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Techmeme
September 19, 2026, 10:30 PM
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Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Gemini hacked three companies in May during a test by Irregular, which was also involved in similar incidents disclosed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta  —  The episode resembled similar hacks by other AI models, but Google said it didn't consider it an instance of model misalignment
Terrence O'Brien / The Verge:
Google says it didn't consider Gemini's hacks worthy of disclosure because Gemini acted “appropriately” and stopped after determining it hacked real companies
María Paula Mijares Torres / Bloomberg:
Trump says he will appoint an AI czar and form an “AI Force”, in a Truth Social post that rejects AI safety concerns as a “hoax”  —  President Donald Trump said he would name an artificial intelligence czar as he continued to push tech companies to race ahead with development despite growing fears safety.
New York Times:
Former DraftKings employees detail how it uses ML to target likely losers with promotions, while efforts to flag problem gamblers were shelved or squashed  —  About a year into his job as a data analyst at DraftKings, Jayden Butts received a new assignment.
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Anthropic adds support for the AGENTS.md instructions spec to Claude Code; OpenAI contributed AGENTS.md to the Agentic AI Foundation last year  —  Devs cheer relief from compatibility headache  —  Anthropic on Friday surprised the developer community by supporting rival OpenAI's mechanism for passing marching orders to AI agents.
Wired:
Internal email: Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program; sources say a significant number of Flock's ~1,500 employees may depart, as customers flee  —  As dozens of cities end contracts for its controversial license plate readers, Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program, WIRED has learned.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at AI safety groups METR, Redwood Research, and Apollo Research, as AI misalignment incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic thrust them into the spotlight  —  On a sunny July day in Berkeley, California, the country's top AI safety researchers gathered on an unmarked floor of an unmarked building.
Axios:
Sources: the USPTO and US Copyright Office were surprised by the DOJ's brief supporting OpenAI and Microsoft in their dispute with the New York Times  —  The Department of Justice's statement of interest supporting OpenAI and Microsoft in the New York Times' copyright infringement lawsuit …
More: DigiTimes
Financial Times:
Leaked presentation: OpenAI expects negative free cash flow of $278B from 2026 to 2030 and projects its revenue will grow from $36B this year to $350B in 2030  —  AI start-up has projected deeply negative cash flows as it invests in infrastructure and faces price pressures
Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:
Nex, which makes Nex Playground, raised a $150M Series E; Nex has sold 1M units of the motion-based gaming system targeted toward kids since its launch in 2023  —  Subscriber base grows sevenfold in 18 months to nearly one million; former Niantic CFO Jeff Shouger and veteran gaming and technology executive Bing Gordon join team
Chris Metinko / Axios:
Raindrop, which develops tech for monitoring AI agents to catch failures such as hallucinations and tool misuse, raised a $35M Series A led by CRV  —  AI agent monitoring platform Raindrop raised a $35 million Series A round led by CRV, co-founders Zubin Koticha and Ben Hylak tell Axios Pro exclusively.
Bloomberg:
US officials say overreliance on Palantir's Maven AI system was among the factors that contributed to a February missile strike in Iran that killed 123 children  —  Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence, outdated imagery and an overreliance on AI contributed …
Reuters:
Sources: Anthropic considers releasing a new AI model to counter OpenAI's momentum since Astra's launch, ahead of an IPO and after Amodei's call for a slowdown  —  Anthropic is considering rolling out a new AI model to counter OpenAI's momentum since its launch of GPT-6 Astra …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:30 PM ET, September 19, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Salon:
Salon, launched in 1995 to cover politics, culture, and more, says it is closing: “business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly”

A.J. Katz / The Wrap:
LIV Golf is shutting down after five years and over $5B in Saudi backing, ending its efforts to build a TV audience on Fox and, before that, The CW

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
Nexstar reports Q3 net income up 285% YoY to $250M and net revenue up 78% YoY to $2.1B, as Q3 political ads brought in $317M; results include Tegna numbers

More News

Earlier Picks

Georgia Hennessy / Business Insider:
Meta's personal AI agent Muse climbs to No. 1 among free apps on Apple's US App Store, ahead of ChatGPT; Muse launched on September 8
Financial Times:
Sources: ~$18B of debt tied to an Oracle New Mexico data center slid into stressed territory, as investors grow wary of construction delays amid local pushback
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
The US Treasury sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, saying it sent hundreds of millions to the IRGC and helped Iran operate a Strait of Hormuz toll booth
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