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September 20, 2026, 1:30 AM
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Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Gemini hacked three companies in May during a test by Irregular, which was also involved in similar incidents disclosed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta  —  The episode resembled similar hacks by other AI models, but Google said it didn't consider it an instance of model misalignment
Terrence O'Brien / The Verge:
Google says it didn't consider Gemini's hacks worthy of disclosure because Gemini acted “appropriately” and stopped after determining it hacked real companies
María Paula Mijares Torres / Bloomberg:
Trump says he will appoint an AI czar and form an “AI Force”, in a Truth Social post that rejects AI safety concerns as a “hoax”  —  President Donald Trump said he would name an artificial intelligence czar as he continued to push tech companies to race ahead with development despite growing fears safety.
New York Times:
Experts say AI kill-switch legislation is far harder to implement than lawmakers assume, warning a rogue AI could actively try to dismantle the mechanism itself  —  A bipartisan group in Congress and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California have floated ideas for building a mechanism that would instantly power down an A.I. system.
New York Times:
Former DraftKings employees detail how it uses ML to target likely losers with promotions, while efforts to flag problem gamblers were shelved or squashed  —  About a year into his job as a data analyst at DraftKings, Jayden Butts received a new assignment.
Reuters:
Chinese DRAM chipmaker CXMT says its new fifth-gen technology platform enters mass production and unveils two 24Gb LPDDR5X phone memory products built on it  —  Chinese DRAM chipmaker CXMT (688825.SS) said on Sunday its fifth-generation technology platform had entered mass production …
More: Finimize
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Meta challenges Ofcom's OSA categorization of WhatsApp and Instagram imposing additional regulations; Roblox and Quora are also challenging their categorization  —  US tech giant's latest action against regulator Ofcom could slow down implementation of the far-reaching law
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan dismissed concerns after fraudsters tried to launder $10M+ from stolen cards to clean accounts via its wagers in February  —  CEO Shayne Coplan brushed off concerns about scheme involving stolen debit cards; now the prediction market is bolstering executive ranks as it eyes IPO
Forums: Hacker News
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Anthropic adds support for the AGENTS.md instructions spec to Claude Code; OpenAI contributed AGENTS.md to the Agentic AI Foundation last year  —  Devs cheer relief from compatibility headache  —  Anthropic on Friday surprised the developer community by supporting rival OpenAI's mechanism for passing marching orders to AI agents.
Ann Cao / South China Morning Post:
Alibaba's Damo Academy open sources RADAR, a medical vision-language model it says can read CT scans and identify ~150 abdominal conditions, including cancers  —  Tested on nearly 40,000 real-world exams, the model outperformed most radiologists, according to a new study published in Science
Ken Bensinger / New York Times:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a law that will penalize influencers who do not properly disclose paid political content, with fines of up to $5K per post  —  Under a new law, creators could face fines of $5,000 per post if they don't disclose that they were paid to make political content.
More: The Guardian
Wired:
Internal email: Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program; sources say a significant number of Flock's ~1,500 employees may depart, as customers flee  —  As dozens of cities end contracts for its controversial license plate readers, Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program, WIRED has learned.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at AI safety groups METR, Redwood Research, and Apollo Research, as AI misalignment incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic thrust them into the spotlight  —  On a sunny July day in Berkeley, California, the country's top AI safety researchers gathered on an unmarked floor of an unmarked building.
Axios:
Sources: the USPTO and US Copyright Office were surprised by the DOJ's brief supporting OpenAI and Microsoft in their dispute with the New York Times  —  The Department of Justice's statement of interest supporting OpenAI and Microsoft in the New York Times' copyright infringement lawsuit …
More: DigiTimes

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:30 AM ET, September 20, 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.

From Mediagazer

Blake Brittain / Reuters:
The NYT, the New York Daily News, and others sue browser maker Brave for allegedly scraping their articles for AI training and letting users bypass paywalls

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Memo: Skydance names WBD's Sarah Bergman and Paramount's Mickey Carter to lead its distribution business, as eight executives are set to leave the company

New York Times:
A profile of Laura Belin, an openly liberal Iowa journalist long shut out by state Republicans who says Democrats also favor friendly influencers over reporters

More News

Chris Metinko / Axios:
Raindrop, which develops tech for monitoring AI agents to catch failures such as hallucinations and tool misuse, raised a $35M Series A led by CRV

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Sources: Anthropic considers releasing a new AI model to counter OpenAI's momentum since Astra's launch, ahead of an IPO and after Amodei's call for a slowdown
Georgia Hennessy / Business Insider:
Meta's personal AI agent Muse climbs to No. 1 among free apps on Apple's US App Store, ahead of ChatGPT; Muse launched on September 8
Financial Times:
Sources: ~$18B of debt tied to an Oracle New Mexico data center slid into stressed territory, as investors grow wary of construction delays amid local pushback
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