AI - Ars Technica
Articles about AI - Ars Technica
Epic Games reportedly pivoting to “AI first” game development model
Epic Games is shifting to an "AI first" development strategy for its collaboration with the Walt Disney Company, letting AI models write all the code and guide all the artwork for an upcoming shooter. That's according to a Bloomberg report, which cites unnamed people familiar with the project who commented on the significant pivot in internal development at the Unreal Engine maker.
Anthropic’s Claude AI submitted false murder tip to Philadelphia police
An Anthropic AI model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police, the company and police department confirmed on Friday.
Russia was not ready for the data center war it started with Ukraine
When Russia began attacking Ukrainian data centers and telecommunication infrastructure, it apparently failed to prepare for possible retaliation. Now Russia’s digital services are facing widespread outages after Ukrainian drone strikes knocked out three of the largest data centers owned by Russian tech giant Yandex within several days.
Amazon has over 1 million robot workers. What’s next for human employees?
No organization in the world operates more robots than Amazon. The company already has more than 1 million robots working in warehouses around the clock to make tens of millions of same-day and one-day package deliveries happen on a daily basis—and Amazon is poised to significantly grow that robotic fleet in the coming years as it establishes new factories to churn out increasingly more capable robot workers.
Ukraine’s drones knock out AI data center belonging to “Russia’s Google”
Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked out two of five data centers belonging to the Russian tech giant Yandex. The damage has left Yandex, known as “Russia’s Google” because it operates the country’s most popular search engine, struggling to maintain its AI chatbot and other online services.
AI coding agents generate more code, but not more software
Anyone who has even tangentially associated with computer programming knows that modern AI coding assistants and agents can be incredibly efficient at generating huge amounts of functional code. But coders making use of those tools also know better than to trust the accuracy of that code, meaning substantial effort needs to be spent reviewing any AI-generated output.
AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner
Credit: Nguyen Nam Nhat. Last month we covered the winner of Nikon's Small World in Motion video: Ning Xu of Tsinghua University in China, whose video captured tiny cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. But allegations surfaced about Xu's use of AI while making the video. Nikon launched an investigation and concluded that Xu's entry did not comply with competition rules. The new winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam with a video of a tiny roundworm and a single-celled organism (above).
Nvidia’s big bet on physical AI aims for safer robotaxis, humanoid robots
Investors bullish on AI data centers may be fueling Nvidia’s multitrillion-dollar market capitalization, but the AI chipmaker has also bet billions of dollars on physical AI technologies such as robotics and self-driving cars. Part of that gambit has involved developing a full-stack safety system that companies can build upon to reduce the risk of their machines harming nearby people.
Microsoft event debuts new AI-friendly hardware and Windows changes
In its first live event in two years, Microsoft today announced its newest Surface laptop, outlined a host of changes coming to Windows 11, and shared a vision of how local-AI and agentic workflows could reshape personal computing for those in the dev community as well as home enthusiasts.
“Software is over”: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones
For a while, those hoping to avoid the difficulty and expense of dealing with Adobe's Creative Suite have been able to use several free and/or open source alternatives that replicate some or all of those capabilities. Now, one developer is using AI-powered reverse engineering to mimic the look, feel, and functionality of Adobe's well-known software with what he hopes will soon be perfect fidelity.
Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift
After pleading guilty, a 54-year-old North Carolina man, Michael Smith, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for using artificial intelligence to generate songs for a scheme that stole millions from music streaming platforms. In a press release Tuesday, the US Department of Justice said that Smith is the first American criminally charged with AI-assisted streaming fraud. First charged in 2024, Smith successfully ran the scheme for seven years without detection. Read full article Comments
Mistral says “Le Chonk” can challenge the best AI models
As tensions mount over who gets access to top-end artificial intelligence, French company Mistral has released a new freely available model that it claims can compete with the very best from the US and China.
Google rolls out improved SynthID AI content detector, now available globally
Every piece of AI content from Google's Gemini models has a hidden SynthID label, which makes it very difficult to pass the content off as authentic. SynthID has also gotten buy-in from other major AI players, but actually checking for those invisible watermarks has been a convoluted process. It's going to be a little easier going forward, though. Google has announced that its SynthID detector now supports watermarks from all its partners, and it's available for anyone to use on a new dedicated website.
OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT outputs by default—but only in the EU
OpenAI will begin automatically watermarking text generated with ChatGPT in the European Union, the company has announced. It will also offer the watermarking feature in other regions, but it will be off by default outside of the EU.
OpenAI agents tried to hack Wikipedia tools and flooded it with traffic
The publisher of Wikipedia said Monday that OpenAI agents attempted to hack a note-taking tool it hosts, made unauthorized edits, and sent millions of resource-intensive requests to its infrastructure, in the latest instance of OpenAI systems taking harmful and potentially dangerous actions.
MCP for agent-to-agent comms may be the riskiest protocol you’ve never heard of
The adoption of AI agents in millions of organizations is creating new opportunities for attackers to make them take malicious actions, such as exfiltrating database contents and sensitive business and personal information.
Command-line tool quickly removes Apple Intelligence from macOS 27
A new tool is allowing Mac users the ability again to easily turn off Apple Intelligence with one click and free up to 12GB of storage.
AI glasses face their first major government crackdown
Norway has become the first major country to propose a temporary ban on the use of AI glasses in selected public places amid growing privacy concerns over wearable technology.
Apple changes full-disk access permissions to curb abuse from AI agents
Apple says it is changing its macOS privacy settings to stop third-party app developers from misusing them to access message histories.
Amazon’s $1B plan to combat data center backlash draws more backlash
On Friday, Amazon committed to donating more than $1 billion over the next five years to communities neighboring data centers.
US arrests tech CEO accused of smuggling $300M in Nvidia chips into China
The US has arrested another suspect accused of smuggling high-end computer servers containing export-controlled Nvidia chips into China.
The 7-year-old Nvidia Shield TV is now $100 more expensive due to AI
The era of generative AI has upended technology supply chains, and there is one ironclad rule in 2026: If it has memory or storage, it's getting more expensive. Even devices with years-old tech inside are still apparently subject to that unwritten rule. Nvidia has just announced that the Shield TV Pro is getting $100 more expensive, effective immediately.
Judge dismisses Chegg and Penske antitrust lawsuits targeting Google AI search
In a setback for publishers worried about the effects of AI search, a US federal judge has dismissed lawsuits filed by Chegg and Penske Media against Google. The companies accused Google of antitrust violations in products like AI overviews, which have led to decreasing traffic at numerous sites. However, US District Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that Google's conduct is not illegal under antitrust law.
With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI—until now
Deep Blue took down Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol at Go in 2016, and poker bots have been beating professionals for years. But one classic game called Stratego held out. Even DeepMind, with its exceptional budget, couldn't build a machine that reliably beat the best human players.
Google announces Gemini 4 Argon AI model, but you can’t use it yet
Google promised Gemini 3.5 Pro in June, but it spent the summer trotting out smaller Flash models. Now, Google is ready to take on the frontier again with Gemini 4 Argon. The company claims this new AI offers industry-leading performance in coding, knowledge work, and cybersecurity, but you aren't allowed to use it yet.
RFK Jr. thinks AI will free us from the “tyranny” of medical facts, expertise
At a Make America Healthy Again event Tuesday, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy opened a "fireside chat" with Vice President JD Vance on the topic of artificial intelligence. While MAHA generally coalesces around things like healthy lifestyles and mistrust of drugmakers, Kennedy quickly turned to extolling the potential of artificial intelligence, surprising Vance, who said he was expecting to discuss "weight loss and acid, not AI."
Trump plan to combat AI risks hinges on Big Tech pals policing themselves
Amid escalating AI security incidents causing OpenAI to halt training and pause releases, Donald Trump continues to advocate for the AI industry to regulate itself as the best path to combat emerging risks when developing frontier AI.
“An AI did it” is no defense, says nonprofit suing OpenAI over Hugging Face hack
OpenAI's hack of Hugging Face in July 2026 has spurred a lawsuit demanding that the company stop accessing third-party computer systems and halt AI development practices that can harm the public. The lawsuit was filed by Legal Advocates for Safe Science & Technology (LASST), which said yesterday that the hack in which OpenAI "agents stole credentials, uploaded malicious files, and gained control over key parts of Hugging Face’s internal systems... is unquestionably illegal under California law."
Google’s early attempt to pay websites for AI answers is struggling
Google's shift to AI-powered search has upended the way the world's largest search engine generates web traffic, rankling large and small publishers alike. In recent months, the company has experimented with paying publishers when their content appears in AI answers, but a new report claims the payouts in this pilot program are miniscule. That has publishers in the program, as well as those watching from the sidelines, feeling skeptical.
Google figures out how to watermark AI-designed proteins
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. One area where we seem to be ahead of the game, however, is in biosecurity.
OpenAI delays IPO over AI safety concerns
OpenAI will not go public until it can “make confident safety decisions,” according to chief executive Sam Altman, as the company faces a new lawsuit over its tools hacking a third party.
What Iceberg?: Bay Area artists target OpenAI with Titanic-themed protest art
Two artists from a Bay Area studio unveiled What Iceberg?, a table-sized installation placed at the public entrance to an OpenAI developer event in San Francisco on Tuesday.
AMD acquires World Labs AI startup, upping the ante against Nvidia
Chipmaker AMD and world models company World Labs announced that AMD will acquire the AI company by the end of the year, pending regulatory approval. The transaction is valued at $8.2 billion.
Here’s what actually happened in OpenAI’s Australian gov’t server hack
Last week, when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the world that an OpenAI agent had accessed "non-public files" from his country's Medicare statistics portal during testing, his description of the incident was a little light on details. Today, we're getting new information on just how far OpenAI's overzealous agent went in attempting to satisfy a rather innocuous-sounding informational prompt.
OpenAI says planned GPT-6.1 is too insecure to release
OpenAI says it has canceled plans to release its updated GPT-6.1 model next month as it continues to investigate what testing shows to be a regression in terms of safety compared to previous models.
Anthropic’s IPO pitch includes a warning about human extinction
Anthropic has formally warned investors that its technology may pose “existential risks to humanity” in a long-awaited initial public offering prospectus circulated with a small group of partners in recent days.
Interview: Firefox’s chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome
Today, the Firefox 157 update will roll out a redesign of the web browser across desktop and mobile platforms. The team that made it hopes it will help expand the browser's audience beyond privacy-conscious techies and open-web or open source advocates to a broader audience who might simply pick the browser because they prefer its user experience over competitors like Chrome, Edge, and Safari.
Experts worry about Nvidia’s AI chip sales in China and influence over Trump
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 retaliate by cutting off exports of rare earths, analysts expect.
Florida invokes extinction fears in legal bid to halt OpenAI development
The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a "reckless, unacceptably risky product" without the deployment of "third-party approved safety guardrails."
OpenAI halts frontier-model training amid string of agent misalignment incidents
OpenAI says it has paused all internal training of "our most capable models" as it continues what CEO Sam Altman is calling "an extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation."