ARS
AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner
New winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam for video of a roundworm and single-celled Dileptus.
Global AI Picks
Curated AI coverage from TechCrunch, MIT Technology Review, WIRED and other top global tech media. Please cite this site when republishing.
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WD
Book Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are Revolting
Workers at three major publishing houses tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech.
TC
An Anthropic AI model sent a false homicide tip to Philadelphia police
Anthropic did not discover this behavior until over two months after its AI submitted the false tip.
ARS
AI coding agents generate more code, but not more software
Study finds coding efficiency gains get "absorbed" by human review "bottleneck."
TC
We can’t help treating AI like it’s human. But should we?
"When we are drawn into even the most primitive exchanges with a relational artifact, we believe it cares for us," Dr. Sherry Turkle writes. "And we are wired to care for it in return."
TC
Danu Robotics’ fight to build a better recycling robot
For six years, Danu founder Amy Ma has been working on a better way to sort recyclable waste.
TC
Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card
Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access […]
TC
Amazon and others are done keeping data center deals secret. Is it enough to build trust?
Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access […]
TC
A16z’s Olivia Moore on the state of consumer AI
Moore sees a huge opportunity in consumer AI, particularly if the industry can tap into revenue streams beyond just subscriptions and API charges.
TC
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 starts in 4 days — lock in your pass savings of up to $100 before prices rise
Four days until TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 starts, when 10,000 founders, investors, and tech leaders gather in San Francisco's Moscone West on October 13-15. Save up to $100 on your price. Plus, save 50% on a second pass of the same type.
MIT
The Download: AI’s refusal problem and weight-loss drug side effects
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. We’re putting too much faith in AI’s ability to say no Today’s AI models are trained to refuse a vast number of prompts. If you ask your chatbot how to poison…
WD
Even ‘Law & Order’ Is Terrified of AI
In its 26th season premiere, the procedural legal drama paints a damning picture of power-mad AI CEOs.
MIT
We’re still figuring out the side effects of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs
This week my colleague Antonio Regalado had an interesting update on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. According to research presented at an aging meeting in Boston, these drugs seem to affect at least some measures of biological age. Overweight and diabetic people who take GLP-1s have a biological age around two to three years younger than similar…
MIT
Job titles of the future: Delivery drone air traffic controller
The moment Trevor Wischnewsky heard that drones were delivering pizza and sushi around his Texas neighborhood, his mind was made up. “It was super fascinating,” he says. “I just immediately wanted to be a part of it.” Wischnewsky is now an RPIC, or “remote pilot in command,” at a company called FlyTrex. An RPIC is…
MIT
We’re putting too much faith in AI’s ability to say no
Ever since people first seriously contemplated giving machines an intelligence modeled on our own, there has never been any question that they would, like us, be able to say no. The sci-fi canon is full of stories of robotic disobedience. Most of these capers are, of course, cautionary.  But recently, the idea that AI shouldn’t…
MIT
Roundtables: A Conversation With the Creator of AI-Designed Viruses
Friday, October 16, 2026 Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King came up with a preliminary answer when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. It isn’t yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. Join senior AI reporter…
TC
Popular AI leaderboard Arena nearly doubles valuation to $3.1B valuation in 10 months
The company behind the popular LMArena leaderboard has raised $200 million led by Lightspeed and Khosla, and is now measuring AI models on alignment issues such as lying.
TC
Pretend you’re sitting at Elizabeth Holmes’ desk on this weirdly detailed website
With over a thousand emails, slides, texts, and documents from the United States v. Elizabeth Holmes trial, Extend engineer Bo Lau created a website that simulates what it might have been like to rifle through the Theranos founder's desk.
WD
Inside Elon Musk’s Midterm Spending Spree
This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we discuss where Elon Musk’s PAC is spending millions, the latest ideology Trump claims is dangerous, and the backlash against the designer behind Muse’s logo.
TC
Google brings agentic AI to Gemini, starting with businesses
Google is turning Gemini into an AI agent that can plan, execute tasks, and work across business apps and systems. The agent can delegate work to subagents, use multiple AI models, and even gets its own workplace identity, complete with an email address.