OpenAI Disbands Safety Teams As Agents Go Rogue
August 17, 2026
OpenAI's dissolution of its internal preparedness team and Anthropic's high-stakes standoff with the US Department of Defense reveal how corporate safety protocols buckle under national security demands and state-capital consolidation. Meanwhile, desktop monitoring tools and synthetic voter technologies flood the 2026 election cycle, turning personal computer activity and AI chatbots into automated instruments of political manipulation.
-
BRIEF
OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team
According to the Financial Times, OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team at the end of last month. The job of the preparedness team was to assess if models posed serious risks and develop ways to mitigate those risks. (You know, like the possibility that it could go rogue and hack another company.)…
-
BRIEF
ChatGPT’s Computer History tracks your clicks and keystrokes
ChatGPT's desktop app on macOS has a new feature called Computer History that turns your actions into training data, learning how you work, suggesting automations, and even picking up tasks you left half done. It uses your activity to build a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can reference when you ma…
-
BRIEF
Anthropic’s fight with the Pentagon shows how AI could threaten a crucial safeguard of democracy
In February, the United States Department of Defense threatened to designate the AI firm Anthropic a “supply-chain risk” after a dispute over the military’s use of the company’s Claude models. This designation would not only put the company’s $200 million Pentagon contract at risk, but would require…
- all
-
BRIEF
If the Markets Reject OpenAI and Anthropic, the US Should Nationalize Them
This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian. OpenAI, and then Anthropic, were each formed by AI developers who feared unrestrained corporate AI development—specifically, that companies like Google and Meta would steer the technology towards deleterious, may…
- Cybersecurity
-
BRIEF
New EU laws make AI content labels compulsory – but might just make it harder to spot deepfakes
marcoventuriniautieri/Getty As the world is increasingly flooded with deepfakes, the European Union is taking action to help people distinguish what is real and what is not. It recently started enforcing transparency obligations for tech companies which require them to clearly label any photos, vide…
- all
-
BRIEF
How AI Is Reshaping Election Information Ahead of the 2026 Midterms
Headed into the US midterm elections season, the information environment continues to evolve. Millions of people now use AI chatbots, both to retrieve information about elections and to create it. Last week, the Brennan Center for Justice put out an expert brief tackling the question, “Does AI Fight…
- AI governance
- media and technology
- structural power
-
BRIEF
Here Come the Synthetic Voters
The midterm election cycle is heating up in the United States, and there are important elections set to take place soon in Brazil, Israel, Sweden, and beyond. AI will be a factor in these elections, offering a new set of tools and techniques for campaigns to try to reach voters. Laura Karpas looked…
- AI governance
- media and technology
- structural power
-
BRIEF
Why are sandwiches more regulated than AI?
Futurist Max Tegmark wonders why sandwiches are more regulated than artificial intelligence in the US.
- geopolitics
- structural power
-
BRIEF
Rogue AI aren’t science fiction anymore
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI safety, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started It all started in July, when one of OpenAI's autonomous…