Worchihan Zingkhai, Mo Faraj, and Vanessa Jimenez are soccer fans going to the FIFA World Cup. Courtesy of Worchihan Zingkhai, Mo Faraj, and Vanessa Jimenez The FIFA World Cup will take place in North America this year, and is shaping up to be the most expensive for fans to attend yet. Some fans say they are spending thousands of dollars to see the biggest event in sports. Business Insider spoke to 8 people about what they are spending and how they plan to make it work. Worchihan Zingkhai distinctly remembers when he first fell in love with soccer. It was the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and his whole community in Ukhrul, a small village in India near the Myanmar border, was gathered to watch Italy play Chile on a black-and-white TV. The game was a tense, back-and-forth that finished 2-2 thanks to a late penalty kick for the Italians. "That was the beginning of my football journey," Zingkhai said in a recent conversation with Business Insider. When a plan to visit his in-laws in the US in June this year coincided with the World Cup, attending a game was a no-brainer. The challenge would be getting the tickets. Zingkhai, a 40-year-old teacher and content creator, said he had wanted to see England, Portugal, or Argentina play. When he tried to buy tickets in February, prices for these games were hundreds of dollars over his budget. A few months later, during last-minute ticket sales, and after spending three hours in a line, he got the cheapest ticket he could find in Atlanta, close to where he is staying: $140 to see the Czech Republic against South Africa. "My village [has] about 800 people. When I tell the villagers, I'm going to the World Cup, and the stadium that I'm going to has more than 70,000 people, they cannot believe it," he said. Worchihan Zingkhai outside Etihad Stadium in Manchester, the home of his favorite Premier League club, Manchester City. Courtesy of Worchihan Zingkhai Zingkhai is among 6.5 million fans expected to attend the 2026 World Cup, according to FIFA's estimates. Between high ticket prices, travel costs, and accommodation expenses, some supporters are spending thousands of dollars and making significant sacrifices to see the biggest event in sports. It's set to be the most expensive World Cup yet for fans: In April's last-minute sales phase, a ticket to the final cost at least $5,785. FIFA expects to generate nearly $9 billion in revenue in 2026, part of a projected $13 billion haul for the four-year World Cup cycle ending with this summer's tournament. It generated $7.5 billion over the four-year period from 2019 to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Business Insider spoke to eight people from around the world about how much they're paying to attend the games and how they are making the trip work. This story is part of our Cost of the World Cup series, looking at the sky-high prices associated with attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Are you attending the World Cup and have a story to share about how you're covering the cost? Contact rshahidi@businessinsider.com or psyme@businessinsider.com. First came the ticket hunt High demand to see a World Cup game has led to some complicated processes to secure a ticket. The tournament starts with the group stage, with 12 groups of four teams. The best-placed teams then move on to the knockout rounds, starting with the Round of 32. Ticket prices increase as the stakes get higher. Between September and January, FIFA held three ticket sales phases in which fans applied for tickets through a ballot system. Prices then increased by April's "last-minute" phase. From December, fans could also get tickets through participating member associations, or PMAs, the governing bodies for soccer in each of the countries and territories that qualified for the tournament. The criteria for this varied by PMA, but you typically had to be a loyal supporter with a history of attending games. FIFA is also using dynamic pricing for this year's World Cup, meaning ticket prices have fluctuated based on demand. In a statement, it said its "variable pricing ticketing approach aligns with industry trends across various sports and entertainment sectors." The practice has drawn criticism from some fans, who have compared it to price gouging. Fans still looking for a ticket could turn to FIFA's resale marketplace. This has pushed prices higher for the most popular games, but as the tournament draws nearer, there have been some big discounts. The resale marketplace is largely unregulated, except that citizens of Mexico can only exchange tickets, and people in Ontario can only sell them at face value or lower. Shriya Agnihotri, a 29-year-old social worker and food content creator from Toronto, was excited when she learned the World Cup would be in North America. The tournament was always a big deal in her family growing up. Now, Agnihotri felt attending a game was finally attainable. Shriya Agnihotri is going to see a World Cup match with her partner, Nithusan. Courtesy of Shriya Agnihotri After registering for tickets at the end of last year, she didn't succeed in January's final lottery draw. During last-minute ticket sales in April, after spending six hours in line, the games she was originally interested in turned out to be too expensive. She ended up buying a Category 1 ticket for Ghana against Panama for 630 Canadian dollars ($454), the highest classification. World Cup tickets are classified into four categories based on the seat location in the stadium. Alan Talbot, a 61-year-old civil engineer from the UK, who has been to four World Cups in his lifetime, said it has become progressively harder to buy tickets over the years. "There's just so much competition," he said. Talbot said he has noticed that a lot of soccer fans on forums have found this the most frustrating tournament to get tickets for. He said that he felt FIFA had deliberately tried to create a sense of FOMO with the different phases this year. Talbot was unsuccessful in getting tickets in the lottery stages but ultimately secured four tickets on resale and via a friend in the second sales phase. In total, his tickets have cost him and his wife just over $3,100. Saving for a once-in-a-lifetime event For some younger fans and those traveling internationally, attending the World Cup has required extensive planning. 23-year-old Mo Faraj, from Boston, opened a dedicated savings account in November to save for the World Cup. As an Iraqi, he was determined to watch his team play its first World Cup since 1986. Iraq was one of the last countries to qualify for the World Cup, thanks to a nail-biting playoff, so its PMA sales phase took place in April rather than December, as with most others. Mo Faraj went to Monterrey, Mexico, to see Iraq play its World Cup qualifier against Bolivia. Courtesy of Mo Faraj First, Faraj bought a Category 1 ticket for Iraq against Senegal at $450 through the FIFA website, and two more tickets via Iraq's PMA: $180 to see Iraq against Norway, and $220 to see it play France — both Category 2 seats. Iraqi fans have been organizing Facebook and WhatsApp groups to keep costs down, Faraj said. "Everyone's offering up their places, people are offering free transportation, food — just very, very, very, very generous people," he said. "They're just happy that we're in the World Cup; they'll do anything just to enjoy the moment." Faraj and his five friends decided to split the cost of Airbnbs. They're also renting a full-size SUV to travel between Boston, Philadelphia, and Toronto and splitting the gas costs. Faraj estimates that his total accommodation spend will be about $1,000 for four nights. The World Cup takes place in 16 cities across North America, where accommodation costs can vary widely. Atlanta or Guadalajara, for example, are much cheaper than New York City or Los Angeles. Demand can vary widely between cities, too. Search data from Trivago between January and late April showed demand for accommodation in New York City during the tournament was down 22% year over year, while it doubled for Boston. For international travelers, Trivago's data showed demand for host cities in Mexico and Canada was up more than 40%, but for US host cities, it grew by 1% during the same period. Seasoned tournament-goers, like Talbot, booked some of their hotels nearly a year in advance to avoid higher costs. Others are making sacrifices to be there. Khai Duong, a 28-year-old dental hygienist from Atlanta, told Business Insider he's been putting away $400 a month since the summer to afford the accommodation, rental car, and the tickets he bought for two games. This has meant he has had to postpone a trip to his home country, Vietnam, until next year. Zingkhai said he earns about 500 Indian rupees a day — roughly $5 to $6. Though his in-laws are largely covering the $2,340 airfare to get from northeast India to the US, the cost of food, merch, and tickets means he's forgoing replacing a broken laptop because he can't afford the extra expense right now. In a statement, FIFA pointed to its $60 Supporter Entry Tier tickets, which it offered for each of the 104 games. These were allocated for loyal fans, with eligibility criteria decided by each PMA. Paying for bucket-list matches For those wanting to see the opening match or final, they have to spend a lot more. Tickets started at $140 for group-stage matches during April's first open ticket sale. In the same phase, it would cost at least $5,785 to see the final, and nearly $11,000 for a Category 1 seat. 32-year-old Vanessa Jimenez, from Dallas, has spent over $2,000 on one ticket on FIFA's resale portal to attend the opening game between Mexico and South Africa in Mexico City. Vanessa Jimenez said she is excited to see the performances at the opening ceremony. Courtesy of Vanessa Jimenez "That's always kind of been a dream of ours to go to, obviously, either a World Cup final or an opener," Jimenez told Business Insider. "The final would be amazing, of course, but that's even more expensive to attend." The travel hacks helping fans cut costs To avoid breaking the bank, fans have been getting creative. Jimenez said she has secured free accommodation in Mexico City through a content partnership. Faraj is splitting nearly every expense with friends. Others are building community resources to help fellow fans navigate the tournament. David Nugent, a 31-year-old from Glasgow, has tickets to see Scotland play Brazil in Miami through a work contract. He is currently waiting for prices to drop for Scotland against Haiti in Boston. "Unless I win the lottery, I'm not buying them," Nugent said. He has created an Instagram page, called @tartanarmyinboston, with a friend to share practical tips on navigating Boston, including a reminder that it's illegal to drink in public, and various deals on hotels. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Show And Tell Podcast (@showandtell.cast) The city is expecting a large number of Scots to visit, as the team is playing two of its three group-stage games at the nearby Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. Nugent has also planned a boat party for Scotland soccer fans, known as the "Tartan Army." It will be Scotland's first World Cup since 1998. Mike Teevan, a 46-year-old from Glasgow, took things a step further. After struggling to find reliable transportation information for matchdays, he organized a bus for a group of Scottish supporters. "It kind of just snowballed from there," Teevan told Business Insider. Through booking agents, he has organized buses for 1,120 fans to keep public transport costs down. Teevan sold bus tickets for between £31 and £45 each ($42 and $60). It costs $90 for a coach ticket between downtown Boston and Gillette Stadium during the tournament, and $80 for a round-trip rail ticket, compared to $20 on an NFL game day. In the statement to Business Insider, FIFA said it is "focused on ensuring fair access to our game for existing and prospective fans." It added that it reinvests revenue from the tournament to support the development of men's, women's, and youth soccer around the world. Though most fans Business Insider spoke to said they believed the prices were high, the overall feeling is one of excitement. Zingkhai said, despite the costs, he's glad he can make it to the World Cup. "My mom, actually, the other day, told me, 'Oh, so will I see you on television?' You know, like she was so innocent, maybe you will be in the crowd," he said. "I wish I could get a ticket for England, Portugal, Argentina games, but I mean, I could not afford it, but I'm happy. I'm happy with what I got," he added. 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From battery life to privacy, there are many hurdles to the idea taking off.

Polish qualifier Maja Chwalińska made French Open history on Thursday when she defeated Diana Shnaider to book a trip to the final. Dan Istitene/Getty Images On Thursday, Maja Chwalińska made history, becoming the first qualifier to reach a Roland-Garros final. The 24-year-old's win over Diana Shnaider also secured her a seven-figure paycheck. Earlier in the tournament, she discussed struggling to afford her hotel in Paris. There's a Polish player in the women's final at Roland-Garros — and it isn't world No. 3 Iga Świątek. It's Maja Chwalińska, a 24-year-old qualifier who had to win three matches at the French Open just to get into the main draw of the second Slam of the year. In Thursday's semifinal, Chwalińska took out Russia's Diana Shnaider to secure her place in Saturday's final. The win also guaranteed her a seven-figure check. The Roland-Garros champion will take home €2.8 million, or about $3.25 million, while the runner-up will collect €1.4 million, or about $1.63 million. Chwalińska is just the second women's qualifier in the Open Era to reach a Grand Slam final (Emma Raducanu was the first, at the 2021 US Open, which she went on to win), and the first qualifier ever to reach the Roland-Garros final. She wasn't exactly prepared to stay in Paris for this long. During an on-court interview after one of her early matches, Chwalińska said she was running out of money to pay for her hotel in Paris. She had already earned roughly $150,000 by reaching the second round, but players receive their prize money after the tournament ends. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eurosport Polska (@eurosportpl) "I mentioned in the interview after the match against Maria [Sakkari] that I actually struggled to pay for the hotel, because you know that we get the check after the tournament," she said in a separate post-match interview. She added that the Polish company Oshee, which also sponsors Świątek, stepped in to help cover her lodging. For lower-ranked players, that kind of financial pressure is not unusual. Tennis can look lavish at the top, but outside the upper tier, it is often a self-funded grind. Players pay for travel, hotels, coaching, meals, and the cost of getting themselves from one tournament to the next. A week at a lower-level event can end with a small prize-money check — and a long list of expenses that eat most of it up. Chwalińska entered Roland-Garros ranked outside the top 100. After Thursday's win, she is projected to jump to around No. 21, a ranking that should give her direct entry into the main draws of the remaining Grand Slams this year, rather than forcing her to claw through qualifying. As former world No. 1 Andy Roddick put it on his podcast, "Served," the run is "life-changing — financially life-changing." Asked after Thursday's win what it felt like to reach the final, Chwalińska was at a loss for words. "Like a dream," she said on court. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what to say." She's not done yet. Chwalińska has a chance to double her prize money if she extends her Cinderella run one more match and wins the title Saturday. "I feel like in tennis you're always hungry," she said after the fourth round. "You kind of set one goal, but then you reach it, and you want more. So, very grateful for this moment, but I definitely want more." In Saturday's final, she'll face 19-year-old phenom Mirra Andreeva, who's ranked No. 8 in the world and will have fresher legs, having played six matches to Chwalińska's nine. Andreeva is also making her first Grand Slam final appearance. Here's the full breakdown of women's singles prize money at the 2026 French Open: First round: €87,000, or about $101,000 Second round: €130,000, or about $151,000 Third round: €187,000, or about $217,000 Fourth round: €285,000, or about $331,000 Quarterfinals: €470,000, or about $546,000 Semifinals: €750,000, or about $871,000 Finalist: €1.4 million, or about $1.63 million Champion: €2.8 million, or about $3.25 million Read the original article on Business Insider

Pope Leo XIV, who warned last month that AI could undermine human dignity and displace workers if left unchecked. TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images Last month, a Unitarian Universalist was granted a faith-based accommodation by her employer to avoid using AI. Some have interpreted Pope Leo XIV's recent letter as grounds for religious objections to the use of AI in the workplace. Employers that don't take workers' requests for religious accommodations seriously can land in hot water. Opposed to using AI for her software-engineering job, Erin Maus secured something of a miracle from her employer: a religious exemption. Maus, a Unitarian Universalist, said she proposed the special treatment in April, citing environmental and ethical objections to AI that don't align with her religious beliefs. She also said she consulted an employment lawyer and her local chapter's minister to help make her case. Maus was granted the accommodation in mid-May, according to an email seen by Business Insider. "I'm writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say," said the 34-year-old, who lives in North Carolina and works for a large tech-entertainment company that she described as progressive. "Just two years ago, how else would you do it?" Maus' AI workaround comes as a growing number of employers mandate and track workers' AI usage. The technology has also recently drawn scrutiny from Pope Leo XIV, who warned last month that AI could undermine human dignity and displace workers if left unchecked in a more than 42,000-word encyclical. Some people have interpreted the pontiff's letter as grounds for religious objections to using AI in the workplace. It's a stance that carries real legal weight, given that federal law requires employers to consider faith-based requests. "The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that 'sincerely held religious belief' under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse," wrote Corey Quinn, a software-startup founder in San Francisco, on X. 'Playing priest' Unitarian Universalists recognize that advances in technology must be guided by an ethical understanding of humanity, said Suzanne Morse, a spokeswoman for the Unitarian Universalist Association. The group is currently developing a policy about the use of AI and a theological statement on it, she said. As more religious groups wrestle with AI's ethical implications, some employment lawyers see a potential workplace conundrum. While discussions about faith-based objections to the technology were underway before Pope Leo released his encyclical on Memorial Day, they say that his intervention could spur a new wave of workers to seek faith-based exemptions from AI requirements. Employers "might have to promulgate some rules about this very quickly," said John J. Meehan, an attorney who specializes in workplace discrimination and labor law with law firm Joseph & Norinsberg. "If I were one of the bigger defense-side employment firms, I'd be doing that right now." Workers filed more than 3,600 religion-based discrimination charges with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in fiscal 2024, about 70% more than in 2021, the last full fiscal year before vaccine-mandate disputes drove a sharp increase in filings. Employers could wind up in court if they outright dismiss workers who request a faith-based exemption from using AI, said Ashley Herd, a former McKinsey counsel and head of North American HR who now advises managers and employers on workplace issues. "Playing priest, and telling employees their request isn't legitimate, does not tend to bode well for companies," said Herd, also a cohost of the "HR Besties" podcast. "A jury doesn't like it when employees get made fun of by managers or HR." In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a postal worker who sought an exemption from Sunday shifts for religious reasons. The decision raised the bar for employers seeking to deny religious accommodations, making it harder to reject requests on the grounds that they create workplace burdens. Even so, Pope Leo's remarks may not be a Hail Mary for workers looking to dodge AI. Dr. Michael Naughton, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, said the pontiff didn't imply that Catholic workers shouldn't adopt AI, but rather questioned whether it advances or diminishes human agency. "It's probably going down the wrong alley to say this is a religious right, that 'I don't have to use it' " in the workplace, Naughton said. A case for opting out Workplace concerns are only one manifestation of a broader backlash against AI. At some college graduation ceremonies this spring, students heckled commencement speakers who praised the technology, while residents nationwide are fighting the construction of AI data centers. Nearly a third of workers harbor negative feelings — including anxiety, uncertainty, and resistance — toward AI, according to a May study from HR software company Cornerstone. The findings are based on a survey of 2,000 US and UK workers by research firm Censuswide. Carina Cortez, chief people officer at Cornerstone, said she's seen workers resist new technology in the past and eventually come to embrace it. Though Cornerstone doesn't require its roughly 3,500 employees to use AI, she warned that people who dismiss it for any reason could dent their careers, as the technology is becoming ubiquitous in the workplace. "Opting out today can mean falling behind tomorrow," Cortez said. For now, Maus isn't worried about being left behind. She said she recently completed a coding task at the same speed as a colleague who used AI to handle a nearly identical assignment. "AI doesn't really seem to be this game changer," she said, adding that her experience with the technology has only reinforced her view. "Your principles matter." Read the original article on Business Insider

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An “urban explorer” tells WIRED their mother checked in to make sure they weren’t one of the people seen scurrying out of a manhole with their friends.

Goldman Sachs' CEO, David Solomon, said the bank is "still going to hire a lot of people out of school." ECNY David Solomon said AI will make "nuanced changes" to hiring over the next three years. The CEO said his bank is hiring at least 2,400 interns this year, in line with pre-COVID levels. He also had a phone-based suggestion for young job seekers. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says the bank may bring in fewer fresh-faced employees over the next few years as AI reshapes their work. But don't call it a hiring apocalypse. During an interview with Bloomberg's "Odd Lots" podcast, released on Thursday, Solomon said Goldman's out-of-school hiring could "contract a little" over the next three years. Still, he predicts the firm will continue to hire thousands of interns and recent graduates. "You're going to see nuanced changes that probably to some degree reduce the number of people that we start with over the next few years, but probably not what you and I would call dramatically," he said. "We're still going to hire a lot of people out of school." This year, Goldman is bringing on an estimated 2,400 to 2,500 interns, Solomon said. He added that the firm has a similar number of permanent new hires starting in July — roughly in line with pre-COVID levels, but below the more than 3,000 it was bringing in during 2021. Asked how Goldman's new-hire mix has changed since the pre-ChatGPT era, Solomon said the firm had seen "subtle, subtle changes." He said the firm had shifted more heavily toward engineering talent over the past decade, and that the mix would likely shift again "given the power of these tools and our ability to code." The comments come as concerns about AI's impact on jobs spark mixed responses across industries. In Silicon Valley, top AI bosses, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have warned of potential wipe-outs for entry-level workers. Meanwhile, leaders in other industries think there's more nuance to the existential warnings — Apollo's chief economist Torsten Sløk wrote that there's "zero evidence" that AI is driving layoffs, and Uber's COO, Andrew Macdonald, said it's getting harder to justify the amount of spending it takes to automate tasks with AI. Solomon, who argued in a late-May New York Times op-ed that the AI jobs apocalypse is overblown, falls firmly in the latter camp. The bigger challenge, Solomon said during the podcast, is figuring out how to train young workers when AI can instantly produce answers that once required hours of grunt work. He recalled starting his banking career in an age without minute-by-minute digital trackers for stock prices. To compare stock performance, he said, he dug through microfiche, pulled prices from The Wall Street Journal, plotted them on graph paper, and did the math by hand. It was slow, but it taught him useful critical thinking skills, he said. "Now, if you ask for it, you get it instantaneously," he said. "Has your brain really absorbed what's actually happening?" Operating in a world with answers at his entry-level intern's fingertips means Goldman has to rethink skill training, Solomon said. Still, his advice to young bankers in the AI age was decidedly old-school: pick up the phone and talk to people. "A telephone call to someone is 10 times more valuable than a text or an email," Solomon said. "My daughter says that's an unverified statistic. I know that's true." Goldman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider

AI companies are using serif to project humanity. Critics are calling it “tasteslop.”

PLUS: Stress test business ideas with Perplexity

On June 5, 404 Media reported that attackers had been using Meta’s AI customer support agent to steal Instagram accounts. Their approach was simple: They asked the agent to link the accounts to email addresses that they controlled, and the agent complied. One attacker broke into the dormant Obama White House account and made pro-Iran…

This week I’ve been at SXSW London. There’s been music, film, and a lot—and I mean a lot—of talk about AI. I also had the opportunity to sit down with Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent the last 30 years studying how people interact with digital technologies. Early…

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AI inference is becoming the cost center that enterprises can no longer hide behind training budgets. … Intel’s Crescent Island: A Smarter Strategy, But Proof Still PendingRead more The post Intel’s Crescent Island: A Smarter Strategy, But Proof Still Pending appeared first on .

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New studies suggest consciousness can't be judged solely by behavior, whether it's a chatbot discussing philosophy or a bee searching for nectar. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the internal mechanisms of brains and computers, concluding that today's AI is likely not conscious while leaving open the possibility for both conscious insects and future machines.

In the current environment, remaining heads down has diminishing returns; at some point, you have to make some noise just to remind the market you exist.

The Information: Sources: data center developer Switch is in talks to raise billions of dollars from PE firms including Brookfield and KKR at a $50B+ valuation  —  Data center developer Switch is in talks to raise billions of dollars at a valuation of at least $50 billion, as it seeks to capitalize …

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arXiv:2606.05169v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We give a stereological theory of LLM benchmark coverage. For any suite with effective dimensionality d_eff, the visible Hausdorff distance between two convex capability profiles consistent with the same scores is bounded by epsilon + C R m^(-1/(d_eff-1)), with matching Lipschitz lower bound. Empirically, three independent leaderboards (Open LLM v2, an extended 12-benchmark suite, LiveBench) all have d_eff in [2.86, 4.80] on their competitive frontier; the structural blind spot exceeds the observed runner-up score gap by two orders of magnitude and dominates statistical noise by 52-127x. Under a chi-squared projection model, the isotropic prior is the optimistic case; across six hidden-capability priors and four ambient dimensions the simulated half-split swap rate of the top two models stays in [0.38, 0.49], and a 500-trial random visible/held-out split shows that 92% of trials swap the top-1 ranking with on average 2.83 of 5 top-5 models changing. A submodular greedy algorithm with the Nemhauser (1 - 1/e) guarantee finds a stable core of 4 benchmarks; 7 of 12 suffice for 90% coverage, and the trained subset transfers across temporal quarters with 93-97% retention. A counterfactual validation across 12 internal benchmarks and 27 Chatbot Arena categories confirms that the eigenstructure predicts which evaluations are irreplaceable (rho = -0.69, p = 0.013 for removal disruption) and which external evaluations bring new information (rho = +0.38). As a second, independent theoretical contribution, we resolve Gardner's Problem 1.5 (1995) for C^2 support functions, establishing the minimax rate Theta(R/(kappa m^(2/(D-1)))) in general dimension via optimal recovery theory on S^(D-1).

arXiv:2606.05175v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study generic triple-latent sequence models that maintain a running token state and compressed pair-memory pathway to capture higher-order token interactions without benchmark-specific parsing. The triple-latent family improves a small Transformer baseline on byte-level WikiText-2 and on a tokenizer-based MiniMind language-model benchmark, while a recall-focused gated key-value retrieval extension improves associative recall but remains seed-sensitive and much slower in the current reference implementation.