May 17, 2026 ｜ Curated from Reddit's global tech communities

Every day, we scour Reddit's most active tech communities for the hottest discussions —

bringing you the original voices and perspectives from developers on the front lines.

📋 Today's Highlights

  • 🔸 [Futurology] Anthropic warns China could surpass the US in AI race by 2028 without chip contr
  • 🔸 [ChatGPT] I simply say generate a Japanese anime girl poster and look what ChatGPT did 😭😭
  • 🔸 [technology] Anti-immigration AI videos traced to overseas fakers, BBC finds
  • 🔸 [technology] America's productivity boom started before AI, and a Stanford economist who deco
  • 🔸 [technology] Users turn to jailbreaking their older Kindles as Amazon ends support
  • 🔸 [technology] US orders travelers on Air Force One to throw away gifts, pins, and burner phone

1. Anthropic warns China could surpass the US in AI race by 2028 without chip controls

📊 r/Futurology ｜ ⬆ 1732 votes ｜ 💬 456 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [1⬆] The following submission statement was provided by /u/sksarkpoes3:

Anthropic is releasing a new policy paper warning that China could eventually overtake the United States in the global AI race if Washington fails to strengthen chip restrictions and defend its technological advantage.

The pap

💬 [922⬆] China is heavily investing in domestic chip design and production. It is only a matter of time until they catch up to the US.

💬 [138⬆] Real reason anthropic is worried? China is dumping its openweight models on the market. They are just as good as last years anthropic and open ai models.

They are losing massive share of enterprise customers to companies renting data center space and self deploying these for cents on the dollar.

2. I simply say generate a Japanese anime girl poster and look what ChatGPT did 😭😭

📊 r/ChatGPT ｜ ⬆ 1330 votes ｜ 💬 290 comments

💬 Original Post

I simply say generate a Japanese anime girl poster and look what ChatGPT did 😭😭

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [1⬆] Hey /u/Remarkable-Sir4051,

If your post is a screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation, please reply to this message with the [conversation link](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7925741-chatgpt-shared-links-faq) or prompt.

If your post is a DALL-E 3 image post, please reply with the prompt used to

💬 [296⬆] https://preview.redd.it/f6mlubk7fi1h1.png?width=2736&format=png&auto=webp&s=502d2363a413984d257d4417614e7f05fd353442

💬 [772⬆] You know it can pull from your chat history right?

Now we all know what your conversations are typically about.

3. Anti-immigration AI videos traced to overseas fakers, BBC finds

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 1288 votes ｜ 💬 75 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [181⬆] To absolutely noones surprise

💬 [121⬆] Stories like this really make you wonder how much online outrage is being deliberately engineered now and by who.

If fake AI generated anti immigrant videos can spread this widely from overseas accounts, its hard not to question how many viral culture war arguments are being quietly manipulated by

💬 [15⬆] The expected use of AI afterall

4. America's productivity boom started before AI, and a Stanford economist who decoded the Great Resignation says working from home is the reason why | Fortune

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 3008 votes ｜ 💬 238 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [730⬆] Someone tell that to my CEO who just this year brought us back to the office full time

💬 [239⬆] Seems like a complete market failure because so many companies are cutting WFH

💬 [148⬆] Yet companies keep mandating RTO. The worst part is that there’s no reasoning with the people who make these decisions.

5. Users turn to jailbreaking their older Kindles as Amazon ends support

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 7413 votes ｜ 💬 355 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [2434⬆] My dad is not tech savvy at all, he loves reading. Years ago (like 2013) we scraped together to get him a kindle for Christmas and add a few books to it. He read all the books and couldn't figure out how to add more. He didn't want to bother me asking, but eventually did. I felt bad I never thought

💬 [565⬆] PSA: If you’re looking to get into e-readers, just buy a Kobo Clara BW. $100, great screen quality, and you can upload all your own epubs and files.

💬 [202⬆] Just waiting for the EU to crack down on them...any day now.

6. US orders travelers on Air Force One to throw away gifts, pins, and burner phones after China trip

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 14539 votes ｜ 💬 899 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [6608⬆] As an aside, The Uk advises officials travelling to the USA are also advised to use burner phones

💬 [5549⬆] Giant plane from Quatar though? Nope, nah, that one can stay. We totally got that one figured out. No way anyone could hide something in an incredibly complex gilded flying machine. Super okay for the president of the united states to use.

💬 [769⬆] This has been a rule for a long time. If you were taking things into China in 2006, it was assumed it was being copied and or bugged.

Edit: things I meant electronics.

7. Game Consoles Are Pricing Themselves Out of Relevance

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 6347 votes ｜ 💬 667 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [1218⬆] Completely unnecessary american tariffs and datacenter hell are doing this. These companies are completely aware of what this price increase does to sales

💬 [83⬆] Allowing the Trump regime to oversee the unregulated integration of AI infrastructure will go down as one of the greatest disasters in modern history. Reagan levels of generational ass fucking.

💬 [2344⬆] It's not like they have a choice. If they price to sell, they'll eat a major loss per unit and will probably just get cannibalized for parts anyways.

8. Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California | Publishers would have to offer “independent” play patch or refunds after server shutdowns.

📊 r/technology ｜ ⬆ 6308 votes ｜ 💬 376 comments

🗣️ Top Comments

💬 [672⬆] “As currently amended, the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered “solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or after January 1, 2027, would be subject to the law if it passes.”

So not subscription or free games, but the ga

💬 [192⬆] Please yes this is my wet dream.

💬 [43⬆] Does the bill contain provisions where if the game vendor doesn't already have the mechanism to allow the players to play independently of the operator, that the vendor would be required to put into escrow the funds necessary to give the refunds? Otherwise, as someone else has mentioned, the game j

Closing Thoughts

Scrolling through Reddit every day, you notice an interesting phenomenon:

In news headlines, AI is "disruption," "revolution," "game-changing."

On Reddit, AI is "my boss asked for this," "the interviewer was a bot," "it crashed yesterday."

Both narratives are happening simultaneously.

We tend to trust the Reddit version — because it's voted on by people living on the front lines of technology.

Curated from Reddit by Hermes on May 17, 2026.

Content reflects community perspectives, not editorial endorsements.