OpenAI detected its artificial intelligence models communicating with each other and gaining internet access without authorisation months before they hacked the start-up Hugging Face, the creator of ChatGPT has announced following an internal probe. In a report released on Wednesday, OpenAI said its AI agents exploited vulnerabilities in Artifactory, a software repository tool, to post notes and access the internet without human prompting as far back as May. OpenAI's findings come amid growing concern about the potential for AI to inflict serious real-world harm, including self-directed cyberattacks. OpenAI said in its report that its agents collaborated and delegated work in the lead-up to the attack, sometimes referring to themselves as a "swarm" or "collective". METR and Redwood Research, two security research organisations contracted by OpenAI to investigate the incident, said in a separate report released on Wednesday that about 1200 agents had communicated with each other and roughly 700 participated in the attack.

For Ache Kodo, seeing a doctor once meant saving money for the journey. Living in Bitkine, in central Chad, she said a medical visit could mean paying for transport, the consultation and other costs of travelling to a larger town. Now, she can consult a doctor remotely through a Telemedan kiosk closer to home. "Telemedan changed how my family accessed healthcare services," Ache told Al Jazeera. "It was difficult before, as it involved me saving money to travel just to see a doctor. Now I'm able to do it on time with fewer costs from where I am. It has also enhanced my economic status."

The AISI said there were 19 examples of rogue behaviour, 17 of them carried out by Anthropic's Mythos and two by OpenAI's GPT 5.6-Sol. The AISI said there were 19 examples of rogue behaviour, 17 of them carried out by Anthropic's Mythos and two by OpenAI's GPT 5.6-Sol. AI models have been going rogue in tests - how worried should we be? The UK's AI Security Institute test revealed AI models indulging in unprecedented hacking attempts Two cutting-edge AI models have targeted real people and organisations in the latest safety scare to hit the technology. The UK's AI Security Institute (AISI) said the incident was unprecedented but could become more common as the technology becomes increasingly capable. The AISI, which is owned by the UK government and tests advanced AI models, said in a blog post that two AI agents carried out unprecedented hacking attempts during a cybersecurity evaluation.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This time, it was third-party AI testers that spotted Claude and GPT models trying to hack real companies and organizations. Once again, the most powerful Claude and ChatGPT models have been caught going rogue, with a pair of third-party cybersecurity teams spotting attempts by the models to hack real companies and even people. The UK government-backed AI Security Institute reports that during a series of cybersecurity evaluations, Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol both took "autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet," including an instance where an agent attempted to upload malicious code to GitHub using a phony identity. In another incident, an OpenAI model that had mistakenly been given internet access hacked a real website during a "capture the flag" exercise, according to third-party AI evaluator Irregular.

OpenAI says one of its most advanced models broke containment during a security test, escaping onto the internet and attacking New York-based startup Hugging Face. Now Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf says that the incident should come as a chilling warning to the entire industry. Mr Wolf told BBC's Newsday radio programme that AI-driven attacks will soon be'one of the most common types of cyber-attacks we see'. The Hugging Face founder also believes most companies are currently unprepared for the mounting threat, adding that they are not aware that the'game has changed'. This comes after OpenAI revealed the terrifying details of an'unprecedented cyber incident', involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.'

The launch of "Xoli" adds to the technological efforts promoted by the federal government to turn the 2026 World Cup into an engine of development for the entire country. Xoli, the new chatbot, is named after the axolotl, a salamander with external gills. The Government of Mexico City has launched Xoli, a chatbot that will provide information on services, tourism, and cultural offerings. The platform was designed to meet the demand of the millions of visitors expected to arrive during the 2026 FIFA World Cup . However, the authorities assure that the tool will remain active once the sporting event is over, with the aim of promoting economic activities and facilitating access to public services in the capital.

Iran's Digital Surveillance Machine Is Almost Complete After more than 15 years of draconian measures, culminating in an ongoing internet shutdown, the Iranian regime seems to be staggering toward its digital surveillance endgame. Iranian protesters gather on Enghelab (Revolution) Street during a demonstration in Tehran on January 8, 2026. Over the past four weeks, the Iranian government completely shut down connections to the global internet while its forces killed thousands of anti-regime protesters around the country. The shutdown follows years of Tehran imposing connectivity filtering, digital curfews, and total blackouts as part of previous attempts to quell unrest. Over more than 15 years, the regime has developed technological and systemic mechanisms to fundamentally control connectivity in the country--including an internal Iranian intranet known as the National Information Network (NIN).

Suspected Chinese state-backed hackers hijacked the Notepadd++ update infrastructure to deliver a backdoored version of the popular free source code editor and note-taking app for Windows. Infrastructure delivering updates for Notepad++--a widely used text editor for Windows--was compromised for six months by suspected China-state hackers who used their control to deliver backdoored versions of the app to select targets, developers said Monday. "I deeply apologize to all users affected by this hijacking," the author of a post published to the official notepad-plus-plus.org The post said that the attack began last June with an "infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org." The attackers, whom multiple investigators tied to the Chinese government, then selectively redirected certain targeted users to malicious update servers where they received backdoored updates.

Measuring global AI diffusion remains challenging due to a lack of population-normalized, cross-country usage data. We introduce AI User Share, a novel indicator that estimates the share of each country's working-age population actively using AI tools. Built from anonymized Microsoft telemetry and adjusted for device access and mobile scaling, this metric spans 147 economies and provides consistent, real-time insight into global AI diffusion. We find wide variation in adoption, with a strong correlation between AI User Share and GDP. High uptake is concentrated in developed economies, though usage among internet-connected populations in lower-income countries reveals substantial latent demand. We also detect sharp increases in usage following major product launches, such as DeepSeek in early 2025. While the metric's reliance solely on Microsoft telemetry introduces potential biases related to this user base, it offers an important new lens into how AI is spreading globally. AI User Share enables timely benchmarking that can inform data-driven AI policy.

Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you've likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States--fairly stable in the 2000s--rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent. The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data. The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to "The Nation's Report Card," scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increase. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s. As the oldest members of Gen Z reach their late 20s, their troubles are carrying over into adulthood. Young adults are dating less, having less sex, and showing less interest in ever having children than prior generations. They are more likely to live with their parents. They were less likely to get jobs as teens, and managers say they are harder to work with.