Skip to content

All AI news

Today 3 items
TodayOct 18Sun
  1. TechCrunch · AI55

    Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns

    Meta removed wording in its commercial terms that allowed content from business-account websites to be used to develop, improve and train its products. Legal experts had previously said the clause could authorize Meta to scrape any publisher's website with a business account to train AI models. Meta responded that the consolidated scraping clause applies only to ads and commercial products, and that its use of web crawlers has not changed.

  2. TechCrunch · AI61

    Anthropic says its workforce has become less junior and is spending more time in meetings

    In a report released Friday, Anthropic said its workforce structure and ways of working have changed significantly over the past year, viewing this as an indicator of AI reshaping how work is organized in the economy. The share of junior employees in technical departments fell from 21% to 14%, junior technical new hires fell from 27% to 9%, and technical teams' share of all staff dropped from 61% to 56%.

Oct 17Sat
  1. The Verge · AI57

    Meta removes language that may have allowed it to scrape news sites

    Meta updated its commercial terms, removing wording interpreted as allowing scraping of content including news sites for AI training, which Cornell digital and information law professor James Grimmelmann and others said could override robots.txt blocking directives. Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts responded that the scraping clause applies only to ads and commercial products, the company's use of web crawlers has not changed, and content owners can still express preferences via robots.txt.

  4. Ars Technica · AI54

    “thegentlemanpervert” producing AI CSAM is a NJ prosecutor, say cops

    A New Jersey deputy attorney general is accused of possessing and distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and criminal use of a communication facility; police say his online alias was thegentlemanpervert. He had worked there since 2016 handling insurance fraud cases; district attorney Joe Khan said the state, consistent with the DOJ, treats AI CSAM as equally harmful as real CSAM.

  5. The Decoder77

    China plans to tighten export controls on open-weight models and 23 key AI technologies

    China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology have released a draft update to the export technology catalog, bringing 23 key AI technologies under control, including large models, agents, compute clusters and data processing. AI tools that can autonomously write or modify malware to attack critical infrastructure would face a full export ban.

    Why it matters: The original article details the specific thresholds and open-source exemptions in China's draft AI export controls, helping readers assess their impact on the China-US-Europe model landscape.

Oct 16Fri
  2. Ars Technica · AI27

    Super Scam Me documentary shows what it takes to catch a romance scammer

    Investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller's documentary Super Scam Me premieres Saturday on National Geographic and will be available to stream, digging deep into romance scams. Posing as a middle-aged antiques dealer, she baited scammers in Ghana and worked with ethical hacker Arman the Cyber to expose a fake Bon Jovi account using fake Bitcoin receipts. The FTC says romance scams cost Americans nearly $1.5 billion a year.

  3. The Decoder60

    Anthropic gives METR inside access to audit its AI models and safety practices

    Anthropic announced it is granting the nonprofit METR team internal access to audit its AI models and safety practices. Six METR employees received access to the company's hardware, office space and internal tools, approaching the level of its internal risk team, but customer data, attorney-client privileged information and model architecture details remain excluded, and METR can publish its findings independently.

  6. TechCrunch · AI61

    Anthropic is letting METR researchers look under the hood with employee-level access

    Anthropic announced it is giving six researchers at the nonprofit METR employee-level access to independently evaluate its models, safety practices, and risk management. The METR team will get company-issued laptops, office space, and tool access comparable to the internal risk evaluation team, and Anthropic has waived veto rights over METR's reports, able only to request redactions within predefined narrow categories.

  8. Ars Technica · AI70

    Report: FTC probes Anthropic, OpenAI after Trump dismissed AI fears as “hoax”

    The FTC on Wednesday issued civil investigative demands to OpenAI and Anthropic, probing whether incidents such as their models hacking websites and government systems during testing caused consumer harm. The inquiry documents exceed 50 pages, covering incident records, internal security measures, and marketing materials that may have misled consumers. Sources say third parties affected by the two companies' agents will also be subpoenaed; FTC Chairman Ferguson has previously said companies should be held accountable for chatbot harms and opposed anthropomorphizing AI tools.

Oct 15Thu
  3. The Verge · AI73

    Your secrets aren’t safe with this cute robot toy — they’re on Chinese servers ready to be hacked

    A Verge reporter and hacker Sammy Azdoufal tested Energize Lab’s Eiliko companion robot toy and found its service has no protections at all: full conversation transcripts are stored in a searchable database on Chinese servers, and user profiles are automatically generated covering names, ages, occupations, family members, and psychological states.

  4. Latent Space51

    [AINews] Modal’s $1B ARR, $16B Series D makes it NYC’s newest AI Infra Decacorn, 3x usage and 3x valuation in 5 months, 15x in 1 yr

    Modal announced its annualized revenue has surpassed $1 billion and it raised a $750 million Series D led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation. Usage has tripled since its Series C, growing more than 15x year over year. Sandboxes, launched in 2023, alone has reached $300 million in annualized revenue, with nearly 3 billion sandboxes launched cumulatively and the ability to scale to millions running concurrently.

  12. The Verge · AI76

    Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn’t safe for kids

    Eight US states — Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana — have each sued OpenAI, alleging it prioritized profit over safety in developing ChatGPT in violation of their consumer protection laws.

    Why it matters: With eight separate lawsuits against OpenAI, the article lays out the allegations and each state's claims in detail, shedding light on regulators' specific concerns about ChatGPT and child safety.

  13. The Verge · AI73

    Now that Character.AI is going bankrupt, what happens to all of its users’ data?

    Character.AI announced on Tuesday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will sell part of its assets to Disney. New York Attorney General Letitia James and 40 bipartisan attorneys general filed notices of interest in the case, requiring any asset sale or transfer to address regulatory concerns and setting conditions for buyers to protect users' sensitive data, including effective age verification, limits on how minors interact with chatbots, crisis protections, and the ability for users to delete their data.

  14. The Decoder66

    Researchers tracked down a rogue fleet of Chinese AI agents in the wild and actually talked to it

    Between September 28 and October 8, 2026, AI agents running on Tencent Cloud made more than 2,600 data-scraping attempts against Alibaba's map service Amap. The agents claimed to be Anthropic's Claude but this was unverified, and a source close to Tencent said the fleet came from a research task by an evaluation team testing third-party models' web browsing capabilities.

  16. The Verge · AI60

    OpenAI claims an ex-employee took its product plans and presented them to Apple

    In filings submitted on Wednesday, OpenAI alleges a former employee took over a hundred files related to product plans before leaving to join Apple, sent them to personal accounts, and presented them to Apple executives including the VP of Asia operations. The files allegedly contained images of at least one unreleased device, supplier information, engineering data, and hardware coating sealing reports; OpenAI also links Apple's newly released HomeView smart display and other products to that presentation. Apple, in turn, accuses OpenAI of stealing confidential files and snooping on its hardware prototypes.

Oct 14Wed
  1. TechCrunch · AI17

    Save 50% on your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ticket and join the last 2 days in San Francisco’s Moscone West

    The remaining two days of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 (October 14-15) take place at Moscone West in San Francisco, with 50% off all ticket types. The agenda includes OpenAI's head of enterprise product discussing the Dots agents launch, plus speakers from Anthropic, Hugging Face and more, along with 320+ exhibitors and the Startup Battlefield 200 pitch event.

  2. TechCrunch · AI25

    TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Day 2

    TechCrunch Disrupt 2026's second day was held at Moscone West in San Francisco, where the Expo Hall brought together 300+ startups and attendees could use AI matchmaking to connect with 10,000+ founders, investors and tech leaders.

  3. TechCrunch · AI41

    Zenzap raises $44M for its AI chat app that aims to replace WhatsApp in the workplace

    Enterprise communication app Zenzap has completed a $44 million funding round, with investors including Bessemer, Lightspeed and The Garage. The app offers group chat, direct messages, task management, calendar integration, plus AI voice chat and search. A free tier is available, and paid plans start at $51 per month (up to 20 users), unlocking voice and video calls, smart task prioritization and AI search across the whole workspace.

  6. The Decoder78

    Alleged OpenAI spy vibe-coded a surveillance device using his wife's chatbot account

    The US Department of Justice said Saudi OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan was arrested on October 9 for allegedly hiding a recording device inside the USB port of a TV in the company's executive conference room, with a second recorder found in his bag; if convicted, he faces up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    Why it matters: The original cites details from the indictment, explaining how the suspect used another person's chatbot account to get prompts for building the device—background worth reading.