NEW: HRF just released “AI for Activists: A Guide to Supercharging Your Movement with Artificial Intelligence.” This free, practical handbook helps activists and civil society harness AI to research faster, automate everyday tasks, and build tools without writing code. It shows them how to do this without compromising their privacy or security in the face of surveillance and censorship. Read it here: hrf.org/latest/ai-for-activi…

New from 404 Media: humans are reading ChatGPT conversations OpenAI has hired an army of contractors who read real ChatGPT users' chats. I've seen internal docs, the review system, and real user prompts. Can contain very personal/sensitive information 404media.co/inside-project-l…

Maple Agent Beta Update Over the last two weeks, the Agent has become more capable. Here's a rundown of things added: - Queue and Steer instructions - Navigate and recall prior Agent prompts - Sidebar redesigned to be more interactive - Rename projects and tasks - Kimi K3 (for Max users) and DeepSeek V4 Flash - Font size customization - More reliable retry logic

Over the weekend, I set up a Maple Intelligence Layer for myself inside the new @TryMapleAI Agent. The layer indexes all the company docs I give it and has the ability to adapt as I use it. Every day it saves learnings and updates itself. It has a retrieval system that can quickly look up business information that I've fed it in the past. Now I have a chief of staff agent, operating locally on a computer I own, using secure AI models on the backend, helping me stay organized while operating the business. Nothing is shared with OpenAI or Anthropic. As a founder who is doing 10 different roles at once, getting organized is a huge help. I'm in the driver's seat for the things that happen, but now I have eyes on so many more parts of the business than I could keep in my brain at one time. Really happy with it so far. Shoutout: I followed the AI Memory Guide published by @TFTC21 to their Roundtable subscribers. If you're not part of it, I'd recommend signing up. They have video calls where people walk each other through how to set things up. And they have high-signal documentation you can get started with right away. AI is a tool for productivity. Figure out how to fit it into your workflow! :)

Kimi K3 is available today for Max users

After much ado over compute, Kimi K3 is finally live on Tinfoil! Thank you @Kimi_Moonshot for the fantastic model.

A backlash against Anthropic is brewing in Silicon Valley, rooted in concerns about the company’s product launches that compete with existing software providers and its advocacy for a closed AI ecosystem on.wsj.com/4fWlefn

I was quoted in The Wall Street Journal this week on the debate about open, sovereign AI. My quote: "It's interesting they're against distillation when they distill the entire Internet...I just think it's odd that they are now turning around and telling others not to do what they did." I’m stoked about the renewed momentum behind open weights. Many companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Google signed the Open Weights and American AI Leadership letter this week. We support these as well. Open-weight models from around the world are rivaling frontier systems in capability. What gets me excited is what this unlocks. When you combine open-weight models with trusted execution environments, you get something really powerful: state-of-the-art intelligence that is end-to-end encrypted and sovereign. No lab trains on your data. No lab reads your conversations, sells your data to advertisers, or builds competing products from the data you thought was secure. At Maple we're building on exactly this. Open-weight models running in TEEs, encrypted end to end, with long-term memory and personal data integrations. Your intelligence stays yours. The future of AI is open. Sovereign for one. Sovereign for all.

These agents now in Buzz:

Maple is preparing for the release of a co-working agent. You install it locally and it works with your files, whether it's office work or building websites and apps. It's a turnkey solution, as easy as Claude Code, that keeps your data secure and private, no data sharing with closed AI labs. This is THE sovereign AI app for individuals and businesses who want powerful AI while retaining ownership of their information. Why build an agent into the Maple app when other agents already exist? Easy, we want to give you control over your work. We don't have a business plan that incorporates making money off our users' data. In the age of AI, your information, whether it's personal or company trade secrets, is the single thing that differentiates you from everyone else. We all have access to AI that can build a professional website for selling shoes. But your strategy and network for how you sell shoes should not be shared with your competitors. Sovereignty is the path to protecting what makes you, you. Maple sits at the intersection of Usability and Sovereignty. Maple gives you the best tools that are both easy to use and maintain your data sovereignty. Sovereign for one, sovereign for all. It has been a journey to get here. We brought to market the very first personal chatbot with end-to-end encryption using TEEs in late 2024. Prior to that there were proofs of concept but no full product offerings. Every other AI chat product on the market handled your data in plain text, either selling you a service to get your data or asking you to trust that they won't snoop on you. Quickly people found Maple and latched onto its open-source code and verifiable encryption. We didn't stop there. You may remember earlier this year we teased a product called "Maple Agent" and opened up a waiting list. That product is a mobile app that acts as your AI "friend", maintaining one long continuous chat, and getting to know you over time. I dislike using the word "friend" there, but it's the best way to convey the UX in a few words. AI is a tool, always has been, always will be. Any kind of friendly personality on top is just synthetic. In our testing, the UX of Maple Agent is really powerful for what it does. Think about the many short AI chats you have in your favorite app, whether it's looking up a historical fact or asking advice about a topic. With Maple Agent, those all go away in favor of the long-running chat with the friendly agent. It's like you have your own personal assistant who knows you so well and can look up anything for you. When I ask AI certain questions, I want to ask an expert who already understands my situation so I'm not repeating myself for the 100th time. That's the amazing value the personal agent brings to the table. We still see great utility for a personal agent like the "Maple Agent". Thousands of people on the waiting list, hoping to get their hands on it, agree that the concept is worth exploring and trying out. We were constrained in launching it due to a few circumstances, one of them being access to the scale of compute needed to power it. We have a clear path laid out for how to get there, but today is not the day to execute on that. It will be in the near future. Instead we have a different agent ready to go that we think is also incredible. We now have an agentic harness inside of the Maple Research app. This thing is a powerhouse. It even builds and publishes its own software releases. The agent in Maple Research works with your local filesystem, speaks to the largest open models running in TEEs, utilizes local models for certain tasks, is compatible with MCP tools, has an API for connecting to anything you need, and also supports the ACP protocol, which means it can be extended in the future to speak to other tools like Claude Code, Codex, and local models running on your own hardware. A big unlock for us was the Goose Development Kit, which powers the core of our agent harness. More on that to come as we publish articles and documentation later about the agent. The agent inside Maple Research doesn't have a name. At least not yet, not sure if it ever will. For now we call it "Chat Mode" and "Agent Mode". Think of this as the workhorse, the truck, the heavy lifter. Our other "Agent", the phone app, is your sidekick in your pocket, ready to help with quick things and ongoing conversations about life. I am incredibly excited about the Maple Research Agent. While I'm already seeing great results using it for internal work items, I'm especially thrilled about the personal health and wellness work it's doing for me. I know there are plenty of apps out there for compiling wellness data, but I'm having it build a tool tailored specifically for what I need, without the extra fluff. And none of my health data is being donated to the closed AI labs or sent to advertisers. I know that the AI logic is not being silently adjusted to fit the whims of a large corporation that has paid for product placement. It's me, state of the art AI, and my data. That's how I want it. Maple's new agent makes that possible. We can't wait for you to try it out. If you want early access, comment here, email us, reach out in some way. To those on the other agent waitlist, you're already in the queue. Thanks for reading this lengthy update. :)

why isnt there an american company that just takes the chinese open source models and hosts them as a US company?

Maple is preparing for the release of a co-working agent. You install it locally and it works with your files, whether it's office work or building websites and apps. It's a turnkey solution, as easy as Claude Code, that keeps your data secure and private, no data sharing with closed AI labs. This is THE sovereign AI app for individuals and businesses who want powerful AI while retaining ownership of their information. Why build an agent into the Maple app when other agents already exist? Easy, we want to give you control over your work. We don't have a business plan that incorporates making money off our users' data. In the age of AI, your information, whether it's personal or company trade secrets, is the single thing that differentiates you from everyone else. We all have access to AI that can build a professional website for selling shoes. But your strategy and network for how you sell shoes should not be shared with your competitors. Sovereignty is the path to protecting what makes you, you. Maple sits at the intersection of Usability and Sovereignty. Maple gives you the best tools that are both easy to use and maintain your data sovereignty. Sovereign for one, sovereign for all. It has been a journey to get here. We brought to market the very first personal chatbot with end-to-end encryption using TEEs in late 2024. Prior to that there were proofs of concept but no full product offerings. Every other AI chat product on the market handled your data in plain text, either selling you a service to get your data or asking you to trust that they won't snoop on you. Quickly people found Maple and latched onto its open-source code and verifiable encryption. We didn't stop there. You may remember earlier this year we teased a product called "Maple Agent" and opened up a waiting list. That product is a mobile app that acts as your AI "friend", maintaining one long continuous chat, and getting to know you over time. I dislike using the word "friend" there, but it's the best way to convey the UX in a few words. AI is a tool, always has been, always will be. Any kind of friendly personality on top is just synthetic. In our testing, the UX of Maple Agent is really powerful for what it does. Think about the many short AI chats you have in your favorite app, whether it's looking up a historical fact or asking advice about a topic. With Maple Agent, those all go away in favor of the long-running chat with the friendly agent. It's like you have your own personal assistant who knows you so well and can look up anything for you. When I ask AI certain questions, I want to ask an expert who already understands my situation so I'm not repeating myself for the 100th time. That's the amazing value the personal agent brings to the table. We still see great utility for a personal agent like the "Maple Agent". Thousands of people on the waiting list, hoping to get their hands on it, agree that the concept is worth exploring and trying out. We were constrained in launching it due to a few circumstances, one of them being access to the scale of compute needed to power it. We have a clear path laid out for how to get there, but today is not the day to execute on that. It will be in the near future. Instead we have a different agent ready to go that we think is also incredible. We now have an agentic harness inside of the Maple Research app. This thing is a powerhouse. It even builds and publishes its own software releases. The agent in Maple Research works with your local filesystem, speaks to the largest open models running in TEEs, utilizes local models for certain tasks, is compatible with MCP tools, has an API for connecting to anything you need, and also supports the ACP protocol, which means it can be extended in the future to speak to other tools like Claude Code, Codex, and local models running on your own hardware. A big unlock for us was the Goose Development Kit, which powers the core of our agent harness. More on that to come as we publish articles and documentation later about the agent. The agent inside Maple Research doesn't have a name. At least not yet, not sure if it ever will. For now we call it "Chat Mode" and "Agent Mode". Think of this as the workhorse, the truck, the heavy lifter. Our other "Agent", the phone app, is your sidekick in your pocket, ready to help with quick things and ongoing conversations about life. I am incredibly excited about the Maple Research Agent. While I'm already seeing great results using it for internal work items, I'm especially thrilled about the personal health and wellness work it's doing for me. I know there are plenty of apps out there for compiling wellness data, but I'm having it build a tool tailored specifically for what I need, without the extra fluff. And none of my health data is being donated to the closed AI labs or sent to advertisers. I know that the AI logic is not being silently adjusted to fit the whims of a large corporation that has paid for product placement. It's me, state of the art AI, and my data. That's how I want it. Maple's new agent makes that possible. We can't wait for you to try it out. If you want early access, comment here, email us, reach out in some way. To those on the other agent waitlist, you're already in the queue. Thanks for reading this lengthy update. :)

Maple is preparing for the release of a co-working agent. You install it locally and it works with your files, whether it's office work or building websites and apps. It's a turnkey solution, as easy as Claude Code, that keeps your data secure and private, no data sharing with closed AI labs. This is THE sovereign AI app for individuals and businesses who want powerful AI while retaining ownership of their information. Why build an agent into the Maple app when other agents already exist? Easy, we want to give you control over your work. We don't have a business plan that incorporates making money off our users' data. In the age of AI, your information, whether it's personal or company trade secrets, is the single thing that differentiates you from everyone else. We all have access to AI that can build a professional website for selling shoes. But your strategy and network for how you sell shoes should not be shared with your competitors. Sovereignty is the path to protecting what makes you, you. Maple sits at the intersection of Usability and Sovereignty. Maple gives you the best tools that are both easy to use and maintain your data sovereignty. Sovereign for one, sovereign for all. It has been a journey to get here. We brought to market the very first personal chatbot with end-to-end encryption using TEEs in late 2024. Prior to that there were proofs of concept but no full product offerings. Every other AI chat product on the market handled your data in plain text, either selling you a service to get your data or asking you to trust that they won't snoop on you. Quickly people found Maple and latched onto its open-source code and verifiable encryption. We didn't stop there. You may remember earlier this year we teased a product called "Maple Agent" and opened up a waiting list. That product is a mobile app that acts as your AI "friend", maintaining one long continuous chat, and getting to know you over time. I dislike using the word "friend" there, but it's the best way to convey the UX in a few words. AI is a tool, always has been, always will be. Any kind of friendly personality on top is just synthetic. In our testing, the UX of Maple Agent is really powerful for what it does. Think about the many short AI chats you have in your favorite app, whether it's looking up a historical fact or asking advice about a topic. With Maple Agent, those all go away in favor of the long-running chat with the friendly agent. It's like you have your own personal assistant who knows you so well and can look up anything for you. When I ask AI certain questions, I want to ask an expert who already understands my situation so I'm not repeating myself for the 100th time. That's the amazing value the personal agent brings to the table. We still see great utility for a personal agent like the "Maple Agent". Thousands of people on the waiting list, hoping to get their hands on it, agree that the concept is worth exploring and trying out. We were constrained in launching it due to a few circumstances, one of them being access to the scale of compute needed to power it. We have a clear path laid out for how to get there, but today is not the day to execute on that. It will be in the near future. Instead we have a different agent ready to go that we think is also incredible. We now have an agentic harness inside of the Maple Research app. This thing is a powerhouse. It even builds and publishes its own software releases. The agent in Maple Research works with your local filesystem, speaks to the largest open models running in TEEs, utilizes local models for certain tasks, is compatible with MCP tools, has an API for connecting to anything you need, and also supports the ACP protocol, which means it can be extended in the future to speak to other tools like Claude Code, Codex, and local models running on your own hardware. A big unlock for us was the Goose Development Kit, which powers the core of our agent harness. More on that to come as we publish articles and documentation later about the agent. The agent inside Maple Research doesn't have a name. At least not yet, not sure if it ever will. For now we call it "Chat Mode" and "Agent Mode". Think of this as the workhorse, the truck, the heavy lifter. Our other "Agent", the phone app, is your sidekick in your pocket, ready to help with quick things and ongoing conversations about life. I am incredibly excited about the Maple Research Agent. While I'm already seeing great results using it for internal work items, I'm especially thrilled about the personal health and wellness work it's doing for me. I know there are plenty of apps out there for compiling wellness data, but I'm having it build a tool tailored specifically for what I need, without the extra fluff. And none of my health data is being donated to the closed AI labs or sent to advertisers. I know that the AI logic is not being silently adjusted to fit the whims of a large corporation that has paid for product placement. It's me, state of the art AI, and my data. That's how I want it. Maple's new agent makes that possible. We can't wait for you to try it out. If you want early access, comment here, email us, reach out in some way. To those on the other agent waitlist, you're already in the queue. Thanks for reading this lengthy update. :)

Maple is preparing for the release of a co-working agent. You install it locally and it works with your files, whether it's office work or building websites and apps. It's a turnkey solution, as easy as Claude Code, that keeps your data secure and private, no data sharing with closed AI labs. This is THE sovereign AI app for individuals and businesses who want powerful AI while retaining ownership of their information. Why build an agent into the Maple app when other agents already exist? Easy, we want to give you control over your work. We don't have a business plan that incorporates making money off our users' data. In the age of AI, your information, whether it's personal or company trade secrets, is the single thing that differentiates you from everyone else. We all have access to AI that can build a professional website for selling shoes. But your strategy and network for how you sell shoes should not be shared with your competitors. Sovereignty is the path to protecting what makes you, you. Maple sits at the intersection of Usability and Sovereignty. Maple gives you the best tools that are both easy to use and maintain your data sovereignty. Sovereign for one, sovereign for all. It has been a journey to get here. We brought to market the very first personal chatbot with end-to-end encryption using TEEs in late 2024. Prior to that there were proofs of concept but no full product offerings. Every other AI chat product on the market handled your data in plain text, either selling you a service to get your data or asking you to trust that they won't snoop on you. Quickly people found Maple and latched onto its open-source code and verifiable encryption. We didn't stop there. You may remember earlier this year we teased a product called "Maple Agent" and opened up a waiting list. That product is a mobile app that acts as your AI "friend", maintaining one long continuous chat, and getting to know you over time. I dislike using the word "friend" there, but it's the best way to convey the UX in a few words. AI is a tool, always has been, always will be. Any kind of friendly personality on top is just synthetic. In our testing, the UX of Maple Agent is really powerful for what it does. Think about the many short AI chats you have in your favorite app, whether it's looking up a historical fact or asking advice about a topic. With Maple Agent, those all go away in favor of the long-running chat with the friendly agent. It's like you have your own personal assistant who knows you so well and can look up anything for you. When I ask AI certain questions, I want to ask an expert who already understands my situation so I'm not repeating myself for the 100th time. That's the amazing value the personal agent brings to the table. We still see great utility for a personal agent like the "Maple Agent". Thousands of people on the waiting list, hoping to get their hands on it, agree that the concept is worth exploring and trying out. We were constrained in launching it due to a few circumstances, one of them being access to the scale of compute needed to power it. We have a clear path laid out for how to get there, but today is not the day to execute on that. It will be in the near future. Instead we have a different agent ready to go that we think is also incredible. We now have an agentic harness inside of the Maple Research app. This thing is a powerhouse. It even builds and publishes its own software releases. The agent in Maple Research works with your local filesystem, speaks to the largest open models running in TEEs, utilizes local models for certain tasks, is compatible with MCP tools, has an API for connecting to anything you need, and also supports the ACP protocol, which means it can be extended in the future to speak to other tools like Claude Code, Codex, and local models running on your own hardware. A big unlock for us was the Goose Development Kit, which powers the core of our agent harness. More on that to come as we publish articles and documentation later about the agent. The agent inside Maple Research doesn't have a name. At least not yet, not sure if it ever will. For now we call it "Chat Mode" and "Agent Mode". Think of this as the workhorse, the truck, the heavy lifter. Our other "Agent", the phone app, is your sidekick in your pocket, ready to help with quick things and ongoing conversations about life. I am incredibly excited about the Maple Research Agent. While I'm already seeing great results using it for internal work items, I'm especially thrilled about the personal health and wellness work it's doing for me. I know there are plenty of apps out there for compiling wellness data, but I'm having it build a tool tailored specifically for what I need, without the extra fluff. And none of my health data is being donated to the closed AI labs or sent to advertisers. I know that the AI logic is not being silently adjusted to fit the whims of a large corporation that has paid for product placement. It's me, state of the art AI, and my data. That's how I want it. Maple's new agent makes that possible. We can't wait for you to try it out. If you want early access, comment here, email us, reach out in some way. To those on the other agent waitlist, you're already in the queue. Thanks for reading this lengthy update. :)