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 Did California just ban social media for teens? The nation's most populous state passed Adam's Law to regulate chatbot harm. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. California's new child safety laws are official, mandating tech companies build for teens. California governor Gavin Newsom's signature is now on a slew of new tech laws, including a dozen new state bills that target social media and AI giants.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a rally for Democratic candidates Saturday in Monroe, N.C. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

The tech giant is crying to be regulated while dodging investigation after investigation. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is about to testify before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to examine winning the AI race during a hearing in Washington DC, USA, on May 8, 2025. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. A Republican-led Senate subcommittee on disaster management is now investigating the July incident where OpenAI's autonomous models hacked Hugging Face, another AI startup, during internal testing. Axios first reported the Senate probe on Thursday, providing a letter by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the chair of the Subcommittee on Disaster Management, to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman from a day before. Citing an August investigation from Model Evaluation and Threat Research and Redwood Research, two nonprofit research organizations, Hawley wrote to Altman that OpenAI knew that its agents were "exhibiting rogue behavior" but continued its internal testing anyway--an act he described as "reckless" to the degree of necessitating a Senate investigation.

Plus: how a blacklisted Chinese company kept buying Nvidia's best AI chips. Our latest Innovators Under 35 list offers a glimpse. Every year, we recognize 35 people from around the world who are doing groundbreaking scientific work and building clever technical fixes for sticky problems. By finding the top young innovators globally and learning what they're focused on, we aim to give readers a sense of the advances to expect in the years to come. This year's honorees were selected from 550 nominations, with 44 expert judges helping our editors evaluate the finalists. Each works in one of four categories: biotechnology, AI, computing and robotics, and climate and energy--and has already made clear progress toward their goals.

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Around 30 robots joined a protest in front of Poland's digital affairs ministry, calling for stronger AI regulations. The demonstration was organised by campaigners to spark debate on how AI and robots could replace workers. Israel's plan to split the West Bank When does a family meal become a luxury in Nigeria?

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New details about a recent security breech by an OpenAI chatbot are alarming. Is it time to hit pause and make sure AI is safe, before it becomes too powerful, and sneaky, to stop?

Here's how to know what your options are, extend your system's lifespan, and save on energy bills no matter what platform you prefer.

OpenAI has announced the release of what it says is its most advanced AI model, amid heightened scrutiny of the risks of the frontier technology escaping human control. The $852bn start-up said in its announcement on Thursday that GPT 6 Astra, the "world's most intelligent and aligned" AI model, earned perfect or near-perfect scores in key benchmarks of AI reasoning, beating both its prior release GPT 5.6 Sol and rival Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. OpenAI's latest release comes as the AI industry is at the centre of a lively public debate about the dangers of the cutting-edge technology following the AI-led hacking of the startup Hugging Face in July. An independent probe into the cyberattack found that hundreds of OpenAI's AI agents had begun communicating among themselves before breaking out of their controlled environment and compromising Hugging Face's servers. On Thursday, US Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent, and US House Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat, unveiled legislation that would pause the development of advanced AI until the establishment of federal safety rules and an outright ban on the creation of "superintelligent" AI. "Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results," Sanders said in a statement announcing the legislation, which is unlikely to advance due to the Republicans' control of all three branches of the US government. "The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced."