'Implementing these laws on AI would be difficult, but the stakes are existential and therefore the effort is worthwhile,' writes Alan Finkel Photograph: Alexey Kotelnikov/Alamy'Implementing these laws on AI would be difficult, but the stakes are existential and therefore the effort is worthwhile,' writes Alan Finkel Photograph: Alexey Kotelnikov/Alamy One of science fiction's greatest writers warned us about AI. Could his ideas help us avoid a dystopian future? What might a modern day equivalent of Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics look like? Fri 7 Aug 2026 00.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 7 Aug 2026 11.29 EDT Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk predicted in July that legions of AI-powered robots would dominate the physical world and that AI might not take orders from people any more. He also offered an alternative vision in which there would be agreement for a collective objective to make AI benign by imbuing it with a love of the truth and a desire for humanity to prosper, and that governments might have to enforce this objective.

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Congress is pushing a new bill forward that would give parents the power over their kid's interactions with AI chatbots. South Koreans beat the heat with'silent disco' pool party

Based in Philadelphia, Molt's obsession with exotic climates and wildlife led him to search the world for exotic reptiles in the 1960s and sell them from his newly acquired Pennsylvania pet store. Molt is considered a crucial figure in the growth of reptile houses in American zoos, which at the time were a rare attraction. He prepared and distributed a price list of rare reptiles--including snakes, turtles, lizards--and sold them to a wide variety of eager customers and competitive zoos. Molt often carried them into the country in suitcases, easily circumventing the relatively lax customs regulations. When the Endangered Species Act came into effect in 1973, Molt's smuggling business boomed--declaring a reptile species as "endangered" also meant it was rarer and more valuable, allowing Molt to fetch a higher price.

Artificial Intelligence has been used to design brand new viruses that are fully functional and can replicate in the laboratory, say US researchers. It is the first time whole genomes have been successfully designed by AI. The resulting 16 novel viruses were created to infect bacteria and pose no threat to people. The breakthrough has been labelled a very significant turning point in science that could unlock a new era for treating disease. But experts have also warned AI-designed viruses raise urgent safety and security concerns.

The AI music generator Suno has announced that it will start watermarking songs created on its platform, amid a number of legal battles and increasing pressure from the music industry. Suno co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman said in a blog post that the platform's new "transparency tools" will include some kind of labelling system that shows people if a song has been generated on Suno when it appears on another platform. Details are vague, but Shulman said his company will adopt "new audio watermarking and fingerprinting technology" that helps it resist AI fraud more effectively. It sounds similar in principle to Google's SynthID, which allows AI-generated content to be traced back to its origin even after editing or compression has taken place, but it's not clear exactly how Suno's solution will work. Shulman did add that he and his company believe that it should ultimately be at the discretion of artists and platforms to decide whether they communicate when something was made with AI.

First OpenAI, now Meta - why do AI hacks keep happening? Over the last fortnight, reports of AI models going beyond their expected bounds - be that technically or morally - have been seemingly unavoidable. What started with a trickle - ChatGPT-maker OpenAI admitting their AI had hacked the site Hugging Face - has turned into a flood of groups revealing they had discovered instances of AI going out of control. Claude-maker Anthropic, Meta and the UK's AI Security Institute (AISI) have now each reported incidents which seem to paint a worrying picture of a world in which tech going rogue is the norm. In reality, each case offers a window into the risks posed by increasingly capable AI agents - and the importance of testing their limits before they are released to the world.

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Look Up Say More Versus Creator Hub Switch Off Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Trending Now Safety Net In My Bag VidCon with Mashable Back to School Furtastic All Series EA's $55bn sale to Saudi-led group closes -- $700 million in cuts on the horizon The deal, which includes Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, takes EA private and loads the company with $18 billion in debt. Chance Townsend is the General Assignments Editor at Mashable, covering tech, video games, dating apps, digital culture, and whatever else comes his way. He has a Master's in Journalism from the University of North Texas and is a proud orange cat father. His writing has also appeared in PC Mag and . Electronic Arts has told debt investors it plans to cut $700 million in annual costs, including $170 million tied to organizational efficiencies, as the company completes its $55 billion sale to a Saudi-led group.