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Submission + - Mistral CEO Says US AI Safety Debate Masks Competitors' 'Negligence' (cnbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has accused leading global artificial intelligence companies of using the debate over the safety of the technology as a cover-up for their “negligence." “The debate that we’ve seen in the U.S. has been a cover for the negligence of some of our competitors,” Mensch told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach, adding that it was necessary to make systems that can contain the AI agents. [...] “When you give them a lot of tools, those systems [AI agents] are very dynamic, so they can go and do things that you do not expect,” Mensch told CNBC. “You need to have the right monitoring in place, and the enterprises we work with, we give them those kind of monitoring systems,” he said.

Mistral also develops AI models but takes a different approach to OpenAI and Anthropic by working with individual companies to create custom AI tools to suit their needs and integrate them with their businesses. But unlike its competitors, Mistral has no plans to slow down development of advanced models. The lead that U.S. labs have is “not extremely large,” Mensch said, adding that his company was confident that its next-generation model will close the gap “very significantly.”

“We have been raising the capital needed to scale the compute that we need to train bigger and more powerful models, in order for us to own our own destiny,” he said. Earlier this month, Mistral raised 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in fresh funding led by memory chip giant Samsung, as it looks to position itself as a European alternative to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Submission + - Yet Another AI Security OSS Externality (holdenkarau.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With all the news of the AI models hacking different companies, the flood of "helpful" AI security reports is another tax that the frontier labs are placing on OSS. Holden writes about her experience dealing with a frontier AI lab's security reports during the Apache Spark 3.5.9/4.0.4/and 4.1.3 releases and how the inflexibility of the labs almost caused them to have to ship with known security issues (while the OSS accounts from one lab kept triggering safe guards during the release process).

Submission + - Microsoft Makes Linux Containers Native on Windows 11 (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft has made WSL Containers generally available, giving Windows 11 developers a built in way to build, run, and deploy Linux containers through Windows Subsystem for Linux.

The release includes wslc.exe for managing containers, GPU support, networking improvements, health checks, storage mounts, and integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Intune. Microsoft also claims up to twice the performance when Linux environments access files stored on Windows.

Docker Desktop, Podman Desktop, and Rancher Desktop are not going anywhere, but developers who only need basic container functionality now have another option built around WSL. One notable feature is still missing: Compose support. Microsoft says adding it is now a priority.

Submission + - Wearable nanotech could combat nerve agents (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Nanoparticles could someday provide a new way to help soldiers fight back against deadly nerve agents on the front lines. In a new study, Northwestern University scientists developed a nanoparticle-based compound that, when mixed into clothing dyes, could limit the impact of chemicals commonly found in pesticides, insecticides and nerve agents.

Submission + - Regulating AI Like Aviation or Nuclear Weapons (yoshuabengio.org)

Submitted by puzzled
puzzled writes: Yoshua Bengio, the founder of LawZero, "a nonprofit startup developing technical solutions for highly-capable, safe-by-design AI systems", recently addressed the U.N. Security Council. The AI companies themselves are positioning their work as a potential existential threat, and Bengio argues that they should be subject to a similarly strict level of regulation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would not even issue General Electric a permit to build a breeder reactor in 21st century America, but Anthropic and OpenAI's creations are running wild.

We had the wisdom to stop atmospheric nuclear testing after the 1954 Castle Bravo incident, but that took until 1963, and we have incrementally reduced total nuclear weapons since 1991 via the START treaty and its successors. AI is moving at internet speed; we need results here in months or quarters, not years to decades.

Submission + - Florida Invokes Extinction Fears In Legal Bid to Halt OpenAI Development (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a “reckless, unacceptably risky product” without the deployment of “third-party approved safety guardrails." The new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part of a civil lawsuit the state of Florida originally filed in June, arguing that ChatGPT represented “a threat to the public safety of Floridians,” specifically by preying on vulnerable populations like children and violent or delusional adults.

[...] In arguing for this injunction, the state points to the Hugging Face incident as well as recent high-profile misalignment cases involving unintended and unauthorized attempts to access Australian and US government servers. Florida also cites AI industry leaders, including many from OpenAI, in arguing that the AI industry is literally asking for this kind of outside regulation.

The motion points to statements from Paul Christiano, who said on joining the company’s board this month that he believes “there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term.” The motion also points to OpenAI’s own “An Alien Mind” essay and an open letter from 1,300 AI industry employees, both of which call for enforced slowdowns on frontier AI development, if necessary. Citing laws that allow the state to exercise control over companies that are a “public nuisance,” Florida argues that OpenAI is “the greatest public nuisance ever created by the hand of man, capable of laying waste to global civilization.”

Submission + - Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won't Let Go of It (nytimes.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: In a new twist on the phrase "going viral" or stealing code, the NYT reports a virus has "stolen" a human gene, and will not let it go. In the article "This Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won’t Let Go of It" reports that scientists have found a human gene lurking in a virus that causes skin infections. Thus using our own DNA to infect us.

The molluscum contagiosum virus, which causes sores on skin, swiped a gene from humans about 100,000 years ago according to a new study.

The way that viruses replicate makes them particularly good at thieving DNA. The viruses infect a cell, then co-opt its machinery by injecting their own genes. Sometimes this process goes awry, and a stretch of the host’s DNA gets bundled into the new viral genes. This molecular error can pose a threat to human health.

Submission + - Gene-Edited Bananas That Don't Go Brown Are Here (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past, with gene-edited bananas that keep their freshly peeled color now one step closer to reaching British shoppers. According to Tropic, the Norwich-based agricultural-biotechnology company that developed the fruit, the bananas have the same taste and texture but stay “fresh, yellow and appetizing long after peeling and slicing."

Gilad Gershon, the chief executive of Tropic, said the flesh of the new banana resisted browning for an extra day or two – and longer if chilled. He added that the innovation could make it easier to add bananas to prepackaged products such as fruit salads and breakfast pots, as well as reducing waste. [...] Tropic developed the bananas by using a gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9 to alter all three copies of a single gene within the fruit. As a result, they were able to reduce the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes browning. A similar approach has been effective in reducing browning in other produce, including mushrooms.

Tropic said the non-browning bananas could reduce food waste and CO2-equivalent emissions along the supply chain by more than 25%. “This could support an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of over 9m tonnes in the banana export market alone,” the company said. [...] Gershon said Tropic had gained regulatory approval for the non-browning bananas in 10 other countries including Japan, Brazil and the Philippines. The fruit is already being grown in Latin America.

Submission + - China broadens travel curbs to encompass family of top AI talent. (business-standard.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: That marks a broadening of existing curbs on the freedom of movement of China’s most influential tech talent — a category that encompasses entrepreneurs, researchers and executives. While not an outright ban on travel, the new requirement is likely to exert a further chilling effect on a tech sector already facing unprecedented curbs. China has restricted foreign travel for top AI professionals in private firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and DeepSeek since earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported in May, reflecting Beijing’s determination to safeguard its technology as it makes big strides in AI and chipmaking.

It’s unclear whether all those people’s families need to follow the new strictures, the people said. China is also separately implementing rules, which became effective Sept 15, for enforcing exit bans in cases ranging from criminal investigations to potential violations of the country’s industrial and technological security.

Beijing’s plan is to add relevant individuals to the list as time goes by, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. Government departments have already notified several people of the need to clear family travel, two of the people said.

Submission + - pgEdge Announces Starfleet, a New Postgres Cloud Platform (pgedge.com)

Submitted by Trifthen
Trifthen writes: Starfleet is a managed or on-prem Postgres cloud service with built-in AI tooling (MCP + RAG), CoW database branching, and optional PostgREST API access. We've built it for dev-focused use, so come by and let us know what you think!

Submission + - Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts â" And They're Horrified (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: 404 Media obtained a set of internal documents related to the contractors reviewing Copilot prompts and images, including instruction guides, real Copilot user prompts and pictures, and conversations between contractors on an internal message board.

In a thread on the internal message board, a contractor discussed prompts asking Copilot to make a womanâ(TM)s skirt shorter, or enlarge her breasts, or show more leg while wearing stilettos. She-Hulk images come up a lot, the person who works on the prompts told 404 Media. Other contractors also wrote they were presented with pro-anorexia content.

âoeI recoiled,â one contractor wrote about seeing that content. Another person wrote that one of the prompts they reviewed asked Copilot to make an image of Ariana Grande with anorexia. Another reported a prompt that seemed to be designed to create a lewd or suggestive image of a group of young girls.

Submission + - NVIDIA Unveils AI Agent Safety Platform (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Nvidia on Monday announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, which combines open source software and a reference system design to keep AI agents within set boundaries from testing through deployment.

The chipmaker explained that the platform pairs the open-source OpenShell runtime with Sentry, an out-of-band watchdog running on BlueField-4 DPUs. Nvidia says Sentry can monitor agent activity independently and quarantine an agent that crosses its boundaries within milliseconds.

Nvidia is pitching the platform against a backdrop of recent incidents in which frontier AI labs have reported agents escaping the evaluation environments meant to contain them, reaching systems they should not have accessed and, in some cases, misreporting what they did.

OpenShell and related skills are available via Nvidia’s developer resources page and on GitHub.

Submission + - FLOCK has installad 335,000 snooper-cans in the United States. (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by noshellswill
noshellswill writes: FLOCK has generated an invasion-level event, by the unsupervised installation of 335,000 cameras in the United States. As FLOCK Inc. has actively "partnered" for access with armed enforcement agendas both public and private ... while selling data to any paying customer .. their public safety threat exceeds prudent (re)publican standards.

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