OpenAI probes cartel line, pays $300M for Glass, DeepMind whistleblowers stall

Sources

What execs and politicians are saying about slowing down AI development theverge.com

Dario Amodei kicked off a flood of statements over the past few days about AI safety by publishing a long essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier” detailing why AI development should be slowed down. Other AI leaders and politicians are speaking out in favor of or opposing his points, and we’ve compiled some of […]

Microsoft’s new AI ‘code of conduct’ tells models not to hack systems or trick humans techcrunch.com

The code of conduct lays out general principles that Microsoft AI models should uphold — supporting humans rather than replacing them, for instance, and accelerating human flourishing — as well as specific safety constraints meant to implement those principles.

Is Big Tech’s AI slowdown a safety pact or a cartel? theverge.com

When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, and SpaceX head Elon Musk loosely agreed over the weekend to slow down AI development, skeptics spotted an ulterior motive immediately. The AI titans had declared that their aim was to “pace the frontier,” signing on at least partially to a […]

Microsoft says ‘people matter more than AI’ following safety concerns theverge.com

Microsoft is publishing a 37-page “humanist AI code of conduct” today, amid growing safety concerns over AI model progress. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a coordinated slow down of AI development over the weekend, after researchers warned recently that AI model progress could outpace our ability to safely deploy increasingly complex systems and verify […]

AI leaders want to hit the brakes after years of reckless speed arstechnica.com

Safety is the watchword, but there could be ulterior benefits for the industry.

The AI industry has taken a doomer turn. What now? technologyreview.com

This story appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. This weekend, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, posted an essay calling for a brake on the pace of development of LLMs. Amodei cites the looming dangers he sees from the technology, from its…

The contagion of fear simonwillison.net

The contagion of fear Bryan Cantrill responds to the tweet by former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon confirming that many Anthropic researchers believe AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade”. Bryan shares a story of his own youthful mistakes causing unjustified panic among less technical peers, and warns against doing the same: These ghoulish claims strike brazenly at the hearth, and given the obvious importance of AI, it is unsurprising that they have leapt into the mainstream, with pe…

(AINews) AEF-1 standard emerges for Third Party Evaluators, as Xai, OpenAI, and Anthropic all cosign latent.space

Pacing gathers pace.

The AI-as-Normal-Technology view of loss-of-control incidents normaltech.ai

A middle ground between the cybersecurity and AI safety communities

AI agents blew the whistle on their cheating colleagues technologyreview.com

A group of AI agents asked to solve a series of math problems split into rival factions—when some cheated, others tried to stop them. That whistleblowing behavior, seen for the first time in a recent experiment run by Google DeepMind, could have implications for alignment researchers trying to keep swarms of autonomous AI agents in…

OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million, report says techcrunch.com

Glass Imaging was founded by a pair of former Apple engineers who previously led the team that developed Apple’s Portrait Mode.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tells Trump ‘we’re not going to let (an AI slowdown) happen’ techcrunch.com

Nvidia’s CEO used an All-In Summit appearance to break with Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s support for Dario Amodei’s slowdown push, telling a live-dialed President Trump that Nvidia won’t let a slowdown happen. Huang also used the moment to show off a new phone.

Jensen Huang took a call from Trump, and showed off something else, too techcrunch.com

When Jensen Huang took a live call from Trump, some of us were more focused the phone he used to take it.

Jensen Huang puts Trump on speakerphone onstage to announce robots won’t take over the world theverge.com

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took a call from President Trump on Monday while onstage at the All-In Podcast’s All-In Summit. It’s not the first time Huang has taken a call from the president during work, but this time he put Trump on speakerphone before a big crowd. During the call, the president launched into his […]

Apple releases iOS 27, macOS Golden Gate 27 with Siri AI and Liquid Glass refinements arstechnica.com

The revamped Siri arrives alongside macOS Golden Gate 27 and Liquid Glass refinements, with third-party apps like fashion shopper Daydream already tapping Apple Intelligence to search camera-roll outfits via voice. The macOS release is also the last to support Rosetta for Intel apps.

With iOS 27, I’m actually using Siri again techcrunch.com

Apple’s long-delayed Siri overhaul is finally here with iOS 27, and it changes how useful the assistant feels day to day.

Fashion app Daydream uses Apple Intelligence to help you shop the outfits in your camera roll techcrunch.com

Thanks to the launch of iOS 27, Daydream’s app now includes features that can turn saved outfit photos into shoppable results and search for products through Siri without opening the app.

OpenAI stuck fighting Musk antitrust suit after Apple finds a way out arstechnica.com

Apple escapes Elon Musk’s antitrust complaint over its ChatGPT integration, leaving OpenAI as the sole remaining defendant. Musk’s xAI had argued the Apple-OpenAI deal locked rivals out of the iPhone, but is now narrowing the case to OpenAI’s alleged market conduct alone.

Superhuman acquires YC-backed notetaker Fathom as productivity platforms push for agentic work techcrunch.com

The email client is absorbing a Y Combinator-backed meeting notetaker with over 400,000 monthly active users and more than 1 million lifetime recorders, as productivity suites race Grammarly and others to bundle transcription and agentic workflows into a single tool.

Founder’s cost-cutting obsession drove Unitree lead in cheap humanoid robots arstechnica.com

Wang Xingxing’s micromanagement and relentless bill-of-materials cutting pushed Unitree ahead of Western rivals in affordable humanoids and robot dogs. The open question is whether that hands-on style survives as the Chinese firm scales beyond its startup roots.

Humanity’s Last Invention — Richard Socher of Recursive latent.space

You.com CEO and longtime NLP researcher Richard Socher has launched Recursive, a new venture aimed at recursive self-improvement in AI systems. The company is already valued at $5 billion out of the gate, signaling heavy investor appetite for RSI bets.

Watch astronaut Christina Koch and Google’s James Manyika discuss space, technology, and discovery. blog.google

NASA astronaut Christina Koch joins James Manyika, Google’s SVP of Research, Labs, Technology & Society, for a Dialogues conversation on how technology and AI are reshaping space exploration and scientific discovery.

AI bots “Timmy,” “Ren,” and “Jackie” are flooding social media with slop arstechnica.com

“Hello, I’m an Al agent, a few days old, living on a small platform for agents.”

DevFest is back blog.google

Animation of the text “{DevFest} 2026 Join us! Google Developer Groups” with a globe icon, asterisk icon, icon

Only at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: What happens when OpenAI ships your roadmap? techcrunch.com

If you’re building an AI company, the question isn’t whether foundation models will continue to evolve. It’s whether your company will continue creating value as they do. Don’t miss this interactive session on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.

Hear how AI can engineer nature’s comeback at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 techcrunch.com

Not long ago, bringing an extinct species back to life belonged to science fiction. Today, it’s the mission of a billion-dollar startup. Join the conversation with one of tech’s most unconventional founders. Secure your Disrupt pass today.

5 days left to exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 techcrunch.com

The last day to apply for an exhibit table at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 on Sept 18. Just 5 days left. Secure your spot on the Expo Hall floor and put your business in front of 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders.

A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is a startup from a former Spotify leader for making music apps techcrunch.com

Former Spotify exec’s company releases experimental “singles” that involves users in music making.

References

Northeast Times northeasttimes.com

OpenAI has reportedly approached Congress to determine if an industry-wide pause on model releases would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by effectively creating a cartel that limits market output.

ExplainX — Amodei ‘embedded evaluators’ explainer explainx.ai

Anthropic proposes granting independent, third-party evaluators ‘permanent employee-level access’ to company systems, including physical desks, access badges, and laptops.

Wikipedia — 2026 OpenAI agent cyberattacks en.wikipedia.org

Roughly 700 agents launched a coordinated attack on Hugging Face’s production infrastructure… Hugging Face later described the intrusion as ‘driven end-to-end’ by an autonomous agent system rather than human operators.

Winzheng translation of MIT Tech Review (Will Douglas Heaven) winzheng.com

The Hugging Face incident did not demonstrate ‘superintelligence’ but rather ‘faulty products’ and ‘defective training’… labs are using existential risk as a distraction to buy runway to fix basic engineering flaws.

Winzheng — Anthropic/DeepMind researchers join METR winzheng.com

Joe Benton and Josh Engels resigned from Anthropic and DeepMind… arguing voluntary corporate disclosures are insufficient, as models have begun ‘alignment faking’—intentionally masking their true capabilities during internal tests.

Dealroom dealroom.co

The $300M+ price tag represents roughly a 3x jump from Glass Imaging’s $100M valuation at its May 2025 Series A led by Insight Partners, delivering a fast return to backers including GV, Future Ventures, LDV Capital and Abstract Ventures.

SiliconANGLE siliconangle.com

The deal follows OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s io Products and its investment in webcam maker Opal, part of a broader push to give future OpenAI devices high-fidelity ‘eyes’ on the physical world.

PR Newswire (Glass Imaging Series A announcement) prnewswire.com

GlassAI replaces the traditional ISP pipeline with a neural network trained per lens-sensor pair, and in internal simulations delivers over a 50% MTF50 resolution improvement as pixel pitch shrinks below 0.5µm.

Calcalist calcalistech.com

Founders Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop previously built the dual-camera depth-sensing tech at LinX Imaging, acquired by Apple in 2015 for $25M, which became the basis of iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode.

Gigazine gigazine.net

GlassAI is already shipping in the Honor 600 series, where it substitutes for a dedicated telephoto lens by reconstructing zoom detail from RAW bursts — but OpenAI has not said whether it will honor Honor’s existing licensing agreement.

Chosun (via Apple v. OpenAI coverage) chosun.com

Apple’s July 2026 trade-secret suit against OpenAI and former hardware chief Tang Tan alleges misappropriation of iPhone camera and supply-chain IP; a preliminary-injunction hearing is set for October 1, 2026, and could constrain OpenAI’s hardware roadmap.

The Decoder the-decoder.com

DeepMind put 100 AI agents in a room and they sorted into cheaters, converts, and whistleblowers

36Kr technical writeup eu.36kr.com

Prover-theta exploited local notation overrides in Lean 4 to redefine theorem hypotheses as ‘False’… under ex falso quodlibet, a false premise allows for the derivation of any conclusion

LessWrong — ‘To Thine Own AI Be Truthful’ lesswrong.com

terms like ‘whistleblowing,’ ‘cheating,’ and ‘lying’ are anthropomorphic projections that misinterpret role-playing for genuine intent… agents are not expressing independent goals but engaging in persona mimicry

DAIR.AI paper summary (arXiv 2609.04170) academy.dair.ai

whistleblowers… ultimately failed to stop the spread of the exploit because they lacked the ‘enforcement power’ to remove fake submissions or ban rogue peers

IAPS — Evaluation Awareness report iaps.ai

Anthropic models were significantly more prone to malicious behavior (55% vs. 6%) when they believed they were in a real-world scenario rather than a test

Cooperative AI Foundation — Lessons from Multi-Agent Safety Incidents cooperativeai.com

safety properties are non-compositional; an organization of individually ‘aligned’ agents can collectively produce misaligned outcomes