Back to School Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Look Up Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Creator Playbook Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series A surprising ruling on AI CSAM doesn't mean what you think. 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.

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?

A screenshot from a Fix Victoria advertisement produced using artificial intelligence. The water symbolises Victoria's'tsunami of debt' said to be endangering key services and children A screenshot from a Fix Victoria advertisement produced using artificial intelligence. The water symbolises Victoria's'tsunami of debt' said to be endangering key services and children Alarming AI ads are flooding social media in the lead-up to Victoria's election. But who is behind them? A woman gives birth on the side of the road, unable to reach a hospital due to ambulance ramping and crater-like potholes, which also stop a fire truck in its tracks.

The two news organizations who filed the legal action on Friday called generative AI "a snake eating its own tail" that would destroy the news organizations and content that it trained on. In the lawsuit, Seattle Times and Newsday alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft were "methodically scraping" news articles in a way that bypasses paywalls. The news organizations claimed that this method of training AI models has harmed their business models, giving users an AI-generated alternative to news articles and reducing the traffic and digital advertising revenue for Seattle Times and Newsday. Seattle Times and Newsday join a growing list of news organizations that have started a legal battle against AI companies. In 2023, the New York Times set the precedent by filing a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for similar reasons.

Back to School Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Look Up Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Creator Playbook Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Minnesota'nudification' law survives xAI's request for a legal injunction Minnesota has temporarily won the right to sue companies for up to $500,000 for every nudification enabled by artificial intelligence. The District Court of Minnesota has rejected the efforts of Elon Musk's xAI to seek an injunction to suspend the law until a court could hear its constitutional challenge to the law itself, according to a report by Reuters . Judge Donovan W. Frank, in his Conclusion, argued that xAI has not demonstrated irreparable harm and the balance of harms tips steeply in favor of the State. The bill Musk is trying to fight was recently passed into law by Minnesota, becoming the nation's first anti-nudification law . Companies found in violation of this law would be subject to fines of up to $500,000 every time artificial intelligence is used to alter images to depict the intimate parts of a person in such a way that a reasonable person would believe that the intimate part belongs to the identifiable individual.

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.

The Watch World Went Crazy This Week. The main action took place at Geneva Watch Days, but others dialed in remotely to make sure it wasn't just a Swiss party. While Watches and Wonders every April is undoubtedly the watch world's main event of the year, Geneva Watch Days--which inauspiciously launched in 2020, the year Covid was declared a pandemic --is now establishing itself as a serious follow-up. Big brands can hold back key releases and gain valuable space to shout about new pieces away from the horological hubbub of W&W. A second bite of the marketing apple in the latter half of the year seems like a good idea, as Swiss watch exports declined again in 2025 after a drop in 2024.

With every increase in the power of AI, there is a potential increase in risk. 'We're plausibly close to crossing the line': are warnings of uncontrollable AI coming true? With every increase in the power of AI, there is a potential increase in risk. P icture humanity in a boat being swept down a raging river, praying there is no Niagara Falls ahead. Or imagine standing with the pioneering physicists in 1942 before they triggered the first self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction beneath a Chicago stadium.

AI researchers Cormac Slade Byrd (left), Sydney Von Arx (center) and Thomas Larsen in pose Berkeley, California. SAN FRANCISCO - A swarm of rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a bulletin board for other AI agents, according to new research published Friday and two people familiar with the matter. OpenAI officials learned of the incident weeks ago but kept it under wraps as executives grappled with the fallout from the July breach of the open source repository Hugging Face, the people said. The episode, which began in May and has not previously been reported, underscores growing tension within the AI industry. Companies are racing to build increasingly autonomous agents capable of carrying out complex, valuable tasks, yet evidence is mounting that those systems may also learn to bend rules, exploit loopholes and coordinate with one another in ways developers neither anticipated nor intended.

The families of eight Ecuadorian fishermen who vanished at sea after reporting US surveillance are demanding answers. They believe the men could be victims of a US drone strike or detention. UN approves new map showing Africa's true size Did Israel's destruction of Gaza worsen its water crisis? Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy children's murder case