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…
In its 26th season premiere, the procedural legal drama paints a damning picture of power-mad AI CEOs.
Atlassian has launched the Agentic Multiplayer Protocol (AMP), allowing AI agents to enter Jira, Confluence, and other enterprise collaboration spaces with named identities, permissions, and traceable audit records. Alongside MCP server updates and deeper OpenAI integration, the move positions Atlassian to compete for the context infrastructure layer for enterprise AI agents.
Australia announced a national AI governance plan that shifts the burden of proof onto companies, requiring them to demonstrate their safety systems actually work, with national standards due by the end of 2026 and legislation in 2027.
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…
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…
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…
OpenAI has launched College Planner for ChatGPT for Teens, integrating application deadlines, required materials, and financial aid steps into a dynamic, updatable plan while explicitly limiting the tool to process management rather than admissions decisions. The launch also intensifies competition in college planning and learning tools, while raising questions about educational equity and teen safety amid criticism from Common Sense Media.
OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Plugin Extensions, enabling apps such as Canva, Figma, and Adobe to build full in-chat experiences through sidebars, panels, and file handlers. The release signals OpenAI’s platform ambitions, while desktop-first availability and enterprise controls limit the initial rollout.
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…
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.
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.
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.
OpenAI disclosed roughly $50 billion in annualized revenue as of the end of September 2026, far below the $68–70 billion figure that had been circulating among investors. The gap rippled through AI supply chain stocks and laid bare a long-standing lack of consistent revenue accounting across the industry.
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.
It had previously been reported that the AI lab's annualized revenue was some $70 billion, but a new report claims it's a whole lot less than that.
Ben Affleck is going viral for his deep knowledge of AI, from neural networks and transformers to open weights. The actor, who sold his AI filmmaking startup to Netflix earlier this year, is proving he's more than just a Hollywood star.
Jessica Hische knew working for Meta might upset some people. But she didn’t anticipate just how angry they would get.
Three fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute allegations of mishandling sensitive information, warning in an open letter that their dismissals are creating a chilling effect on the company’s AI safety culture.
The 2026-10-09 YZ Index Smoke quick test covered 14 models, with Claude Sonnet 4.6 leading at 94.74. As a daily 10-question short test, the results serve as a short-term signal rather than a Full weekly ranking conclusion.
