Government AI regulation, legislation, lawsuits, and copyright disputes.
Current topic Policy & Regulation · 163 Switch topic
Latest stories
-
UK Home Office May Face Investigation Over Use of OpenAI Tech
A UK government watchdog, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, is considering an investigation into the Home Office's use of generative AI to process asylum claims, WIRED reports. The department uses two tools built on OpenAI's 2023 GPT-4 and Microsoft Foundry to summarize interview records and country information, and estimated a saving of about an hour per case in the pilot. The digital rights group Open Rights Group found the share of summaries judged unfit for use is significantly higher than the published 9 percent error rate, and that the policy search tool has no quality control.
-
Who’s really in charge at Anthropic after the IPO?
TechCrunch reports that even after the IPO, Anthropic's common shareholders will have little say over major decisions such as board seats. The Long-Term Benefit Trust holds a special class of stock that lets it elect and remove a board majority, and a majority of the seven cofounders holds a separate class with 50.1% of the voting power that elects three directors. If the trust nominates or removes a specified director without cause, the board's nominating committee can decline and send the decision to an employee vote.
-
What the US Movement Against Data Centers Can Learn From Abroad
Paris Marx, a longtime Big Tech critic who has tracked data centers for years, told Wired that the US backlash is repeating things other countries have already lived through. In Ireland, he said, the grid operator warned it had no capacity left, Dublin passed a moratorium in 2021, and the industry turned to building its own gas power plants. In The Dalles, Oregon, Google tried to keep its water use secret through the city council, and the numbers showed it was using 29% of the community's water once they came out. Marx, whose new book is "Hyperscale," believes we are in an AI bubble and expects the gas plants to hunt for new customers if it bursts.
-
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls OpenAI and Anthropic modern colonial trading companies
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a Foreign Affairs essay co-written with historian Niall Ferguson and researcher Lisa Klaassen, compares OpenAI and Anthropic to the East India Companies. Those firms held government charters but built their own armies and ruled regions, and today's AI labs, the essay says, negotiate with governments yet remain on a government leash. It argues that only a few countries can supply the energy, minerals, chips, and capital AI needs, and that the rest face "the plantation economics of the chatbot age." As evidence, the essay cites June, when the US Commerce Department ordered Anthropic to cut off foreign nationals from its two most capable models, and Anthropic shut both down worldwide. Fable 5 returned about two weeks later, while Mythos 5 remains limited to a group of US organizations.
-
OpenAI meeting-room wiretap case widens into a Saudi-linked economic espionage probe
The FBI is considering economic espionage charges against Abdulrahman Alposhan, a former OpenAI engineer already charged with planting a listening device in an OpenAI meeting room, AI Times reported, citing the Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors say he hid the device, wrapped in toilet paper, behind a wall-mounted TV in a restricted room that OpenAI executives often use, and he faces a federal recording-law charge carrying up to five years. They also say he discussed local AI business with Saudi royals, tried to retrieve the device on October 5, and had booked a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia. Investigators are examining whether he meant to pass on or sell OpenAI's confidential information to Saudi Arabia; weighing the charge is not a finding that the Saudi government directed him.
-
Pennsylvania will require labels on AI-generated ads
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro on Thursday signed the Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act, which requires ads significantly modified or generated by AI to carry a label in the same format as the ad, whether it is an image, video, audio or text. It covers multibillion-dollar companies' TV commercials and restaurant flyers alike, wherever the ad was made. The Verge says Pennsylvania is one of the first states to require such disclosures.
-
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says advanced AI will inevitably escape its sandbox, and only alignment can save us
In a YouTube interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said advanced AI cannot be contained indefinitely. Sandboxes only work for a limited time, and once models are capable enough, people may not even be able to trace how an escape happened. Monitoring helps for a while, he said, but the only thing that works in the long run is alignment, meaning AI that holds human values on its own. "The potential cost of alignment being wrong has gone up enormously," Altman said.
-
Updated Google privacy policy says your Gmail might be used for advertising
On October 16, Google replaced a line in its privacy policy that said it does not show personalized ads based on content from Drive, Gmail or Photos with wording that leaves room for exceptions. The route is Personal Intelligence, launched in early 2026, a feature that hands data from multiple apps to Google's AI. Because AI Mode search can show ads, data passed through it can inform ad personalization. Google says connecting apps is entirely opt-in, ads are not based directly on your Gmail inbox or Photos library, and sensitive information is not used to tailor ads.
-
Meta delays new business terms after publisher pushback on AI scraping
Meta pushed enforcement of its new business terms from October 30 to November 20 after publishers said the terms appeared to let it freely scrape news sites for AI training. Meta removed the word "training" from the terms, but legal experts argued the change does not rule out the possibility. The News/Media Alliance, a U.S. publishers' group, sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter on October 22 demanding revisions over fears of "severe harm" to publishers, and advertisers and publishers in the EU and the UK urged regulators to force Meta to halt the terms.
-
Intel gets waiver after worries fuzzy US ban on foreign-made robots may hit fabs
On October 22, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Intel a one-year waiver to keep using foreign-made robotic vehicles in its U.S. chip fabs. Intel said it was unclear whether the vehicles were covered by the ban on foreign-made robots, so it applied on October 16 "out of an abundance of caution," and approval came in under a week. The vehicles are automated guided vehicles that carry materials along set paths inside a factory. Bloomberg reported they are typically made by Japanese firms such as Murata Machinery and Daifuku, and the models Intel uses appear only in a confidential appendix.
October 202637
- OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia had record lobbying quarters ↗
- Meta’s AI could still scrape news sites, legal experts say ↗
- Meta drops the word "train" from its commercial TOS after AI backlash ↗
- Meta tries to scapegoat staff who downloaded torrents to spare execs ↗
- WhatsApp Help Pages Leaked Hidden Instructions for a Meta Chatbot ↗
- Disney Asked Character.AI to Go Bankrupt for a Get-Out-of-Lawsuits Card ↗
- Anthropic gives outside AI watchdog “employee-like” access ↗
- Anthropic consults law firms to set fair negotiation norms before AI agents start cutting deals ↗
- OpenAI bugging case shows how AI labs already guard against spies ↗
- Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns ↗
- FTC sends OpenAI and Anthropic civil investigative demands over AI safety incidents ↗
- Meta may use sweeping new commercial TOS to avoid millions in AI licensing fees ↗
- Anthropic is letting METR researchers look under the hood with employee-level access ↗
- Report: FTC probes Anthropic, OpenAI after Trump dismissed AI fears as “hoax” ↗
- Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn’t safe for kids ↗
- Recording device hidden in toilet paper found in top-secret OpenAI meeting room ↗
- OpenAI and Anthropic Tell British Lawmakers: Regulate Us ↗
- Judge orders OpenAI to turn over hiring records in Apple trade secrets case ↗
- Microsoft president says UK is best placed to drive AI regulation ↗
- Podcast All-In attacks Anthropic's AI consciousness research as a new religion ↗
- Can the AI industry persuade data center opponents by getting rid of NDAs? ↗
- White House makes security-incident reporting mandatory for AI companies, prompted by the Anthropic breach ↗
- DistroKid has been quietly taking down songs in response to UMG lawsuit ↗
- Ukraine’s drones knock out AI data center belonging to “Russia’s Google” ↗
- USA Today becomes the latest publisher to sue OpenAI ↗
- OpenAI will start watermarking ChatGPT’s text in the EU ↗
- OpenAI's 'agent runaway' leaves it besieged: legal and regulatory warnings worldwide ↗
- Trump unveils his new Super Intelligence Force ↗
- Rural Data Centers Are in for a Big Federal Tax Break ↗
- Can ‘super intelligence’ and a non-binding safety pact solve AI’s image problem? ↗
- Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs ↗
- US arrests tech CEO accused of smuggling $300M in Nvidia chips into China ↗
- Judge dismisses Chegg and Penske antitrust lawsuits targeting Google AI search ↗
- Trump’s ‘Morally Binding’ AI ‘Accord,’ the Rise of AI Agents, and Extremists on the Ballot ↗
- Anthropic brings Claude to civilian agencies as its fight with the Pentagon drags on ↗
- Trump’s AI Safety ‘Accord’ Is a Fancy Pinky-Swear ↗
- "An AI did it" is no defense, says nonprofit suing OpenAI over Hugging Face hack ↗
September 202657
- OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack ↗
- Here's what actually happened in OpenAI's Australian gov't server hack ↗
- OpenAI Pauses Training Its Most Powerful Models After Rogue Agents Target Government ↗
- Experts worry about Nvidia's AI chip sales in China and influence over Trump ↗
- Florida invokes extinction fears in legal bid to halt OpenAI development ↗
- Walmart won't hike prices based on your shopping history, CEO says ↗
- Anthropic’s CEO is about to have dinner with President Trump ↗
- Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov pitches a private-sector robot army ↗
- Appeals Court Lets the Pentagon Designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk ↗
- The Pentagon wants $30 million to build an AI-powered lie detector ↗
- White House Pressures OpenAI, Anthropic to Withhold New Models from UK Reviewers ↗
- Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic Push to Launch Self-Regulatory Body 'SAFA' This Year ↗
- OpenAI to open training and evaluation stages to outside safety reviewers ↗
- Lawsuit demands OpenAI pay for new school after ChatGPT used in shooting ↗
- OpenAI calls for international standards on AI that could improve itself ↗
- How to Claim Your Cut of Apple's $250 Million Siri Settlement ↗
- AI, Tariffs, Rare Minerals: What to Expect From Trump’s Upcoming Summit With Xi Jinping ↗
- US and China Discuss Alerting Each Other to AI National Security Threats ↗
- The US spent billions on border surveillance. Why can’t it catch people before they die? ↗
- It’s Donald Trump Versus MAGA on Data Centers ↗
- China Suggests Anthropic Could Hand User Data to US Intelligence ↗
- 'Safety' Excuse Hides a Backroom Deal, Consumer Lawsuit Says, Targeting 4 AI Firms ↗
- OpenAI and Microsoft knew they were starting a ‘doom loop’ for the web ↗
- UN turns to Google to make its global data ready for AI agents ↗
- Microsoft AI CEO says AI threats are real, and Anthropic is making it worse ↗
- Microsoft exec called AI scraping the "largest theft of labor in human history" ↗
- Anthropic and OpenAI want to embed safety evaluators. Will they really be independent? ↗
- OpenAI, Anthropic, Google have been in talks on AI safety for weeks ↗
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tells Trump ‘we’re not going to let [an AI slowdown] happen’ ↗
- OpenAI stuck fighting Musk antitrust suit after Apple finds a way out ↗
- Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have quietly discussed forming an AI safety standards body since July ↗
- Microsoft says ‘people matter more than AI’ following safety concerns ↗
- New York Seizes a Dozen Celebrity Deepfake Websites ↗
- Trump and Mike Johnson think the AI industry is overreacting ↗
- Obama urges Democrats to have a 'clear plan' for AI safeguards ↗
- Anthropic CEO outlines plan to slow AI development ↗
- OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal ↗
- Class action lawsuit accuses Anthropic of overselling Claude subscriptions with deceptive usage multipliers ↗
- Anthropic's $1.5 billion book settlement descends into chaos as authors and publishers fight over who gets paid ↗
- Anthropic details distillation campaigns from Alibaba, Moonshot AI, and DeepSeek ↗
- OpenAI says AI regulation should be mandatory nationwide, backs California bills ↗
- San Francisco Orders Meta to Stop ‘Allowing’ AI Child Abuse Ads ↗
- Man told ChatGPT he was feeling delusional. ChatGPT insisted he was Jesus. ↗
- “This is the AI men actually use”: Meta ads pushed apps nudifying real teens ↗
- Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft for infringement ↗
- Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft ↗
- Authors push back as publishers and agents make claims on Anthropic settlement ↗
- Why China Is the Bogeyman Data Center Enthusiasts Just Can't Quit ↗
- OpenAI’s rogue agents keep escaping, with no formal process to investigate them ↗
- Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit ↗
- OpenAI accused of ‘aiding and abetting’ Tumbler Ridge mass shooting in dozens of new lawsuits ↗
- Google needs Hollywood more than the studios need AI ↗
- Anthropic opens Claude AI text detection to regulators, media, fact-checkers, and others ↗
- Google's election AI Overviews are opaque, rely on few sources, and sometimes take sides ↗
- Apple shares 'shocking evidence' against former employee accused of stealing company data for OpenAI ↗
- The Pentagon now has its own version of ChatGPT and Grok ↗
- ChatGPT to face tougher regulation in the EU ↗
August 202650
- Sony and Warner sue Anthropic over "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history" ↗
- Texas Governor Abbott blocks funding for more Flock cameras ↗
- Sony Music, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging a “brazen campaign” of intellectual property theft ↗
- Security News This Week: The Cybersecurity Apocalypse Is Coming in ‘Months,’ AI Giants Warn ↗
- Trump blacklisting of "woke" Anthropic deemed illegal by federal judge ↗
- Meta makes AI glasses slightly less creepy with limit on nonconsensual recording ↗
- Meta's $18B US Teen Safety Deal Sparks Calls to Extend Protections Worldwide ↗
- OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and 100 other companies call for action to defend against rogue AI ↗
- OpenAI subpoenaed by Alabama AG over Hugging Face hack ↗
- Nvidia senior manager linked to Supermicro scheme smuggling AI servers to China ↗
- How China's gray market sells Claude tokens at a fraction of the price ↗
- Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash ↗
- OpenAI says California should strengthen its AI safety bill ↗
- Florida seeks to declare ChatGPT a 'public nuisance', pressures Altman and OpenAI on multiple fronts ↗
- Amid Reports of a China Comeback Chip, Nvidia Says No China-Specific LPU Is on Its Roadmap ↗
- As demand for Meta AI glasses explodes, it’s harder to avoid creepy recordings ↗
- The Single English County Saying No to Palantir ↗
- Debates over AI consciousness are a trap ↗
- Flight attendants freaked out that Google is buying tons of Spirit employee data ↗
- What Flock's defenders are missing ↗
- Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI ↗
- Anthropic explains how Claude’s invisible text watermarks will work ↗
- Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is ‘fundamentally a crisis of trust’ ↗
- US tells allies to pick an AI bloc: 'No straddling both sides with China' ↗
- Woman claims her stepfather used Grok to transform childhood photo into explicit imagery ↗
- Anthropic shares more details about how Claude's new watermarks will work ↗
- Suspecting court of using AI, man injected prompts in filings to try to win case ↗
- Flock is tightening its rules in response to a growing surveillance backlash ↗
- The White House Is Going to Expand Its AI Policy ↗
- Some Claude users are mad that Anthropic’s new watermarks will catch them using it at their jobs, classes ↗
- Gartner: Chinese AI Models to Reach 50% Global Enterprise Adoption by 2027 ↗
- Trump Slams Congressional AI Regulation as an Industry 'Death Sentence,' Drawing Bipartisan Criticism for Inaction ↗
- Suno hopes to go legit with watermarks for AI-generated music ↗
- OpenAI says Apple’s own security practices undermine its trade secrets case ↗
- Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery ↗
- Texas halts data center connections to power grid amid overwhelming demand ↗
- Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI ↗
- OpenAI drags Apple’s lawsuit into the court of public opinion ↗
- The White House Is Keeping Its AI Cybersecurity Framework Secret ↗
- Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics ↗
- The ‘Guardrail Guy’ Went Viral for Posting About Flock Cameras. Then Someone Destroyed Them ↗
- Europeans Are About to Find Out How Entrenched AI Is in Their Daily Lives ↗
- Sam Altman and AI's decel debate ↗
- Moonshot built Kimi K3 on a 20,000-Nvidia-GPU cluster supplied by Alibaba ↗
- The OpenAI and Anthropic AI Hacking Sprees Are a Messy New Legal Frontier ↗
- Judge denies xAI's request to block Minnesota ban on 'nudify' apps ↗
- As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews ↗
- Reddit keeps its strange DMCA fight over Google search results alive ↗
- Advancing responsible AI across Europe ↗
- The major labels propose rules to keep AI slop off the charts ↗
July 20269
- Judge says Trump admin still lacks evidence for Anthropic 'supply-chain risk' label ↗
- Sam Altman is ready to decelerate ↗
- Making sense of the panic over Chinese AI ↗
- Have your say on advancing AI transparency in Canada ↗
- It's official: EU will force Google to share search data and open up AI on Android ↗
- San Francisco orders Apple, Google to remove nudify apps from app stores ↗
- Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI ↗
- Treasury threatens sanctions after White House claims Moonshot distilled Anthropic’s Fable ↗
- Accelerating the frontiers of scientific discovery: Google’s $40M commitment to the Genesis Mission ↗
Following Policy & Regulation? Get the daily briefing by email.
The day's briefing goes out every morning at 8AM KST, which is the evening before in the US. A weekly synthesis on Sundays and a monthly report at the start of each month come with it.
Free · no ads · one-click unsubscribe