Techmeme
September 20, 2026, 1:20 AM

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:
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.
New York Times:
Experts say AI kill-switch legislation is far harder to implement than lawmakers assume, warning a rogue AI could actively try to dismantle the mechanism itself  —  A bipartisan group in Congress and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California have floated ideas for building a mechanism that would instantly power down an A.I. system.
Reuters:
Chinese DRAM chipmaker CXMT says its new fifth-gen technology platform enters mass production and unveils two 24Gb LPDDR5X phone memory products built on it  —  Chinese DRAM chipmaker CXMT (688825.SS) said on Sunday its fifth-generation technology platform had entered mass production …
More: Finimize
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Meta challenges Ofcom's OSA categorization of WhatsApp and Instagram imposing additional regulations; Roblox and Quora are also challenging their categorization  —  US tech giant's latest action against regulator Ofcom could slow down implementation of the far-reaching law
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan dismissed concerns after fraudsters tried to launder $10M+ from stolen cards to clean accounts via its wagers in February  —  CEO Shayne Coplan brushed off concerns about scheme involving stolen debit cards; now the prediction market is bolstering executive ranks as it eyes IPO
Forums: Hacker News
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 …
Ken Bensinger / New York Times:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a law that will penalize influencers who do not properly disclose paid political content, with fines of up to $5K per post  —  Under a new law, creators could face fines of $5,000 per post if they don't disclose that they were paid to make political content.
More: The Guardian
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.
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

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More News

Chris Metinko / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk: