Wired
Election Deniers Think the GOP’s Terrible Midterm Polling Is a ‘Psyop’
Dozens and dozens of high profile MAGA influencers and pundits have weighed in. “The laughable fake polls are rolling out,” Catturd posted on X.
Dozens and dozens of high profile MAGA influencers and pundits have weighed in. “The laughable fake polls are rolling out,” Catturd posted on X.
Mattel Inc. is welcoming a new boss. So is Paramount. Roger Lynch will be stepping into his new role as CEO of Mattel, but he is not new to the toy company. Lynch has served as a member of Mattel’s board since 2018. Since 2019, he’s been CEO of Condé Nast, the media company behind Vogue , The New Yorker , Wired , and many other magazine brands. Mattel, as one of the leading global toy manufacturer…
The National Hockey League is rolling out a “Hot for Hockey” campaign intended to build upon the success and popularity of the hockey romance genre. League executives told ESPN they were going to court BookTok creators and market their players in a way that will “demystify what’s happening behind the helmet,” said Sean Eggert, the NHL’s new senior executive VP and chief marketing officer. The NHL…
Nearly two years into his current position as secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unlikely ascendance still seems like a paradox—or at least a dark joke. Somehow, a person best known for being one of the world’s loudest vaccine skeptics, eating an entire weird zoo’s worth of roadkill , and having a literal brain worm stands at the helm of the U.S. government approach to…
In an exclusive interview with WIRED, Paragon Solutions CEO Andrew Boyd reveals the limits of the company’s promise to keep bad actors from abusing its powerful espionage tool.
The warp-speed deployment of artificial intelligence into nearly every corner of American life has created real problems for K-12 education. Suddenly, school boards, districts, and teachers are grappling with the role AI should play in students' lives. The consternation is already showing up in classrooms as teachers use AI to plan their lessons and analyze student performance, provide tutoring an…
Americans are crazy about sports. But whether that passion requires taxpayers to subsidize new facilities every time leagues and franchises ask for them needs rigorous scrutiny. A lot of money is at stake. For 2025, the NFL reported some $14.5 billion in revenue, while the MLB collected an estimated $12.2 billion and the NBA earned almost $12 billion . Given these numbers, it’s no surprise that le…
Google has released its latest Gemini model, marketing it as a workhorse for coding and cybersecurity work.
Chris Metinko / Axios : Miter, which provides workforce management tools for the construction industry, raised a $40M Series B led by Battery Ventures, taking its total funding to $78M — Miter, a construction workforce management platform, raised a $40 million Series B led by Battery Ventures, CEO Connor Watumull tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Dean Takahashi / GamesBeat : CScale, which is developing optical interconnect for accelerators, emerges from stealth with a $145M Series C led by Atreides, Valor Equity, and Premji Invest — Become a member of GB MAX to gain exclusive access to the industry and to the most influential global B2B leadership community …
John Timmer / Ars Technica : Google DeepMind introduces SynthID Bio, a family of watermarking methods for AI-designed proteins to help with biosecurity and scientific integrity — AI-based tools seem to be causing security threats on a nearly daily basis, in part because we've been slow to recognize potential threats.
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch : Berlin-based Restate, which provides a durable execution engine to make software workflows resilient to crashes, raised a $20M Series A led by Singular — When Stephen Ewan co-founded Restate in 2022 to provide durable workflow infrastructure, he couldn't have anticipated how valuable …
Sam Sabin / Axios : Alex Stamos is joining Cognition as its new chief security officer; he most recently oversaw security at AI security startup Corridor and SentinelOne — Alex Stamos has joined Cognition as the AI coding unicorn's new chief security officer. … The hire suggests security has become a major focus for the fast-growing company.
Chris Metinko / Axios : Metaview, which uses AI agents to automate recruiting workflows, raised a $60M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $110M — Metaview, an agentic recruiting platform, raised a $60 million Series C led by Insight Partners, CEO Siadhal Magos tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Financial Times : The UK's MI5 issues a rare espionage alert urging UK universities to cut ties with the China General Technology Research Institute, which funded AI research — China General Technology Research Institute has ‘very strong ties’ to Chinese intelligence, says UK agency in unusual espionage alert
Despite repeated warnings about the risks of artificial intelligence , users have become increasingly reliant on AI chatbots—particularly those offering companionship. Yet despite chatbots’ utility for tasks like answering quick queries or offering brief advice, their benefits might not be outweighing the costs. A new, peer-reviewed study from researchers at Northeastern University’s Network Scien…
For the sake of national security, it's a relief to learn that America.gov is not hallucinating to the point that it's penning lengthy poetry.
Singapore's government is trying its hand at matchmaking again. The country's Government Technology Agency (GovTech) has launched FirstDate , a pilot dating service for singles aged 21 to 35. For now, it's open only to public officers, according to the service's website. Applications close Oct. 5. FirstDate is designed as an alternative to endless swiping. Instead of browsing a stream of profiles,…
It was eight days after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Facebook was facing criticism that a flood of false stories on its platform had helped elect Donald Trump. That morning, Sheryl Sandberg got a policy memo from an unlikely source: Sacha Baron Cohen. In an email titled “Thoughts for the day,” the comedian behind “Ali G” and “Borat” urged Sandberg and her colleagues to follow the examp…
Donald Trump 's two-day White House hosting of Chinese president Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan has dominated headlines and late night shows this week, and Seth Meyers took "A Closer Look." During Monday night's Late Night , the host used his deep dive segment to examine the presidential visit — namely a state dinner at the White House, during which Trump invited attendees "through that…
Kurt Schlichter was part of a task force rooting out so-called woke ideologies at the military’s war colleges. He has called to bar childless adults from voting.
A top executive at the AI lab told the Wall Street Journal that the model in question had displayed a poor aptitude for following orders.
On its face, the recent summit between Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping didn’t change much in the world of AI regulation. Export controls were not discussed, with neither country seemingly interested in making concessions. An already tenuous trade truce was temporarily extended for just two months, and looming US controls that could drop soon could easily end that and trigger China to…
In March, Janice Malone began getting calls about suspicious activity from her nonprofit organization, Vivian's Door. Vivian's Door, headquartered in Alabama, typically provided training, resources, and community to underserved and minority-owned businesses. The work sometimes put it in close contact with these companies' financial data, which was stored on its systems. But suddenly, concerned cal…
Abner Li / 9to5Google : Google says it will migrate Gems, which let users create custom versions of Gemini, to “skills”, starting Nov. 17; Google introduced skills with Gemini Spark — In 2024, Google introduced Gems as “custom versions of Gemini.” The Gemini app will soon replace Gems with “skills.”
Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC : Jensen Huang says AI model distillation is “competition”; Scott Bessent described it as “theft” in July and threatened sanctions against overseas companies — Watch CNBC's full interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said AI model distillation …
Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters : Meta says MongoDB CEO Chirantan Desai will serve as Chief Enterprise Platform Officer; MongoDB appoints ex-CEO Dev Ittycheria as interim CEO — Meta Platforms (META.O) has poached MongoDB (MDB.O) CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to spearhead a new business designed to bring the social media giant's AI tools to corporate customers.
Axios : Florida AG James Uthmeier files for an emergency injunction against OpenAI and ChatGPT, asserting the company cannot adequately self-regulate its tech — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has asked for an emergency injunction against OpenAI and ChatGPT, claiming the company …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch : Boston-based Modulate, which uses small AI models to offer enterprises transcription, emotional analysis, deepfake and AI music detection, and more, raised $25M — Boston-based voice intelligence startup Modulate has raised $25 in new funding for its platform that uses an array of small models …
Joe / @joedaroo : An OpenAI agent security executive discusses the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI's response, sandboxing improvements, alignment, “reasonable paranoia”, and more — Took a minute to write a few words about security & safety as someone who lived through it all at OpenAI. I hope my thoughts help someone out there. https://x.com/...
Maxwell Zeff / Wall Street Journal : AI research leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Meta warn of an impending “intelligence explosion” and call for oversight into automated AI research — Leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Meta say AI could soon self-improve faster than humans can keep up with
Marcia Dunn / Associated Press : SpaceX launches its enormous Starship rocket into orbit for the first time, deploying 26 of the most advanced Starlink satellites to join the 11,000 in service — SpaceX launched its enormous Starship into orbit for the first time Monday, aiming for six full laps around Earth to prove its readiness for NASA's Artemis moon program.
TechCrunch : Quartermaster, which builds a SmartMast for ships to relay real-time maritime data, raised a $140M Series B, with $100M in equity, after a $43M Series A in May — The tech enables real-time awareness for what Quartermaster calls the “largest blind spot on Earth.”
Wall Street Journal : How effective altruism shaped AI safety and Anthropic; some early Anthropic employees are considering buying remote US land for relocation if AI goes awry — Effective altruism and its fears that AI could wipe out humanity have wielded big influence at Anthropic
Brian Danga / The Block : New York City-based HIFI, which provides API infrastructure for stablecoin payments and settlements, raised a $37M Series A led by Left Lane Capital — The funding follows HIFI's role in DTCC's July tokenized-asset trades and a September Visa partnership for stablecoin-funded payouts.
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE : PicoJool, which is developing AI data center interconnects based on vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, raised a $27.5M Series A led by Socratic Partners — A startup called PicoJool that's backed by former Intel Corp. Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger says it's ready to help ease the strain …
FinTech Global : Numeral, a provider of AI-powered tech to automate sales tax compliance workflows in over 90 countries, raised a $100M Series C led by Insight Partners — Numeral, the AI-driven sales tax compliance platform, has closed a $100m Series C round as businesses face a widening set of tax obligations across markets and product types.
Madison Mills / Axios : Sources: OpenAI, Anthropic, and researchers are probing tens of thousands of frontier model security incidents, including sandbox escapes and website hijacking — OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal : Research: OpenAI agents scanned a UN data hub 16K+ times between April and the end of June, and circumvented a filter that was blocking their requests for data — Autonomous bots hit public data site more than 16,000 times and circumvented a filter — OpenAI agents bombarded …
Tom Wilson / Financial Times : Google Threat Intelligence Group finds dark web marketplaces selling access to AI models, including from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, at up to 97% discounts — Security researchers warn of surge in ‘LLM-jacking’ attacks targeting companies' costly AI resources