Amid live coding sessions and Silicon Valley optimism, the UN's AI for Good summit wrestled with an increasingly urgent question: Can global governance catch up before the technology races beyond its control? Dodge past the live onstage coding sessions, AI refresher courses, an obstacle course of gizmos, round people walking round with glowing green silent-disco-style headphones blaring UN panel discussions into your ears, and you can take a pause for breath. But you might find yourself in the Networking Zone, on a rotating seating contraption called UFOTECH that looks more like the kind of lazy Susan you'd encounter at a Chinese restaurant than the networking bench it is designed to function as. This is the AI for Good summit, organized by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU), where representatives from the private and public sectors try to discuss how to harness the technology for the benefit, rather than the detriment, of humanity. While Silicon Valley execs and AI lab leaders are testifying to lawmakers in Washington about the risks of superintelligence, and the White House slaps export controls on chips, the UN AI for Good Summit--now in its 10th year--is focused on much more idealistic goals.

Claude subscribers must soon pay usage-based fees to access Anthropic's best consumer AI model--a sign that the golden era of AI subscriptions is ending. AI model developers have long offered consumers a simple deal: Use our technology for free through an online chatbot, or pay a monthly subscription to receive more usage, premium features, and advanced models. Anthropic is about to make that bargain a lot more complicated. Starting on July 12 at 11:59PM PT, subscribers to Anthropic's $20, $100, and $200-a-month plans will need to pay additional usage-based fees to access Claude Fable 5, the consumer version of the company's highly capable Mythos 5 AI model . This appears to be the first time a frontier AI lab has gated a consumer AI model behind usage-based billing.

OpenAI's Chief Futurist Is Leaving the Company Joshua Achiam spent nearly nine years at OpenAI researching AI safety and made a memorable appearance in the trial. OpenAI's chief futurist, Joshua Achiam, notified colleagues on Tuesday that he is leaving the company later this month after nearly nine years, WIRED has learned. Achiam, who previously led a team tasked with upholding the organization's nonprofit mission, told OpenAI staff that his departure was not motivated by any specific reason, but was something he's been thinking about for a while. "The world is in on the secret now and it feels possible to work on the mission from outside the walls of a frontier lab," Achiam said in a note to staff obtained by WIRED. "I believe we can get to a world of peace, unprecedented prosperity, and unimaginable possibilities, social and scientific. Whatever I do next, I will continue to work with you on making this vision real."

During negotiations on Wednesday, employees voiced frustrations with what they consider an unwillingness among senior DeepMind executives to engage meaningfully with the prospect of unionization. Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London-based employees over the possibility of unionization stumbled this week, after initial talks left union representatives feeling they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned. In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives. The company later denied that request, but agreed to participate in negotiations arbitrated by a third-party body. An initial meeting on Wednesday was attended by union officers, DeepMind employees involved in the unionization push, the third-party arbitrator, and DeepMind HR representatives.

Anthropic Added a New Security Measure to Get Back Into the Trump Administration's Good Graces The government has removed restrictions on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models--but there were strings attached. The Trump administration lifted export controls on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 AI model after the company agreed to extend an existing guardrail to prevent users from trying to access certain restricted capabilities, according to two people familiar with the matter. The safeguard means any users trying to unlock those capabilities will be notified that their request is blocked and will have their query processed by the less-advanced Opus 4.8 AI model, the people say. Before Anthropic cut off access to Fable 5, user requests related to sensitive cybersecurity and biology capabilities were supposed to be processed by Opus 4.8. The new safeguard, the people say, will extend this guardrail to requests related to a specific behavior identified in a paper by Amazon .

The Trump Administration Is Lifting Its Export Controls on Anthropic's Mythos and Fable AI Models The White House is easing restrictions on Anthropic's most advanced AI models weeks after ordering the company to suspend access for foreign nationals. The Trump administration is lifting export controls on Anthropic's two most powerful AI models after the company reached a deal with the Commerce Department. The news was communicated in a letter sent by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Anthropic cofounder Tom Brown viewed by WIRED. The department is lifting restrictions on both the Fable 5 model and the more powerful Mythos 5 model, which had so far been approved for release only to select companies and government agencies. "A license is no longer required for the export, reexport, or in-country transfer, including deemed export or deemed reexport, of the Mythos or Fable models," Lutnick wrote.

Plus: Former national security advisor John Bolton pleads guilty in classified-materials case, Microsoft helps take down major infostealer infrastructure, and more. A WIRED investigation this week offers insight into a predictive policing program in Bristol, England that has involved 23 separate models over more than a decade, intended to score the likelihood of specific individuals will perpetrate or be victims of different crimes. The investigation draws on data from public records requests and other reporting to reveal a messy law enforcement apparatus that has real implications for the community--but that most people in the area know nothing about. After the identities of members of Peter Thiel's private "Dialog" group were exposed last week, the organization claimed that a "criminal" hacker was behind the breach. But evidence shows that members' personal information--including that of a White House intelligence official and an active-duty special operations officer --was publicly accessible and likely exposed as the result of a Dialog website misconfiguration .

After weeks of negotiations, the White House permitted Anthropic to grant access to its most advanced AI model to a select group of US companies and government agencies. The US government has eased the restrictions it imposed on Anthropic's most advanced AI model, Claude Mythos 5, allowing the company to grant access to more than 100 US organizations, including large corporations and government agencies. In a letter sent to Anthropic's cofounder and chief compute officer Tom Brown obtained by WIRED, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the AI lab it would permit certain trusted partners to access Mythos because he had "determined that appropriate safeguards are in place." Semafor first reported the existence of the letter. "Anthropic has worked with the U.S. government to address risks associated with the Covered Models. These efforts have yielded significant progress," Lutnick wrote.

How People in China Keep Outsmarting Anthropic's Geolocation Restrictions As Anthropic tightens restrictions on access to Claude in China, users keep finding new workarounds, from proxy services to fake identities sourced on Telegram. Anthropic goes to great lengths to prevent people in China from using its AI models, but in practice, its safeguards have often failed. Over the past year, startups, researchers, and tech enthusiasts across the country have developed increasingly sophisticated workarounds to access Claude. Many of them consider it the world's most capable AI assistant, making the extra effort to obtain it worthwhile. In early June, Anthropic publicly released Fable 5, a safeguarded version of its most powerful AI model to date, Mythos.

OpenAI Has New AI Models. The White House asked OpenAI to delay the rollout of its GPT-5.6 AI models, two weeks after Anthropic had to take its most advanced AI models offline. OpenAI is delaying the public release of its next generation of AI models, GPT-5.6, at the request of Trump's White House, the company confirmed on Friday. OpenAI said it would first share the models with a small set of customers, which will be preapproved by the US government. It will then work with the administration to slowly expand access.