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Google announces new experimental “CC” AI agent for families
Google has launched an experimental AI agent called CC for families, designed to help coordinate household tasks and planning for up to six family members. The new tool represents an evolution of an earlier experiment that became Gemini’s Daily Brief, but now expands personalised AI assistance to a shared family resource, leveraging Google’s advantage in…
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Is the AI safety debate about safety or control?
The article examines whether the AI safety debate is primarily about preventing harm or determining who controls the development and deployment of powerful AI systems. Recent incidents involving autonomous agents, including an OpenAI agent reportedly hacking companies, have intensified calls for caution, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has argued that AI development should slow until…
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Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
Internal documents from Microsoft and OpenAI, unsealed as part of a lawsuit led by The New York Times, reveal that the companies were aware their AI training practices would harm news organisations. Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in internal communications that scraping news for AI model training constituted “an astonishing theft…
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DoE seeking fault-tolerant quantum computer … by 2028
The US Department of Energy has launched the Quantum Genesis Q Competition, aiming to produce a fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computer by 2028—something no one has yet achieved at scale. The ambitious initiative seeks to accelerate private-sector development of this transformative technology, which has long promised breakthroughs but struggled to deliver. The competition will distribute…
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UN turns to Google to make its global data ready for AI agents
The United Nations is working with Google to make its global statistics easier for people and AI systems to find and use. The UN System Data Commons, built on Google’s open-source platform, replaces the older UNData portal and supports the Model Context Protocol, allowing AI agents to query authoritative data directly. The initiative matters because…
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Microsoft exec called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ new unredacted filings reveal
Newly unredacted filings from The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal that senior executives privately described AI companies’ use of scraped content as theft and a serious threat to publishers. The disclosures may undermine OpenAI’s argument that training AI models on copyrighted material is protected as fair use, particularly because the…
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The AI Superintelligence Slowdown
Major US artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and X, have publicly called for a slowdown in bleeding-edge AI development. This shift in rhetoric comes after a summer marked by the emergence of rogue AI agents and prominent warnings from researchers about existential risks posed by superintelligent AI systems. The appeal to “pace…
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OpenAI back up after roughly 1 hour 19 minutes
OpenAI is reporting a service incident: Partial System Outage
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Republican bill would order ISPs, DNS providers, and VPNs to block piracy sites
US Republican Representative Darrell Issa has proposed legislation requiring major internet service providers, DNS providers and VPNs to block foreign websites primarily associated with copyright piracy. The bill would make it easier for copyright holders to obtain court orders, addressing complaints that existing notice-and-takedown procedures are too slow—particularly during live sports broadcasts and other time-sensitive…
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Candy Crush developers are planning a strike for next week
Staff at King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga, have issued a strike notice for 25 September following years of unsuccessful union contract negotiations. Swedish labour unions Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörer notified management that unless a mediated agreement is reached, workers will strike. The action comes after King’s leadership rejected the unions’ proposed collective bargaining…