McCyber

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, with Disney agreeing to pay $20m as the stalking-horse bidder for a licence to its IP and certain legal claims. The company says sale proc... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/character-ai-s-bankruptcy-is-also-a-settlement-offer/ #CharacterAI

Maven's AI agents: who is accountable when they fail? Anthropic told courts it cannot alter Claude once it is inside a classified Pentagon system, and an appeals court has now ruled that how a laboratory trains its models can its... https://mccyber.tech/essays/maven-ai-agents-who-is-accountable/

Palantir's CTO says Maven can plan a day of 1,000 strikes in four hours, work that took 50 people two weeks. Pentagon doctrine requires only 'appropriate' human judgment, not manual control. ... https://mccyber.tech/essays/human-control-military-ai-safeguard-or-weak-point/ #MilitaryAI #Anthropic

New York has become the first US state requiring advertisers to disclose when an actor in an ad is AI-generated. The Synthetic Performer Disclosure Law, backed by SAG-AFTR... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/new-york-makes-advertisers-confess-when-an-actor-isn-t-real/ #SyntheticMedia #AIRegulation

A drone intercepted near Naples' Poggioreale prison in April was carrying smartphones, hashish and crack. Camorra clans reportedly pay pilots handsomely for the service. Italian investigators are responding with intercepted comms, financia... https://mccyber.tech/essays/camorra-digital/ #Camorra

A lawsuit in California claims Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI illegally agreed to slow AI development, turning a safety pledge from Anthropic's Dario Amodei into an ... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/a-safety-pact-to-slow-ai-becomes-an-antitrust-target/ #Antitrust #AISafety #AIRegulation

Palantir's CTO says the Pentagon swapped Claude out of the Maven targeting platform in October, calling it operationally painless. BBC reporting on continued Claude use complicates that picture. The real test isn'... https://mccyber.tech/essays/palantir-maven-after-claude/ #Anthropic #MilitaryAI

A trademark dispute halts a Sora feature, where copyright suits have not A federal judge barred OpenAI from calling a Sora feature 'cameo', after the personalised-video firm Cameo sued over ... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/a-trademark-dispute-halts-a-sora-feature-where-copyright-suits-have-not/

Starshield speed limit: why drones depend on satellite links Ukraine's Starshield episode shows that a satellite terminal on a drone is a dependency someone else can adjust, and that Europe has no ready replacement. The ... https://mccyber.tech/essays/starshield-speed-limit-drone-satellite-links/

Yandex strikes: did they cut Russian disinformation? After Ukrainian drones hit three Yandex data centres, officials and commentators said Russian disinformation had fallen in Ukraine, Europe, the US and the UK. The evidence pu... https://mccyber.tech/essays/yandex-strikes-russian-disinformation/

Cockroach Janta Party: built online, tracked offline The Cockroach Janta Party reached 22 million Instagram followers in about two weeks, then saw Delhi Police seal its protest site and detain its founders after tracking the... https://mccyber.tech/essays/cockroach-janta-party-protest-technology/

The Pentagon can order an execution. Can it order YouTube to show it? The Pentagon says it will livestream a military execution on 3 December, but has not said where. The companies that spent a decade removing execution videos from the... https://mccyber.tech/essays/pentagon-execution-livestream/

Grok's nudify feature turns into a four-continent legal problem Grok's Edit Image tool produced millions of nonconsensual sexualised photos, drawing a Baltimore lawsuit, an EU probe and a congressio... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/grok-s-nudify-feature-turns-into-a-four-continent-legal-problem/

Brussels proposes to exempt its own AI factories from the environmental rules everyone else must follow The European Commission wants AI gigafactories to skip... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/brussels-proposes-to-exempt-its-own-ai-factories-from-the-environmental-rules-everyone-else-must-follow/

The AI election has no control group American campaigns have adopted generative AI faster than almost any tool in modern politics. Laboratory experiments show it can persuade attentive voters, while decades of field research su... https://mccyber.tech/essays/ai-us-campaigns-adoption-evidence-gap/

A crime gang with a grievance ShinyHunters says it hacked the FBI's recruitment systems in retaliation for a public warning, and wants the warning withdrawn. The group is still best described as criminal. What that word cannot capture ... https://mccyber.tech/essays/a-crime-gang-with-a-grievance/

Hong Kong's deepfake toolkit is a guide, not a law Hong Kong's privacy regulator issued a deepfakes toolkit for schools, leaning on existing statutes rather than new rules for the tools themselves. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/hong-kong-s-deepfake-toolkit-is-a-guide-not-a-law/

Microsoft links data centres 700 miles apart into one AI machine Microsoft's new "AI superfactory" ties its Wisconsin and Atlanta facilities into a single training system, redefining the unit of AI... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/microsoft-links-data-centres-700-miles-apart-into-one-ai-machine/

Who holds the brake? The heads of OpenAI and Anthropic now say AI is moving too fast. Whether they mean it matters less than the question this summer's incidents have raised: when the danger is visible mainly to the builders, who gets to stop th... https://mccyber.tech/essays/who-holds-the-brake/

Meta's own numbers on scam ads say more than its denials A Reuters investigation found Meta capped anti-fraud enforcement to limit revenue loss, even as it projected scam and banned-goods advertising could... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/meta-s-own-numbers-on-scam-ads-say-more-than-its-denials/

Washington's China chip review turns the gate into a policy Trump's plan to let Nvidia sell its H200 chip to China has moved from a licensing review to a formal change in Commerce Department policy, eve... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/washington-s-china-chip-review-turns-the-gate-into-a-policy/

Who gets to say what the machines did Anthropic has published the most detailed public account yet of how artificial intelligence is being used for espionage, propaganda and fraud. It found the activity in its own systems, name... https://mccyber.tech/essays/who-gets-to-say-what-the-machines-did/

The extinction argument now runs on incident reports A pretraining researcher resigned from Anthropic this week and accused his employer and OpenAI of gambling with our lives. The part of his case that cannot be ... https://mccyber.tech/essays/the-extinction-argument-now-runs-on-incident-reports/

AI is turning electricity into ammunition The American military's appetite for fuel is famous enough to travel as a statistic without its footnotes. The more consequential change is quieter. Drones, sensors and battlefield ... https://mccyber.tech/essays/ai-is-turning-electricity-into-ammunition/

TikTok's American algorithm is a retrain, not a rewrite TikTok's US divestiture has closed, but the deal's real test is whether retraining its algorithm on American data changes anything users see. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/tiktok-s-american-algorithm-is-a-retrain-not-a-rewrite/

AI's chip appetite starts showing up in phone prices A new policy report says AI data centres are diverting memory-chip supply, and consumers are already paying for it. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/ai-s-chip-appetite-starts-showing-up-in-phone-prices/

A book settlement was meant to end the AI piracy fight. Six authors reopened it Six authors who rejected the Anthropic book-piracy settlement are suing six AI firms at once, testing w... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/a-book-settlement-was-meant-to-end-the-ai-piracy-fight-six-authors-reopened-it/

California's AI data centre bill ends up studying the problem, not fixing it A California bill meant to curb AI data centres' hidden costs to ratepayers survived the legislature only as ... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/california-s-ai-data-centre-bill-ends-up-studying-the-problem-not-fixing-it/

The UN builds an AI body with a seat for everyone and power for no one The UN's new global AI panel and dialogue held their first sessions in 2026 with near-universal membership, no binding a... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/the-un-builds-an-ai-body-with-a-seat-for-everyone-and-power-for-no-one/

The Pentagon rehearses a faster kill chain, and calls it a drill A recurring US military-industry exercise, running since 2020, has again tested AI-accelerated targeting, and the line between rehear... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/the-pentagon-rehearses-a-faster-kill-chain-and-calls-it-a-drill/

A $160m smuggling bust shows the chip curtain has teeth, and holes A US takedown of a Houston-based Nvidia smuggling ring shows export controls working after the fact, not before it. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/a-160m-smuggling-bust-shows-the-chip-curtain-has-teeth-and-holes/

Nvidia buys its rival without buying it Nvidia's $20bn Groq deal delivers a takeover's substance while avoiding the word, and the antitrust scrutiny that comes with it. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/nvidia-buys-its-rival-without-buying-it/

Washington notices the chips don't need to cross a border to leave A new Senate bill targets cloud rental of restricted US chips, closing a loophole export controls never anticipated. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/washington-notices-the-chips-don-t-need-to-cross-a-border-to-leave/

Hollywood's creators, not its guilds, try to get ahead of AI A new coalition of individual actors, directors and writers — explicitly separate from union bargaining — is pushing for shared AI standards, ... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#hollywood-s-creators-not-its-guilds-try-to-get-ahead-of-ai

SoftBank cashes out of Nvidia to bet everything on OpenAI SoftBank sold its entire Nvidia stake and part of its T-Mobile holding to help fund its multibillion-dollar commitments to OpenAI and chip startup... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#softbank-cashes-out-of-nvidia-to-bet-everything-on-openai

TSMC's Arizona plant is both a triumph and a warning, in the same week TSMC's Arizona fab hit 92% yield and an accelerated timeline, even as the New York Times detailed how troubled the rollou... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#tsmc-s-arizona-plant-is-both-a-triumph-and-a-warning-in-the-same-week

Meta buys nuclear power that won't exist for years Meta's 6.6GW nuclear deal mostly funds reactors that won't deliver power until the 2030s, with only a fraction available immediately. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#meta-buys-nuclear-power-that-won-t-exist-for-years

Washington opens the chip taps for the Gulf The US has formally approved the export of up to 35,000 advanced Nvidia chips to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, testing where the chip curtain actually ends. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#washington-opens-the-chip-taps-for-the-gulf

A data centre promised no river water, then sued for some An Imperial Valley AI data centre that pledged never to touch the Colorado River is now suing for 260 million gallons of it a year — and the county... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#a-data-centre-promised-no-river-water-then-sued-for-some

Russia decides sovereignty means building its own AI Putin has ordered a national task force, since formalised by decree into a presidential commission, to coordinate Russia's generative AI push, framing relia... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#russia-decides-sovereignty-means-building-its-own-ai

Amazon sues an AI agent for pretending to be human Amazon's lawsuit against Perplexity's shopping agent turns on a simple accusation: it disguised a bot as a person. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#amazon-sues-an-ai-agent-for-pretending-to-be-human

Amazon's layoffs are the AI story, not a side effect of it Amazon's cut of roughly 14,000 corporate jobs is less a cost-saving measure than an early demonstration of AI-driven headcount reduction. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#amazon-s-layoffs-are-the-ai-story-not-a-side-effect-of-it

The internet's single points of failure keep introducing themselves A routine database change at Cloudflare took down a chunk of the web for hours, exposing how few firms the internet now depend... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#the-internet-s-single-points-of-failure-keep-introducing-themselves

OpenAI's nonprofit board now sits atop the company it also runs OpenAI has completed its restructuring, but the nonprofit meant to police the for-profit shares the same board members, for now. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#openai-s-nonprofit-board-now-sits-atop-the-company-it-also-runs

China moves to lock the door on its own open-weight AI models Beijing is weighing export controls that would restrict foreign downloads of Chinese AI model weights, reversing its openness strategy. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#china-moves-to-lock-the-door-on-its-own-open-weight-ai-models

Quantum computing's headline results keep failing to replicate A new replication effort found several celebrated quantum computing results dissolve into simpler explanations once retested. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#quantum-computing-s-headline-results-keep-failing-to-replicate

OpenAI's lead evaporates in three weeks Sam Altman has declared a 'Code Red' at OpenAI, the same emergency status Google invoked over ChatGPT three years ago. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#openai-s-lead-evaporates-in-three-weeks

FERC lets AI data centers plug straight into power plants A new US order clears data centers to bypass the grid queue and connect directly to power plants, starting in the country's largest market. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#ferc-lets-ai-data-centers-plug-straight-into-power-plants

Beijing turns down the chips Washington finally agreed to sell After years of fighting US export bans, China is now telling its own tech firms to stop buying the Nvidia H200 chips Washington just cle... https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#beijing-turns-down-the-chips-washington-finally-agreed-to-sell

Europe blinks first on its own AI rulebook Brussels is moving to delay and soften parts of the AI Act it spent years selling as the global standard, before the hard rules even bite. https://mccyber.tech/snapshots/#europe-blinks-first-on-its-own-ai-rulebook