It’s time to panic about AI safety
It’s time to panic about AI safety

When the phrase “OpenAI hacked Hugging Face” has more or less entered mainstream culture, you know we have an AI problem. This week, we learned more about exactly how OpenAI’s agent broke out of a sandbox and autonomously traversed the web, including a bunch of other supposedly secure web services, all in the name of […]

ABC demands FCC drop its ‘punitive’ early license renewal of its stations
ABC demands FCC drop its ‘punitive’ early license renewal of its stations

ABC filed its formal opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to force it to submit to an early renewal of its broadcast station licenses, calling it an effort to chill the speech of broadcasters across the country. In a new filing with the FCC, ABC charges that the agency’s willingness to pursue the early […]

xAI’s last-minute scramble to stop Minnesota’s anti-nudification app law
xAI’s last-minute scramble to stop Minnesota’s anti-nudification app law

xAI is suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison over a law passed back in May that broadly targets “nudification” apps, claiming that the statute’s punitive provisions leave the company with “no practical choice but to restrict Grok Imagine’s image-editing features in various ways.” The law, the company argues, violates the First Amendment. Back in January, […]

The US government just banned Roombas
The US government just banned Roombas

When the Trump administration announced yesterday that it was banning “advanced robotic devices” from entering the United States, the headlines were all about humanoids. But spying doesn’t require legs – and neither does the FCC’s robot ban. The robot ban will sweep up robot vacuum cleaners too, FCC media relations director Katie Gorscak confirms to […]

Full school day cellphone bans are more popular than ever
Full school day cellphone bans are more popular than ever

As schools across the country continue to implement cellphone bans, a new Pew Research Center survey shows they continue to gain support. Seventy-seven percent of US adults support banning cellphones in middle and high school classes, and 48 percent support banning them for the entire school day. That’s the first time more Americans have supported, […]

Artists are lawyering up against AI slop, and some are even winning
Artists are lawyering up against AI slop, and some are even winning

When The Atlantic published a searchable dataset of works used to train AI, Kirk Wallace Johnson, like a lot of artists, looked for his name out of curiosity. And, like a lot of artists, he found it. Essentially, his books, like The Feather Thief and The Fishermen and the Dragon – nonfiction tomes that he […]

United States Bans Chinese Humanoid & Quadruped Robots, Citing National Security

Citing security and economic reasons, the U.S. FCC has moved to ban foreign humanoid robots as well as quadruped robots from the American market.

The US is banning foreign robots
The US is banning foreign robots

The US government is targeting China with a new import ban on “advanced robotic devices” and power inverters made in foreign countries, as reported earlier by Reuters. In an announcement on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission says the ban will include “mobile” robots, such as humanoid and quadruped models – but it is not limited […]

eBay’s bizarre cyberstalking saga ends with a $56 million settlement
eBay’s bizarre cyberstalking saga ends with a $56 million settlement

eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy legal saga that revealed how eBay’s former executives sent live insects, a bloody pig mask, a […]

Is it illegal to trick the US government into wiping your phone during a questionably legal search?
Is it illegal to trick the US government into wiping your phone during a questionably legal search?

A Georgia man was charged with a felony for allegedly wiping his phone while being questioned by Customs and Border Protection. Samuel Tunick had something in common with others who have had their devices searched at airports: He was an activist. Unlike others who have had their phones seized with no explanation, Tunick was told […]