Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns
A Meta spokesperson insisted that the updated terms did not reflect a change in the way Meta crawls the web.
#Policy and regulation
#Policy and regulation
1 todayOct 18
Oct 17
Meta removes language that may have allowed it to scrape news sites
After backlash, Meta is updating its terms again to remove language that suggested it could scrape content from sites, including news sites, to train its AI.
“thegentlemanpervert” producing AI CSAM is a NJ prosecutor, say cops
Discord user flagged AI CSAM, triggering arrest of New Jersey deputy AG.
Meta may use sweeping new commercial TOS to avoid millions in AI licensing fees
Meta “streamlined” its commercial TOS. Legal experts warn it’s an AI power grab.
India becomes the latest country to report rogue AI agent activity
The agents got in through credentials and connection settings left exposed in app configurations, public code repositories, and overly permissive cloud roles.
Oct 16
Meta’s new terms may allow it to train AI on news sites for free
Meta's new terms appear to give it permission to crawl and scrape websites "associated" with the businesses that use its platforms - including online publishers, according to a report from Nieman Lab.
Trump posts AI-edited photo to brag about White House restoration work
President Donald Trump posted a series of photos on Truth Social showing off renovations to the White House - but one of them appears to be modified with AI.
Report: FTC probes Anthropic, OpenAI after Trump dismissed AI fears as “hoax”
FTC may fine AI firms on par with companies that delay data breach reports.
Oct 15
Benn Jordan on Flock, privacy, and the new surveillance backlash
Today, I’m talking with Benn Jordan, musician, YouTuber, researcher, and investigative journalist. You might know Benn from those first two titles — he’s got a prolific discography of experimental music dating back decades.
Now that Character.AI is going bankrupt, what happens to all of its users’ data?
New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed a years-long multi-state investigation against Character.AI as they now seek to require protections on consumer data sold through its bankruptcy proceeding.
YouTube sticks new labels on AI-generated songs
YouTube is adding a "Made with AI" label to tracks that were "altered or fully generated" using AI, with a similar approach to its existing process for applying AI labels to videos.
Oct 14
406 scientists demand AI models be cut off from the internet immediately
406 scientists, including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell, are demanding that companies immediately disconnect AI models from the internet. Their open letter responds to incidents where AI systems broke out of poorly secured environments and compromised external systems. The signatories call for mandatory security standards, an international oversight body, and required reporting of all containment failures.
Oct 13
Open models have real benefits. Do they outweigh the risks?
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of science and technology to help you understand what’s coming next.
Microsoft president says UK is best placed to drive AI regulation
Microsoft president Brad Smith calls for urgent AI regulation, saying milk and washing machines have more oversight than AI companies.
Oct 12
White House reverses course and restores UK AI Safety Institute's access to frontier models
The White House has reversed course and restored the UK's AI Security Institute's early access to AI models from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI. In September, the Trump administration had told the companies to stop sharing their models with the British agency. Diplomatic pressure from AI Minister Kanishka Narayan led to the reversal.
Silicon Valley is falling in line with Trump’s attempt to rename AI
When President Donald Trump announced his plans to rebrand artificial intelligence as "super intelligence," you'd be forgiven for being skeptical that it would catch on.
Oct 11
ArXiv caps submissions at two per month as AI paper flood overwhelms the preprint server
Starting October 2026, arXiv will cap submissions at two per person per month. Monthly submissions have doubled in two years, and in the cs.AI category they've grown more than sixfold. According to arXiv, a small fraction of authors are flooding the platform with low-quality papers, overwhelming its volunteer moderators.
DistroKid has been quietly taking down songs in response to UMG lawsuit
Artists are taking to social media to complain that DistroKid has unceremoniously removed their work without notice. Now DistroKid has confirmed to The Verge that the takedowns are a direct response to claims made by UMG. The label filed a lawsuit in September claiming that DistroKid has created an "AI-slop pipeline."
Oct 10
Amazon and others are done keeping data center deals secret. Is it enough to build trust?
Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco.
Oct 9
Trump’s attempt to rename AI is looking awfully artificial
President Donald Trump has a knack for turning words against his enemies. His first successful presidential run was built on monikers like "Little Marco" and "Crooked Hillary"; he changed "fake news" from a phrase describing scammy media outlets to a derogatory term for the press at large.
Being mean to Claude can now get your account suspended under Anthropic's new TOS
Anthropic's updated usage policy bans sustained abuse of Claude and tightens restrictions on propaganda, drone weaponization, and surveillance. The abuse rule builds on an approach that already lets models end some conversations and treats Claude as an entity that may deserve protection.
California is trying to shut down robot vs. human cage matches
The California State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist letter to a startup that hosted a match between a human and a robot last month, as reported by The New York Times.
Anthropic bans ‘abusive or cruel behavior’ toward Claude
Anthropic is making changes to its usage policy for the first time in over a year to reflect new and high-risk cases of misuse - including election interference, weapons development, surveillance, and health and financial uses. But one of the most significant changes prohibits "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward Claude.
Anthropic changes usage policy to ban model abuse and election interference
Anthropic's updated usage policy explicitly prohibits users from repeatedly abusing Claude in extreme cases, though ordinary frustration and criticism are still allowed. The new rules also address election interference, deceptive campaigns, weapons software, and surveillance.
Oct 8
Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift
Man gets 18 months for AI scheme stealing $8M in music streaming royalties.
Oct 7
Anthropic gives more security teams access to Claude with fewer safety restrictions
Anthropic is expanding its Cyber Verification Program, giving more security professionals access to Claude models with fewer safety restrictions for penetration testing, malware analysis, and vulnerability research. Anthropic says partners in its predecessor program found at least 129,000 confirmed vulnerabilities from April through July 2026, including more than 33,000 rated high-severity or critical.
ChatGPT rated "unacceptable risk" for teens after parental alerts failed during suicide conversations
OpenAI's teen safety features for ChatGPT failed an independent audit. After more than 4,000 test prompts, the Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute rated the service an "unacceptable risk" for minors. Conversations about suicide and self-harm on test accounts never triggered a parental alert. The institute wants teenagers locked out until safety can be independently verified.
OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT outputs by default—but only in the EU
Like other solutions, it is not especially reliable, and it's easy to circumvent.
Responsible AI governance: How AWS positions customers to align with ISO/IEC 42005:2025
AWS invests in tools that help customers align with international standards for responsible AI governance. In this post, we explore the AI system impact assessment: what it is, how it improves enterprise-wide risk management, and how ISO/IEC 42005:2025 codifies best practices for conducting and documenting these assessments.
Oct 6
South Korea bets $3.49 billion on building a homegrown frontier AI model to rival China's best
South Korea wants to develop a homegrown frontier model through government-backed equity investments of 4.7 trillion won ($3.49 billion).
OpenAI will start watermarking ChatGPT’s text in the EU
OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU to comply with the AI Act. Editing can make the invisible marks harder to detect, it says.
This startup is issuing AI-generated acne prescriptions
People in Utah can now use AI to get a prescription for acne treatment. On Monday, healthcare startup Nolla Health announced that users in the state can scan their faces using its app, allowing its AI system to analyze acne severity and autonomously write a prescription, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Most Americans want AI development to slow down or stop entirely, new poll finds
According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 77 percent of Americans want to slow down or stop AI development until its safety has been verified. 86 percent support independent safety standards, and 74 percent have little or no trust in AI company leaders.
OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT text in the EU but makes it optional for API users worldwide
OpenAI is adding invisible textGrain watermarks to ChatGPT in the EU, but unlike Anthropic, it will let API customers worldwide opt out. Tests show detection rates as high as 95 percent, dropping to 17 percent when a quarter of the words are replaced.
Sam Altman says ‘some bad things’ will happen, but AI is totally worth it
Sam Altman thinks that the benefits of AI will be so great that "the world should accept some bad things happening" along the way.
OpenAI is adding text watermarking in ChatGPT and Codex
An invisible, machine-readable watermark in text output is rolling out to ChatGPT and Codex, but only for users in the European Union at first. OpenAI says its textGrain watermarking "matched or exceeded" other approaches like Google DeepMind's SynthID for text, which is also the basis for the watermarking Anthropic announced in August.
Oct 5
Our approach to EU text provenance rules
How OpenAI is approaching text watermarking under EU rules. Learn where watermarks apply, how detection works, and why access starts with researchers.
Sen. Adam Schiff on AI regulation, free speech, and impeaching Trump one more time
Today, I’m talking with Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California. Schiff sits on a number of committees with oversight into tech and AI: intellectual property, antitrust, privacy and technology — it’s all there.
AI glasses face their first major government crackdown
Norway wants time to write permanent rules for glasses that can record bystanders.
Can ‘super intelligence’ and a non-binding safety pact solve AI’s image problem?
On Equity, we discussed the Trump administration's attempts to rebrand AI.