King Charles Meets With A.I. Executives About Safety Risks; The New York Times, September 17, 2026

 Adam Satariano, The New York Times; King Charles Meets With A.I. Executives About Safety Risks

"King Charles III of Britain is meeting with executives from leading artificial intelligence companies in Scotland on Thursday, amid a growing global debate about safety risks created by the technology and whether the pace of development should be slowed down.

Executives from Nvidia, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic and other companies will be present, along with government officials and other experts, according to Buckingham Palace.

The meeting is not expected to produce any binding agreements, but comes at an important moment for the future of the technology."

OpenAI reveals concerning new AI behavior and vows to track it more closely; PBS, September 17, 2026

 PBS; OpenAI reveals concerning new AI behavior and vows to track it more closely

"OpenAI has disclosed six reports of "unexpected or concerning" behavior in artificial-intelligence models as the debate on AI safety becomes increasingly heated."

Exclusive: Microsoft AI chief blasts Anthropic's notion of AI consciousness; Axios, September 16, 2026

 Ina Fried, Axios; Exclusive: Microsoft AI chief blasts Anthropic's notion of AI consciousness

"Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman warns in a new essay shared first with Axios that Anthropic's training of Claude to imitate consciousness is a mistake that could make advanced AI harder to control.

Why it matters: The essay arrives amid a pitched debate over how best to make AI safer."

Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I.; The New York Times, September 14, 2026

 Jonathan Swan, The New York Times ; Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I.

"President Trump on Monday rejected calls from leading artificial intelligence executives for new limits on the technology, writing on social media that the only guardrail the industry needed it already had: “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.”

Mr. Trump inserted himself into the intensifying national debateover how to handle a rapidly evolving technology that researchers and industry leaders say poses major risks like mass unemployment, a new wave of biological weapons and autonomous warfare. The president did not address those risks directly. Instead, he questioned the sincerity of the executives who have been calling to slow the technology’s development.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Mr. Trump posted. “The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!

“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” he added.

It was not clear what authority Mr. Trump was referring to, or what actions he believes his administration has already blocked. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

Anthropic C.E.O. Calls for A.I. Slowdown; The New York Times, September 12, 2026

 Mike Isaac, The New York Times; Anthropic C.E.O. Calls for A.I. Slowdown

In a 3,800-word essay, Dario Amodei laid out the rapidly advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence and said there needed to be greater safety controls across the industry.

"The chief executive of Anthropic called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology.

Dario Amodei, who co-founded Anthropic to focus on securely and carefully building A.I., wrote that while he believed the technology could bring many benefits, it was advancing at too quick a pace for researchers to continue safely.

“Over the last few months, I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence — not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up,” Mr. Amodei said. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of A.I. models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

His call for an industrywide pause follows months of escalating concerns across the technology industry as A.I. model development has made significant strides at companies like OpenAI, Google’s DeepMind and Anthropic."

An A.I. Giant Made an Enemy of Record Labels. Can It Play Nice?; The New York Times, September 9, 2026

 Ben Sisario , The New York Times; An A.I. Giant Made an Enemy of Record Labels. Can It Play Nice?

"To Suno, its simple interface is a tool and a toy to inspire creativity in novices and professionals alike. More than 100 million people have created songs with the service, Suno says, and two million pay for an upgraded plan that includes commercial rights to the music they make with it...

But to the major record companies that are pursuing it in litigation, Suno is little more than a pirate, violating copyright law on an industrial scale. And as A.I. moves rapidly into the musical mainstream, a growing number of artists have expressed fears that their work will be drowned out by a flood of generic slop enabled by services like it."

Big Tech Fooled America Once. The Second Time’s Not Going So Well.; The New York Times, September 10, 2026

 Oren Cass, The New York Times; Big Tech Fooled America Once. The Second Time’s Not Going So Well.

"The popular uprising against data centers has emerged so suddenly that politicians stumble over their own pitchforks racing to the front of the crowd. Where most industries would be launching into crisis P.R. mode, perhaps even engaging in some soul-searching, artificial intelligence companies seem determined to plow full steam ahead, building the future they want, even if they’re the only ones who want it.

The outrage over data centers can’t really be about environmental impact. These structures have always been water-sucking, power-draining, forest-clearing eyesores, yet the recent plunge in support for them is three times as deep as the one that nuclear power plants faced in the year after Three Mile Island. What has changed is people’s awareness of what’s going on inside: artificial intelligence. Less than a quarter of Americans expect A.I. to have a positive impact on K-12 education, arts and entertainment, how people do their jobs, the economy, personal relationships or happiness over the next 20 years.

Once known for our optimism and ambition in pursuit of new frontiers, Americans no longer trust that technological progress will make life better. Who can blame us? For the past two decades, Silicon Valley’s leaders have treated their fellow citizens like caged guinea pigs, bombarding us with inappropriate and culturally corrosive content, turning a blind eye to social dysfunction and outright addiction, flooding schools with technology that hooked young users but did little for education and then sheltering their own children from the products that they marketed to ours. The American people afforded the technologists wide latitude to pursue disruptive innovation, trusting that we would share in the resulting gains. We instead found ourselves exploited.

In some respects it is the A.I. industry’s misfortune to arrive now, when Silicon Valley is no longer entitled to the benefit of the doubt, but its leaders seem to be going out of their way to destroy any residual trust they might otherwise have built upon. Rather than take seriously the need to offer a positive vision for how the technology will benefit ordinary Americans — and then the need to make that vision a reality — the A.I. companies seem content to unleash wave after wave of products that cause obvious harm while delivering the message that this is all inevitable and you can get on board or get left behind."

AI models are becoming unknowable; Axios, September 4, 2026

 Madison Mills, Axios; AI models are becoming unknowable

"AI models may be getting safer while also getting harder to monitor. Which side of that seesaw prevails could determine whether AI is scaled safely or ruins civilization as we know it.

Why it matters: Right now both options are running full steam and no one knows who's in charge of making sure the right one wins."

Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit; The New York Times, September 2, 2026

 Karen Weise and Mike Isaac, The New York Times; Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit

"The Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court that it was in the national interest for the judge to find that OpenAI did not violate copyright law when it used articles by The New York Times and other publishers to develop artificial intelligence systems.

The filing late Tuesday was the first time the Justice Department weighed in on the use of copyrighted material by A.I. companies, which has led to several lawsuits, including one brought by The Times.

The Justice Department argued that developing A.I. was critical to national security, and that training A.I. systems sufficiently transformed the written works to new material allowed under copyright law. It said the benefits of A.I. “far outweigh any competitive harm.”

The government’s intervention is an escalation in the landmark litigation that could determine whether OpenAI violated the law when it was developing its A.I. systems and had harmed the news industry and other content creators...

The Times’s lawsuit is one of many amid a wave of legal action against A.I. companies over copyright claims."

Trump Administration’s Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Illegal, Judge Rules; The New York Times, August 27, 2026

 Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times; Trump Administration’s Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Illegal, Judge Rules

"The Trump administration acted illegally when it labeled the artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic a security risk and barred the company from working with the U.S. government, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

Judge Rita Lin of the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California wrote in her 59-page ruling that the government had unlawfully retaliated against Anthropic “for constitutionally protected expressive activities” after the A.I. company spoke out about how its technology should be used.

“The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” she wrote."

TIME Reveals the 2026 TIME100 AI List of the World’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence; TIME, August 27, 2026

TIME PR , Time; TIME Reveals the 2026 TIME100 AI List of the World’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence

"Today, TIME reveals the fourth annual TIME100 AI list, recognizing the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence. 

The 2026 TIME100 AI issue includes one worldwide cover featuring listmakers, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Marian Croak, Larry Ellison, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Paris Hilton, Lila Ibrahim, Arvind Krishna, Fei-Fei Li, Mira Murati, Elon Musk, David Sacks, Liz Shuler, Ilya Sutskever, and Eddie Wu. 

Published alongside the TIME100 AI are in-depth interviews with Thinking Machines Lab chief executive officer Mira Murati, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union Doreen Bogdan-Martin and OpenEvidence founder and chief executive officer Daniel Nadler."

The Original Sin of Anthropic’s Claude; The New York Times, August 24, 2026

Charles Graeber, The New York Times; The Original Sin of Anthropic’s Claude

"One day, hopefully copyright protections will be extended to prevent the unlicensed training of A.I.s.

Until then, we live in a legal gray area, in which giant cash-rich corporations gorge freely on the rights of individual creators. The big ones will continue to eat the little ones unless the little ones can band together.

It’s up to us to demand legislation extending copyright protections in the 21st century. Many members of Congress appear willing; property protections have appeal for both sides of the aisle.

Affirming those copyright protections to include A.I. might even force A.I. companies to hire human writers to create original works for their L.L.M.s to train on. Or perhaps they’ll start spending their treasure like modern Medicis, funding the quality work A.I.s need to stay sharp. At the very least, they might invest in publishing houses and writing programs, fending off model collapse while ushering in a Silicon Era of artistic enlightenment.

I worry for this generation of artists coming of age in yet another technological adolescence, on the brink of so many cultural and economic disruptions.

But I do not worry for the future of art itself. We will always need human mediators to translate the human experience and make the flesh word."

Bill Gates calls for ‘human-reserved’ jobs in face of AI takeover; The Guardian, August 26, 2026

 Mark Sweney, The Guardian ; Bill Gates calls for ‘human-reserved’ jobs in face of AI takeover

"Bill Gates has called for “human-reserved” jobs in certain sectors to prevent AI replacing them, and expressed concern that governments are not prepared for the impact the technology will have.

In a 6,000 word essay titled The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder likened the need to spare roles from digital encroachment to how nature reserves operate to protect the environment.

“Many jobs will disappear forever,” he said, in his first lengthy piece on AI in three years. “I believe that as AI and robots improve, we’ll set aside certain things for only people to do.

“I’ve started calling this domain human reserved. I like the phrase human reserved because it makes me think of nature reserves – places where we could put buildings and roads, but we choose not to because the loss would be too great.”"

Why Silicon Valley’s Vision of the AI Future Should Worry You; Time, August 24, 2026

  Liz Bucar, Time; Why Silicon Valley’s Vision of the AI Future Should Worry You

"Everyone has a vision of the ultimate future, some picture of what the world looks like at its best (or worst), and whether that future is even reachable. In religious studies, we call this an “eschatology.” 

Eschatology isn’t just the Book of Revelation or the Rapture. The Greek meaning of eschaton is “last things,” and today the word captures the set of beliefs a person holds about where things are headed and what that implies for the present. 

You don’t have to be religious to have an eschatology. Political optimism is an eschatology, whatever side you’re on. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist,thinks the future is something we build our way toward with free childcare and buses. Stephen Miller, one of the architects of the current immigration crackdown,thinks it’s something we had and lost, but can get back through sealing the border and mass deportations. Neither one just describes the future. Both are telling you what you’re obligated to do about it right now. In other words, your eschatology shapes your ethics, because what you believe is coming determines what you feel obligated to do today."

Is it legal to train AI models on copyrighted books? It’s complicated; TechCrunch, August 23, 2026

Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch ; Is it legal to train AI models on copyrighted books? It’s complicated

"You probably know by now that the AI models powering ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other chatbots are trained on seemingly infinite databases of published works, containing hundreds of millions of books, online articles, academic papers, and basically anything you can find on the internet. Most published authors have, without their knowledge or consent, contributed to the development of the same AI tools that threaten to undermine their livelihoods. That seems illegal, right? 

The reality isn’t that simple. 

“I think one of the issues with this entire area of law and this entire area of technology is there’s a lot going on,” Cathy Gellis, an attorney with expertise in intellectual property, copyright, and technology, told TechCrunch. “It’s very complex and there are a lot of raw feelings about what is happening, both for and against.”"

How Big Tech Captured American Schools; The New York Times, August 23, 2026

  Natasha Singer, The New York Times; How Big Tech Captured American Schools

"One humid afternoon in the summer of 2025, representatives from Microsoft were waiting as some 200 teachers trooped into a conference hall in downtown Manhattan. The educators were there for a workshop on the school technology of the moment: artificial intelligence chatbots.

The Microsoft team gave a presentation on their Copilot chatbot and asked the teachers to practice using it for tasks like generating emails to parents and customizing lesson plans. Microsoft instructors also screened an A.I. explainer video that their Minecraft Education division had produced for children. The animated clip, based on the company’s blockbuster world-building game, featured a cheerful narrator and a cute Minecraft duck. Even if some schoolchildren weren’t old enough to use A.I., one of the Microsoft workshop leaders told the teachers in attendance, at least they could start learning about it.

As a journalist covering technology in schools, I had observed similar workshops for teachers and students that were funded or led by corporate giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta, OpenAI and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Taking in this one, at the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers, I was struck by how similar the sessions were to training I’d seen years earlier, while reporting on the health care industry: seminars for doctors, organized by pharmaceutical companies, that aimed to get physicians to prescribe the latest brand-name drugs.

“Industry funds what helps industry,” Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a pharmacology professor at Georgetown University Medical Center who studies drug industry influence on medicine, told me recently, as I was reporting a book about A.I. and computer science education in schools."

Exclusive: FTC urged to investigate AI firms for destroying books; Axios, August 21, 2026

 Ashley Gold, Axios ; Exclusive: FTC urged to investigate AI firms for destroying books

"The Federal Trade Commission is being urged to investigate AI companies for buying, scanning and destroying books to train AI, per a letter shared first with Axios.

Why it matters: If the FTC agrees, the fight over AI training data may move from copyright into competition. 

That could include regulators scrutinizing whether dominant AI firms are literally eliminating resources their rivals need to compete.

Driving the news: More than a dozen civil society groups are urging the FTC to use its authority to examine what the letter's authors call a "destructive new data acquisition practice by dominant AI companies."

The groups include Demand Progress Education Fund, the Consumer Federation of America and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

In January, the Washington Post, citing court filings, reported that Anthropic spent millions to acquire and physically remove the spines of books to feed their scanned pages into Claude. Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have faced similar copyright lawsuits, per the Post.

Specifically, the groups want the FTC to determine whether such conduct constitutes an unfair method of competition, arguing that any AI company that does so is "starving the market" of critical source materials.

The letter points out that in some cases, rare books could be destroyed forever, with digital firms snagging the last copies."

Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?; BBC, August 15, 2026

Philippa Wain , BBC; Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?

"Destructive scanning

The court documents relating to the Anthropic case revealed the project of ingesting old books was referred to in internal company communications as "Project Panama."

The documents indicated the company's aim was to "destructively scan all the books in the world".

Destructive scanning is the process of shipping books to locations where they can be digitised at an industrial scale. 

It includes removing a book's spine so all the pages can be scanned rapidly - and the remains recycled.

"A lot of mystery surrounds Project Panama," Manley, from Barter Books, says."

Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI; Ars Technica, August 17, 2026

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI

"For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon.

On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented."

The A.I. Giants Weren’t Prepared for This; The New York Times, August 4, 2026

 

Ezra Klein

Produced by Rollin Hu

, The New York Times; The A.I. Giants Weren’t Prepared for This

"What is big and ugly and has united Republicans and Democrats at a time when it has felt nothing could? A.I. data centers.

Last August a Heatmap News poll found that approximately four in 10 voters would oppose a data center being built where they live. By May of this year, opposition grew to seven in 10. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — a Republican, of course — proposed legislation that was known as an A.I. Bill of Rights.

Senator Bernie Sanders called for a national data center moratorium — one of more than 100 local or statewide moratorium proposals across the country. And in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul, not usually thought of as a hard-core populist, just imposed a one-year moratorium on data center construction."