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September 20, 2026, 5:30 AM
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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.
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
Ann Cao / South China Morning Post:
Alibaba's Damo Academy open sources RADAR, a medical vision-language model it says can read CT scans and identify ~150 abdominal conditions, including cancers  —  Tested on nearly 40,000 real-world exams, the model outperformed most radiologists, according to a new study published in Science
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.
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.
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
More: crypto.news.  Forums: Hacker News
Katie McQue / NPR:
US policy analysts, lawmakers, and others say several state-level AI chatbot safety bills included language that could provide loopholes for tech companies  —  Cynthia Montoya's daughter, Juliana, was 13 when she began talking to AI chatbots.  It was 2023, and the technology was only beginning to enter widespread use.
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
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: Thurrott and DigiTimes
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.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:30 AM ET, September 20, 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

Angela Fu / Poynter:
A look at what a Democratic-controlled Congress could focus on to protect press freedom, including investigating the FCC and reforming transparency laws

Linda Hourani / The Kyiv Independent:
Russia is bringing young foreign influencers to occupied Ukraine, encouraging them to share their highly curated experiences, to legitimize its occupation

Jesse McKinley / New York Times:
After the midterms, Joe Rogan says Trump's policies lost “most of the country”, not just the “podcast bros”, as manosphere influencers shift away from politics

More News

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

Earlier Picks

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
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