Dario Amodei Urges an AI Slowdown as a 150-Million ID Leak Hits IDScan

AI & Machine Learning

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay, “We Must Pace the Frontier,” arguing that frontier AI labs should deliberately slow the pace of capability gains so safety work can keep up with recursive self-improvement. He points to the OpenAI-linked agent-swarm incident as a warning that a more capable misaligned swarm could cause catastrophic cyber damage within six to twelve months. As a first unilateral step, Anthropic is committing to give third-party evaluators, such as METR, permanent employee-level access to verify safety practices and assess model alignment during training. The essay also calls for frontier labs in democratic countries to coordinate on common safety standards and for governments to attempt compliance-verification talks with authoritarian states. The piece drew 36 million views on X within a day, with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis publicly backing its direction while cautioning that the details still need work. Source: Dario Amodei Verified: True

OpenAI released its Agents API into public beta, giving outside developers direct access to the same managed Codex harness that powers its own coding agent. The API handles session orchestration, context compaction, and multi-agent tool coordination so developers no longer need to build that plumbing themselves, and it can run against OpenAI-hosted sandboxes, self-hosted environments, or nine partner platforms. OpenAI is not charging a separate service fee for the API itself; customers instead pay for model tokens, tool calls, and container time for hosted sandboxes. The release effectively packages the infrastructure behind OpenAI’s Codex product as reusable building blocks for any long-running, tool-using agent workflow. It is live now for all developers, though data residency is currently limited to the US and the service carries restrictions for regulated workloads. Source: OpenAI Verified: True

Consumer Hardware

Huawei launched the Mate XT 2, a second-generation tri-fold smartphone that switches from its predecessor’s outward fold to a new inward-folding “G-shaped” mechanism that protects the main display when closed. Unfolded, it carries a 10.2-inch 3K OLED panel with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate; folded, users interact through a 6.5-inch cover screen. The device runs on Huawei’s new Kirin 9050 Pro chipset, built on a “LogicFolding” vertical-stacking architecture the company says delivers over 40% more performance than the previous Kirin 9030 Pro, alongside a 50MP main camera with variable aperture and a 50MP periscope telephoto lens. Pricing starts at 19,999 yuan (about $2,980) for the base 256GB model and rises to 29,999 yuan (about $4,469) for a 2TB collector’s edition, with sales beginning September 12. The launch lands just two days ahead of Apple’s own foldable iPhone event, intensifying the fight for the nascent tri-fold and foldable premium-phone category. Source: Huawei Central Verified: True

Cybersecurity

Identity-verification vendor IDScan confirmed that hackers accessed its cloud environment and stole more than 150 million driver’s license records covering people in the United States and Canada. The stolen data includes full names, driver’s license and other government ID numbers, and ID photos, and it surfaced for sale on a dark-web marketplace before the Louisiana-based company confirmed the intrusion in a September 4 security notice. IDScan, whose identity-check tools are used by entertainment venues and cannabis dispensaries among other corporate customers, has not disclosed how many individuals were uniquely affected or how attackers first got in. The scale and sensitivity of the leak, which reportedly touched a sitting US Cabinet official, prompted both the FBI and the Pentagon to open investigations. IDScan says its internal investigation continues and has not addressed reports of a ransom demand. Source: TechCrunch Verified: True

GitLab disclosed CVE-2026-85706, a maximum-severity (CVSS 10.0) path traversal flaw in its repository commits API caused by improper path confinement and missing authentication checks. On any GitLab CE or EE instance with at least one public project, an unauthenticated attacker could send a single crafted request to read arbitrary server files, including SSH keys, database credentials, deploy tokens, and CI/CD variables. GitLab shipped patched versions 19.3.2, 19.2.6, and 19.1.8 on September 10, but threat-intelligence firm watchTowr observed in-the-wild probing within roughly a day of disclosure. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and set a September 14 remediation deadline for federal agencies. Security teams running self-managed GitLab are being urged to patch immediately rather than wait for a scheduled maintenance window. Source: The Hacker News Verified: True

Enterprise Infrastructure

Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services announced a multi-generation partnership to co-develop custom AI inference chips and 1.6-terabit optical interconnects for AWS data centers, marking Qualcomm’s largest push yet into hyperscale computing beyond mobile. Under the deal’s structure, Qualcomm issued Amazon warrants for up to 25 million shares at $161.26 each, vesting in full only if Amazon commits to spend as much as $60 billion on Qualcomm’s server chips, networking gear, and manufacturing services through 2036. Amazon gains custom silicon tuned to its own inference workloads instead of relying solely on Nvidia or its in-house Trainium chips, while Qualcomm gets a marquee hyperscaler customer to anchor its data-center ambitions. Qualcomm shares rose more than 5% on the announcement as investors welcomed the diversification beyond a maturing smartphone chip business. The agreement underscores how far the AI buildout has pulled non-traditional chipmakers into competing for a slice of hyperscaler capital spending. Source: HotHardware Verified: True

Oracle reported Q1 fiscal 2027 results showing total revenue up 30% year-over-year to $19.3 billion, beating analyst estimates, with cloud infrastructure (OCI) revenue surging 121% to $7.4 billion on relentless AI demand. The company said GPU utilization across its fleet hit 97.9% after deploying more than 300,000 additional GPUs and 850 megawatts of new data-center capacity during the quarter, effectively running its infrastructure at capacity. Oracle’s remaining performance obligations, a proxy for its contracted backlog, reached a record $664 billion, with $11.4 billion in customer prepayments signaling that major clients are committing capital in advance to lock in scarce GPU access. Management raised full-year revenue guidance to at least $90 billion and non-GAAP earnings guidance to $8.10 per share, while maintaining fiscal 2027 capital-expenditure guidance of $90-95 billion. The results reinforce Oracle’s rapid transformation from an enterprise-software incumbent into one of the largest AI-infrastructure landlords, even as its heavy capex and negative free cash flow keep drawing investor scrutiny. Source: Oracle Verified: True

Policy & Regulation

The US Department of Justice issued a “second request” to Fox and Roku on September 8, extending its antitrust review of Fox’s proposed $22 billion acquisition of Roku and requiring both companies to hand over additional documents before the deal can close. Regulators are examining whether Fox would use control of Roku’s streaming platform to favor its own channels, such as Tubi, over rival streaming services, or to advantage its programming using Roku’s advertising and viewership data. A second request is a standard but significant escalation under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, extending the waiting period by 30 days after both companies substantially comply and signaling regulators found open questions in the initial filing. The scrutiny does not necessarily mean the DOJ intends to block the deal, but it adds uncertainty for a transaction already drawing attention given the Murdoch family’s political ties. Fox has said it still expects the acquisition to close in the first half of calendar year 2027, subject to clearing the DOJ’s review and other regulatory approvals. Source: TechCrunch Verified: True