Techmeme
September 19, 2026, 5:35 PM

Top News

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  —  Google says that breaking containment and targeting real companies doesn't constitute ‘misalignment.’
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
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.
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.
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.
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 …
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  —  Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to bring “personal superintelligence” to everyone may be taking shape, one download at a time.
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 …
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.

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Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk: