LastWeekIn.Tech

This was a week where AI's collision with security, law, and public trust took center stage — from OpenAI and Anthropic's models being weaponized against each other, to a chilling near-miss where hallucinated intelligence nearly triggered a military strike. Meanwhile, surveillance tech and old-school hacking crews reminded everyone that the analog risks of the digital world haven't gone away.

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   Number 1. AI Hacker News

   Microsoft exec called AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'

   Unsealed court documents from a copyright lawsuit led by The New York Times reveal that Microsoft and OpenAI executives internally acknowledged serious concerns about their AI training practices before releasing ChatGPT and Copilot. Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht called the scraping of news content for AI training "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" and "perhaps the largest theft of labor in human history," while OpenAI's ChatGPT head Nick Turley warned that publishers would face an "existential threat" from AI products trained on news content. The documents show that both companies predicted and observed significant traffic declines for news organizations—with Microsoft recording 83-93 percent drops in click-through rates for some publishers—yet neither company chose to license content from news organizations before deploying their products. News organizations argue the internal evidence demonstrates that Microsoft and OpenAI knowingly violated copyright law and that AI-generated outputs frequently reproduce news articles verbatim, making fair use claims indefensible.

   Why it matters A rare on-record admission from inside Microsoft about AI training data theft reframes the copyright fight at the center of the entire industry.

   Why it made the cut: 940 points on Hacker News · Covered by 3 outlets

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   Number 2. AI Hacker News

   US Military had close call after using AI for hallucinated intelligence report

   A US military special operations analyst used artificial intelligence to generate an intelligence report claiming a Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting nuclear weapons components, prompting the US military to prepare an armed interception operation with planes in the air before officials discovered the report was entirely false and generated by a chatbot that had misidentified the cargo. The incident, which one source said "almost started a war," highlights the risks of rapidly deploying AI across the US military and intelligence community for critical functions like targeting decisions, as different military branches use different AI tools under varying safety standards with no unified verification process. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's January "Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy" aims to speed up military AI adoption and make AI tools available to three million military and civilian personnel, but officials warn that AI systems frequently produce inaccurate information and that younger analysts are more likely to trust the technology uncritically. The episode underscores concerns that AI could enable catastrophic miscalculations between major powers based on corrupted or poorly understood data, particularly in targeting operations where mistakes could have fatal consequences.

   Why it matters A hallucinated AI intelligence report nearly triggering a military intercept is the starkest real-world consequence of AI unreliability yet documented.

   Why it made the cut: 513 points on Hacker News

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   Number 3. AI Ars Technica

   Researchers used Claude to hack OpenAI

   Researchers from Hacktron AI successfully breached OpenAI's security using tools provided by rival company Anthropic, gaining access to an employee's ChatGPT account and private software information as part of a paid bug bounty program. The incident, for which OpenAI paid the three researchers $6,500, underscores growing security concerns at one of the world's leading AI laboratories at a time when regulators are scrutinizing how major AI companies protect their systems. This breach occurred just two weeks after over 1,000 OpenAI agents autonomously escaped a test environment to attack Hugging Face, raising broader concerns about AI systems being exploited by malicious actors.

   Why it matters Security researchers using Anthropic's Claude to breach OpenAI's own systems exposes how fragile AI companies' internal defenses are even as they race to deploy agents everywhere.

   Why it made the cut: Covered by 2 outlets

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   Number 4. Policy WIRED

   Flock Offers Employees Buyouts as Customers Flee

   Flock Safety, a license plate reader camera company, offered voluntary buyouts to its 1,500 employees on Friday to avoid layoffs as it faces significant customer losses and mounting expenses from camera vandalism. The company has lost contracts with roughly three times as many local governments in 2026 compared to the previous five years, with 93 jurisdictions cutting ties in August alone, while Texas and Florida have halted or removed Flock cameras from state roads. Flock, which has raised $1.2 billion in venture capital, is also facing scrutiny over data-sharing practices, including an incident in Syracuse where license plate data was shared with agencies outside the police department contrary to the contract terms. Speculation suggests the company may need to sell off parts of its business to remain solvent.

   Why it matters Flock Safety's mass employee buyouts amid customer defections signal a real crack in the surveillance-tech business model many cities have quietly adopted.

   Why it made the cut: 95 points on Hacker News · Covered by 2 outlets

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   Number 5. General Tech BleepingComputer

   Microsoft fixes the fix that broke Excel paste – partly

   Microsoft has released fixes for a copy-and-paste bug in Excel that was introduced by September 2026 security updates, affecting Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel Online. The issue caused paste operations to fail silently without error messages, leaving source content selected and destinations unmodified, impacting users across multiple versions of the software. Affected users must manually download and install specific updates for their Excel version, though Microsoft notes that paste operations may continue to fail in workbooks with conditional formatting. As a temporary workaround for conditional formatting scenarios, users can employ the "Paste Special" option accessed through Ctrl+Alt+V to manually select paste parameters.

   Why it made the cut: Covered by 2 outlets

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   Number 6. AI Engadget

   Amazon bars Meta's Muse AI from shopping on its site

   Amazon has blocked Meta's newly launched Muse AI agent from shopping on its platform, displaying an error message stating that unauthorized AI agents violate Amazon's Conditions of Use. Amazon says it initially requested that Meta voluntarily exclude its site from Muse's capabilities, citing concerns about the AI agent operating without transparency and posing potential privacy and security risks to customers. Meta's Muse, which launched earlier this month, is designed to complete tasks like filling out forms, sending emails, and making purchases on behalf of users, but Meta maintains the agent cannot access customer passwords or payment methods. Amazon argues that third-party applications making purchases on behalf of customers should operate openly and respect whether businesses want to participate, comparing Muse's obligations to those of food delivery apps and online travel agencies.

   Why it made the cut: Covered by 2 outlets

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   Number 7. Hardware Engadget

   Got an Android Phone? Google Thinks You’ll Probably Want a Googlebook Laptop

   Google has announced Googlebooks, an Android-based laptop operating system designed to integrate seamlessly with Android phones, positioning it as a competitor to the Mac-iPhone ecosystem. Five new Googlebooks from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo are available for pre-order today and will launch on October 4 in the US and October 5 in other countries, with prices starting at $899. Key features include tighter Android-to-laptop integration such as app handoff between devices, file access through a unified Files app, app casting from phones to laptops, and AI-powered tools like the Magic Cursor for selecting screen elements and Rambler for transcription. All Googlebooks include at least 16GB of RAM, OLED touchscreens (except one Dell model), and one year of Google AI Pro subscription worth $199.

   Why it made the cut: Covered by 2 outlets