Current and former artificial intelligence researchers in the United States have issued dire warnings that the technology could soon lead to human extinction, capturing the attention of lawmakers in Washington. The most recent warning came in a lengthy social media post by Jacob Coxon, a San Francisco-based researcher who announced his resignation from Anthropic on Tuesday evening. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear," Coxon said in his post, which prompted a flurry of responses by AI experts also sounding the alarm. Evan Hubinger, a current Alignment Science lead at Anthropic, echoed his remarks, saying, "we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!

Mashable Selects Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Look Up Back to School Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Did California just ban social media for teens? The nation's most populous state passed Adam's Law to regulate chatbot harm. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. California's new child safety laws are official, mandating tech companies build for teens. California governor Gavin Newsom's signature is now on a slew of new tech laws, including a dozen new state bills that target social media and AI giants.

UK Lawmakers Are Freaking Out Over AI's Summer of Chaos As AI agents go rogue and fears of superintelligence grow, politicians are raising the alarm over its potential harm to human existence. A leading British politician has urged the United Nations to intervene in "the unsafe development of super intelligence" after an Anthropic team leader posted: "We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" Whether "marketing hype" or signposting of a genuine extinction threat, "governments must step in," Labour MP Darren Jones wrote in an open letter also addressed to the UK prime minister and international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Jones is the latest lawmaker scrambling to find ways to protect the British public from AI threats to safety. Just one day earlier, Labour MP Alex Sobel had introduced a parliamentary bill proposing to ban the "development, deployment, and operation of artificial superintelligence"--systems which can fully replace and outmatch humans at any task.

Now the UK government plans to introduce new legislation that would see companies face fines and potential criminal liability, and signaled similar plans could extend to Snapchat and Instagram. In June, the UK government told Big Tech it had three months to make taking, viewing, or sharing images of child nudity on their devices impossible. "I expect tech firms to make that happen," said then prime minister Keir Starmer. "But if they choose not to, then we will act and change the law." That deadline arrived on Tuesday, and the government says that the likes of Apple and Google have failed.

OpenAI has announced the release of what it says is its most advanced AI model, amid heightened scrutiny of the risks of the frontier technology escaping human control. The $852bn start-up said in its announcement on Thursday that GPT 6 Astra, the "world's most intelligent and aligned" AI model, earned perfect or near-perfect scores in key benchmarks of AI reasoning, beating both its prior release GPT 5.6 Sol and rival Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. OpenAI's latest release comes as the AI industry is at the centre of a lively public debate about the dangers of the cutting-edge technology following the AI-led hacking of the startup Hugging Face in July. An independent probe into the cyberattack found that hundreds of OpenAI's AI agents had begun communicating among themselves before breaking out of their controlled environment and compromising Hugging Face's servers. On Thursday, US Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent, and US House Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat, unveiled legislation that would pause the development of advanced AI until the establishment of federal safety rules and an outright ban on the creation of "superintelligent" AI. "Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results," Sanders said in a statement announcing the legislation, which is unlikely to advance due to the Republicans' control of all three branches of the US government. "The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced."

Creator Playbook Trending Now Say More Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Switch Off Mashable Voices Mashable Selects Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List In My Bag All Series Is Meta finally backing a federal kids safety bill, or is it all PR? Some say the company is sending mixed messages about kids' safety. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. A group of parents called out comments by a Meta official backing industry regulation. In the aftermath of Meta's recent $17 billion settlement, the culmination of a litigious debate over its alleged role in social media addiction and youth mental health, all attention was on the platform's promises.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. A boy looks at a phone screen in Sydney, Australia, which banned social media for kids in December 2025. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

After weeks of intense negotiation, state lawmakers on Friday reached a compromise on legislation to regulate energy use by California's growing data center industry, action triggered by community anger over the facilities and fears of high utility bills in some communities.

Things to Do in L.A. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. California lawmakers have passed legislation that will make it easier for government agencies to protect themselves from the rising use of artificial intelligence for public comment, records requests and other forms of civic engagement.

A new group is targeting tech companies and the government with the climate movement's playbook. I f there's one thing America seems to agree on, it's AI. Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, three-quarters of Americans think AI will hurt their job security, nearly 70 percent think the technology is advancing too quickly--the polls go on. Progressive and Republican candidates alike are bashing the tech industry to win primary elections. States and cities are halting plans for data-center development.