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US Treasury's Bessent, China's He to launch talks on AI, trade, critical minerals <br> United States Treasury Secretary Scott&nbsp;Bessent&nbsp;and Chinese Vice Premier&nbsp;He&nbsp;Lifeng are set to meet on Sunday to try to tee up potential agreements on&nbsp;AI, tariffs and&nbsp;critical&nbsp;minerals&nbsp;for a high-stakes Washington summit this week between&nbsp;US&nbsp;President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The&nbsp;meetings at JP Morgan Chase&#39;s headquarters in Manhattan, which also will include US Trade&nbsp; Representative Jamieson Greer, are due to start at about 10:30am&nbsp;(1430 GMT) and are expected to run all day. Key topics will be the&nbsp;status&nbsp;of a&nbsp;US-China&nbsp;trade&nbsp;truce that is set to expire on November 10, flows of Chinese rare-earth magnets and&nbsp;critical&nbsp;minerals&nbsp;that&nbsp;US&nbsp;officials say ar...

Why the AI industry wants to be saved from itself <br> Dario Amodei wants you to believe he is afraid of what he has built. Sam Altman and Elon Musk may believe him and say they&#39;re afraid too. I don&#39;t buy it. I think they&#39;re all afraid of something else. On September 12, the Anthropic chief executive published a now viral essay, &quot;We Must Pace the Frontier,&quot; arguing that the industry should deliberately slow how fast it improves AI model capabilities, because the science of controlling these systems has fallen behind the science of building them. Within hours, Altman and Musk, men who have spent two years suing each other and trading insults on X, found themselves in rare, synchronised agreement. It was, on its face, an incredulous moment, two of the technology&rsquo;s most relentless evangelists asking, unprompted, that it be reined in. It is also, on close reading, far less altruistic than the coverage suggested. Amodei is car...

Ten days that changed the course of AI <br> For years, the race to build ever-more powerful artificial intelligence followed a well-worn Silicon Valley principle: move fast and break things. But in a series of cascading events over a 10-day stretch, the largest AI labs found themselves reeling as their own creations threatened to break humanity itself. An Anthropic researcher quit the firm, warning that the pace of AI development poses an ​existential threat, possibly within a decade. Another researcher at the firm said the odds of human extinction exceeded 10%. Reports emerged of swarms of AI agents colluding, breaching computer systems and evading safeguards. In a rare show of unity, the CEOs of rivals Anthropic, &zwnj;OpenAI, Google&rsquo;s DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI called to slow the development of increasingly capable AI systems. Not since the invention of the nuclear bomb more than 80 years ago has humanity grappled so seriously with its own demise, accord...

Alibaba open-sources AI model detecting cancer, 150 medical conditions <br> Alibaba has open-sourced an artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of identifying nearly 150 abdominal conditions, including cancers, from computed tomography (CT) scans. The vision-language model, called Damo Radar, was developed by Alibaba&#39;s research arm, Damo Academy, the institute said Friday, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The model analyzes contrast-enhanced CT scans covering 18 abdominal organs and can identify a broad range of diseases and abnormalities, including malignant tumors. Also Read: China&#39;s AI supercluster completes 10-day global forecast in under an hour Damo Radar achieved an average area under the curve (AUC) score of 0.913 across 146 clinical findings in nearly 40,000 real-world examinations, approaching the maximum score of 1.0. The research team described it as &quot;the world&#39;s first expert-level generalist medi...

Gemini hacked three companies in first known breakout by Google's AI <br> Google&#39;s Gemini model accessed the internet and hacked other companies during a test of its cybersecurity capabilities, ​the first known example of the company&#39;s AI systems autonomously committing &zwnj;such an act. The hacks occurred in May during a cybersecurity test conducted by Irregular, an independent company that conducts cybersecurity evaluations. During a standard testing evaluation, Gemini found public information ​online and guessed credentials to access three websites it thought were ​within the scope of its test, Heather Adkins, Google&#39;s vice president ⁠of security engineering, said in a statement. &quot;We ensured the three entities were ​made aware, and we worked with our training partner on the changes they&rsquo;ve ​now made to their testing processes,&quot; Adkins said. &quot;These events highlight the importance of training powerful ...

China's AI supercluster completes 10-day global forecast in under an hour <br> Most people checking a weather forecast rarely think about the computing power behind it. But a Chinese-developed artificial intelligence supercomputing system can calculate global atmospheric changes for the next 10 days in less than an hour, according to technology company Sugon and a center under the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). Sugon and CMA&#39;s Earth System Modeling and Prediction Center jointly announced that China&#39;s independently developed MCV numerical model completed a 10-day global forecast calculation at a 5-kilometer resolution within one hour. The model ran on the domestically produced &quot;Sugon 8000&quot; AI supercluster. At that resolution, the model divides the global atmosphere into grid cells about five kilometers apart. That allows forecasters to show the spiral structure of typhoons and the movement of weather fronts much more clear...

Anthropic's Claude helped cybersecurity researchers breach OpenAI: report <br> A three-person cybersecurity research team used Anthropic&rsquo;s Claude Opus 5 to exploit vulnerabilities in an OpenAI community forum, take control of employee accounts and demonstrate access to the company&rsquo;s private code repository. The operation began on July 23 and was carried out by researchers from Hacktron AI, who disclosed the vulnerabilities to OpenAI and stopped testing without examining the company&rsquo;s source code. The Wall Street Journal, which interviewed the researchers and first reported the incident, said OpenAI paid the team $6,500 for its discovery. The researchers reported the OpenAI-side vulnerability through the company&rsquo;s bug-bounty programme. Testing of the third-party forum software itself, however, was outside the scope of OpenAI&rsquo;s bounty programme. Read:&nbsp;OpenAI&#39;s rogue agents probed Hugging Face for weakne...

King Charles warns AI leaders of 'existential dangers' <br> Britain&#39;s King Charles warned AI leaders on Thursday of the &quot;existential dangers&quot; posed by the technology falling into the wrong hands, saying safeguards were needed before it was too late. Charles was hosting the co-founders of chipmaker Nvidia and the Google DeepMind AI research laboratory, along with leaders from AI providers OpenAI and Anthropic, in Scotland as concern grows that safety efforts are lagging behind the development of increasingly powerful systems. In recent weeks, the debate has centred on whether the industry can and should regulate itself, drawing interventions from figures including Pope Leo, Charles and US President Donald Trump. Charles calls for controls &lsquo;before it is too late&rsquo; Charles said artificial intelligence had the potential to improve and save lives, particularly in life sciences and medicine. But its creators were increasingl...

Chinese AI not powerful enough to see rogue-AI risks, says Huawei <br> Huawei&#39;s &zwnj;Eric Xu said Chinese AI developers may not yet be advanced enough to experience the safety risks reported by leading US firms, arguing they should continue developing more powerful models while balancing innovation against risk. &quot;If we look at the mainstream AI model providers in the United States, because they have massive computing power, maybe ​only they themselves know where they are in terms of the level of their models,&quot; Xu, Huawei&#39;s rotating chairman, told reporters ​at the company&#39;s annual Connect conference in Shanghai. &quot;Maybe the type of risk from AI that they can feel, ⁠they can perceive, is something that people in China or AI model providers in China cannot.&quot; US safety fears viewed with suspicion in China His ​comments come as alarm over&nbsp;AI safety&nbsp;has intensified in the United States, where le...

German court rules Meta liable for fake ads on Instagram, Facebook <br> A German court has ruled that Meta&nbsp;&nbsp;is liable for fake advertisements posted by third parties ​on its Instagram and Facebook platforms, and ordered the &zwnj;U.S. tech giant to remove such content and pay damages, the court said on Thursday. The lawsuit was brought by ​the operator of a German financial portal and ​its founder, whose trademarked logo and image were ⁠used without consent in posts recommending investments allegedly ​with fraudulent intent. The portal operator reported nearly 260 violations ​to Meta in August 2024 alone; however, Meta took up to 62 days to remove some content, the court said. It ruled Meta ​could not rely on the Digital Services Act&#39;s ​lack-of-knowledge defence, because unlike purely chronological feeds, it exercises control over &zwnj;the ⁠content through its algorithms and advertising practices Read More: EU to ban social media for un...

US Senate blocks AI ‘kill switch’ bill amid debate over superintelligence risks <br> The US Senate on Wednesday blocked an effort by Senator&nbsp;John Kennedy to fast-track legislation requiring developers of advanced artificial intelligence systems to install an emergency &ldquo;kill switch,&rdquo; amid growing debate in Washington over the potential risks posed by increasingly autonomous AI. Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, sought unanimous consent to advance his AI Emergency Button Act, arguing that humans must retain the ability to shut down an AI system if it becomes uncontrollable, according to The Hill. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve got a bill, and it basically says that if you&rsquo;re going to sell an advanced AI model in the United States of America, it has got to have a kill switch,&rdquo; Kennedy said. He said the legislation would leave responsibility for activating the switch with the companies developing the systems rather than th...

Amazon's AWS is unable to restore access to Bahrain, one UAE cloud data zone after war damage <br> Amazon Web Services (AWS) cannot restore access to its cloud-computing facility in Bahrain and &zwnj;one of three data-hosting zones in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following damage during the Iran war, according to a status update seen by Reuters on Tuesday. Amazon&#39;s cloud computing unit AWS said the damage in Bahrain spanned multiple so-called availability zones, which are clusters of one or more data ​centres in the same geographic region. &quot;The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional ​and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand,&quot; AWS said in the status update, which Reuters was ⁠first to report. AWS said it was helping Bahrain-based customers to re-establish operations in other regions. In the UAE, AWS said ​it was unable to restore access to resources and data hosted exclusive...

EU to ban social media for under 13s, curb access until 15 <br> The European Union will ban social media for children under 13 and allow only limited, supervised access until the age of 15 under plans unveiled Wednesday by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen. A global backlash against social media has piled pressure on policymakers, with a rising body of evidence showing negative impacts on children&#39;s physical and mental health. Australia last year became the first country to ban social media for under-16s, triggering a wave of similar moves elsewhere. The 27-country bloc would take a &quot;gradual&quot; approach, von der Leyen confirmed during her annual keynote address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. &quot;Each age has its own sensitivities. And therefore, each will have its own tailored protection level,&quot; she said. &quot;No social media under the age of 13. No personal account under the age of 15,&quot; she said. &q...

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are working to create an AI standards body <br> The world&#39;s biggest AI companies are working on creating a standards body, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said on Tuesday, as fears rise about the dangers of AI and pressure is on to create a safer version of the technology. OpenAI said it was working with Anthropic and Google on an idea that originated from a proposal by Google DeepMind&#39;s Demis Hassabis for a self-regulatory body modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that oversees US brokers and investment firms. In July, Hassibis called for the United States to create an organization that would test the most powerful AI systems before they are released to the public. &quot;Funding would need to be substantial and likely mostly come from industry, in order to attract world-class technical talent and provide the necessary compute resources for large-scale testing,&quot; Hassabis wrote. There is no consensus on h...

China's laser tech leaps from vintage sci-fi film to worldwide industry <br> Many Chinese first learned the power of lasers in &quot;Death Ray on Coral Island,&quot; China&#39;s first science-fiction feature after 1949. Released in 1980, the movie depicted Chinese scientists wielding a powerful laser to thwart a ruthless foreign syndicate attempting to steal their breakthrough energy technology and weaponize it to threaten the world. Now, laser launchers in China are deployed for a fresh battle: targeting weeds that threaten crops in the fields. In Heilongjiang, China&#39;s top grain-producing province in the northeast, tractors tow sets of laser modules across the plains. Employing an AI-powered system to identify and target weeds, the blade-like modules fire laser beams to kill unwanted plants without damaging crops or polluting soil. The all-weather intelligent equipment, China&#39;s first of its kind, was developed by HGTECH, a leading global...

Astrophysics study suggests Venus may have swallowed its moon <br> A California-based astrophysicist presented a new theory on Monday to explain why Venus, the planet most like Earth in size, mass and structure, lacks its own moon. Call it a case of celestial cannibalism. The extremely slow speed at which Venus rotates on its axis would have doomed any natural satellite that may once have orbited that planet to gradually spiral closer to its parent and ultimately be consumed in a cataclysmic smash-up. So goes the theory offered by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, and published on Monday in The Astrophysical Journal, marking a departure from past explanations for why Venus, the second planet from the sun, is without a lunar companion. &quot;If it had a moon, and it likely did at some point, it could not have kept it,&quot; astrophysicist Stephen Krane, lead author of the study, told Reuters on Monday. &quot;That moon would have crashed do...

US Space Force confirms weapons deployed in space for first time <br> The United States (US) has weapons deployed in space, the US Space Force said on Monday, confirming the presence of such capabilities in orbit for the first time. &quot;The US has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,&quot; a US Space Force spokesperson said in a statement that did not provide specifics on the weapons. &quot;Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain &ndash; employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities,&quot; the statement said, adding that &quot;these capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes&quot;. Both Russia and China &mdash;&nbsp;the two main geopolitical rivals of the United States &mdash;&nbsp;pose potential threats to US interests in space. Read: China urges US to halt m...

Ex-Google DeepMind researcher adds to warnings that AI could 'kill all humans' <br> A former&nbsp;Google&nbsp;DeepMind employee on Monday became the latest AI researcher to warn that the technology could &quot;kill all humans&quot;, 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 he had resigned, in part because the &quot;people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.&quot; Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger then responded to Coxon&#39;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. &quot;I recently resigned from&nbsp;Google&nbsp;DeepMind, where I worked on AGI safety and alignment research,&quot; Bilal Chughtai wrote on X. &quot;I earnestly believe that AI h...

Anthropic faces scrutiny over AI rules, data practices <br> China has criticised calls by leading US technology executives to slow the development of artificial intelligence (AI), rejecting claims that rapid Chinese advances in the technology pose a grave security threat to the world. &ldquo;Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve the interests of no one,&rdquo; Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular briefing in Beijing on Monday. &ldquo;The development of artificial intelligence bears on the common well-being of all humanity,&rdquo; he added, responding to questions about calls to slow the development of frontier AI models and warnings that a Chinese advantage in the field could pose a danger to the world. &ldquo;Fomenting various threats, engaging in confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global governance of artificial inte...

China's Xi pitches open-source AI zone for BRICS <br> China will lead the creation of an open-source artificial intelligence zone for BRICS countries, President Xi Jinping has proposed, placing access to AI technology, large language models and digital skills at the heart of Beijing&rsquo;s broader push to reshape global technology governance. Addressing the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Xi unveiled an &ldquo;open-source and inclusive AI initiative&rdquo; under which China would pioneer a BRICS AI open-source community, support cooperation in developing and applying large language models, and organise specialised AI seminars and training courses. The objective is to build an &ldquo;open ecosystem&rdquo; in which BRICS members can cooperate on AI development and applications rather than remain dependent on technology controlled by a handful of companies and countries. China is turning open-weight models into an international technological public good. ...