Techmeme
May 26, 2026, 4:10 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Pope Leo XIV presents Magnifica humanitas, his encyclical on AI, calling for AI regulation, protection for children against hypersexualized AI images, and more  —  The document marks a powerful foray by the leader of the Roman Catholic church into the debate about the misuse or overuse of artificial intelligence.
More: Vatican, Ars Technica, New York Times, Simon Willison's Weblog, Washington Post, RNS, Vatican News, Agence France-Presse, The Overspill, The Atlantic, Implicator.ai, The Asia Business Daily, PCMag, Gizmodo, The Information, Daily Caller News Foundation, Time, Semafor, Deseret News, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, The Wrap, The Guardian, Axios, Human Events, NBC News, Al Jazeera, ZeroHedge News, Australian Financial Review, Mashable, The Daily Signal, Deadline, CBS News, Letters from Leo, Forbes, Reuters, Decrypt, Proactive, Seoul Economic Daily, Digital Trends, The Hill, Moneycontrol, Breitbart, CNBC, Ben Werdmuller, Telegraph, Business Today, Engadget, The Indian Express, WKYC-TV, The Pillar, Reuters, Variety, KTVZ-TV, Politico, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Mother Jones, Diane Montagna's Substack, and Straight Arrow
Océane Herrero / Politico:
Sources: Meta, Google, and Amazon executives met Vatican officials on April 29, as part of a quiet lobbying push ahead of Pope Leo XIV's first AI encyclical  —  As Leo XIV prepares his first encyclical, technology firms and Western diplomats have worked to make their case inside the Vatican.
Washington Post:
A section of the Pope's encyclical describing AI's unpredictability suggests influence from Anthropic, whose co-founder Christopher Olah attended the unveiling  —  In “Magnifica humanitas,” he fires a broadside against AI companies, warning of the technology's dangers in the same way Pope Francis did about climate change.
Joshua McElwee / Reuters:
Reuters:
Iranian state media: President Masoud Pezeshkian issues an order to reopen international internet access, after a blackout lasting 87 days, per Netblocks  —  Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has issued an order to reopen international internet access, Iranian state media reported on Monday …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The US FTC settles with Cox, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works for $930K over claims they falsely said they could use phone mics to spy on users for ad targeting  —  More specifically, it was fined for allegedly lying by claiming that it could. … An exceptionally weird controversy has come …
Lakshmi Varanasi / Business Insider:
X says it is cracking down on large accounts that have been gaming its revenue-sharing program by “programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts”  —  X is introducing new strategies to rein in its copycat economy.  —  Elon Musk's social media platform is now cracking …
Bryan Hecht / The Boston Globe:
Massachusetts formally recognizes the App Drivers Union, which says it represents ~70,000 workers and is the first state-certified rideshare union in the US  —  Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts have officially unionized, a first-in-the-nation move that now sets up what could be the final stage in a years-long organizing effort.
Reuters:
Tether plans to launch GELT, an “official” stablecoin representing the Georgian lari, with the support of Georgia's government in an unusual partnership  —  Tether, the world's biggest stablecoin issuer, plans to launch a crypto token representing the Georgian lari with the support …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Zoho Backstage x Zoho MCP: Your events, now connected to AI  —  Event management involves a constant stream of decisions and actions.  Registration numbers change, attendee lists grow, ticket classes evolve, and new requests come in throughout the day.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
How to close $100K+ enterprise deals, step by step | Jen Abel
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Insane Hidden AI Spending, Ranking Anthropic vs. OpenAI, AI For Travel Debate
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI's Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the "Artificial State" + Train of Thought
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:10 AM ET, May 26, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

Earlier Picks

@bookwormengr:
Nikkei Asia: