Policy

The embattled New York City mayor allegedly attempted to use this excuse to keep the FBI from searching his phone. It didn’t help: he was indicted Wednesday on charges of fraud, bribery, and soliciting donations from foreign nationals.

Generally speaking, though, it’s a good idea not to give the cops your phone — even if you’re not under investigation for your relationship with the Turkish government.

The very-online shortsellers published a report about the AI server-making company. Among the allegations: selling products to Russia in violation of sanctions, accounting violations, and transactions with companies controlled by the CEO’s family. Now the DOJ wants to hear more.

The AI Act came into law on August 1st, but some rules for “high risk” systems won’t be enforced until August 2027. Now, companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Samsung are promising to make a head start.

Meta and Apple (which have been critical of the EU’s AI stance) are notably absent, but OpenAI has signed the pledge despite previous grumblings.

That’s according to UK Defence Secretary John Healey, giving the iconic “Lord Kitchener Wants You” recruitment slogan (which inspired the Uncle Sam poster) a modern spin at yesterday’s Labour Party conference.

That said, both the UK and US armed forces aren't strangers to using gaming prowess as a lure to entice younger folks to enlist.

The social platform has released its first transparency report in over three years, and we’ve linked the full document below so you can compare it against the last report from 2021.

Notably, X has suspended more accounts and obliged 20 percent more legal requests to take down or withhold user content since Musk purchased the platform.

This profile goes from a donation by Jobs to Harris’ first DA run in 2003, through personal trips together, and into their joint interview in 2017 at AllThingsD.

It also reports on Jobs’ role in mobilizing donors against Joe Biden’s continued presidential campaign:

One of her top aides, David Simas, a former Obama staff member who oversees her political research, circulated focus-group and polling data to other donors that painted a dire portrait. Several said that Mr. Simas’s research was influential in encouraging them to mobilize against Mr. Biden.

T-Mobile is invoking the major questions doctrine, which the Supreme Court strengthened in 2022, to explain why the FCC shouldn’t make companies unlock phones within 60 days of activation for use with other carriers. These are just comments, not a lawsuit — but they’re not hard to read as a signal of a potential future legal fight.

Bloomberg reports that “a formal chargesheet” is being prepared by EU officials, taking issue with how it presents rivals on search services like Google Flights and Google Hotels.

Search is already under antitrust fire in the US, and those findings could lead to a big financial penalty under the DMA, although things could change before a final decision is due before April 2025.

Semafor writes about a startup that’s training AI agents to be just as chaotic as human beings, then polling them to see who they’ll vote for:

In one survey, the company noticed that one of the AI agents said it was going to vote for Mickey Mouse in the upcoming presidential election. Fearing one of their bots had gone off the rails, the Aaru team investigated. It turned out the bot had an explanation. “The agent’s response was ‘I hate Kamala and I hate Trump. I’m writing in and voting for Mickey Mouse,’” Fink said.

Turns out the SEC doesn’t like it when you no-show on them. Now the regulator is seeking to penalize Musk for refusing to appear and testify in a probe into his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

“The three virtual casinos launched widespread marketing campaigns” and were endorsed by Roblox influencers, the judge presiding over the lawsuit against the platform wrote in an order.

Roblox previously asked that the suit be dismissed. In an order filed Thursday, the judge dismissed the fraud charges but allowed the negligence claims against Roblox to proceed.

No, an Autocomplete Interview isn’t going to answer all of our policy questions. But it does produce these 10 minutes of the presidential candidate answering the internet’s most searched queries in Wired’s now-standard format.

I’ve been going to this extremely wonky and jargon-y trial almost every day, and I joined Decoder to translate the highlights so far. The trial — which is only accessible in-person from an Alexandria, VA courtroom — is in its second week. Google is expected to start calling witnesses any day now, once the Justice Department wraps its chief case.