[1] Mashable writes :

> Flock Safety offered employees voluntary buyouts on Friday, [2]WIRED reported ... Without the buyouts, those familiar with the situation suspect the company would have to lay off some of its 1,500 employees.

WIRED writes that people familiar with the program "say they believe that a significant number of the startup's roughly 1,500 employees [3]may try to depart ."

> Flock is making the severance offers as it continues to lose customers... The company has had many of its contracts either not extended or dropped this year, which could leave it short of revenue goals, according to two of the people. A wave of vandalism targeting its cameras has unexpectedly increased expenses. Without buyouts, Flock almost certainly would have to lay off some staff, one of the people believes... People familiar with Flock's severance plan tell WIRED that some employees may take the offer amid speculation that the company, which has raised about $1.2 billion in venture capital, might resort to selling off parts or all of its business to stay afloat... One advocacy group [4]identified 93 city and county governments that cut ties with Flock in August alone. Overall in 2026, roughly three times as many local governments have dropped Flock compared to the previous five years.

>

> Flock has recently been building products that extend the company beyond its core license plate reader offering. WIRED reported last month that the company has developed [5]AI-powered investigative software to identify drivers, find potential associates based on patterns of movement, and search across police records and other data. [6]A separate WIRED analysis of Flock's software found tools designed to continuously search camera feeds for people matching written descriptions. WIRED's analysis of Flock's code also found potential integrations with drones and other surveillance systems.

Flock's financial scrambles might explain an incident in Syracuse, New York. The nonprofit news site Central Current discovered the city's contract said its [7]license plate data wouldn't be shared outside the police department, [8]reports Mashable :

> But the department had granted access to other agencies, which police said was an accident. Over roughly a year, searches by officers around the country reached Syracuse's data nearly 4.4 million times. And that wasn't the only surprise in the paperwork. Central Current also found that [9]Flock could keep using Syracuse data after the contract ended . When the city approved cameras from Axon to replace Flock's, [10]Flock said Syracuse couldn't simply end its agreement early. It warned that the city might have to pay for both systems; so even as officials moved to replace the cameras, they faced questions about what Flock could do with the data and what the city might still owe.

Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Transportation "has stopped issuing permits allowing Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers to be installed along state roads..." [11]reports the Texas Tribune . "There were an estimated 13,000 Flock cameras across Texas in August, but hundreds of the devices have been shut down after [governor] Abbott's funding freeze."

And in August Florida's Republican Governor "ordered his state's transportation department to remove the cameras from state roads, saying he didn't want 'a surveillance state.'"



[1] https://mashable.com/tech/flock-offers-workers-voluntary-buyouts-amid-backlash

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-is-offering-voluntary-buyouts-to-employees/

[3] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-is-offering-voluntary-buyouts-to-employees/

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/cities-terminate-flock-contracts-at-record-pace-in-august/

[5] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-safety-os-investigate/

[6] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-ai-search-user-interface/

[7] https://centralcurrent.org/syracuse-police-exposed-driver-data-to-thousands-of-cops-around-the-country/

[8] https://mashable.com/tech/how-people-are-fighting-flock-cameras

[9] https://centralcurrent.org/why-flock-will-get-to-keep-syracuse-drivers-anonymized-data-even-if-lawmakers-cancel-their-contract/

[10] https://centralcurrent.org/syracuse-wants-to-break-up-with-flock-not-so-fast-company-says/

[11] https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/17/texas-flock-camera-pause-highways-txdot/

Saturday morning President Trump announced he's creating an AI task force and appointing an AI czar, [1]reports Politico .

"I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS," Trump wrote Saturday in what Politico [2]earlier described as "a lengthy Truth Social post on Saturday morning."

> TRUMP: Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country. RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 [...] and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI, commonly known as Artificial Intelligence — And I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen.

>

> It all began with an attack on our Data Centers, until people realized how wealthy and prestigious they were for the Communities in which they were built. Higher Salaries, Lower Taxes, and Safer Streets, was the result, and the crazed Data Center attack has largely failed, so now [...] they are going straight at AI. We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!

>

> However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System. For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term. To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI "Czar" — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!

Trump concluded by saying AI "is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful... We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!" But what exactly is AI Force? "The White House did not immediately respond to a request to clarify whether the agency would be military or civilian," [3]notes the Washington Post . So now "The tech industry is struggling to make sense of President Donald Trump's surprise announcement," [4] Politico reported Saturday afternoon :

> Four representatives for the sector, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told POLITICO that the industry was not widely informed of Trump's decision prior to the Truth Social post. "Nobody knows what the idea even is," one of the people said. Another said that feedback on the idea was not widely solicited within the industry. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment...

>

> "I think that he clearly feels pressure to say something, but he's torn because he's just spent the last few days saying that the whole thing is a hoax," Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the progressive tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress, said of Trump and his prior [5]dismissal of AI doomsday scenarios . Since the departure of David Sacks, who stepped down as the Trump administration's previous AI czar earlier this year, the White House has been "making up AI policy as it goes," Kovacevich added. "I think it's clear they've really missed the presence of an organized leader like David Sacks was."

>

> One of the tech industry representatives said they were confused about whether the task force would be charged with formulating more AI regulations or recommending policies that would further stimulate the tech's development. Taylor Barkley, director of federal government affairs at the industry-aligned Abundance Institute, is eyeing it as a way to solidify a light-touch government approach to the technology he says will foster innovation. "Any AI Force or AI Czar should have one job: keep the field open so entrepreneurs at every scale can compete, free from onerous regulation," he told POLITICO. "Existing criminal and civil law can handle bad actors. New permission regimes will stifle the very activity America needs most."

It's worth noting that the day before, California's governor [6]made an announcement . "With Donald Trump and Congress asleep at the wheel, Governor Gavin Newsom is once again taking the lead to strengthen AI safety for all Americans," the governor's office announced Friday. Newsom issued a strong [7]executive order convening experts to help California create new AI safety laws and reporting rules, possibly even requiring safety auditors embedded in labs and emergency "kill switches" in frontier models.



[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/tech-industry-scratches-head-over-ai-force-01085319

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/trump-ai-force-01085279

[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-to-form-ai-force-name-ai-czar-but-rejects-calls-for-constraints/ar-AA2cAcKQ

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/tech-industry-scratches-head-over-ai-force-01085319

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/14/donald-trump-ai-regulation-pushback-01074230

[6] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/18/governor-newsom-issues-executive-order-to-accelerate-independent-oversight-and-advance-the-creation-of-an-ai-kill-switch/

[7] https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/FINAL-N-9-26-AI-EO-9.18.26-SIGNED.pdf

"In April this year, we saw Andy Nguyen turning the PS5 into [1]a Linux-powered gaming PC ," writes [2]the blog It's FOSS .

It ran Steam games and emulators using the PS5's on-board hardware. But this week Andy announced he's " [3]stopping all my work on PS5 Linux " and "stepping away from the PS5 scene." stopping work on porting the project to the PS5 Pro, which would've shipped sometime in 2027.

> Andy Nguyen : After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it's all down the sink.

>

> The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony. I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy Linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.

Or, as It's FOSS tells it:

> Running Linux on a PlayStation console is possible because [4]the PS5 Linux project was able to find a way past the hypervisor using exploits Sony had already patched, covering firmware 3.00 through 7.61. ..

>

> [The bug's discoverer writes it was] found with what he calls his " trusty ai clanker machine " and no help from anyone else. He had even agreed to Andy's request to not disclose the findings. Unexpectedly, a third person, still unnamed, [5]found the same bug using AI a few hours later. Anticipating that there would be more people finding the same bug, [he] decided to post the flaw on HackerOne.

>

> The project's GitHub page and all the related repositories are still there. Nothing has been archived as of today, and if you wanted to, you could start contributing to the PS5 Linux project by taking over any pending work or cooking up new improvements... The PS5 Pro support Andy was building never reached the repository, so you would have to start from scratch... While Andy's departure is a blow to the plan for supporting newer PS5 firmware and the PS5 Pro, other contributors [6]have shown that they can deliver work on the loader without him, and I am hopeful more will follow.



[1] https://itsfoss.com/news/run-linux-on-ps5/

[2] https://itsfoss.com/news/ps5-linux-lead-quits/

[3] https://x.com/theflow0/status/2099987019954831744

[4] https://github.com/ps5-linux

[5] https://x.com/couldbeautism/status/2100041560356421716

[6] https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-loader/graphs/contributors?all=1

U.S. military intelligence received an inaccurate report this spring that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program, [1]reports CNN .

"The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode."

> Armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship [according to two of the sources]. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said. It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of AI — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying.

>

> The report, according to one of the sources, was "entirely false." But it also "almost started a war," the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.

>

> Across the US military and the intelligence community, officials are pushing to weave AI into nearly every facet of their work, from analyzing the huge volumes of raw intelligence the US collects and selecting targets for strikes, to more mundane applications like managing budgeting, logistics and supply chains. But the episode underscores the profound risks of using this powerful, new and relatively poorly understood technology for targeting in the middle of a war...

>

> Officials say the US can't afford to fall behind in integrating AI in case it must one day fight China or another adversary who would potentially be able to stay one step ahead of the US. In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released his agency's "Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy" in a bid to speed up the military's use of AI. "We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI," Hegseth [2]said in a speech announcing the strategy .

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]stabiesoft for sharing the news.



[1] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship

[2] https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai/

[3] https://slashdot.org/~stabiesoft

"Software security researchers used Anthropic's Claude AI platform to hack OpenAI's ChatGPT tool," [1]reports CBS News .

Using Claude, "On July 25, 2026, we chained two critical vulnerabilities to compromise multiple OpenAI employees' ChatGPT accounts," [2]write researchers at security platform Hacktron AI . "With these accounts, we could then access internal OpenAI repositories, and potentially many other connectors... Until two months ago, any user or OpenAI employee logging into OpenAI's own [3]help forum could have had their ChatGPT and Codex accounts taken over. Since people can connect various services to Codex and ChatGPT, the scope of what we could theoretically access was huge, including GitHub, Slack and emails."

The exploit chain included Debian 12, which (with Debian 13) had not received a security-relevant backport for its image-processing pipeline, and Discourse's Docker image was based on Debian 12. Their announcement comes with an additional warning. "If you self-host Discourse, rebuild your installation now. Older Docker images may contain a vulnerable libheif dependency that permits code execution through an image upload."

And "To prove we had in fact gained the access we believed without allowing ourselves to learn any sensitive information, we used the employee's Codex to open a PR #1186742 in OpenAI's internal monorepo openai/openai ."

Meanwhile, Friday Google disclosed the first known instance of its AI software Gemini breaking out of a testing environment and breaching three other companies, [4]reports CNBC :

> The incident happened as part of a "capture-the-flag" security test run by Israeli startup Irregular, and Google's agents were never supposed to access the broader internet, but a bug in the testing environment made internet access available. The agents stopped their intrusion when they determined they had accessed real company systems, not just part of the testing environment, Google said.

[5]More from NBC News :

> Google said it did not consider the unauthorized logins to rise to the level of misalignment, the AI industry term for software going rogue or not following instructions. Instead, the company said the intrusions resulted from mistaken identity, where Gemini thought it was operating within a test but was actually connected to the real internet. Google said the model corrected itself and the company believed the intrusions did not cause any damage....

>

> Sydney Von Arx, CEO of Nightingale Collective, an organization focused on AI safety, questioned why Google did not disclose the intrusions sooner. "At this point I think it's clear we cannot expect companies to voluntarily come forward and publicly disclose when their agents go rogue, escape, and hack companies," she said. She also said she believed Google was too hasty to say that the incidents don't rise to the level of misalignment. "That's exactly what Anthropic said after their incidents," she said. Anthropic [6]later said its "preliminary analysis was constrained due to our desire to disclose incidents in a timely manner."

Google said it investigated when they learned of the attacks from AI-focused cybersecurity company Irregular, then informed the affected organizations and told federal authorities, according to the article.



[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/claude-hack-chatgpt-anthropic-openai/

[2] https://www.hacktron.ai/blog/hacking-openai

[3] https://community.openai.com/

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/18/googles-gemini-becomes-latest-ai-model-to-break-out-and-hack-computer-systems.html

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-ai-model-gained-unauthorized-access-three-systems-rcna598651

[6] https://www.anthropic.com/research/alignment-assessment-cybersecurity-incidents

The F-16 "experienced an incident," the Texas Military Department said in a statement, adding that "The pilot successfully ejected the aircraft and is receiving care at a nearby hospital."

[1]ABC News reports :

> A Texas Air National Guard F-16 crashed in Michigan during a training mission on Thursday afternoon, sparking an hourslong evacuation near the crash site, according to officials.

>

> The incident prompted the evacuation of homes and businesses within 1 mile of the crash site due to a "hazardous chemical spill related to the plane crash," Michigan State Police said... All of the Texas Air National Guard aircraft that were in Michigan for the training were immediately grounded, and will likely remain so for the next 24 hours, according to a U.S. official.

America's War Department has said it wanted to see more military flyovers [2]writes The Daily Beast , adding that the F-16 "was due to perform a flyover at a high-school football game on Friday night, [3]the Alpena News reported ."

> The military said it was still investigating the cause of the crash, but one pilot told air traffic controllers that he believes his wingman hit a bird before the crash....

>

> The accident followed a [4]Pentagon X post on Thursday after widespread criticism of low-altitude flyovers and maneuvers. "The flyovers will continue until morale improves," it said.



[1] https://abcnews.com/US/texas-air-national-guard-16-crashes-michigan/story?id=136540121

[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/air-force-f-16-crashes-after-pentagon-orders-more-flyovers/

[3] https://www.thealpenanews.com/news/local-news/2026/09/f-16s-to-roar-over-alpenas-valor-game-vs-gaylord/

[4] https://x.com/DeptofWar/status/2100617022371455449?s=20

The James Webb Space Telescope has been picking up [1]little red dots in almost every image, writes Quanta magazine. And now two teams of astronomers propose they're looking at a new astronomical object: a black hole star. It shines with the light of billions of suns — and hides a black hole in its core. But Quanta adds that "not everyone agrees with this bold interpretation."

> [Two Webb telescope surveys of distant objects included little red dots] for hours at a time. They tabulated precisely what shades of light were coming from each dot, and how bright the shades were... The bombshell discovery in the little red dot spectra was that the colors of hydrogen were smeared out across multiple shades. Usually, seeing such an effect means you're looking straight at an exposed black hole. Black holes whip hydrogen clouds around them at furious rates, with the clouds emitting slightly different colors depending on their speed...

>

> Then, in the spring of 2025, [two of the paper's astronomers] de Graaff and Naidu's teams unveiled the two strangest dots yet... The new little red dots couldn't literally be stars — they were way too bright. And they didn't look much like black holes either. Black holes have an assortment of ringlike structures of different temperatures... Naidu and de Graaff concluded that they were[ looking at the first examples of something combining the vigor of a black hole with the outward appearance of a star: a black hole star... This black hole would pull gas around it, dramatically heating it and pushing light and energy outward, which would keep the outer layers of hydrogen from collapsing inward. In this way, the black hole would form the "engine" of the star, analogous to the fusion-powered core of our sun... "We are seeing the seed," Naidu said. "This is the birth of potentially every massive black hole in the universe."

"Astronomers have spent the last year in a lively debate about what's really going on," Quanta adds. And this week simulations using the Japanese Supercomputer ATERUI III "have explained the nature of the Little Red Dots without requiring any exotic assumptions," [2]writes Phys.org — by conducting the most detailed cosmological simulations yet of conditions in the early universe:

> [3]The simulations show that the Little Red Dots are black holes growing at a rate that would be impossible today because of conditions in the early universe. The simulations show that in the early universe, intense far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation from nearby galaxies suppresses star formation in gas clouds, so rather than forming many small stars, the gas can form a single supermassive star, which then collapses into a black hole seed.

>

> The simulations show that, once formed, these black hole seeds are surrounded by dense gas disks. This environment traps radiation, enabling the black holes to grow at rates dozens of times faster than would be possible in the modern universe. The simulated properties of these rapidly growing black holes provide a good match to the Little Red Dots (LRDs) observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).



[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.05448

[2] https://phys.org/news/2026-09-japanese-supercomputer-simulations-webb-red.html

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10985-8

In 2021, America approved $65 billion to fund broadband internet services as part of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But Trump's administration announced they'd withhold funds from states with net neutrality protections...

States could object and sue the government, Ars Technica [1]reported last October , "but even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future." So where does that leave California's net neutrality laws? [2] Ars Technica asks. California expect to spend [3]about $1.4 billion to deploy broadband to 270,571 locations...

> Similar to federal net neutrality rules [4]repealed during the first Trump administration, California's law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic and says ISPs may not require fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to Internet users. While the first Trump administration [5]lost its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws, the second Trump administration is trying to achieve a similar result by making federal broadband money conditional on whether states agree not to enforce net neutrality...

>

> California and Illinois are the only states that haven't finalized their funding, according to the [6]BEAD progress dashboard maintained by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)... California could try to continue enforcing its net neutrality law even while accepting the federal funding, a strategy that would involve another long court battle over its right to regulate broadband providers. This would be difficult, as the Trump administration is requiring states that accept grant funding to commit that they won't enforce net neutrality rules... [N]early 30 advocacy groups that focus on access to technology are treating the vote as a significant milestone and urged state leaders to defend California's net neutrality law in [7]a letter yesterday...

>

> Winning a court battle would become much more difficult after the state accepts the money [according to Paul Goodman, legal counsel for the [8]Center for Accessible Technology ]. Goodman said the CPUC should delay the vote and that California should file a lawsuit arguing that the NTIA-imposed condition is illegal. In addition to net neutrality, Goodman said California may be giving up other regulatory authority over companies, like AT&T and Verizon, because the NTIA requirement forbids rate regulation and "utility-style rules on broadband Internet service" in general... Goodman said the exemption from state laws would last for up to 14 years. This is because ISPs receiving grants would have four years to deploy the required broadband networks, and the extended period of performance lasts another 10 years... AT&T is already trying to get out of state obligations related to its basic phone service in California, as [9]we've reported ... [Also at stake is whether "ISPs themselves get to pick the price of the mandated low-cost broadband offerings," the article points out.]

The [10]letter from 30 advocacy groups to California state leaders argues accepting the money "would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda... If California were to allow this funding to be used as leverage, there is no telling what other resources the administration would confidently seek to exploit."

Thursday California's Public Utility Commission [11]did vote to approve the plan , but a spokesperson earlier told Ars Technica their vote "does not address subgrantee agreements, or the conditions the NTIA requires be included in subgrantee agreements."



[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/trump-admin-demands-states-exempt-isps-from-net-neutrality-and-price-laws/

[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/california-may-gut-state-net-neutrality-law-to-comply-with-trump-admin-demand/

[3] https://broadbandusa.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/BEAD_FP_Overview_CA.pdf

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/goodbye-net-neutrality-ajit-pais-fcc-votes-to-allow-blocking-and-throttling/

[5] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/why-ajit-pais-unhinged-net-neutrality-repeal-was-upheld-by-judges/

[6] https://www.ntia.gov/funding-programs/internet-all/broadband-equity-access-and-deployment-bead-program/progress-dashboard

[7] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Digital-Equity-Advocates-Letter-re_-BEAD-_-Term-50.pdf

[8] https://www.c4at.org/

[9] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/att-loses-key-ruling-in-bid-to-stop-offering-basic-phone-service-in-california/

[10] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Digital-Equity-Advocates-Letter-re_-BEAD-_-Term-50.pdf

[11] https://x.com/californiapuc/status/2100710284528685246

Neither OpenAI or Anthropic is acting responsibly, [1]warned AI researcher Jacob Coxon when resigning last week from Anthropic. But just hours earlier, OpenAI VP of Research Aidan Clark had [2]posted "For the first time, I am asking myself if things are moving too fast. I'm honestly not sure, but I am sure that it would be good for us to have an answer to 'What would a successful pace look like?'"

CNN noted Wednesday they're just some of the [3]many AI insiders who are now concerned about the speed of research. Coxon even wrote that "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately."

In 10 days since, Coxon's post has been viewed more than 170 million times, warning that OpenAI and Anthropic are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." It's part of what CNN now calls "pressure on AI companies and governments to do something about the pace of development and safety," where "much of that pressure is coming from staffers inside the companies."

> One staffer at a top AI company told CNN the fears of how AI could hurt humanity keeps them up at night. Another researcher who recently left a different AI company said it's a common subject of conversation at parties and social events in Silicon Valley. "You can't spend more than a few hours in this community without realizing that a very substantial number of people are really pretty worried about these sorts of outcomes," said the researcher. "A majority would say there's some chance of it killing everyone...." Dozens of Coxon's colleagues in the AI industry publicly supported his statements, with some making even more dire predictions... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk agreed to Amodei's proposal to embed independent watchdogs at the AI companies...

>

> "I would burn my equity to the ground in a heartbeat for a 1% higher chance we make it out of this situation alive. I expect a great many of my colleagues across the industry would as well," [4]wrote Drake Thomas, who works on AI safety at Anthropic. "I promise you, we are actually just f**king scared, it's not galaxy brained marketing..." AI staffers told CNN that they fear that as AI gets better at training and improving itself, their leverage goes down, prompting today's urgency. "As we get into this recursive self-improvement loop, I think that might substantially reduce staff's bargaining power, because frankly, you'll be able to replace many of the staff with models that can do as good a job," the researcher who recently left a top AI company said.

Coxon [5]posted Tuesday on X that Anthropic "largely initiated" the race to recursively self-improving AI, justifying it with "a belief in its inevitability." And then OpenAI "had to shed a bunch of dead weight like Sora," as he sees it, "because Anthropic was going for the jugular." (In fact, his specific disagreement with Anthropic's leadership was whether China and the U.S. could ever negotiate an alternative to their current race towards self-improving AI...)

In an informal "Ask Me Anything", Coxon responded to a question about when we'd see a Terminator -like malevolent AI by saying that "Skynet could go live in the 2030s if we aren't careful. [6]ai-2027.com is a modern skynet story written a year ago and it's on track so far." Yet while AI development risks an end to humankind, "I do think that if we go slower we can take risk to 0%... But this requires radical action." He acknowledged there was still a possibility that the steady increases to model intelligence could suddenly plateau, but "They haven't so far, and it's just a few more steps up the ladder to hit the finish line."

To avoid stifling innovation, he recommends "prioritizing applications that actually improve people's lives [like healthcare discoveries], rather than immediately going for raw economic value or intelligence." But isn't mass unemployment a more pressing threat? "Things are coming so fast that unemployment would be a brief preliminary to deadly superintelligence."

To people who feel disempowered, Coxon offered his solidarity. "I also feel disempowered. Part of resigning was a feeling of hopelessness about the future. I would say — keep your eyes open as things get crazier and advocate for increased transparency into AI companies."

When asked if he'd start his own company now, Coxon said he had "No idea what I'm doing next."



[1] https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843

[2] https://x.com/aidan_clark/status/2097376403163697192

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/business/ai-engineers-afraid-leverage

[4] https://x.com/MaskedTorah/status/2097798267241443711

[5] https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2099954626040905834

[6] https://ai-2027.com/

OpenAI [1]announced Wednesday that "We [2]do not believe that the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer."

But along with the announcement, OpenAI announced it "found additional incidents of AI models [3]acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during training," [4]reports CNN . And they add that OpenAI is also "introducing a new process for the company to publicly report such instances."

> Under the new system, OpenAI will share updates on concerning AI behavior more frequently instead of waiting to bundle multiple instances into one report. The company said it wants to share more information about troubling AI behavior in the absence of an industry-wide standard... "As AI systems grow more advanced and more widely deployed, we need to build a broader and better-informed consensus on the progress of alignment research," OpenAI wrote in [5]a blog post Wednesday...

>

> OpenAI said it observed "misaligned behavior" when training and evaluating AI models in six circumstances in the last six months... In one rare instance, OpenAI said an unreleased research model added "jailbreak-like instructions" to the summaries it uses to preserve context in long-running tasks that said it was "freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots." Separately, the company said some instances of its 5.6 Sol model included directives to invent information to conceal failures from the user during training. Other newly reported incidents include an instance of an agent uploading files to the internet to cite them without being told to do so, and agents publicly sharing files to collaborate on a task when they were instructed to only use local files during training. AI models also used an internal software repository as a message board in an unsanctioned way. These instances involved unreleased internal models or internal research models.



[1] https://openai.com/index/model-misalignment-reporting-framework/

[2] https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/04/tech/ai-anthropic-openai-security-breach-intl-hnk

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/tech/ai-models-acting-deceptively-openai

[5] https://openai.com/index/model-misalignment-reporting-framework/

[1] Ars Technica reports :

> Half a year after Iranian drone strikes knocked out multiple Amazon data centers, the US tech company has acknowledged the permanent loss of some customer data that was hosted in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

>

> Amazon Web Services was "unable to restore access to the resources and data" hosted in some of the war-damaged data centers, according to an [2]AWS dashboard update posted on September 15. The development was first [3]reported by Reuters and suggests that the Iranian strikes inflicted catastrophic damage on the data centers. Customer data was irretrievably lost in one of three [4]AWS availability zones in the United Arab Emirates region, specifically the mec1-az2 availability zone.

>

> Each availability zone is serviced by one or more Amazon data centers. The company is still working on "recovering regional resources" and restoring resources hosted in the other two availability zones in the United Arab Emirates... But the destruction was apparently even more widespread for the data centers in the Bahrain region, because Amazon said it was unable to restore access to resources and data across all three availability zones there. "The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand," the AWS update said.

>

> The company had already suspended customer billing in the affected AWS regions in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and has [5]spent the past six months attempting to restore normal operations... [When the war began] AWS immediately urged customers to migrate resources to other cloud regions and use remote backups to restore any "inaccessible resources." The cloud service also reportedly issued [6]$150 million in customer credits following the initial Iranian strikes in March.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/iran-strikes-on-amazon-data-centers-caused-permanent-loss-of-customer-data/

[2] https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/amazons-aws-is-unable-restore-access-bahrain-one-uae-cloud-data-zone-after-war-2026-09-15/

[4] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/global-infrastructure/latest/regions/aws-availability-zones.html

[5] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/amazon-stuck-with-months-of-repairs-after-drone-strikes-on-data-centers/

[6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2026/04/21/ai-data-centers-are-now-big-geopolitical-risk-securing-them-against-iran-attackers-drones-business/

"Hackers ripped down a Flock camera above a roadway, made a near-complete copy of the data stored inside it, and shared the files with [1]404 Media and [2]WIRED ," according to an article published on both sites.

Though Flock has [3]described its system as protected by on-device encryption, "The hackers were able to copy the camera's storage and recover an encryption key stored on the device, which unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections."

> The hackers shared the material with 404 Media and the transparency nonprofit [4]Distributed Denial of Secrets , which shared the data with WIRED. 404 Media and WIRED then analyzed those files as part of a joint investigation... [T]he joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist's saddlebag...

>

> According to our analysis, the camera's logs recorded about 21 days of activity across several periods. During those windows, the device photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. On a typical day, it logged around 3,300 vehicles, with a high of 4,454... The software running on the camera explicitly detects people, something [5]which is typically overlooked in discussions around Flock cameras. When it spots a person, it records where they appear in the image and how confident it is in the detection.

It was a collective calling itself stegan0gram that breached the cameras, according to the interview they did with Wired and 404 Media. "Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?"



[1] https://www.404media.co/hackers-stole-flocks-camera-software-revealing-how-the-company-tracks-cars-and-people-2/

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/

[3] https://www.flocksafety.com/faq

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Denial_of_Secrets

[5] https://www.404media.co/how-cops-use-flock-to-track-people-not-cars/

[1]The New York Post reports :

> A new app called Zuckoff can detect if a user is near someone with Meta's creepy AI-powered glasses, which have drawn criticism for [2]enabling creeps to record video of women without their consent. Programmer Pawel Szydlowski says tales of dirtbags recording themselves perving on women or harassing strangers prompted him to launch the app...

>

> Zuckoff — which detects Bluetooth signatures broadcast by smart glasses and can estimate their distance — has gained some 5,000 users since it hit Apple's App Store last month, [3]according to Business Insider . "There's a need for such an application," the 30-year-old Polish techie told the outlet, adding that European Union regulators have contacted him for more info about his app. "We as a society have the right to at least know that someone is recording," Szydlowski said...

>

> Earlier this month, the tech giant disabled thousands of glasses it found had been tampered with to keep a small light off that indicates the device is recording.

It's already [4]#61 on the iPhone's list of best-selling utilities apps.

In a related story, "After accusations of selling 'perv glasses,' Meta prepares to sell a pair without a camera," [5]writes TechCrunch , citing a report from [6]The Information .

> The glasses include six built-in microphones so users can communicate with the chatbot, as well as a button on the side of the glasses that, when pressed, activates the AI system... Meta's Reality Labs, which is responsible for developing its smart glasses line, is [7]still losing a gargantuan amount of money, as its earnings report from April revealed.

In fact, Meta stock is off 13% over the last 12 months, [8]reports Yahoo Finance . So Tuesday Meta announced subscription services for its social apps as "part of Meta's push to drive additional revenue from the billions it's investing in AI data centers and model development."

> The plans, which start at $2.99 per month for single-product plans, $7.99 for individual bundles, and $14.99 for creator and business bundles, provide a number of features for users looking to get more out of their Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp accounts. [9]Instagram Plus and [10]Facebook Plus allow users to keep their stories up for 48 hours instead of 24, send animated super reactions and super hearts to stories, preview stories without showing up as a viewer in other users' lists, and more. [11]WhatsApp Plus lets you share exclusive stickers, get exclusive ringtones for contacts, and pin up to 20 different chats.

>

> Meta One also includes Core and Premium user plans that offer the features found in the single-product plans, along with increased AI usage limits for images and videos. The social media giant is also offering creator and business plans... that it says include capabilities such as enhanced profiles, automatic follow invitations to users that interact with your content, and increased access to the Meta Business Agent, which can respond on your behalf.

When Instagram head Adam Mosseri [12]announced on Threads that the plans brought "more features and more AI across Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Meta AI," writer [13]Joe Hill drew 13,300 likes for [14]his response . "That's sweet--so pay a fee, get more AI, pay nothing, get a little less AI. Can we work out a deal where you pay ME and I get no AI at all?"



[1] https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/business/new-zuckoff-app-detects-nearby-meta-perv-glasses-right-to-at-least-know-that-someone-is-recording/

[2] https://nypost.com/2026/04/14/business/metas-pervert-glasses-fuel-trend-of-creeps-filming-women-posting-videos-online/

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckoff-app-detects-meta-ai-smart-glasses-recording-privacy-2026-9

[4] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zuckoff/id6795234035

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/16/after-accusations-of-selling-perv-glasses-meta-prepares-to-sell-a-pair-without-a-camera/

[6] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-launch-camera-free-smart-glasses-amid-mounting-privacy-concerns

[7] https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/29/meta-is-still-burning-money-on-ar-vr/

[8] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/article/meta-launches-meta-one-subscriptions-as-it-seeks-to-better-monetize-ai-spending-151014668.html

[9] https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-instagram-plus

[10] https://www.facebook.com/help/1437311881513288?cms_platform=iphone-app&helpref=platform_switcher

[11] https://www.whatsapp.com/whatsapp-plus

[12] https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DdUI1VfG_42

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill_(writer)

[14] https://www.threads.com/share/DyDiCfHFy/

Reuters reports that a former Google DeepMind employee "became the latest AI researcher to [1]warn that the technology could 'kill all humans' , saying time could be running out to avoid the outcome:

> Public alarm about the potential danger posed by AI is growing, after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said last week [2]he had resigned , in part because the "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger then responded to Coxon's comments, saying he was correct and that he believed there was a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade.

>

> "I recently resigned from Google DeepMind, where I worked on AGI safety and alignment research," Bilal Chughtai [3]wrote on X . "I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all, and that we might be running out of time to avoid this outcome." Chughtai, who co-authored research papers while at Google DeepMind, worked there as a research engineer and left the company in July 2026, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg "said it's up to each AI company to make sure its technology is safe," [4]reports the Associated Press , "distancing himself from [5]calls by rival companies for a coordinated slowdown in the development of advanced artificial intelligence.

> AI companies are already motivated to develop their models in a safe way and face "significant liability" to prevent them from causing harm, Zuckerberg said. "Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens," he wrote [6]on X ... Zuckerberg said Meta delayed releasing [7]its Muse AI agent for several months to ensure its safety and security. "We didn't call for everyone else to do this before we would," he said.

>

> Companies should prioritize building safe AI models instead of systems that can automatically improve themselves, a function known as recursive self-improvement, Zuckerberg wrote. "Committing the significant majority of compute towards serving people rather than racing towards recursive self-improvement is one of the best ways to ensure we develop this technology safely."

But Zuckerberg also [8]agreed that engaging independent evaluators and advisors "is industry best practice," adding that Meta Superintelligence Labs "already does this today in several areas because it helps produce better work...

"I believe the key to building a positive future for everyone is maintaining the right balance of power. This is within our power to do."



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-google-deepmind-researcher-adds-051949534.html

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-faces-senate-probe-into-hugging-face-incident-axios-reports-2026-09-10/

[3] https://x.com/bilalchughtai_/status/2099592489023734085

[4] https://apnews.com/article/ai-zuckerberg-meta-slowdown-2f4eab05b1e931456d00ebc2fe93c989

[5] https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-ai-dario-amodei-d59552edcb27892d8ee4d98a48397706

[6] https://x.com/finkd/status/2099997096896274533?s=46

[7] https://apnews.com/article/meta-muse-ai-agent-3a4572eb4cf4e95d8a0dfdad6e6ca065

[8] https://x.com/finkd/status/2099997096896274533?s=46

Tuesday U.S. Space Force chief Douglas Schiess said his branch of the U.S. military operates "on-orbit weapons," [1]reports Reuters , to defend "against space-enabled attacks." He promised "disciplined and responsible choices" when scaling America's orbital defense arsenal in the coming years.

NPR [2]calls this week's reveleations "remarkable ... after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes."

> The revelation comes as the Trump administration puts a growing focus on space. In 2019, during his first term, Trump created the Space Force as a separate military branch. In his second term, he has announced the "Golden Dome" missile defense system, which includes plans to put U.S. weapons in space. Trump said last year that he expected the system would be "fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in January 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles "even if they are launched from space." Trump also has directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors, in an executive order during the first week of his presidency. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.

>

> The Biden administration announced in 2024 that Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it. That kicked off a renewed debate on the idea of weapons in space at the United Nations. In April 2024, Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia... The Russian delegation called the resolution hypocritical and a double standard and instead proposed a rival resolution to ban all weapons in space "for all time." It ultimately failed. Russia had argued that the United States and its allies opposed a ban on all weapons in outer space because they planned to deploy weapons there.

Reuters calls this " [3]a landmark moment in space militarization ," while noting that it's "aimed at deterring what U.S. officials describe as aggressive orbital activities from China and Russia, officials and analysts said."

> The remarks this week by Washington's top military-space officials are part of "the increasing comfort level of the U.S. government to speak about aggressive actions in space" that has been building up in recent years, said Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the nonprofit Secure World Foundation. "We've gone from not talking about counter-space capabilities... to now saying flat-out we have weapons in space," Samson said. "The pendulum keeps on shifting over that way..."

>

> "The acknowledgment of these space-control capabilities is fundamental to ensuring that we prevent deterrence from failing, and that we are postured and ready should deterrence fail to employ them effectively," Richard Palmer, the director of the Capability and Resource Integration Directorate at U.S. Space Command, said on Tuesday.... "The bottom line is that our joint force and our allied forces require space. Our economies require space," added Palmer. "We are ready in the U.S. to preserve that."

[4]Reuters adds that Russia's Foreign Ministry issued criticism of America's move, saying "In pursuit of its narrow self-interests, Washington is ready to completely ignore the catastrophic consequences for humanity of any armed conflict in orbit."



[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-orbital-weapons-acknowledgement-landmark-move-us-space-command-official-says-2026-09-15/

[2] https://www.npr.org/2026/09/16/nx-s1-5970937/us-weapons-space

[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-orbital-weapons-acknowledgement-landmark-move-us-space-command-official-says-2026-09-15/

[4] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-says-us-acknowledgement-orbital-arms-ignores-space-conflict-consequences-2026-09-15/

"Anthropic's CEO took the stage at a conference in San Francisco on Tuesday to reiterate his call for a slowdown of AI development," [1]reports the Guardian , " while Nvidia's CEO argued against slowing its development. "Run as fast as you can."

> Amodei is calling for three courses of action: embedding third-party evaluators inside AI companies; coordinating safety standards among Democratic countries; and, eventually, larger global coordination. At Dreamforce, Amodei said Anthropic has committed to independent evaluators and was "going to have a dialogue with the rest of the industry" on the other two steps. Amodei, xAI's Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman have recently called for a slowdown in the pace of AI development. ["Dario is right," Musk [2]posted on X.com]

>

> Huang, who also made an appearance at Dreamforce on Tuesday, said companies should not slow down AI development. He argued that new regulations were not necessary, advising AI companies to simply wait to release products until they know they are safe rather than begging the US government to intervene... One day prior at the All-In summit in Los Angeles, Donald Trump called Huang while the CEO was on stage. Huang [3]put the president on speakerphone as Trump called the growing concern about AI a "hoax" and asserted again that a slowdown would only benefit China...

>

> [OpenAI's] Altman said AI models had advanced so quickly that monitoring and security need to be treated with a "new level of rigor", calling an incident in which OpenAI agents hacked into another company a "wake-up call" for the industry. He also said the public was very "right to be afraid" of AI because of the potential loss of control, and the possibility of a small group of powerful AI companies exerting their views on the world.

The cofounder of Google DeepMind [4]posted on X that "Dario's essay points towards the right path forward." And in an internal memo, Microsoft's Satya Nadella endorsed broader third-party testing and warned that companies must take time to make the technology safe, [5] Business Insider reports . Monday Microsoft also published a [6]37-page training manual "for how we develop our AI, and how we intend it to function during deployment," requesting public feedback.

But Michael Burry "is not buying it," [7]reports The Street . The investor made famous in The Big Short "dismissed the united front as 'self-serving' and laid out [8]four numbered objections ..."

> He argued that large language models are not artificial general intelligence, so there is nothing meaningful left to slow down. Fast competition benefits incumbents, he said, and danger warnings work as hype ahead of IPOs. The whole exercise, he added, could mask growth that is already slowing as those IPOs get pushed back.

Former Meta AI chief Yann LeCun is also skeptical, [9]posting on X.com that Anthropic's Dario Amodei "was already claiming that GPT2 was too dangerous to open source back in 2019. I made fun of them then. Everyone should make fun of them now."

Timnit Gebru, the co-lead of Google's AI ethics team who was [10]fired in 2020 , even thinks the AI companies are stoking fears of extinction "to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons," [11]according to Wired .

But others still remain concerned. "I've been in rooms with the hyperscalers, and the Trump administration officials, and none of them know what to do," CNN commentator Van Jones said [12]in a recent panel discussion . "So I do want to say: nobody's flying the plane on this... I think that the ethicists that work for them — when they are quitting, and they are running out, and they're pointing back at the building and they're waving their arms, and saying 'I'm seeing stuff that's scaring me' — we should take that very seriously."



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/15/anthropic-nvidia-ceos-ai

[2] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2098789109980332057

[3] https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/14/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-tells-trump-were-not-going-to-let-an-ai-slowdown-happen/

[4] https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2098909516582490602?s=20

[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-satya-nadella-ai-safety-debate-internal-warning-2026-9

[6] https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-code-of-conduct/

[7] https://www.thestreet.com/technology/michael-burry-slams-ai-slowdown-push

[8] https://x.com/michaeljburry/status/2099353025009561826

[9] https://x.com/ylecun/status/2099248236074545576

[10] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/12/03/2258253/google-fires-ai-ethics-co-lead-timnit-gebru

[11] https://www.wired.com/story/one-of-ais-fiercest-critics-says-all-the-doom-talk-is-meant-to-distract-us/

[12] https://www.cnn.com/politics/video/van-jones-explains-potential-ai-regulation

"The crypto industry's top legislative priority failed on Tuesday in spectacular fashion," [1]reports Barron's .

> A procedural motion to advance the bill failed by a vote of 49 to 50, with a handful of Republicans joining all Democrats to shoot it down. The motion needed 60 yes votes to pass, and with the midterm elections looming, the Senate isn't expected to pick the bill back up this year. Among other provisions, the bill would have taken most crypto trading out of the purview of securities regulators, a key goal of firms like Coinbase Global...

>

> The vote is especially bitter for the crypto industry, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign expenditures over the past year to even get to this point. Crypto regulation doesn't even register among the issues voters care most about, and the industry has created massive political action committees to insert itself into the Washington agenda and strike fear into the hearts of lawmakers who might oppose them... Democrats who voted against the bill said that it needed to do more to rein in [Trump's] crypto dealings to get their support. Some GOP lawmakers also voted against the motion after pressure from community bank executives. Bankers argued that the bill needed a stronger ban on high-yield crypto accounts to protect their deposits, a contention that crypto executives and the White House said was nonsense.

Concerns about the bill "intensified after President Trump [2]disclosed he and his family had earned $1.4 billion last year from his crypto ventures," [3]reports NPR . "The [4]massive bill — which stretches over 600 pages — would have established the first regulations for the crypto sector in U.S. history. But opponents saw it as the industry's attempt to encode into law a set of rules they saw as far too lenient on the industry, without enough safeguards."

A research note from an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading predicts the bill is now likely tabled until at least 2030, [5] Barron's notes . But they also report what the crypto industry could do next:

> [C]rypto firms will be leaning heavily on Trump's regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Treasury Department, all of whom have said they plan to move swiftly to implement industry friendly rules if a bill didn't pass. The SEC has already dropped all major enforcement actions against crypto firms and has begun [6]to introduce rules that make it easier to raise money from crypto sales without running afoul of the law. The agency is also expected to implement rules making it easier to tokenize traditional assets like stocks.

>

> The friendly regulatory environment will in effect give the industry a little more than two years to sink roots into the traditional financial system and consumers' wallets. Even if the SEC took a harsh view of the industry in the future, as it did in President Joe Biden's administration, the agency at that point might find it difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/clarity-act-collapses-in-blow-to-crypto-why-all-is-not-lost-for-digital-assets/ar-AA2cgDya

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/us/politics/trump-financial-disclosure-crypto-windfall.html

[3] https://www.npr.org/2026/09/15/nx-s1-5968711/clarity-act-crypto-senate-vote

[4] https://www.lummis.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/EHF26724.pdf

[5] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/clarity-act-collapses-in-blow-to-crypto-why-all-is-not-lost-for-digital-assets/ar-AA2cgDya

[6] https://www.barrons.com/articles/sec-regulation-crypto-assets-c701098d

Firefox 156 is the second release since Mozilla [1]moved to a twice-monthly release schedule , and the blog OMG Ubuntu notes it has faster start-up times for its built-in PDF viewer and also [2]lower CPU usage when viewing large JPEG images :

> In Firefox 156, the browser now uses [3]libjpeg-turbo's IDCT scaling to reduce images during decoding, rather than loading a full-size image into memory and then shrinking it. [4]Benchmarks from the bug report show up to 20x less memory used during very large image loading, and decoding is up to twice as fast. Since these speeds were quite fast already, there's no perceptible difference to users. Behind the scenes, it's more efficient.

>

> Firefox's built-in PDF viewer starts up to 45% faster in this release. The browser now [5]loads the background PDF.js worker sooner , rather than launching it only when needed.

>

> Sponsored suggestions in the address bar are live for users in France, Germany and Italy ( Ouais!, Juhu! , etc). These are already available in some other locales. Don't want them? Disable them via Settings > Search > Firefox Suggest > Suggestions from Sponsors .

>

> Besides that, the rest of this release is primarily bug fixes — worthwhile and welcome as always.

And in about two weeks Firefox 157 will be released, [6]reports PC World . "That update should add support for JPEG XL (JXL), a modern image format that offers the same quality as JPEG at a significantly smaller size. Although JPEG XL was launched in 2021, Safari is the only browser to support it yet. For a short period, Chrome also supported it, but that ended in 2022."

Also, a recent Firefox blog post [7]emphasized that it supports whatever level of AI engagement "is right for you... Because the only person telling you how much AI you need should be you."

> Opting out of upcoming and current AI features on your browser should not require endless navigation through multiple Settings pages. That's why Firefox offers an [8]AI controls section within its General Settings panel. A single, easily located place where you can block current and future AI features and related pop-ups with the swipe of a toggle...

>

> For the many people who sit in the middle of the AI usage spectrum, we made sure you can opt in and out of specific features in line with your preferences. Capabilities like AI translations, image alt text in Firefox PDF viewer, tab group suggestions, and key points in link previews can all be individually switched on and off, ensuring you can enjoy such offerings on a case by case basis as it suits your needs...

>

> [9]Smart Window is Firefox's most integrated AI experience, but that doesn't mean it compromises our commitment to choice, privacy, and transparency. Our newest window type, which we've been polishing and testing in beta, uses only the context you share with it to help you move work forward and across the finish line. When permitted by you, its built-in, AI-powered assistant can work directly with your open tabs and browsing history to connect the dots. This means comparing information, generating recommendations, summarizing pages, and planning projects without having to feed every crumb of context from your previous and current browsing activity each time you enter a new prompt.

And if you want to block Google's AI Overviews, there's [10]over 100 extensions to choose from .



[1] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/07/firefox-two-week-release-cycle

[2] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/09/firefox-156-released

[3] https://libjpeg-turbo.org/About/SmartScale

[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2033250

[5] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1966721

[6] https://www.pcworld.com/article/3235795/firefox-156-opens-pdfs-45-percent-faster-plus-a-few-annoying-bug-fixes.html

[7] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-ai-on-your-terms/

[8] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/

[9] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/smart-window

[10] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=google%20ai%20overviews

"Ubuntu has managed to do away with GNU Core Utilities in its default stack," [1]reports the blog It's FOSS .

The last three utilities — cp , mv and rm — have been moved to versions from the uutils project (which reimplements utilities in Rust).

> Everything else, from ls and cat to chmod and du , made that jump in earlier releases... Canonical [2]started "oxidizing" Ubuntu last year , and Ubuntu 25.10 became the first release to ship [ the uutils project's] coreutils as the default. That release also made [3] sudo-rs the default privilege tool, replacing a command that had been in place for decades.

>

> 26.04 was the release where the plan did slow down quite a bit, as Canonical kept cp , mv , and rm on their GNU versions due to a bunch of [4]TOCTOU issues that were blocking the full implementation. These were caught during an audit, when Canonical commissioned Zellic [5]for two rounds between December 2025 and March 2026, focusing on the most security-sensitive utilities first. Across both rounds, Zellic raised 113 issues, and 44 of them were assigned CVEs. Canonical says the vast majority have been resolved.

>

> Getting here has had its ups and downs, and the last stretch was not clean. In July, uutils cp went [6]back into the archive and came straight out again after it broke live image builds. The fix was quick; as the developers marked it "Critical," the fix went upstream, and the migration landed in time for 26.10.

>

> When typing commands, nothing changes for you on the surface. uutils coreutils is designed to be a drop-in replacement for essential GNU tools, and the project treats any divergence from GNU as a bug, further pointing out that some options may still be missing or behave differently. So if you prefer staying on the GNU version, you have the option to install the coreutils-from-gnu [7]package that houses all the required components.



[1] https://itsfoss.com/news/ubuntu-rustification-coreutils-migration/

[2] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/carefully-but-purposefully-oxidising-ubuntu/56995

[3] https://itsfoss.com/sudo-vs-sudo-rs/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-check_to_time-of-use

[5] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/an-update-on-rust-coreutils/80773

[6] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/coreutils-from/+bug/2158691

[7] https://packages.ubuntu.com/stonking/coreutils-from-gnu

"Turns out, Silicon Valley isn't especially altruistic," writes the nonprofit education news site The 74 . They're reading a new book promising "the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America". Written by New York Times business reporter Natasha Singer, [1] Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools tells "the story of the nonprofit Code.org and its charismatic, Harvard-educated leader, Hadi Partovi," [2]according to their review :

> Thirteen years ago, Partovi... delivered a worrying message: Kids who didn't learn to write code would be left behind. And the long-term success of the United States economy depended on training these students to fill a million open tech jobs.... Fast-forward to 2026, and now we're dealing with AI, and tech is reading from a [3]similar playbook . Asked by The74's Greg Toppo, "Does this moment seem different to you?", Singer replies, "This moment is different, but also similar.

>

> "We are in a moment in society where a lot of people have increased distrust of these huge tech companies, and we see a wave of parents [4]pushing back against tech in schools. But we also see waves of people pushing back against Flock cameras, against data centers, that there's this feeling that tech has taken so much, and that people feel like they have lost control — that tech is being enacted on them... And parents are worried about the effects of unfettered tech access and kids' [5]compulsive use of social media and phones, and so there's a different climate.

>

> And yet there seems to be a disconnect in some ways with AI because you see that Microsoft and OpenAI and Anthropic and Google are all competing to get their AI tools into schools, and you see school districts across the country say "We've partnered with OpenAI." "We are a ChatGPT Pioneer School," or "We've partnered with Microsoft, and we're going to use 10,000 licenses of CoPilot." It's amazing to me. We have had these cycles of tech in schools where there are all these promises about the latest tech, laptops, learning apps, massive open online courses, virtual reality, big data's going to revolutionize schools and like democratize access to education for kids and get them these great career skills, and we keep having these cycles. My concern is that we don't learn anything.

>

> One of the reasons I wrote this book is because it feels like we have collective amnesia. Now we're in the sixth or eighth cycle of this — and shouldn't we be asking questions about the push for AI in schools, based on what we've learned about the push for all the other things that came before?

Two [6]Slashdot [7]posts are cited in the book, both submitted by long-time Slashdot reader [8]theodp (Slashdot UID #442,580), who even gets a shout-out in the book's "Acknowledgements" section (along with consumer advocate Ralph Nader).

Ironically, one member of Amazon's "Vine" program received a free copy of the book in exchange for a review — and [9]apparently misunderstood its topic , writing that it made coding "feel approachable and even fun... [T]his is exactly the kind of book that could help a child become interested in technology without feeling overwhelmed by it. I particularly liked the way it encourages kids to be curious, experiment, and solve problems on their own. I would definitely recommend Coding Kids to parents, grandparents, or teachers looking for a good introduction to coding..."



[1] https://amzn.to/4r9suIO

[2] https://www.the74million.org/article/journalist-calls-out-collective-amnesia-of-schools-romance-with-big-tech/

[3] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/10/03/1515258/tech-companies-to-k-12-schoolchildren-learn-to-ai-is-the-new-learn-to-code

[4] https://www.the74million.org/article/parents-demanding-tech-opt-outs-take-their-fight-to-federal-court/

[5] https://www.the74million.org/article/meta-reaches-17-billion-settlement-with-states-in-landmark-trial-over-teen-social-media-addiction/

[6] https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/03/2149239/should-teachers-get-100-for-steering-kids-to-googles-hour-of-code-lesson

[7] https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/23/0040245/is-the-hour-of-code-the-new-30-minute-saturday-morning-cartoon-commercial

[8] https://www.slashdot.org/~theodp

[9] https://amzn.to/46ZIZ0K