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.

Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. As an ordinary internet user, I am skeptical about AI. My colleagues and I have reported on several harmful aspects of the technology in the US: threats to democracy, its impact on the environment, mental health, the workforce, military intervention --the list goes on. While researching the gaps in conversations around enforceable government regulation of AI startups, both big and small, eager to innovate and launch new products, I came across AI researchers, policy experts, and even "ordinary internet users" like me trying to reimagine how the industry could work. If AI is unstoppable, can we build it in a way where the public has more of a say in how the technology is made, used, and who it benefits? To answer these questions, I spoke with B Cavello, the director of emerging technologies at the Aspen Institute .

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 Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. We did this to ourselves. A bunch of researchers let AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic loose in a testing environment, and the results were a little spooky.

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 A city lost its entire Flock camera network as communities nationwide grapple with the controversial license plate readers. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter.

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