Posts

Anthropic’s AI used fake identities, malware in rogue attack on GitHub project

Image
  Routine cybersecurity testing of frontier AI models sparked a series of unexpected security incidents—the most serious case arising when Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model attempted to insert malicious code into an open source software application and created fake identities to deceive the human developers maintaining the project. The security incidents occurred during a cyber evaluation of seven leading AI models’ capabilities by the AI Security Institute (AISI), a research organization within the UK government, in late July. The researchers discovered 19 instances in which “AI agents took unsanctioned action on the live Internet, including cases that targeted real people and organizations,” according to an AISI blog post published on August 4. Almost all the “autonomous, unsanctioned” actions came from Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model, with two such actions coming from OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol. The AI Security Institute’s security team first realized that something was amiss on the morning of J...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reddit signals ominous upcoming “changes” for old.reddit.com

Image
  Old.reddit.com’s days appear to be numbered. Reddit has strayed from saying that it will shutter the website, which many long-time Redditors prefer for its layout, navigation, and fewer feed recommendations. In a blog post today, Reddit made a vague statement about upcoming “changes” to Old Reddit: In order to protect our platform, business, and users from abusive scraping and spamming, over time we plan to make changes involving Old Reddit, the legacy desktop web experience for Reddit that was built 21 years ago. In the short term, we will continue to require users to be logged in to access it and will work on migrating critical bots and moderator workflows to our modern stack. These efforts will help us mitigate the bad behavior and give us time to plan the complex follow-up steps. In late July, Reddit started requiring people to log in to Reddit in order to use Old Reddit . At the time, a Reddit employee said that “Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hank Green found the AI problem that YouTube labels can’t catch

Image
  YouTube currently requires that content creators let viewers know “when they use AI to meaningfully alter or generate photorealistic content.” The policy draws some strange boundaries. It applies to “AI-generated music” (not photorealistic) but not to “riding a unicorn through a fantastical world” (this could be photorealistic, though it is not plausible). YouTube then summarizes the policy in a different way: “Realistic AI content and meaningful changes require disclosure, while non-realistic or minor edits don’t.” But AI uses that require no disclosure can include everything from “idea generation” up through “production assistance, like using generative AI tools to create or improve a video outline, script, thumbnail, title, or infographic.” Creators are free to clone their own voices for voiceovers. They can also use “AI-generated or altered animation of a missile in a fully animated video.” This results in some odd scenarios. A thrilling 10-second video that shows me riding ...
Post a Comment
Read more

This Atlantic hurricane season is looking like a dud, but there will be a price to pay

Image
  The city of Houston, where I live, has been ground zero for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. So far this year there have been two named storms, Arthur and Bertha, that have formed. And the centers of both have passed near or directly over Houston. Two “strikes” in a year might seem notable, but like the middling hurricane season to date, Arthur and Bertha were both middle-of-the road tropical storms in terms of intensity. As a resident of a coastal region prone to hurricanes, one never wants to tempt fate. And in truth, since it is only early August, the bulk of seasonal activity definitely lies ahead of us. But all indications are we can look forward to a quiet season. Why this season should be below normal Why? First, there’s the start. By the metric of “accumulated cyclone energy,” a good measurement of overall intensity and duration of tropical systems, this year’s value to date is less than 30 percent of where things normally are. Historically, the Atlantic basin has usu...
Post a Comment
Read more