in 2022 to focus exclusively on the startup. There has been increasing interest in the live event space from investors lately. Last June, NYC-based Fever, a live-entertainment discovery platform, secured a $100 million investment from L Catterton and Point72 Private Investments. And in September, DJ/producer Kygo’s company Palm Tree Crew (which hosts music festivals) received a $20 million Series B investment led by WME Group, giving it a $215 million valuation. BY CHRIS MORRIS @MORRISATLARGE

The translators grappling with losing work to AI

As a rare Irish-language translator, Timothy McKeon enjoyed steady work for European Union institutions for years. But the rise of artificial intelligence tools that can translate text and, increasingly, speech nearly instantly has upended his livelihood and that of many others in his field. He says he lost about 70% of his income when the EU translation work dried up. Now, available work consists of polishing machine-generated translations, jobs he refuses “on principle” because they help train the software taking work away from human translators. When the edited text is fed back into the translation software, “it learns from your work.” “The more it learns, the more obsolete you become,” he said. “You’re essentially expected to dig your own professional grave.” While workers worldwide ponder how AI might affect their livelihoods – a topic on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week – that question is no longer hypothetical in the translation industry. Apps like Google Translate already reduced the need for human translators, and increased adoption of generative AI has only accelerated that trend. A 2024 survey of writing professionals by the United Kingdom’s Society of Authors showed that more than a third of translators had lost work due to generative AI, which can create sophisticated text, as well as images and audio, from users’ prompts. And 43% of translators said their income had dropped because of the technology. In the United States, data from 2010-23 analyzed by Carl Frey and Pedro Llanos-Paredes at Oxford University showed that regions where Google Translate was in greater use saw slower growth in the number of translator jobs. Originally powered by statistical translation, Google Translate shifted to a technique called neural translation in 2016, resulting in more natural-sounding text and bringing it closer to today’s AI tools. “Our best baseline estimate is that roughly 28,000 more jobs for translators would’ve been added in the absence of machine translation,” Frey told CNN. “It’s not a story of mass displacement but I think that’s very likely to follow.” The story is similar globally, suggests McKeon: He is part of the Guerrilla Media Collective, an international group of translators and communications professionals, and says everyone in the collective supplements their income with other work due to the impact of AI. ‘The entire US is looking at Wisconsin’ Christina Green is president of Green Linguistics, a provider of language services, and a court interpreter in Wisconsin. She worries her court role could soon vanish because of a bill that would allow courts to use AI or other machine translation in civil or criminal proceedings, and in certain other cases. Green and other language professionals have been fighting the proposal since it was introduced in May. “The entire US is looking at Wisconsin” as a precedent, Green said, noting that the bill’s opponents had so far succeeded in stalling it. While Green still has her court job, her company recently lost a major Fortune 10 corporate client, which she said opted to use a company offering AI translation instead. The client accounted for such an outsized share of her company’s business that she had to make layoffs. “People and companies think they’re saving money with AI, but they have absolutely no clue what it is, how privacy is affected and what the ramifications are,” Green said. ‘Governments are not doing enough’ Fardous Bahbouh, based in London, is an Arabic-language translator and interpreter for international media organizations, including CNN. She has seen a considerable reduction in written work in recent years, which she attributes to technological developments and the financial pressures facing media outlets. Bahbouh is also studying for a PhD focusing on the translation industry. Her research shows that technology, including AI, is “hugely impacting” translators and interpreters. “I worry a great deal that governments are not doing enough to help them transition into other work, which could lead to greater inequality, in-work poverty and child poverty,” she told CNN. Many translators are indeed looking to retrain “because translation isn’t generating the income it previously did,” according to Ian Giles, a translator and chair of the Translators Association at the UK’s Society of Authors. The picture is similar in the United States: Many translators are leaving the profession, Andy Benzo, president of the American Translators Association, told CNN. And Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said in Davos Thursday that the number of translators and interpreters at the fund had gone down to 50 from 200 due to greater use of technology. Governments should also do more for those remaining in the translation industry, by introducing stronger labor protections, Bahbouh argued. Human professionals still needed Despite advances in machine translation and interpretation, technology can’t replace human language workers entirely just yet. While using AI tools for everyday tasks like finding directions is “low-risk,” human translators will likely need to be involved for the foreseeable future in diplomatic, legal, financial and medical contexts where the risks are “humungous,” according to Benzo. “I’m a translator and a lawyer and in both professions the nuance of each word is very specific and the (large language models powering AI tools) aren’t there yet, by far,” she said. Another field relatively untouched by machine translation tools is literary translation. Giles, who translates commercial fiction from Scandinavian languages into English, used to supplement his income with translation work from companies, but that has now disappeared. Meanwhile, literary commissions have continued to come in, he said. There’s also one key element of communication that AI can’t replace, according to Oxford University’s Frey: Human connection. “The fact that machine translation is pervasive doesn’t mean you can build a relationship with somebody in France without speaking a word of French,” he said. By Lianne Kolirin

Microsoft Has a Plan to Address One of the Biggest Complaints About AI

As it embarks on a years-long project to build 100 data centers across the U.S. to power its AI boom, Microsoft has announced the steps it will take to lower its impact on the communities nearby. The move comes as electricity rates have spiked across the nation, fueled in part by the massive power demands from AI data centers that are popping up across the country. President Donald Trump paved the way for the announcement, saying via Truth Social on January 12 that his administration was working with leading technology companies to “ensure that Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their POWER consumption” by paying more in utilities. “We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI,” he wrote. “Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’” Community Opposition Bard Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, acknowledged the need to address concerns about data centers. “When I visit communities around the country, people have questions—pointed questions…They are the type of questions that we need to heed,” Smith said. “They look at this technology and ask, ‘What will it mean for the jobs of the future? What will it mean for the adults of today? What will it mean for their children?’” In October Microsoft cancelled construction plans for a data center in Wisconsin because of pushback from the surrounding community, according to Wired. Microsoft’s Promise In an effort to increase transparency and minimize the negative impact its data centers have on the public, Microsoft addressed five core issues it plans to focus on going forward. Per Microsoft’s statement, the electricity needed for data centers will more than triple by 2035 to 640 terawatt-hours per year. The U.S. is currently leading development in AI, but that growth depends on a sufficient supply of energy. So where will that electricity come from? Microsoft said in a statement it believes “it’s both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public to shoulder added electricity costs for AI,” instead suggesting “tech companies pay their own way for the electricity costs they create.” The company plans to cover its costs through a series of steps, including negotiating higher rates with utility companies and public commissions that will pay for the electricity for the datacenters. It will also work to increase the efficiency of its data centers and advocate for policies that will ensure communities have affordable and reliable power. Microsoft also said it would: Minimize its water use and invest in water replenishment projects Create construction and operational jobs in local communities and train residents with the skills required to fill them Increase local tax revenue that will help fund hospitals, schools, parks, and libraries Help bring AI training and nonprofits to local communities to ensure residents benefit from the data centers. BY AVA LEVINSON

AI Expert Predicted AI Would End Humanity in 2027—Now He’s Changing His Timeline

Daniel Kokotajlo predicted the end of the world would happen in April 2027. In “AI 2027” — a document outlining the impending impacts of AI, published in April 2025 — the former OpenAI employee and several peers announced that by April 2027, unchecked AI development would lead to superintelligence and consequently destroy humanity. The authors, however are going back on their predictions. Now, Kokotajlo forecasts superintelligence will land in 2034, but he doesn’t know if and when AI will destroy humanity. In “AI 2027,” Kokotajlo argued that superintelligence will emerge through “fully autonomous coding,” enabling AI systems to drive their own development. The release of ChatGPT in 2022 accelerated predictions around artificial general intelligence, with some forecasting its arrival within years rather than decades. These predictions accrued widespread attention. Notably, JD Vance, U.S. vice president, reportedly read “AI 2027” and later urged Pope Leo XIV — who underscored AI as a main challenge facing humanity — to provide international leadership to avoid outcomes listed in the document. On the other hand, people like Gary Marcus, emeritus professor of neuroscience at New York University, disregarded “AI 2027” as a “work of fiction,” even calling various predictions “pure science fiction mumbo jumbo.” As researchers and the public alike begin to reckon with “how jagged AI performance is,” AGI timelines are starting to stretch again, according to Malcolm Murray, an AI risk management expert and one of the authors of the “International AI Safety Report.” “For a scenario like ‘AI 2027’ to happen, [AI] would need a lot of more practical skills that are useful in real-world complexities,” Murray said. Still, developing AI models that can train themselves remains a steady goal for leading AI companies. Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, set internal goals for “a true automated AI researcher by March of 2028.” However, he’s not entirely confident in the company’s capabilities to develop superintelligence. “We may totally fail at this goal,” he admitted on X, “but given the extraordinary potential impacts we think it is in the public interest to be transparent about this.” And so, superintelligence may still be possible, but when it arrives and what it will be capable of remains far murkier than “AI 2027” once suggested. BY LEILA SHERIDAN