Policy & Drama

Google is entirely disabling Search in schools that don’t want AI

Google is completely turning off Search in schools that reject its AI features, the company told The New York Times. The decision was also shared in a broader education-related update from Google on Tuesday, saying that access to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search "will be entirely off" for K-12 student accounts unless "administrators explicitly turn them on." Administrators will not be given the option to toggle Gemini-powered features off without

Also reported by Ars Technica, TechCrunch and Wired AI

After the midterms, is the AI industry in for a rough two years?

Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a […]

Big Tech lost big in the 2026 election

On Tuesday, millions of American voters went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly for Democrats and against AI. The fight against Big Tech is about to come roaring back, and the fight over data centers is looking even harder for the folks trying to build them. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David discuss what the 2026 midterms mean for the tech industry going forward. They dig into the self-quarantining echo chamber that is X, the congressional energy likely to b

China reportedly recruited AI exec to spy on Jensen Huang

China's intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and "potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China." Megaspeed is a customer of Nvidia's, and Alice Huang also has "relationships with executives at the highest levels of the A.I. chip industry,"

Also reported by TechCrunch

Big Tech claims voters’ AI backlash is “anti-Trump” not “anti-tech”

Donald Trump’s big, rapid American AI buildout now faces a major slowdown as voters in yesterday’s elections overwhelmingly supported candidates and measures that favored increasing restrictions on AI and data centers nationwide. One resource from a polling firm, called Redbud Consulting, tracked data center initiatives on the ballot and reported that out of 44 measures across 10 states seeking to restrict data centers, 38 passed so far. Those measures included dozens of moratoriums and bans. An

The US let Nvidia sell chips to an empty office in China

Concerns are being raised that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia are doing their due diligence when it comes to vetting Chinese firms cleared to handle the company's H200 AI chips. According to The New York Times, New Matrix is on the list of approved firms, yet its offices are empty, "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be." In fact, the paper could find little evidence that the company exists in any meaningful way: Only scant

Industry experts discuss China blocking SoftBank acquisition of ABB Robotics

ABB Robotics has integrated NVIDIA Omniverse libraries into RobotStudio. Source: ABB Robotics Yesterday, ABB Robotics confirmed to The Robot Report that China’s Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review has blocked SoftBank Group Corp.’s planned acquisition of ABB Robotics. Regulators had expressed concern that data for training artificial intelligence models could be transferred overseas. ABB Robotics is already a significant manufacturer and provider of

How a Blue Wave midterm might reshape the AI industry

Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a […]

Partnering with Hacktron to find vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s systems

OpenAI is partnering with Hacktron to find vulnerabilities, test connections with third-party services, and strengthen defenses with frontier AI.

“Does Meta think we can’t read?” Meta abandons sketchy commercial terms update.

After weeks of backlash—and a failed attempt to quell it—Meta has indefinitely delayed plans to update its commercial terms and require Meta Business account users to allow extensive AI training on external websites linked on Facebook. "We're pausing the ‌changes ⁠as we continue to engage with stakeholders and ​take ​our ⁠time to get this right. ​In the ​meantime, ⁠our existing terms remain in ⁠effect," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. Soon after Meta notified business account holders of the up

AI Companies Really, Really Want to Buy Your Work Files and Emails

Data brokers are collecting all sorts of internal corporate files to help train AI models. Not everyone is thrilled.

OpenAI is stepping back from NDAs for data center projects

Following this week's midterms where voters resoundingly voiced their opposition to data center expansion, OpenAI today announced new commitments to communities where it is working on data center projects, including that it won't use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with public officials. Many data center projects have come under scrutiny for relying on NDAs to hide discussions between developers and local officials. However, OpenAI says it is now allowing "only narrow protecti

Google: Schools can keep search while skipping Gemini, but AI search is non-negotiable

Google faced the ire of educators and parents earlier this week when it announced a new AI policy for K–12 schools. Google said that it developed its new approach to give schools more control, but early reporting also suggested Google would block search access for schools that didn't want to use AI. Google didn't see the backlash coming, but now that it's here, the search giant is clarifying what exactly its new policy means and what's changing. The gist of the new policy, according to Google's

Meta warns that election backlash against data centers could make AI expansion harder

Meta warns that growing political opposition to data centers could threaten future AI investments, as communities push back against massive infrastructure projects.

‘Total repudiation’: The blue wave is about to hit AI

On Tuesday night, Democrats made history as they took control of the House and the Senate, and a blue wave swept through traditionally red and swing states - with the nation's first Black woman governor elected in Georgia, the country's first Native American woman governor elected in New Mexico, and a Maine Senator ceding to a Democrat after 30 years in office. In these and other campaigns, one theme kept coming up: holding AI companies accountable to the American people. Now,

Setting a new standard for responsible AI infrastructure

OpenAI introduces its National Community Compact and Compute Campus Policy Blueprint to protect local resources, create jobs, and guide responsible AI infrastructure development.

OpenAI is already trying to shape the 2028 election

OpenAI’s Chris Lehane wants AI to define the 2028 election, proposing a new social contract that could benefit Americans while also advancing the AI giant’s own business interests.

The Biggest Pro-AI Super Pac Network Didn't Really Impact the Midterms

Leading the Future, backed by Silicon Valley’s biggest billionaires, had a war chest of $100 million and an aggressive stance against AI regulation. All of it didn’t add up to much on Tuesday night.

Building on open source AI? Hugging Face’s policy chief on the costs, risks, and trade-offs

Open source models are becoming more mainstream as enterprises, governments and startups alike rely on the promise of lower costs, more control, and more flexibility. But as increasingly capable models become more freely available, how do companies capture value? And with Chinese open models gaining ground, can American players keep up?  On this episode of […]

UK Officials Said AI Would Add £400 Billion to the Economy. That Figure Mainly Came From Google

The AI minister now concedes the estimated figure is less than a third of that. Researchers blame the country’s slow rate of adoption

After the midterms, things are looking rocky for Elon Musk and data centers

On Equity, we unpacked what the midterms mean for the tech industry.

AI broke the cybersecurity world. What’s next?

Today, I’m talking with Alex Stamos, chief security officer at Cognition and longtime cybersecurity expert, about what a mess cybersecurity is right now. This episode is part one of a special series looking at AI in real life. I’ve always enjoyed talking to Alex because he’s so direct, and you’re going to hear him say that the multibillion-dollar cybersecurity industry as we’ve known it is essentially overdue to the unrelenting, AI-boosted waves of hacks, breaches, and attack

Hundreds of Artex AI hacking tools found publicly exposed to the web

Security researchers found hundreds of servers hosting the penetration testing tool Artex exposed to the internet, allowing anyone access to the hacking tool.

Midterm elections will put AI and data centers on trial, but Big Tech may end up winning anyway

It may be a little soon to determine the ultimate winners and losers among enterprise suppliers after the midterm elections, but the early line is: Big Tech wins and data center suppliers operators such as chipmakers and neoclouds lose. Or will everybody lose? The day after the elections, stocks of many tech companies shot up, […] The post Midterm elections will put AI and data centers on trial, but Big Tech may end up winning anyway appeared first on SiliconANGLE.

Lawsuit: Man introduced his wife to ChatGPT. She used it to plan his murder.

ChatGPT allegedly helped a North Carolina woman, Cheryl Gates, craft a “personalized plan” to poison her husband, James, after fueling her delusions that he planned to divorce her and leave her with nothing. A grand jury indicted Cheryl Gates on charges of attempted first-degree murder and food contamination in October. About a week prior, the accusations that ChatGPT was a co-conspirator in the attempted murder came in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court that was made public

AI PACs spent millions trying to shape Congress, here’s how they fared

AI industry PACs spent millions influencing the 2026 midterms, with mixed results. Political groups are already looking toward the next election cycle.

Hugging Face’s CEO Says His P(Doom) Is ‘Close to Zero’

“Most of the risk is actually created by a couple of players building behind closed doors,” Clément Delangue said of the need for open source AI.

The biggest modding site in PC gaming is taking a stance on AI

The PC gaming mods repository Nexus Mods is making disclosures about AI mandatory for uploads of new mods, meaning that mod authors will have to declare "whether AI has been used in their work," the site announced today as part of a big post about AI-generated content on the platform. "One of the most consistent concerns we've heard is that it's not clearly disclosed when AI has been used to create a mod," according to the post from site owner Victor "Foledinho" Folmann. "We al

OpenAI appoints Jill Hazelbaker as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer

Jill Hazelbaker will join OpenAI as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, leading the company’s global communications and corporate positioning.