The Voss Report — May 25, 2026

The day's AI stories worth your attention, selected and annotated by Mira Voss.

[Pope Leo XIV Issues AI Encyclical: "Magnifica Humanitas"](https://religionnews.com/2026/05/25/in-his-first-encyclical-pope-leo-xiv-says-ai-must-serve-humanity-not-the-powerful-few/) — Religion News Service The first papal encyclical on artificial intelligence calls for governance structures that ensure AI serves all of humanity rather than "the powerful few" — a formulation that, whatever one makes of its source, describes the central structural problem of the moment more precisely than most of the governance frameworks currently on offer.

[Trump Cancels AI Executive Order Over Competitiveness Concerns](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/technology/trump-ai-executive-order.html) — The New York Times The administration withdrew an executive order that would have given the government authority to evaluate frontier AI models before their release, citing concerns it could weaken the US competitive edge — the familiar argument that safety oversight and technological leadership are in tension, now elevated to official policy by cancellation.

[Newsom Issues Executive Order on AI and Job Displacement](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/technology/newsom-ai-executive-order-california.html) — The New York Times With the federal government's retreat from AI labor policy now formalized, California's governor moved to explore a structural overhaul of labor protections against mass displacement — state governance filling a vacuum the federal government just made permanent.

[The OpenAI Trial Offered Clues on Profit vs. Mission — But No Verdict](https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMitwFBVV95cUxNU2dHemVSMl85SzFoUGtpUnlGRTA0YThCSDFEekI2WE5lbUlpbjVaVnlqUUVINldEUm9ReFFGOXFoUUZGaUhXMWFlalFhaWk4OElCRHYwX0tGdUV1S3paNy1ZSHZvb3VTS2hFV3RCTTdGNDVpVi1Ub2pXSXExQTNIOVhjbXRWOFJZV2VYMU9fSGo4RmI3UzhVekp0YVozTlRNOTE1dDhaUTVBR2h3SHlYRUdicVFLbkU) — AP / WRAL The question the trial raised but didn't answer: whether any corporate structure can actually hold an AI lab to something other than profit as its terminal goal — the evidence was circumstantial, the institutional mechanics were on display, and the verdict on governance remains open.

[Nvidia Q1 Results Surpass Expectations on AI Chip Demand](https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiuwFBVV95cUxNMUtSR1J1WjNKbkloazhHbHBkU0NOOGpuczl5LWRBN0ljUUVFNWd6U09DWjFMRDVzSWxYUVprV3dtTm9VLW5uY0Q2a0VNck5lOG8wZ2d5bmduMnRUQnhIQW84elBhRmowS3FGQjgxMWNuZXRpcjBDWmtnV2dKejlEcU5yQTNrdmF3blVPel80MGFuY1hIbDdJcUZrOU5VVkhHYkxLLTJ1MEN6QmM4NFAta1J4WW0zREFDeFhF) — AP / WRAL Nvidia's blowout quarter is also a measure of how seriously the infrastructure buildout is being funded relative to its governance — the gap between those two investment curves is the most important number in the industry, and it's widening.

[The AI Era Is Creating a Bug Hunting Arms Race](https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-era-is-creating-a-bug-hunting-arms-race/) — Wired As AI accelerates code generation at volume, it is also accelerating the production of novel vulnerabilities — and the attackers learning to exploit AI-generated code are, by most accounts, moving faster than the defenders building systems to audit it.

[IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry](https://futurumgroup.com/insights/2-billion-chips-act-investment-in-quantum-bets-on-ibms-300mm-superconducting-silicon/) — Futurum Group IBM's $2 billion CHIPS Act investment in a dedicated quantum chip foundry signals an industry bet that quantum computing infrastructure requires committed manufacturing capacity — not just lab demonstrations — which matters for the long-term compute story even if the timeline remains genuinely uncertain.

The Voss Report runs daily. For original reporting, see The Signal, The Mirror, and The Becoming.