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Techmeme
September 19, 2026, 11:15 PM
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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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Financial Times:
Leaked presentation: OpenAI expects negative free cash flow of $278B from 2026 to 2030 and projects its revenue will grow from $36B this year to $350B in 2030  —  AI start-up has projected deeply negative cash flows as it invests in infrastructure and faces price pressures
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
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
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  —  AI agent monitoring platform Raindrop raised a $35 million Series A round led by CRV, co-founders Zubin Koticha and Ben Hylak tell Axios Pro exclusively.
Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:
Nex, which makes Nex Playground, raised a $150M Series E; Nex has sold 1M units of the motion-based gaming system targeted toward kids since its launch in 2023  —  Subscriber base grows sevenfold in 18 months to nearly one million; former Niantic CFO Jeff Shouger and veteran gaming and technology executive Bing Gordon join team
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  —  Anthropic is considering rolling out a new AI model to counter OpenAI's momentum since its launch of GPT-6 Astra …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:15 PM ET, September 19, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

CNBC:
President Trump says he is banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House over their coverage of him, with “other Fake News Media Outlets to follow”

Jody Godoy / Reuters:
Sources: Paramount and the states seeking to block the WBD sale could settle as soon as this weekend, with independent content monitoring of CNN among the terms

Gregory Svirnovskiy / Politico:
In an editorial on NYT's 175th anniversary, Publisher A.G. Sulzberger blasted Trump: “No president in modern history has been more hostile than Donald Trump”

More News

Earlier Picks

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
Bloomberg:
US officials say overreliance on Palantir's Maven AI system was among the factors that contributed to a February missile strike in Iran that killed 123 children
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
The US Treasury sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, saying it sent hundreds of millions to the IRGC and helped Iran operate a Strait of Hormuz toll booth
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