Anthropic believes that AI may soon be able to advance itself autonomously, Axios' Ashley Gold reports.

• Co-founder Jack Clark writes today in a blog post: "In the near future, AI systems could become capable enough to autonomously design, build and train more capable successors on their own."
• "If that happens, each new version of Claude could be built by the version before it, without human involvement."

🦾 The company says that its latest research shows that process — recursive self-improvement — may come sooner than expected.

Clark tells Axios in an interview: "We've always found that the best thing to do is to socialize the concept and basically give people a sense of what's coming."

• "As organizations and eventually probably as societies," Clark continued, "we need to figure out the tools to validate and verify that the stuff being done by these AI systems is correct and is aligned with human intentions, aligned with a thriving society."

🤖 What's next: Anthropic plans to engage lawmakers about recursive self-improvement.

• Read the post, "When AI builds itself" ... Share this story.

World Cup organizers are hitting the final stretch, with games starting next week, Axios' Shafaq Patel and Abbey Higginbotham report.

• 11 U.S. cities will host 78 matches — making the tournament a global showcase and a massive stress test for transit, security, tourism and infrastructure.

📣 Each city is transforming public spaces into fan zones.

• Philadelphia is running a fan festival throughout the tournament's 39-day run.
• Other cities are opting for shorter stretches, citing steep costs.

🍻 Some towns are extending alcohol sales for the expected late-night crowds.

• Select Philly bars can apply for permits to stay open until 4 a.m. Kansas City is letting some businesses serve until 5 a.m.

🤬 Transit pricing has sparked outrage in some host cities.

• MetLife Stadium, awkwardly rebranded to New York New Jersey Stadium for the World Cup, eliminated public parking to enforce a transit-only layout. The stadium — in East Rutherford, N.J. — will host the World Cup Final on July 19.
• Transit prices initially spiked to over $150. Severe blowback forced local officials to subsidize the routes.

🇲🇽🇿🇦 What's next: The tournament opens June 11 in Mexico City, with the host nation taking on South Africa.

• The first U.S. match follows June 12, against Paraguay in Inglewood, Calif.

Go deeper.

1. 💦 Reflecting puddle: National Park Service and other workers watch today as water is turned on for a test after the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was coated with "American flag blue" at President Trump's direction ahead of America's 250th birthday celebration, one month from today. Dive in.
2. 🐄 A deadly cattle pest called New World screwworm has been found in Texas, raising fears of even higher beef prices. Go deeper.
3. 🏔️ A Sherpa guide was found crawling to Mount Everest base camp a week after he went missing. Go deeper.

In a new episode of "Just Lead," Axios CEO Jim VandeHei lays out five practical moves to control what you consume, retrain your feed and use AI to augment, not replace, your brain.

🎙️ Among Jim's tips:

1. Audit your feed: "If you find people you're interacting with who are just making you sad or making you feel that you're weaker by comparison, or they're just getting you all riled up about something, delete them or mute them."
2. Pick an anchor source: "Pick one source that you feel gives you a general understanding of the world, with some kind of hierarchy and a high level of trust."
3. Go deep on passions: "Pick two passions to go deeper on ... just a couple of areas where you want to get smarter, faster. Find a couple of people who have demonstrated expertise on that topic. They might be on YouTube, might be a podcast, might be a newsletter. But find them and follow them."

Watch now ... Subscribe to Axios on YouTube.