Trump and Republicans want companies to regulate themselves. It’s a dereliction of duty that will make AI less safe

It is hard to get Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Dario Amodei to agree on much. But over the weekend, all three AI company CEOs called for AI development to slow down in the face of growing, alarming risks. Their employees are sounding the siren too, with one researcher publicly quitting and accusing OpenAI and Anthropic of “gambling with our lives”.

The combination of dire warnings from insiders and growing real-world evidence of rogue AIs should, in a sane world, lead to government action. Instead, Donald Trump and the Republican leadership have their heads in the sand.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

At an event in Washington, partisanship took a back seat as elected officials, religious leaders, parents and artists called for reining in artificial intelligence.

Mr. Trump called Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, while Mr. Huang was onstage in Los Angeles and criticized calls to slow down and regulate A.I.

The UN resolution to junk the Mercator projection of the globe – which makes Africa look small and Canada big – is nakedly political, says Professor James Alexander. No wonder the US opposed it.

The post Why Africa is Against Mercator, Why America is For Him appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Federal prosecutors said proceeds from the sale of Iranian oil flowed through Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to finance terrorism.

Por um lado, Donald Trump rejeita os alertas sobre os riscos da IA e critica os apelos a uma maior regulamentação. Por outro, o vice-presidente JD Vance admite que existem riscos associados à tecnologia, embora questione as propostas das empresas de IA e a forma como estão a pedir novas regras.

The post Alertas sobre IA são uma “conspiração” para Trump. Vice-presidente dos EUA admite riscos, mas desconfia das empresas appeared first on Tek Notícias.

Trump’s EPA strips itself of regulating ability, gutting Clean Air Act in what experts say is a gift to planet polluters

On the heels of the hottest summer ever recorded in the US, the Trump administration has said it will erase any limits on emissions from coal and gas plants that are dangerously heating up our planet.

The US Environmental Protection Agency said it will strip itself of its ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions coming from power plants under the Clean Air Act, removing a key tool to address the climate crisis.

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© Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

President Trump recently blamed Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries for causing a spike in diesel prices, but analysts say the Iran war is probably a bigger factor.

© Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Trump’s toga | Reform UK donations | Ben Delo | Word watch | Andy Burnham | The name game

Octavian (later Emperor Augustus), following his victorious battles of Illyricum and Actium, announced he would give 400 sesterces to adult male citizens. Will we see the US president wearing an emperor’s purple and gold toga soon (Trump promise of $5,000 for US citizens after midterms decried as ‘bribery’, 10 September)?
David Shannon
Ashton under Hill, Worcestershire

• Can we assume that the donations to Reform UK from the billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo (Report, 12 September) will be followed by some sort of cash offer for every adult in the UK should Mr Farage win the next election?
Phil Thomas
Frodsham, Cheshire

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© Photograph: Alamy/Allstar

© Photograph: Alamy/Allstar

© Photograph: Alamy/Allstar

The 64-year-old Michigan power plant was set to retire. Then the Trump administration intervened in a way that overstepped its authority, a court ruled.

© Julián Trejo Bax/Associated Press

ABC's Jimmy Kimmel said he will be interviewing a Democratic candidate for Senate tonight, but the interview will be on YouTube only and not broadcast on TV because of threats made by the Federal Communications Commission.

Kimmel has been a prime target in the Trump FCC's attacks on ABC and its owner, Disney. In his monologue last night, Kimmel said he'll be interviewing Democrat James Talarico, a state representative who is running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for a seat in the US Senate.

In previous years, such an interview would have aired on the broadcast show via local stations throughout the country, Kimmel said. This time, it will only be on the Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube channel in order to prevent further trouble for individual stations that hold FCC licenses, he said.

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© Getty Images | Disney

Five years after virtually every world leader agreed to “phase down” the burning of coal for climate reasons, the fuel is more widely used than ever.

© Ahmad Mulia Panjaitan/Associated Press

Five years after virtually every world leader agreed to “phase down” the burning of coal for climate reasons, the fuel is more widely used than ever.

The United States has now named six Chinese AI firms accused of waging industrial-scale attacks distilling US frontier AI model capabilities and perhaps sparing billions in Chinese development costs.

In a joint release Tuesday, the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleged that DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI have been attacking US models since at least late 2024. The firms “likely” acted with “Chinese government awareness” when extracting capabilities from US models, including variants of Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Grok, agencies said.

“China-based AI companies that conduct industrial-scale distillation against US AI models see significantly shorter AI development timelines and reduced financial expenditures in training a frontier model,” agencies said.

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© Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg

The state is considering extending the life of its last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, and allowing construction of new reactors to help meet its clean energy goals.

The state is considering extending the life of its last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, and allowing construction of new reactors to help meet its clean energy goals.

No company in the United States has ever restarted a reactor that was seemingly closed for good, but there are now three major efforts underway to do so.

© Nick Rohlman/The Gazette, via Associated Press

No company in the United States has ever restarted a reactor that was seemingly closed for good, but there are now three major efforts underway to do so.

White House warns trading partners against ‘imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion’ on US tech sector

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The Trump administration will confront Australia over its plan to force digital platforms to take down harmful content and let users opt out of algorithm-generated “for you” feeds.

Big tech companies would be fined more than $100m for breaching the proposed laws and the Australian government is under pressure to raise those fines even further.

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© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/EPA

© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/EPA

© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/EPA

An anti-immigration-themed adaptation of Tetris was removed from the White House website over the weekend. The move comes days after The Tetris Company disavowed any involvement with the game and said that it "take[s] copyright infringement very seriously."

The White House's "Build the Wall" game asked players to stop a "Zombie Border siege" by stacking Tetris-styled bricks in an attempt to "hold the line." Unlike in Tetris, though, the blocks in "Build the Wall" don't disappear when you complete a line, meaning each brick contributes to an impassable barrier for the pixel-art "zombies" marching in from the "Southern Border." That change makes the gameplay pretty uninteresting for anything but cheap propaganda, and it also means that every game quickly and ironically ends with a "Border Breached" message when the blocks inevitably fill up the well.

Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of Texas migrant rights group Frontera Federation, told AFP last week that the makers of the game "have lost touch with what it means to be human and care for others."

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© WhiteHouse.gov / Internet Archive