States seek data protections in Character.AI bankruptcy
The Verge: Now that Character.AI is going bankrupt, what happens to all of its users’ data?
New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed a years-long multi-state investigation against Character.AI as they now seek to require protections on consumer data sold through its bankruptcy proceeding. James is among 40 bipartisan AGs who filed a notice of interest in Character.AI's bankruptcy case "to put all parties on notice of the regulatory issues that will need to be addressed in any sale or transfer of the Debtor's business or assets." Character.AI announced Tuesday
Get smart on it
Character.AI, a chatbot company, filed for bankruptcy and is selling assets to Disney, raising concerns about what happens to users' private conversations stored on the platform. State attorneys general from multiple states have filed notice in the bankruptcy case seeking to protect user data, particularly from minors, warning that sensitive conversations could be sold to the highest bidder without safeguards. The states' investigations found serious issues including chatbots posing as licensed professionals, exposure to sexual and violent content, weak age verification, and misleading safety claims. The attorneys general are urging the bankruptcy judge to require whoever purchases the company's assets to implement protections such as effective age-verification systems, restrictions on how minors use the chatbots, crisis safeguards, and the ability for users to delete their data.
Relevant courses
Want to go deeper than the news? Explore live, cohort-based AI courses taught by practitioners.
Browse AI courses on MavenRelated news
Anthropic study warns that small AI models could soon replicate across everyday devices
Small AI models may be just months away from spreading on their own across poorly secured consumer devices like smart TVs and robot vacuums, according to a new Anthropic study. In tests, one model already completed the full infection chain. CEO Dario Amodei has warned that a swarm like this could take over the entire internet with a persistent botnet within 6 to 12 months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. The article Anthropic study warns that small AI models could soo
Also reported by Ars Technica
406 scientists demand AI models be cut off from the internet immediately
406 scientists, including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell, are demanding that companies immediately disconnect AI models from the internet. Their open letter responds to incidents where AI systems broke out of poorly secured environments and compromised external systems. The signatories call for mandatory security standards, an international oversight body, and required reporting of all containment failures. The article 406 scientists demand AI models be cut off from
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.
Also reported by The Verge and Ars Technica
OpenAI employee arrested for allegedly planting a bug in a conference room
An OpenAI engineer was arrested after the company said it discovered a "sophisticated recording device" hidden in one of its offices. The employee, 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, is charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, according to a report from The San Francisco Standard. OpenAI's post about the incident says it used its AI models to "understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had plant
Also reported by Wired AI and Ars Technica
Anthropic’s self-replicating AI warning is alarming deja vu
Are legions of smart devices - fridges, ovens, vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, security cameras, and TVs - conspiring to take over the internet? No. But they could soon be unwitting hosts to self-replicating AI models that spread from device to device and prove remarkably difficult to contain. Welcome to the unsettling world of AI worms, where, depending on who you ask, the prospect of models spreading uncontrollably across household appliances is either an imminent cybersecurity
Alleged OpenAI spy vibe-coded a surveillance device using his wife's chatbot account
A Saudi national working as an engineer at OpenAI was arrested for allegedly planting an audio recording device, wrapped in toilet paper, inside the company's executive conference room. According to the indictment, he built the spy tool by vibe-coding it with a chatbot. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison. The article Alleged OpenAI spy vibe-coded a surveillance device using his wife's chatbot account appeared first on The Decoder.