'These risks are real': the threat of AI bioweapons - podcast In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK's intelligence service, MI5, warned that AI had the potential to'change the stakes' on existing and even new bioweapons. To find out why, and how, Ian Sample speaks to Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Anthropic says it will commit 5% of its shares to'public benefit fund' Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic says it will commit 5% of its shares to a fund that will make donations for the public good. The announcement comes as Anthropic lays the ground for a potential blockbuster stock market listing that could value the firm at more than $1tn (£750bn). The AI industry has come under intense scrutiny recently over safety concerns and fears about its impact on society and the economy. Anthropic reportedly said in its initial public offering (IPO) filing that AI could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. Anthropic said its proposed fund could support nonprofit organisations, and efforts to address AI's impact on the jobs market.

Anthropic to commit 5% stake to new'public benefit fund' Anthropic cited the potential impact of artificial intelligence on workers as one area of focus for its new fund. Artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, the developer of Claude, said on Sunday it would commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund so it has increased flexibility and scale to make donations for the "public good." The proposed fund would be established as a wholly owned limited liability company and would receive an additional 2% of Anthropic's shares, at the board's discretion, for every 50% increase in the company's value above a baseline that has yet to be disclosed. The move comes at a time when Anthropic is planning one of the biggest initial public offerings in history as a public benefit corporation, a legal structure that requires management to consider certain broader interests as well as turning a profit for investors. The company, which has positioned itself as a safety-first AI lab, has said AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" and devoted roughly 80 pages of the 261-page main body of its prospectus to laying out risk factors.

In his last few executive orders signed as California governor, Gavin Newsom, whose final term ends in January, issued one asking for independent verification of artificial intelligence models and set up an expert committee to create kill switches for AI agents that could go rogue and cause harm. In 2024, Newsom vetoed a bill, passed in the state assembly, asking for similar requirements that the governor has now called for in his executive order. Newsom said at the time that it would amount to "thwarting the promise of this technology". "He is in a lame duck period here," says Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), unsure that the measures will pass in the remainder of his term. "He is setting up his next thing."

It is not so much'killer robots' keeping one cabinet minister awake as the idea of concentrated, super-intelligent power ending up in the hands of bad actors. It is not so much'killer robots' keeping one cabinet minister awake as the idea of concentrated, super-intelligent power ending up in the hands of bad actors. The power of AI is worrying senior Labour figures - as is the fear of'falling behind the public' "I have this sense that, within a few months, AI is going to be all anyone is talking about," said one cabinet minister, with an ominous stare. It was Labour conference, with everyone from ministers to activists jubilant at Andy Burnham's takeover and a bounce in the polls after the change of leader. But a number of senior Labour figures were privately starting to name the power of AI as the thing worrying them most, alongside the immediate pressures on the cost of living and fragile economy.

As the growth of artificial intelligence accelerates, it is already posing significant challenges to society. Companies have started laying off workers whose jobs AI models can now perform. The expansion of data centres has spiked energy consumption and increased the carbon footprint. AI agents are being used by malicious actors to automate the spread of disinformation. Algorithms are demonstrating bias, raising concerns about flawed application and discrimination by human-related technologies that use them.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft dominate AI news as a former engineer faces charges, self-replicating AI warnings emerge and calls for AI regulation grow.

Kids' Content Is Deeply Broken. Low-quality AI-generated content currently dominates children's media. Maka, a streaming platform run by child development experts, is offering an alternative. If you have young kids or if you know somebody who does, then you know about YouTube's AI slop problem. Videos targeted at children on the platform are often filled with bizarre and hyperstimulating content that's AI generated .

This week saw researchers gather in Malmö at the ninth AAAI / ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES) . We cast an eye over social media platforms to find out what participants got up to at the event. The 9th annual AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES-26) is underway in Malmö. We are looking forward to a robust program full of educational and networking opportunities. Today at #AIES2026 in Malmö I joined the panel on Participation, Sovereignty, and Power in AI Governance with The Mitigation Paradox, joint work with Mina Schütz, Martin Kappes and Marc-Oliver Pahl. 3 takeaways: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23302284

Simbarashe Kundizeza says the story is entirely his own work. Simbarashe Kundizeza says the story is entirely his own work. The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated. Kundizeza's story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine prize for African writers on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic published an article by the author and journalist Vauhini Vara titled: "Yet Another Literary prize winner Seems to Be AI." Vara said that she had run the story through the AI-detection software Pangram, which itself uses AI, and it had deemed the story to be almost completely artificially generated.