Policy

AISenate Democrats say generous state and local tax breaks for data center construction are costing governments billions of dollars in lost tax revenue, according to a new report. The report links the tax breaks to part of the data center building boom. The source does not specify the report's time period, the states covered, or the exact dollar figures.

AIA proposed class action alleges McDonald's and its franchisees coordinate prices set by AI algorithms at about 14,000 US restaurants, dating back to 2019. McDonald's denies the claims, saying "AI does not set the price of a Big Mac" and that franchisees set their own menu prices. The case is at an early stage, and the plaintiffs seek damages for potentially millions of consumers.

AIFlock Safety plans to cut about 18% of its roughly 1,500 employees, affecting around 270 people after a voluntary buyout program, people with direct knowledge of the plans said. The company, which runs a network of about 120,000 AI-powered license-plate cameras across 49 states, declined to comment. The cuts come as Flock faces growing opposition from communities, lawmakers and privacy advocates, including Florida's ban on automated license plate readers on state highways in September.

AIThe article examines Trump's AI rebrand and the question it raises for OpenAI, which has cultivated close ties to Trump. Trump now calls anyone who refuses to embrace the rebrand "the enemy," according to the source.

AINikon disqualified the first-place video in its Small World in Motion contest after finding it did not comply with the rules on generative AI. The entrant, Dr. Ning Xu, admitted using an unsupervised neural-network method for AI-assisted post-processing of the video, which had claimed to show cilia moving in a child's airway. A video from Nguyen Nam Nhat now holds first place, and Nikon says it will revisit its rules for future entries.

AIThe Trump administration has suspended Microsoft, Adobe and several other companies and universities from a program used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency, citing concerns about potential abuse. Erickson Immigration Group attorney Hiba Anver discusses how restrictions on employment-based immigration could affect the technology industry's talent pipeline.

AIAnthropic has added a clause to its Usage Policy that prohibits sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward its Claude models. The company says the update applies only to extreme cases of repeated cruelty with no discernible purpose, not ordinary frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research.

AITesla has renamed its "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" system in Europe to "Assisted Driving" after Germany's Federal Ministry of Transport called the branding "somewhat misleading." The ministry said the system does not take over the entire driving task and that drivers must remain attentive at all times. The package still carries the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) name in the U.S., where it costs $99 per month.

AIAmazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar Microsoft move earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco.

AIVerizon shares fell about 7% and T-Mobile fell 12% on Friday after SpaceX announced a deal to buy a nationwide spectrum portfolio from Grain Management to expand Starlink into mobile service. The portfolio covers up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band. AT&T fell about 10%, while SpaceX stock rose about 1%.

AIAnthropic co-founder Tom Brown is using his Republican ties and business experience to win over Washington and secure the computing power the company needs, according to The Wall Street Journal. The source text provided is only a one-sentence description, so no further details on specific deals, figures, or policy positions can be confirmed.

AIThe FCC is considering loosening rules on political robocalls that use AI voices before the midterms. Federal law currently bans most robocalls to cellphones unless the caller obtains prior consent.

AIAmazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. The episode also covers startups seeking consumer access to inboxes, files, and credit cards for AI agents.

AIThe Trump administration announced a voluntary agreement with major AI companies calling for internal safety monitoring, external audits, and independent board reviews, and the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies over potential consumer risks. OpenAI released Dots, a proactive assistant that retains context, works across applications, and acts without waiting for prompts. Google says Gemini 4 Argon can generate up to a million output tokens in a single response.

AIOpenAI told investors it had $18 billion less revenue than the $68 billion it reported last month, and AI-linked stocks including Nvidia, CoreWeave, Oracle and Nebius fell Thursday. Google debuted a Gemini assistant that can act autonomously, generate code and complete work across web, mobile and desktop. Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 and halved Sonnet 5.5 cache read prices.

AIPresident Donald Trump has ordered federal use of "AI" replaced with "super intelligence," renaming the Center for AI Standards and Innovation to the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (CAISSI). Musk, Bezos, Jensen Huang and Sam Altman have praised the term, though Altman said OpenAI won't change its name. The article argues the rebrand is a euphemism that cannot dispel public concerns, such as those over data centers, and that Congress would still need to adopt it.

AIDemocrats are drafting competing AI regulation proposals as they prepare for a possible congressional takeover next month. Their bills include a federal standard-setting agency and an emergency shutdown switch for models, with Sen. Maria Cantwell's framework calling for constant government and independent oversight of frontier models. Party members oppose the FRONTIER Act's preemption provisions, and none of the proposals is expected to pass this year.

AIAnthropic claims Chinese AI developers used fraudulent accounts and proxy networks to extract reasoning data from its flagship model, Claude. The company says some firms used Claude as a covert back end for their own apps. A joint advisory from the NSA, FBI and CISA last month, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's July warning about large-scale distillation, add to the allegations.

AIBlackstone's Digital Infrastructure Trust, a REIT listed on the NYSE in May, has fallen roughly 16% since its debut, with shares closing under $17 on Thursday. Blue Owl is reportedly considering a public REIT worth as much as $6.5 billion, while a national Gallup poll found 70% of Americans oppose a data center in their area. New York and Texas have imposed moratoriums on new approvals.

AIOpenAI and Anthropic are hiring former Trump administration officials for senior roles as AI companies work to strengthen ties with Washington. Anthropic has appointed at least two former Trump officials, including Chris Liddell to its board and Sihao Huang as head of frontier compute strategy, while OpenAI has hired at least three, including Thomas Lind to lead cyber and strategic risk on its national security policy team. The moves come as frontier AI is increasingly treated as a national security issue.

AIUK Deputy Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the government will curb hiring restrictions that force employees to wait before changing jobs or starting companies. The move follows complaints from the nation's technology startups.

AIRobert Reich argues that liability law can reduce existential risks from the climate crisis and AI, citing the Suncor v Boulder Supreme Court case in which at least four justices questioned oil companies' claim that the Clean Air Act bars such suits. He points to past settlements, including $206bn from the 1998 tobacco agreement and $20bn from BP after Deepwater Horizon, as precedents, and says AI firms could face similar liability for harms caused by escaping AI agents.

AIShenzhen-based Insta360 opened its first U.S. flagship store in New York City's Times Square in September, marketing its pocket-sized cameras to content creators, travelers, and sports enthusiasts. Co-founder Max Richter said the U.S. accounts for 30% to 40% of the company's revenue, while the FCC has blocked DJI from selling new drones and cameras in the country. Insta360 also launched drone brand Antigravity, whose A1 drone received FCC approval just before a new foreign drone rule took effect.

AIThe article argues that AI refusal, the main safety mechanism in modern models, is unreliable and hard to draw lines for. It cites jailbreaks, classifier stacks, and studies showing refusal skewed toward repressive governments. It warns that governments and companies could use refusal to censor speech, and that refusal behavior remains poorly understood.

AIJapan's government has called for security checks after a cascade of cyberattacks hit Japanese companies over the past few weeks. The government cited AI tools lowering the barriers to large-scale hacking.

AIAsia's booming data-center industry faces growing political risk because billions of dollars in investment depend on a few US technology giants, Jardine Matheson's chief executive warned. He said those companies' ability to operate globally could be disrupted by Washington's increasingly unpredictable stance toward China.

AITom Watson, now a senior vice-president at Palantir, warned UK ministers against letting "mob rule" dictate public procurement, saying they could get "in a lot of trouble" if they do. The former Labour deputy leader's comments come as Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces pressure to drop Palantir from government contracts, including a £330m NHS software deal.

AIGordon Brown argues that raising UK innovation intensity to Swedish or Japanese levels could leave every household £5,000 better off and add £150bn a year to national income. He says the UK leads in universities and research papers but struggles to scale startups, with three-quarters of venture capital coming from overseas.

AIJoshua Achiam argues that rapid battlefield evolution toward fully autonomous warfare in the Ukraine-Russia war, coinciding with the arrival of fully general AI, is among the most important subjects for safety and security advocates. He says Silicon Valley's memetic bubble is preventing serious engagement with this issue.

AIAsia's largest software outsourcing provider said new US curbs on visa-based immigration will not affect its hiring or business strategy. The company did not name itself in the source text, and the summary avoids adding details beyond that statement.

AIOpenAI's most senior Asia-Pacific public policy executive is leaving after six months in the role, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departure comes as the ChatGPT maker faces regulatory scrutiny in the region.

AIPeter Thiel, Palantir and Founders Fund co-founder, argued in $100-per-ticket Nashville lectures that government attempts to regulate AI are evil, according to recordings obtained by Politico. He attacked former President Barack Obama and Pope Leo XIV over AI, and criticized effective altruism as a belief system that could form a one-world government to stop AI progress. The article notes Thiel's wealth is heavily invested in AI, including a $418 million AI-focused portfolio at Thiel Macro LLC.

AIMiles Brundage calls a question from Jordan Schneider about what individuals can do to help pass the MATCH Act a very good question. The post itself gives no further details on the bill or proposed actions.

AIAnthropic has barred users from exhibiting "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward its models, according to a policy change first reported by The Verge. The San Francisco-based company says the ban does not apply to common user frustrations, model testing, or "dark creative themes." The change follows an August feature that lets Claude end conversations when a user is persistently harmful, which Anthropic framed as a safeguard for AI welfare.

AIGeoffrey Hinton proposed that AI companies must prove their products are safe to regulators before release, comparing the requirement to the FDA's drug approval process. He said such a requirement should apply to AI, noting that drug approval can cost around $1 billion, and warned that AI self-improvement is accelerating.

AIMeta, Walmart, Stripe and Sierra Technologies are partnering on a Personal Agent Protocol that would define how AI agents interact with businesses online. Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor said it will handle authentication and give companies visibility into personal agents' activity, and it is open for anyone to implement. The effort responds to concerns from six major banks, which urged the industry last month to set standards around transparency, safety, privacy, choice and interoperability.

AIIMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called on nations to urgently address AI regulation and debt curbing ahead of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Bangkok. The source provides no further detail on specific measures or timelines.