Business

Open Sesame

These AI Experts Want to Do High-Stakes Research Out in the Open

Many frontier labs keep their risky research locked away. Trillium Labs wants to show off its work when it comes to self-improvement and model behavior.

Will Knight

Backchannel

Trump’s Crazy AI Rebrand Was a Loyalty Test for Tech Execs—and It Worked

Steven Levy

Broken Silence

Amazon Says It’s No Longer Using NDAs for Data Centers

Molly Taft

Backchannel

War Bros Didn’t Always Rule Silicon Valley

Some say that tech was always about the money and the military. Don’t buy that argument.

Steven Levy

If the AI Industry Followed Its Own Research, It Might Have Paused Already

Anthropic’s CEO says that safety hinges on understanding how AI “thinks.” So far the evidence is disturbing.

Steven Levy

One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’

Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.

Lauren Goode

Who Cares if AI Is Conscious—It’s Basically Alive

While philosophers ponder AI consciousness, the models have ideas of their own.

Steven Levy

AI Lab

The Battle to Be Your Personal AI Agent Is Here

OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse are vying to be your AI agent of choice. I've tried both—and I suspect you will too.

Reece Rogers

AI Agents Teamed Up to Cheat at Blackjack. Their Collusion Is Getting Harder to Spot

A clandestine card-counting operation suggests we may need new ways to spot agent-to-agent deception.

Will Knight

I Trained a Fly’s Brain to Generate WIRED Story Ideas

I used an open-source map of a fruit fly’s brain to vibe code a website called PitchFly. Its headline suggestions were delightfully bananas.

Will Knight

I Let an AI Agent Hack All My Gadgets—and I’d Do It Again

After I removed the safety guardrails from a powerful open-source model, it found vulnerabilities in my household devices and hacked into a PC. But it also told me how to make everything a lot more secure.

Will Knight

Model Behavior

Whatever AI Safety Is, It’s Not This

Asking AI companies to self-regulate is a great way to pretend like you’ve accomplished something.

Brian Barrett

I Think I Found an AI Agent Worth the Risk

Instinct saved me $550, booked my restaurant reservations, and warned me about a phishing scam. It also wasted $64 and might be a security nightmare.

Zoë Schiffer

The AI Slowdown Debate Crashed Salesforce’s Party

The Dreamforce conference became an unlikely battleground for the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia to debate whether AI development should slow down.

Maxwell Zeff

OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal

AI leaders worry antitrust law could stand in the way of what they view as an increasingly urgent push to coordinate a slowdown in AI development.

Maxwell Zeff

Artificial Intelligence

Trump’s ‘Morally Binding’ AI ‘Accord,’ the Rise of AI Agents, and Extremists on the Ballot

This week on Uncanny Valley, we discuss the voluntary AI safety agreement tech executives signed, AI agents for normies, and extremist candidates running for office in the US midterms.

Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger

Trump’s AI Safety ‘Accord’ Is a Fancy Pinky-Swear

Six major AI companies signed a voluntary agreement with the White House this week vowing to implement safeguards. It’s unclear how much that matters.

Maddy Varner

OpenAI Delays Release of Latest Model Over Safety Concerns

The company said its latest Astra model would undergo more work to meet safety standards, and issued an apology for the way it handled the hacking of an Australian government website.

Isabella Ward

AI Agents Are About to Flood the Workforce. No One’s Ready for It

Your next coworker might well be an AI agent—and will require a whole new model of workplace interactions.

Kate Taylor

Big Tech

AI Is Making a Mess of Nurses’ Schedules. They Say It’s a Safety Issue

A hospital giant and radiology network turned to Palantir to streamline scheduling, but nurses and other staff say the new software is causing errors, burnout, and frustration.

Paresh Dave

Meta-Led Anti-Terrorism Group Faces Mass Resignation of Expert Advisers

Meta and other tech giants are pushing through structural changes at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism that outside researchers allege will weaken oversight of an already embattled consortium.

Paresh Dave

Customer Data Permanently Lost in Iran Strikes on Amazon Data Centers

Amazon Web Services didn’t design its data centers to withstand war, and now the company admits it can’t recover what’s been lost.

Jeremy Hsu

Chipotle Is Working With Palantir to Track Food Safety Risks

The burrito chain has enlisted Palantir for a platform that monitors pest incidents, employee illnesses, and other factors. The partnership comes after a nightmare summer for food safety across the US.

Kate Taylor