USC has named David Madigan, a statistician and former Northeastern University provost, to succeed Andrew Guzman as its chief academic officer, the most senior academic hire under President Beong-Soo Kim.

President Donald Trump still thinks Republicans have a shot. His aides are less convinced. President Donald Trump has told aides that he thinks Republicans could still outperform expectations in the midterm elections this November, seemingly unwilling to confront the worsening political climate for the GOP. But aides acknowledge privately that the national polling for Trump is shockingly bad, and the White House, in recent weeks, has begun to contemplate for the first time losing both the House and Senate majorities. One longtime Trumpworld operative, who correctly predicted weeks before the 2024 presidential election that Trump was on course to win every battleground state, summed it up for: "Oh, yeah, we're going to get creamed."

Trump's AI Safety'Accord' Is a Fancy Pinky-Swear Six major AI companies signed a voluntary agreement with the White House this week vowing to implement safeguards. On Tuesday, executives for Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Nvidia all signed "The White House Accord on Super Intelligence," which was announced following a luncheon held by President Donald Trump. The effort was an act of "tremendous self-regulation," as Trump put it, but the agreement is not the sweeping AI regulation that people inside the companies themselves have been asking for. And while failing to honor these public commitments could count as illegally lying to consumers, even that wouldn't be enough to trigger massive reforms. The statement says that companies "should implement" several things: First, they should ensure they have "robust internal controls" to monitor their models' capabilities and ability to not go rogue or hack things in unintended ways.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an investigation into several major artificial intelligence companies amid a wave of recent rogue artificial intelligence agents -- AI systems that can make decisions and take actions on behalf of users -- from firms and claims by former industry insiders that AI could end humanity within the next decade. The FTC launched the investigation several weeks ago. It was first reported on Wednesday by the New York Post and has since been confirmed by other outlets, including the Washington Post and the Reuters news agency. The probe marks the first enforcement action by a federal agency examining rogue agents. The investigation was launched amid a wave of incidents, first reported in July, of agents going rogue in testing, including when an OpenAI agent broke out of containment during testing, hacking into the AI firm Hugging Face.

How does Trump's White House AI accord work? Share How does Trump's White House AI accord work? on social media Amid calls for regulation, United States President Donald Trump met with artificial intelligence executives at the White House to put in place a voluntary pact, called the White House Accord on Super Intelligence. The agreement, which was signed by executives at Meta, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic on Tuesday, calls on companies to put in place guardrails internally to help monitor security risks, with four layers of control. The agreement calls for companies to maintain internal controls, establish an internal team to oversee these controls, work with independent outside auditors and create an independent board committee to review the results. The pact, however, is voluntary and not legally binding.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG . Is your personal data changing what you pay online? Apple's $250M Siri settlement: How to claim up to $95 The next connected device could be the shirt you're wearing Hacker claims 7.49M customer records stolen from American utility company Is everyone bricking their phone to stop doomscrolling? The secret list that tells scammers you're an easy target How the'Squatter Hunter' is fighting home takeovers with tech AI robot may stop your dog from barking while you're gone This will be'such a gift' to humankind: Charles Payne Andrew Bailey blasts FBI exit'lies' and reveals why he's leaving the bureau President Trump: Data centers will be'very popular' Trump says America.gov will streamline government paperwork: 'We believe that your time matters' 'We know how to find you': FBI issues direct video warning to ShinyHunters hacking group Emily Compagno blasts Bill Gates' AI doom warnings as tech dangers persist AI technology is'founded on theft,' Ocasio-Cortez warns'We know how to find you': FBI issues direct video warning to ShinyHunters hacking group Following the arrest of an alleged leader in the Netherlands, a top FBI cyber official released an unusual public address urging the remaining cybercriminals to turn themselves in while the choice is still yours.

In her new book on biological warfare, Annie Jacobsen didn't even discuss AI because scientists can already warp Mother Nature to create extinction-level events. We've been hearing a great deal recently about the specter of AI-driven human extinction . Maybe our misplaced trust in AI intelligence will set off World War III . Or AI agents will unleash widespread cyberattacks and take over the internet. Given too much autonomy, the machines will run amok. They may seek to deceive their creators--wait, that's already happened . Suppose they conclude, like Agent Smith in, that "human beings are a plague, and we are the cure." Or perhaps the chatbots help bad humans unleash a literal plague--a biological weapon .

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Selects In My Bag Look Up Say More AI at School Safety Net Versus Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age All Series The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act targets unauthorized content scraping, which is putting immense financial stress on iconic publications. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. News publishers want to curb fee-free website scraping. Executives from iconic publications like, and are descending on Washington to lobby for another AI regulation bill, this time tackling the threat AI poses to their bottom lines and longevity. Introduced to the House in July, the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act would prohibit the deployment of stealth bots, or unidentified AI agents tasked with scraping and indexing a website's content, without disclosure.

The US's main trade regulator is conducting an industry-wide investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI labs to uncover the potential dangers their technology poses to consumers. The investigation by the Federal Trade Commission is the first official US enforcement action that delves into rogue AI agents, following a surge in incidents first reported in July that have stoked fears among the public that uncontrolled AI could one day harm humans. The FTC plans to issue formal demands for information and compel testimony from executives at top AI developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI and the research group Metr, according to multiple reports . Anthropic and OpenAI have used Metr to conduct independent investigations into security incidents involving their agentic AI technology. Anthropic, OpenAI and Metr did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats blocked a bill to make AI data centers cover rising electricity costs, a key midterm election issue that could impact Sen. Jon Husted's Ohio race.