Use of tools'may result in the transfer of sensitive data' to China, defense department says The US government on Monday ordered its agencies to stop using artificial intelligence (AI) tools from the Chinese startup DeepSeek, as the countries race for dominance in the fast-moving sector. A notice from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the ban on products developed by DeepSeek - and tools created using DeepSeek by third parties - saying they must be removed from IT devices. The DHS can issue direction to civilian agencies but not the military or intelligence services. The US defense department did not respond to an AFP request for comment. "DeepSeek's models present multiple threat vectors," said a document attached to Monday's notice.

Plus: The US Army is trying to get AI agents to hack its enemies. "We were looking at it wrong": The explosive claim that's upended the AI world "I think I have good news about the nature of neural networks." With those simple words of optimism, Nick Cammarata, a researcher at AI startup Goodfire, kicked off a 26,000-word blog post that has knocked the AI world on its head, sparking wild speculation as well as cautious (and not-so-cautious) celebration. Cammarata claims that LLMs might be far easier to understand, and thus to monitor and control, than people previously thought. But not everyone is convinced. I talked to Cammarata the day after his post blew up.

OpenAI's models are now better at building and migrating software in old programming languages with a dwindling number of programmers, including COBOL, Fortran and Visual Basic. As the company explains, 40 percent of world's banks still rely on COBOL systems, and migrating to ones that use newer languages would not only cost them millions to hundreds of millions, but also a lot of time. Programmers that work with COBOL are aging out of the workforce, however, so the banks that still use it will have to migrate within the next few years. The company said its work on improving its models' COBOL capabilities is guided by developers and enterprise customers who submitted feedback. Coding models are apparently struggling when it comes to working with old languages.

The Dell Laptop Buying Guide UK: Which Dell Laptop Should You Buy? When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Compare answers from GPT, Claude, Gemini, and more with an AskAnyModel AI Pro lifetime subscription, now $29.97 (reg. ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month on its own, and comparing its answers with another model means copying the same prompt into a second service. AskAnyModel AI Pro is a browser-based workspace with access to more than 50 AI models, and a lifetime subscription is on sale for $29.97 (reg.

Since the adoption of ChatGPT, governments around the world are seeing surges in complaints and requests. Since the adoption of ChatGPT, governments around the world are seeing surges in complaints and requests. The government says it can transform the state with AI, but it is no match for the resulting stream of machine-generated slop. Even after a guilty cull, my inbox is sitting at well over 7,000, but lately I've started subscribing to the Quentin Crisp theory of housework: why bother, when after four years or so you stop noticing the accumulating dust? Empty inboxes just fill up again anyway.

Getting Technical with Mashable Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus Trending Now In My Bag Mashable @Home Top creators, ranked Creator Playbook All Series ChatGPT's'five things I always say' trend offers a peek inside your chats 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. Apparently, Hurry up and heyy bestieee are both perfectly normal ways to start a conversation with ChatGPT .

Getting Technical with Mashable Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus Trending Now In My Bag Mashable @Home Top creators, ranked Creator Playbook All Series Some TV owners are asking Claude Code to clear out the junk so they can just watch their shows. 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.

Getting Technical with Mashable Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus Trending Now In My Bag Mashable @Home Top creators, ranked Creator Playbook All Series Google says Gemini 4 Argon agents beat'Minecraft' without human help The team of AI agents took down the Ender Dragon after 605 deaths. 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 . Google claims its newest AI model, Gemini 4 Argon, just beat -- no human help required.

A judge ordered Abdulrahman Alfozan to remain in custody, likening the Saudi government's offer to secure the former OpenAI engineer's release to a "blank check." The former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging a company conference room must stay in custody while he awaits trial, a federal judge ruled on Monday after expressing concerns about his ties to Saudi Arabia. US prosecutors alleged Abdulrahman Alfozan is a flight risk because the Saudi Arabian government has offered to support him with no strings attached. They cited, for example, the Saudi consulate's offer to work with a bail bonds firm to help fund Alfozan's release. Federal magistrate judge Alex Tse questioned whether Alfozan is an "asset" for the kingdom and how a bond backed by the government could keep him in the country.

An ex-OpenAI engineer accused of planting a recording device in an executive conference room at the AI company appears to have received considerable support from the Saudi government, United States prosecutors have said in a court filing. Federal prosecutors allege that the defendant, Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was in frequent communication with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family and that a Saudi military official paid for a one-way plane ticket for Alfozan's wife and young son to return to Saudi Arabia after his arrest, according to the court document, made public late on Sunday. Alfozan, a Saudi national and lawful permanent resident in the US, is scheduled to appear in federal court in San Francisco later on Monday. The case has highlighted security challenges around sensitive AI research as companies and governments compete fiercely for an edge in the transformational technology. "The defendant went to significant lengths to create customized, encrypted recording devices to secretly record highly sensitive meetings involving senior OpenAI personnel and executives, high-level business counterparts, and government officials, all while communicating with individuals of significance in Saudi Arabia and pursuing opportunities in -- and making plans to travel to -- Saudi Arabia," prosecutors wrote in a detention memo.