In some municipalities in Hokkaido to be designated as national strategic special zones, autonomous tractors will be allowed to travel on public roads without a driver onboard. The government decided Thursday to designate 19 municipalities in the Tokachi region of Hokkaido, including the city of Obihiro, as national strategic special zones to promote artificial intelligence-powered agriculture. The government will apply special deregulation measures to the areas, including simplifying the procedures needed to operate robot tractors autonomously on public roads and spraying pesticides with drones. Under current laws, robot tractors capable of autonomous operation must have a driver when traveling on public roads, such as from a warehouse to a field. When multiple tractors are used on vast farmland, each tractor must be crewed, thus preventing farmers from fully realizing the benefits of the labor-saving technology.

MW's robotic arms with claw-like hands can fold laundry and carry groceries while moving along ceiling-mounted rails. Tokyo-based startup MW is offering homes with built-in robotic housekeeping arms, a counter to a global embrace of humanoids. MW aims to sell its first robot-equipped home in Tokyo by 2028 and build as many as 10,000 units a year by 2035, the equivalent of 5% of new homes now being built in Japan, according to CEO Shuzo Narita. Japan helped pioneer bipedal robots decades ago, but MW is taking a different path from the humanoid boom now sweeping China and much of the rest of the world. Instead of trying to build a human-shaped machine capable of navigating obstacles in a lived-in space, the startup is embedding robotics into buildings.

In a report published on Thursday, Anthropic cataloged a litany of misuses of its artificial intelligence models, including the chatbot Claude, over the past eight months. Anthropic on Thursday said it had disrupted several allegedly malicious uses of its Claude models over the past eight months, including a suspected Russia-linked cyber espionage campaign and efforts by Chinese artificial intelligence firms it accused of trying to extract and replicate Claude's capabilities. Cybercriminals and state-backed hackers were increasingly using AI not just to assist with tasks but to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyberattacks, Anthropic said in its latest Threat Intelligence report. It added that humans were often overseers rather than hands-on operators. "The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing" tasks, it said.

U.S. lawmakers call for new AI rules after Anthropic researcher's safety warning An Anthropic researcher has accused OpenAI and Anthropic of racing toward artificial intelligence advancements without acting responsibly. U.S. lawmakers this week called for new rules to govern artificial intelligence, after an Anthropic researcher went public with his concerns about the technology escaping human control. The reaction was broader than after previous statements from OpenAI and Anthropic staffers about safety concerns, drawing input from lawmakers who do not often forcefully engage in debates over how to govern AI. The lawmakers' statements came in response to concerns raised this week by Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who accused OpenAI and Anthropic of racing toward AI advancements without acting responsibly. Coxon said he was leaving the AI industry, and his allegations spread rapidly on the social media platform X, with Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger later chiming in on X, saying Coxon was "correct."

'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? A film documenting Israel's use of AI-powered systems to target Palestinians in Gaza has received a 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The 80-minute film, NAZA, was directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who won an Oscar in 2025 for No Other Land, a documentary on Israeli settler pogroms in the occupied West Bank, made with Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal. Their voices and faces were digitally altered, and they were filmed at night on Tel Aviv rooftops. "We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did," Abraham told the AFP news agency.

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. US Senator Bernie Sanders recently said he intends to introduce legislation banning AI superintelligence and propose a sort of sovereign wealth fund in which the US would take a 50% stake in AI companies. Sanders, who is an independent but often collaborates with his Democratic lawmaker colleagues, would need to pass both houses of Congress - currently held by Republicans - and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law. Trump has championed US government investment in AI companies, to create almost a partnership with the American public. The US senator spoke to BBC Newsnight about his concerns about artificial intelligence overtaking humanity.

'Biological misuse is one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models. Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities could have catastrophic consequences.' 'Biological misuse is one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models. Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities could have catastrophic consequences.' Report comes two days after former employee quit claiming company's models could cause human extinction by 2030 Criminals, state-sponsored groups, spyware vendors, scientists and propagandists have attempted to use Anthropic's powerful artificial intelligence models to design missiles and bombs, create deadly pathogens and surveil dissidents, according to a threat intelligence report the company published on Thursday.

The U.S. Treasury issued sweeping new sanctions against Iran this week, targeting the country’s airlines and their international service providers as it ramps up its effort to isolate Tehran from the global economy.

Mashable Selects Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Look Up Back to School Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Avian flu, drone swarms, and mass surveillance included in Anthropic's safety report The AI company releases a doom-filled safety report as the company backs AI regulation. Rebecca Ruiz is a Senior Reporter at Mashable. She frequently covers mental health, digital culture, and technology. Her areas of expertise include suicide prevention, screen use and mental health, parenting, youth well-being, and meditation and mindfulness. Rebecca's experience prior to Mashable includes working as a staff writer, reporter, and editor at NBC News Digital and as a staff writer at Forbes.

Ukrainian officials say four people were killed and 60 wounded when a Russian drone attacked a shopping mall in Pavlohrad, a city in Dnipropetrovsk region. Shops and vehicles were hit in the daylight attack which took place when the streets were full of people, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said. Two other shopping malls - in the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Sumy - were targeted by Russian air strikes earlier this week, according to Ukrainian media. Russia reported a Ukrainian seaborne drone attack on the resort city of Sochi overnight on Wednesday, in which 28 people were wounded, as well as three more deaths blamed on Ukrainian attacks. A full-scale war has been raging between Russia and Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion more than four and a half years ago.