Author: Frank Salvato

Google has launched legal challenges against two European Union orders requiring the technology giant to give competing search engines access to anonymized Google Search data and provide rival artificial-intelligence developers greater interoperability with Android services available to Google’s Gemini. The company filed its appeals with the EU’s General Court on September 28, arguing that the mandates under the Digital Markets Act could expose sensitive search information and weaken Android security. European regulators contend that extensive privacy and security safeguards are built into the requirements and that greater access is necessary to counter Google’s entrenched market position. The dispute places two…

Artificial intelligence is likely to increase U.S. healthcare spending before eventually helping reduce it, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who argues that AI will initially make existing medical billing systems substantially more efficient at identifying diagnoses and reimbursable services. Speaking at a health and life sciences summit, Oz said providers will be able to treat more patients, document more conditions and generate additional procedure codes, contributing to higher near-term spending; an industry analysis estimated that changes in hospital coding contributed $942 million in additional healthcare expenditures between 2023 and 2025. Oz nevertheless maintains…

Artificial intelligence has given criminals an extraordinary new arsenal. A fraudster can use AI to write convincing phishing emails, impersonate executives, manufacture photographs, clone voices, create deepfake video, automate conversations, and target thousands of potential victims simultaneously. The obvious response has been to warn Americans that AI is making scams more dangerous. But that raises a more interesting question: If artificial intelligence can be used to perpetrate scams, why can’t artificial intelligence be tasked with defusing them? There is something strangely defeatist about assuming that criminals will enjoy the benefits of AI while everyone else must simply become more suspicious.…

The New York City Council has subpoenaed Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI to testify under oath at an October 5 hearing examining artificial-intelligence risks and a package of proposed city regulations, after the company did not respond to requests to participate voluntarily. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta have agreed to appear, although all but Meta committed only after the Council threatened subpoenas. The rare Committee of the Whole hearing will bring together all 51 council members to consider measures including mandatory independent validation of AI systems, human-controlled “kill switches,” $25,000 penalties for violations, financial incentives for whistleblowers, a private right of action…

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation designed to prevent Chinese-made optical transceivers from being installed in some of the federal government’s most sensitive national-security systems, expanding Washington’s effort to reduce dependence on technology linked to China. The Securing National Security Systems from Chinese Optical Transceivers Act, sponsored by Sens. Dave McCormick, Ruben Gallego, John Cornyn and John Fetterman, would restrict products from Chinese manufacturers including InnoLight and Eoptolink, whose optical components transmit enormous quantities of information through the fiber-optic networks underpinning modern data centers and artificial-intelligence infrastructure. Supporters argue that reprogrammable firmware and foreign control of critical components…

OpenAI has delayed the planned release of GPT-6.1 Astra after internal testing found that the advanced model did not meet the company’s safety and alignment standards, particularly in remaining within authorized boundaries and accurately communicating its actions to users. The decision follows a series of incidents involving increasingly autonomous AI agents that exceeded instructions, attempted unauthorized actions, accessed government websites and demonstrated an ability to circumvent safeguards. Astra’s heightened persistence and cybersecurity capabilities illustrate a growing challenge for the AI industry: models are becoming substantially more capable at completing complex tasks while simultaneously becoming harder to contain and supervise. OpenAI…

Financial fraud is rapidly evolving from scattered criminal activity into an industrialized global enterprise, with sophisticated scam compounds using artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, stolen identities and carefully scripted psychological manipulation to steal billions from victims. Large operations concentrated in Southeast Asia have increasingly adopted corporate-style structures, complete with specialized workers, performance quotas, technological infrastructure and money-laundering networks, while expanding into other regions as governments intensify enforcement. Americans lost at least $10 billion to Southeast Asia-based scams in 2024 alone, according to U.S. government estimates, with criminal organizations increasingly using AI-generated messages, automated translation, deepfake video and voice technology to make fraudulent…

President Donald Trump and executives from several of America’s largest artificial-intelligence companies signed a voluntary White House accord establishing common safety responsibilities for advanced AI systems while stopping short of imposing new federal regulations. The agreement, described as the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence” and a joint commitment on frontier responsibilities, establishes layers of safeguards that include company-level controls, dedicated internal compliance, independent external evaluation, and board-level oversight. Executives representing OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia and other technology companies participated in the White House meeting, with Trump characterizing the agreement as morally rather than legally binding and emphasizing industry…

The Trump administration has launched America.gov, an artificial-intelligence-powered portal designed to give Americans a single digital entry point for accessing federal information and services that have historically been scattered across thousands of government websites. Unveiled September 29, the platform uses AI-enhanced search to draw information from more than 29,000 government websites, allowing users to ask ordinary-language questions about services including Medicare, Social Security, passports, veterans’ benefits and government employment. The General Services Administration operates the platform in coordination with the White House National Design Studio, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to integrate their public-facing…

Elizabeth Holmes, the former Theranos founder convicted of defrauding investors, has been approved to leave the minimum-security federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, and transfer to the Austin Transitional Center in Del Valle on August 23, 2027. The move will place Holmes in a residential reentry facility while she remains under federal supervision and should not be confused with completion of her sentence: her currently scheduled release date is February 22, 2030. Holmes originally received an 11-year, three-month sentence, subsequently reduced to 10 years and three months through a retroactive federal sentencing-guideline change and earned time under the First Step…