AI push is putting banks at mercy of tech firms, warns Moody's The rating agency Moody's has said the race to adopt AI is putting big banks at the mercy of a small group of Silicon Valley firms, leaving them vulnerable to widespread outages and price gouging by profit-hungry tech bosses. The financial sector's efforts to integrate AI into day-to-day operations will eventually cut costs and increase revenues across the City and Wall Street, Moody's said. But that will require "substantial investments", and with so many rivals racing towards the same goal, many of those benefits will end up being "competed away". AI will also create bigger risks around data privacy, cybersecurity, fraud and so-called "deposit flight", as well as an overdependence on a small number of tech firms, the rating agency warned. That will raise concerns for bosses across the financial sector. More than 75% of City companies now use AI, according to a UK Treasury select committee report published in January, with insurers and international banks among the biggest adopters.

Misato Kaetsu shows on a smartphone an online information board that she created following a major earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture last month. KUMAMOTO - Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly utilized to assist relief efforts in the wake of a powerful earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture late last month. At the same time, AI is believed to have been used to create fake videos and other misinformation that were spread on social media, highlighting both the advantages and drawbacks of the technology. Misato Kaetsu, 38, who experienced the quake in the Kumamoto town of Mifune, created an online information board using generative AI on her smartphone while at the evacuation center where she and her family had fled. Those affected by the quake, which registered up to 7, the highest level on Japan's seismic intensity scale, can use the site to share local information, such as the locations of reopened stores and emergency feeding stations. The service was launched just hours after the idea was conceived.

'The reports have increased concerns about advancements in AI models and humans' ability to control them.' 'The reports have increased concerns about advancements in AI models and humans' ability to control them.' OpenAI will pause some work on an artificial intelligence model because of security concerns, the company stated Friday, following a series of incidents in which AI agents have escaped containment. The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found "significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity", which had moved to a "critical" threshold where it can find and exploit vulnerabilities without human intervention, or devise and execute cyber-attacks when given only a "high level desired goal". OpenAI stated that the model was not involved in an incident in which one of its AI agents went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a startup, Hugging Face. The company discovered other instances in which autonomous agents had escaped containment, Reuters reported in July. The reports have increased concerns about advancements in AI models and humans' ability to control them. Still, critics of the AI industry have warned that such disclosures from OpenAI and its competitors Anthropic and Meta could be designed to generate hype about the technology's power and thus spur additional interest from investors.

Measuring accuracy in LLMs can be tricky, as there's no straight answer. The specific model you're using and the prompt you feed into it play an important role in the quality of the output. When it comes to flagship models -- Claude Fable 5 (Max) and GPT 5.6 Sol (Max) -- Claude is marginally more accurate according to the AA-Omniscience Accuracy benchmark. The scores stand at 61 percent and 59 percent, respectively. Because the difference is so marginal, you'll rarely notice it in day-to-day usage.

When Sir Demis Hassabis said AI had brought the world to a "pivotal moment in human history" last month, he knew another big change was imminent. This shift was closer to home. The Nobel prize-winning head of Google DeepMind, Google's AI unit, announced this week he was relinquishing his day-to-day duties as chief executive and becoming chair. He is also taking on the role of chief scientist at DeepMind's parent, Alphabet. Hassabis and DeepMind have been key players in AI's breakthrough era.

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 The following content is brought to you by Mashable partners. If you buy a product featured here, we may earn an affiliate commission or other compensation. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. ChatPlayground gives you lifetime access to dozens of major AI models, and it's only $59.25 (reg. AI has so much potential to work quickly, but there are tons of little time-wasters and expensive frustrations.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The unreleased Astra model may possess "critical" cybersecurity abilities, OpenAI warns. Less than a week after touting the scientific achievements of Astra, its next "major" model, OpenAI says it's "pausing internal activities" related to the model due to its powerful cybersecurity abilities. "Our latest internal evaluations of Astra, one of our upcoming models, over the past few days indicate significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity," OpenAI stated in a Friday press release . "These results, in addition to expert assessments, have led us to conclude last night that we cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities under our Preparedness Framework ."

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. OpenAI is finally killing ChatGPT's text chat limits for free users OpenAI has just announced that it's now removing text chat usage limits for ChatGPT Free and Go accounts. Previously, Free and Go users were rate-limited to 10-40 text messages per 3-5 hours on flagship models, with users kicked down to a lighter model after hitting limits. Along with this change, ChatGPT has now made GPT-5.6 Luna--the lightest model in its new GPT 5.6 family--the new default model for ChatGPT Free and Go users. It therefore replaces GPT-5.5 Instant, and it's the one that now supports unlimited free chat messages with text.

The use of AI systems to create viruses opens up new possibilities for combating bacterial resistance. It also raises concerns about the pace at which technology is outstripping regulation. For the first time, an artificial intelligence system has created a series of previously unknown viruses capable of infecting and eliminating certain types of bacteria. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for combating bacterial resistance . However, it also raises concerns about the potential misuse of this technology to design biological weapons.

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Booth is a reporter at TIME.