News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
August 27: A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts.
US Judge Blocks Pentagon's Anthropic Blacklisting
August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge rules Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic unlawful
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful. "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in a ruling. "The record further shows no material dispute that Secretary Hegseth's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk violated the governing statutory scheme...and was arbitrary and capricious." (Reporting by Christian Martinez and Jasper Ward) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 7:22 PM.
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting
August 27(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries. Hegseth's unprecedented move, which followed Anthropic's refusal to allow the military to use AI chatbot Claude for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons, blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm. Anthropic says that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon's decision was "illegal and baseless." "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote. Anthropic's designation was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage. In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety. The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military's past praise of Claude. The Justice Department countered that Anthropic's refusal to lift the restrictions could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing. The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety. Anthropic has a second lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
US judge rules Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic unlawful
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful. "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in a ruling. "The record further shows no material dispute that Secretary Hegseth's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk violated the governing statutory scheme...and was arbitrary and capricious." (Reporting by Christian Martinez and Jasper Ward) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 8:22 PM.
US judge rules Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic unlawful
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful. "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in a ruling. "The record further shows no material dispute that Secretary Hegseth's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk violated the governing statutory scheme...and was arbitrary and capricious." (Reporting by Christian Martinez and Jasper Ward) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 9:22 PM.
US judge rules Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic unlawful
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful. "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in a ruling. "The record further shows no material dispute that Secretary Hegseth's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk violated the governing statutory scheme...and was arbitrary and capricious." (Reporting by Christian Martinez and Jasper Ward) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 6:22 PM.
US judge rules Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic unlawful
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful. "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in a ruling. "The record further shows no material dispute that Secretary Hegseth's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk violated the governing statutory scheme...and was arbitrary and capricious." Reporting by Christian Martinez and Jasper Ward Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Trump administration actions against Anthropic 'illegal and baseless,' US judge rules | MLex | Specialist news and analysis on legal risk and regulation
( August 28, 2026, 01:22 GMT | Official Statement) -- MLex Summary: A federal judge in California has ruled that the Department of War's action to remove Anthropic from the US supply chain for national security concerns was "illegal and baseless." "The undisputed record shows that the challenged actions constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, and that Anthropic was denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment," US District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled in San Francisco, granting Anthropic's motion for summary judgment against the government. "The government is certainly owed deference on weighty issues of national security," Lin added. "But Defendants' contemporaneous words and deeds confirm that the challenged actions were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its 'arrogance' in criticizing the government, not based on any articulable basis to believe that Anthropic would actually sabotage its model."See attached order.... Prepare for tomorrow's regulatory change, today MLex identifies risk to business wherever it emerges, with specialist reporters across the globe providing exclusive news and deep-dive analysis on the proposals, probes, enforcement actions and rulings that matter to your organization and clients, now and in the longer term. Know what others in the room don't, with features including: * Daily newsletters for Antitrust, M&A, Trade, Data Privacy & Security, Technology, AI and more * Custom alerts on specific filters including geographies, industries, topics and companies to suit your practice needs * Predictive analysis from expert journalists across North America, the UK and Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific * Curated case files bringing together news, analysis and source documents in a single timeline Experience MLex today with a 14-day free trial.
Anthropic Orders Remote Work Amid AI Safety Strike Threats from Staff
Anthropic has instructed its employees to work remotely as the company braces for potential security-related industrial action that could disrupt operations. The directive, which emerged this week, reflects growing tensions between the artificial intelligence developer and segments of its workforce concerned about safety protocols and oversight mechanisms. According to a report published by TechRadar, the move stems from credible intelligence suggesting that certain staff members might initiate strikes focused on security vulnerabilities. These actions could range from coordinated walkouts to more targeted disruptions aimed at highlighting perceived shortcomings in how the company manages risks associated with its advanced models. Anthropic, known for developing the Claude family of large language models, has positioned itself as a leader in responsible AI development, yet internal disagreements appear to have reached a boiling point. The decision to shift to remote work serves multiple purposes. First, it reduces the physical presence of employees in shared office spaces, thereby limiting opportunities for organized gatherings that could escalate into formal protests or work stoppages. Second, it allows the company to maintain core functions through distributed systems while monitoring the situation from a distance. Third, the policy signals to both internal teams and external observers that leadership takes the threat of disruption seriously without immediately resorting to disciplinary measures. Sources familiar with the matter indicate that the underlying grievances center on how Anthropic evaluates and mitigates risks tied to its AI systems. Employees have reportedly expressed frustration over what they see as insufficient transparency in safety testing procedures, particularly regarding potential misuse of models in areas such as cybersecurity, biological research, and autonomous decision-making. Some staff members argue that current evaluation frameworks do not adequately account for emerging threats that could arise as model capabilities expand. This situation highlights broader challenges facing the AI industry as organizations scale rapidly. Companies like Anthropic must balance aggressive innovation timelines with the need to address legitimate employee concerns about long-term societal impacts. The remote work order, while temporary, underscores the difficulty of maintaining cohesion when fundamental questions about safety collide with business objectives. Anthropic has built its reputation on constitutional AI principles, a framework designed to embed ethical guidelines directly into model training. Yet even with these safeguards, internal critics maintain that more independent oversight is required. The possibility of security-focused strikes suggests that a portion of the workforce believes current practices fall short of the standards the company publicly promotes. By asking staff to work from home, executives appear to be buying time to engage in dialogue while preventing any immediate operational paralysis. The timing of this development coincides with heightened scrutiny across the technology sector. Governments worldwide are drafting regulations that demand greater accountability from AI developers, and investors are paying closer attention to governance structures. Any public disruption at a prominent firm like Anthropic could influence policy discussions and affect funding environments for similar ventures. Remote work policies have become standard tools for technology companies facing internal unrest. During the pandemic, most organizations discovered that many roles could function effectively outside traditional office settings. Anthropic's current directive builds on that experience, allowing continuity in research, coding, and model evaluation activities. However, the move also carries drawbacks. Spontaneous collaboration that often sparks breakthroughs may diminish, and team morale could suffer if the underlying disputes remain unresolved. Employees involved in the potential action have not publicly detailed their exact demands, but patterns from similar episodes at other AI laboratories suggest several common themes. These typically include calls for slower release cycles to permit thorough safety assessments, greater representation of safety specialists in high-level decision-making, and clearer channels for whistleblowers to raise alarms without fear of retaliation. Whether Anthropic will accommodate such requests remains uncertain, though the remote work instruction demonstrates a willingness to adapt operational tactics in response to staff sentiment. The company's leadership has consistently emphasized its commitment to developing AI that benefits humanity. Dario Amodei, Anthropic's chief executive, has spoken at length about the importance of aligning advanced systems with human values. Yet translating those aspirations into concrete practices that satisfy all stakeholders has proven complex. The current episode reveals that even organizations explicitly founded on safety priorities can encounter internal friction when scaling. Technical teams at Anthropic continue to refine Claude's capabilities, with recent versions demonstrating improved reasoning and reduced hallucination rates. These advances, while impressive from a performance standpoint, also amplify concerns about dual-use potential. A model that excels at scientific reasoning could theoretically assist in developing harmful agents if proper guardrails are absent. Staff members attuned to these risks may feel an ethical obligation to press for stronger controls, even if doing so risks career consequences. By implementing a work-from-home policy, Anthropic has effectively lowered the temperature of immediate confrontation. Office environments often facilitate rapid organization of collective action, whereas distributed teams require more coordination to achieve similar momentum. This breathing room could allow human resources and executive teams to conduct individual conversations aimed at understanding specific grievances. At the same time, the company must remain vigilant against cyber threats that could exploit the shift to remote access. Security considerations extend beyond industrial action. As an AI developer handling sensitive training data and proprietary architectures, Anthropic maintains stringent information security standards. The remote work directive likely includes updated protocols for virtual private networks, multi-factor authentication, and data encryption to prevent leaks during the transition. Any lapse could compound existing tensions if sensitive materials reached unauthorized parties. Industry analysts suggest that this episode may foreshadow similar conflicts at other frontier AI laboratories. As models approach capabilities that could reshape entire economic sectors, the humans building them increasingly wrestle with questions of responsibility. The strikes contemplated at Anthropic represent one mechanism through which these concerns manifest. Other organizations might face comparable pressure as awareness grows about the stakes involved. Anthropic's response also carries implications for recruitment. The company has attracted talent partly because of its stated focus on safety. If prospective employees perceive that internal dissent is handled through remote work mandates rather than substantive policy changes, some candidates may reconsider joining. Conversely, if the situation leads to meaningful reforms, Anthropic could emerge with stronger internal alignment and an even clearer safety-focused identity. For now, the majority of staff appear to be complying with the remote directive while continuing their assigned tasks. Model training runs, research papers, and customer support functions persist, albeit through digital channels. This continuity demonstrates the resilience of modern technology workplaces, where physical location often matters less than network connectivity and access to cloud resources. The situation bears watching as negotiations or further developments unfold. Should the threatened security strikes materialize, they would represent a notable moment in AI industry relations, potentially setting precedents for how companies address employee activism on existential risk topics. If the remote arrangement successfully diffuses tensions, it might become a template for managing similar episodes elsewhere. Observers outside the company speculate about the scale of internal disagreement. Public statements from Anthropic have remained measured, avoiding direct acknowledgment of strike risks while reiterating dedication to responsible development. This careful communication strategy aims to reassure partners, users, and investors that core operations face no immediate jeopardy. Meanwhile, the AI safety community watches with interest. Many researchers have long advocated for greater openness about the limitations and hazards of current systems. The possibility that Anthropic employees might take collective action to demand such openness adds weight to those calls. Whether through strikes or quieter advocacy, the pressure for enhanced safety measures appears unlikely to dissipate. As weeks progress, both leadership and concerned staff will need to find common ground. The remote work period provides an opportunity for reflection and structured discussion without the immediate pressure of shared physical spaces. Success depends on whether both sides can move beyond positional bargaining toward shared understanding of acceptable risk levels in advanced AI development. The episode serves as a reminder that organizations at the forefront of powerful technologies must continually earn the trust of their own teams. Technical excellence alone proves insufficient when fundamental questions about direction and oversight remain contested. Anthropic's handling of this challenge will likely influence not only its internal culture but also perceptions across the broader artificial intelligence field. Ultimately, the company's ability to address these security concerns while maintaining innovation momentum will determine its trajectory. The remote work instruction represents a tactical adjustment rather than a strategic retreat. How Anthropic builds on this moment, through policy refinements or enhanced dialogue, will shape its standing among employees, regulators, and the public for years to come. The coming days and weeks promise to reveal whether the current tensions subside or evolve into more significant organizational changes.
Salesforce Share Price Jumps Gains On Growth Outlook, Anthropic Partnership
Salesforce reassured investors that it can compete successfully in the AI era. Salesforce Inc. jumped in extended trading after the software company gave an outlook for strong revenue expansion and deepened its partnership with Anthropic PBC, reassuring investors that it can compete successfully in the AI era. Sales will be about $11.5 billion in the fiscal third quarter, which ends in October, Salesforce said Wednesday in a statement. That's just ahead of analysts' average estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Current remaining performance obligations - a measure of future sales - will increase about 14%, also ahead of the average estimate of 13% growth. The company expects revenue to accelerate in the second half of the year, even without the impact of acquisitions, Chief Financial and Operating Officer Robin Washington said in the statement. Net orders are at the strongest they've been in four years, she said. The leading maker of customer management software is under pressure to prove it can thrive against competition from artificial intelligence companies and products. Agentforce, its AI tool meant to handle business tasks without human oversight, is on track to contribute about $1.5 billion in revenue this year, Salesforce said Wednesday. That's an increase from the $1.2 billion reported in the prior quarter. The company also announced an expanded partnership with Anthropic, the maker of the AI model Claude. It will integrate Salesforce's products within Claude, allowing sellers to access information on their customers and sales cycles with the AI app. When customers access Salesforce data from Claude, it will run up consumption bills with both companies. This integration should help push Salesforce customers toward higher-tier plans, said Mike Spencer, Salesforce head of finance, in an interview. Revenue gained 11% to $11.3 billion in the fiscal second quarter, which ended July 31, in line with analysts' estimates. Profit, excluding some items, was $5.90 a share. The results were "encouraging," wrote Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst at Valoir. "Salesforce needed to beat the numbers, but also the narrative around AI eating its business." The shares gained more than 12% in extended trading after closing at $205.62. The stock had dropped 38% this year through July 24, but had rebounded 26% since then through Wednesday's close. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff started a conference call after the results were released by addressing "skeptics" who believe that AI will lead customers to abandon Salesforce or negotiate for lower prices. Instead, attrition is near record lows and contract terms are improving for Salesforce, Benioff said. "This nonsense of this SaaSpocalypse, I think it's time to stop," Benioff said, referencing the stock meltdown earlier this year for software-as-a-service companies such as Salesforce. Benioff isn't the only software leader who has pushed back on earnings calls in an attempt to shake investors' negativity. Peers from ServiceNow Inc. to Oracle Corp. have been trying increasingly aggressive strategies to address the sentiment. In June, Salesforce announced it would acquire AI startup Fin for $3.6 billion. The deal is expected to help the company bolster its customer service AI offerings and better compete against Sierra, a startup founded by Bret Taylor, OpenAI chairman and a former co-chief executive officer at Salesforce. (This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories -- On NDTV Profit.
Brazil sues online platform Discord over alleged failures in children protection
SAO PAULO -- Brazil's government said on Wednesday it filed a lawsuit in a federal court against Discord, the popular platform for gamers to communicate online, seeking damages of 500 million reais (about $97 million) for the company's alleged failure to protect children online. The move comes in the wake of a July suicide case linked to the platform. Earlier this month, Brazil's government pushed Discord to suspend its live broadcasts in relation to the incident. The Solicitor-General's office for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a statement the damages it is seeking from Discord are due to alleged collective psychological harm it has allowed. Discord in Brazil said in a statement that the move by the country's government is "disproportionate" and "does not accurately reflect Discord's approach to safety and compliance with Brazilian law." Brazil's government's 25-page long lawsuit, which was obtained by The Associated Press, says there are severe gaps in its age-verification systems and user safety protections. The company has committed "direct violations to a number of obligations and protective norms of Brazilian law, regarding the special protections and safety of vulnerable groups, including children and teenagers," Brazil's Solicitor-General's office said. The office is also asking the court to order Discord to immediately strengthen parental controls, expand cooperation with local law enforcement, and deploy automated tools to detect and remove dangerous content. The filing also notes that Discord faces similar legal pressure globally, including active lawsuits in U.S. states like Texas, Nevada and New Jersey. Lula, who is seeking reelection in October, and Brazil's Supreme Court have tried to regulate the use of the internet by minors, with mixed results so far, at a moment when countries, including Australia, Canada and Indonesia, are undertaking similar efforts. Brazil's first lady Rosângela Lula da Silva, known as Janja, said on Aug. 6 that the platform should be taken offline, citing the suicide case. Five teenagers were arrested in connection with the death, according to Brazil's justice ministry. Discord has more than 90 million active daily users worldwide, according to its website.
Why X-Energy (XE) Shares Just Moved, And What Is Drawing Attention?
X-Energy (XE) released its second quarter 2026 earnings on August 13, reporting revenue of US$54.6 million and a net loss of US$59.09 million, or US$0.21 per share. The latest second quarter earnings release comes after a mixed run for X-Energy's stock, with a 30-day share price return of 31.25%, following a 90-day share price decline of 30.61% and a year-to-date share price return down 34.55%. Compare X-Energy's nuclear story with other potential beneficiaries of the sector shift by scanning our hand picked 92 nuclear energy infrastructure stocks today. After a sharp 30 day rebound and a share price near US$19.11 that sits far below analyst targets around US$38, X-Energy now trades at a steep apparent discount. Is the market being cautious for good reason? Preferred Price-to-Sales Multiple of 36.6x: Is It Justified? X-Energy trades at $19.11 while carrying a P/S ratio of 36.6x, compared with far lower benchmarks across both its industry and identified peers. That points to a rich valuation relative to current revenue. The P/S multiple compares the company's market value with its revenue. For X-Energy, which is still loss making and does not yet have positive earnings or near term profitability forecasts, revenue is a key anchor for how the market is currently pricing the nuclear reactor and fuel business. XE's P/S ratio of 36.6x is described as expensive versus the US Electrical industry average of 2.7x and a peer average of 5.7x. This places X-Energy at a much higher revenue multiple than both its sector and closer peers. It suggests investors are paying a premium for each dollar of sales compared with other electrical equipment companies, even though X-Energy remains unprofitable and is forecast to stay loss making over the next 3 years despite strong revenue growth forecasts. Result: Price-to-Sales of 36.6x (OVERVALUED) See what the numbers say about this price -- find out in our valuation breakdown. However, investors in X-Energy still need to weigh the ongoing net loss of US$448.87 million and the very high 36.6x P/S multiple against future execution risks. Find out about the key risks to this X-Energy narrative. Another View on X-Energy's Valuation While X-Energy looks expensive on a 36.6x P/S ratio, the SWS DCF model points in the same direction. It estimates the future cash flow value at about US$12.10 a share, compared with the current US$19.11 price. This implies the stock is trading above that cash flow based value. How much weight should you give to each method before making a call?
Brazil sues Discord for $97 million a day after fining TikTok $30 million - Cryptopolitan
Regulators are now reviewing 22 platforms for compliance with Brazil's new child protection rules, signaling a broader enforcement push. Brazil's government filed a civil collective moral damages lawsuit against Discord seeking 500 million reais, roughly $97 million, over what it says are failures to comply with laws protecting children and women, per Reuters. Solicitor General Jorge Messias announced the action Wednesday. It follows an order this month from the National Data Protection Authority requiring Discord to suspend livestreams and video calls in Brazil, issued after a 13-year-old girl died by suicide following a broadcast in which authorities say she was encouraged to harm herself. Discord filed an appeal against that suspension on Monday, which the agency told AFP is under review. Brazil is using the courts to go beyond the regulator's penalty cap The lawsuit exceeds what the regulator itself could impose. The data protection agency launched its probe in early August upon recommendation by the Digital Rights Secretariat and gave Discord five days to show how it protects children and teenagers, with penalties of up to 50 million reais if it fails, MLex reports. It ordered the suspension on August 12 and Discord complied on August 17, saying it was seeking a solution that would let the features return. Going to court for ten times the administrative maximum is how the government reaches past its own regulator. TikTok was hit with a $30 million child-data fine the day before The Discord suit arrived into a week of enforcement. On Tuesday the authority fined TikTok 153.7 million reais, close to $30 million, for irregularities in processing the data of children and adolescents, and ordered ByteDance to delete data collected in breach of the rules, per AFP. The regulator estimated that the company might have processed data from as many as 8 million children and cited flaws in the process of age verification. TikTok has 10 days to appeal, and the company has said that it will be complying with new rules that include tougher default privacy settings for under-16s, increased parental controls, and enhanced content filtering. The company agreed last week to pay $400 million to settle a separate US Justice Department case over children's privacy. Twenty-two platforms are now under scrutiny as enforcement widens Agency director Lorena Giuberti Coutinho said proceedings began last week to check whether 22 social media networks and platforms comply with a child protection law Brazil passed this year, which requires accounts belonging to users under 16 to be linked to a parent's and obliges platforms to verify ages. I think we can expect much stronger enforcement action in the months ahead. - Lorena Giuberti Coutinho Brazil has moved against large platforms before. X was blocked for 40 days in 2024 until it complied with Supreme Court orders to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation. Separately, the consumer rights group Collective Defense Institute is seeking 3 billion reais from the Brazilian units of TikTok, Kwai and Meta over minors' use of their services.
New method systematically generates graph XAI benchmarks using
Graph neural networks are rapidly becoming the workhorses of artificial intelligence for molecules, social networks, computer programs and infrastructure -- but their reasoning can remain nearly impossible to inspect. A new study from researchers at the University of Pisa proposes a way to generate large, systematic test collections for graph explainability, potentially giving scientists a far sharper view of whether an AI explanation reflects a model's actual decision process or merely produces a persuasive-looking guess. Published in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, the work introduces OpenGraphXAI, a benchmark suite containing 15 graph-classification datasets derived from real-world molecular data. The researchers also release software that can generate more than 2,000 additional benchmarks, aiming to replace a fragmented evaluation landscape with a reproducible testing framework. The problem begins with the unusual structure of graph data. Unlike an image, which is arranged on a regular grid of pixels, or a sentence, which has a sequence of words, a graph consists of entities represented by nodes and relationships represented by edges. In a molecular graph, for example, atoms become nodes and chemical bonds become edges. A graph neural network, or GNN, learns by repeatedly passing information between neighboring nodes. At each layer, a node updates its internal representation by combining its own features with information aggregated from nearby nodes. After several rounds, the network can form a representation of the entire graph and use it to predict a property such as toxicity or anticancer activity. This flexibility has made GNNs powerful, but the same distributed calculations make it difficult to identify which parts of a graph drove a prediction. Graph explainability methods, often grouped under the name explainable artificial intelligence, attempt to solve that problem by highlighting influential nodes, edges or subgraphs. For molecular classification, an explainer might identify a ring structure, a chemical group or a compact arrangement of atoms as the motif that supposedly caused a compound to be classified as active. Some methods learn masks that retain the most important parts of the graph; others assign relevance scores to nodes or bonds, or search for a smaller subgraph that preserves the model's prediction. Yet judging these methods is surprisingly difficult. A visually coherent highlighted region is not necessarily the region used by the GNN. An explainer can also exploit correlations in a dataset, select redundant features or generate an explanation that looks chemically plausible while failing to represent the network's internal logic. The usual solution is to compare an explanation with a ground-truth motif whose importance is already known. Existing benchmarks, however, have serious constraints. Many rely on simple synthetic graphs designed around deliberately inserted patterns. Such datasets are useful for controlled experiments, but they may not reflect the complexity, noise and structural diversity of real applications. Other benchmarks contain only a small number of real-world tasks assembled by domain experts, making it difficult to draw statistically reliable conclusions. If several explainers are evaluated on just one or two datasets, a method may appear superior because it happens to suit those particular graphs. The Pisa team argues that broad collections of tasks are essential: performance should be tested across different graph sizes, motif frequencies, class imbalances and relationships between predictive patterns and background structure. Their proposed solution uses a classic procedure from graph theory and theoretical computer science: the Weisfeiler-Leman color refinement algorithm. Despite its colorful name, the method performs a relatively simple operation. It initially assigns each node a label, or "color," based on its attributes. During each iteration, a node updates its color according to its current label and the multiset of labels belonging to its neighbors. Nodes surrounded by different local structures gradually receive different colors. Repeating the process allows the algorithm to summarize increasingly broad neighborhoods without explicitly comparing every possible subgraph. In graph learning, the procedure is important because standard message-passing GNNs have a closely related expressive limitation: in many settings, they cannot distinguish graph structures that the Weisfeiler-Leman test also considers equivalent. The researchers exploit that connection to mine motifs that separate graph classes while remaining learnable by GNNs. Starting with a generic graph-classification dataset, their method searches for recurring substructures associated with one class more strongly than another. Weisfeiler-Leman color refinement provides an efficient approximation for matching these subgraphs across many graphs. Candidate motifs can then serve as proxy ground-truth explanations: not absolute truths about nature, but structurally defined patterns with measurable class-discriminating power. The method is designed so that the selected motifs align with the expressive capacity of the GNN models being evaluated. This alignment matters because a benchmark would be unfair if it demanded that an explainer identify a pattern the underlying network could not, in principle, represent. The resulting OpenGraphXAI suite is built from molecular classification datasets, including tasks connected to cancer-cell growth inhibition and toxicological assays. Some benchmark datasets originate from NCI1 and NCI109 screens, which classify small molecules according to activity against specific cancer cell lines. Others are derived from Tox21 assays involving the aryl hydrocarbon receptor pathway, the estrogen-receptor ligand-binding domain and the p53 stress-response pathway. Additional tasks come from screens involving MCF-7 breast tumor cells, MOLT-4 leukemia cells, P388 leukemia cells, PC-3 prostate cancer cells and SW-620 colon cancer cells. In each case, the original molecular graphs are transformed into graph-XAI tasks with class-associated structural motifs that can be used to test whether an explainer identifies relevant molecular regions. The suite is intended to make evaluation more rigorous rather than to declare one universal definition of an explanation. A good explainer may need to satisfy several properties at once. It should be faithful, meaning that the highlighted structure genuinely influences the model's output. It should be sufficiently concise to be useful to a human rather than marking most of the graph as important. It should be stable when small, irrelevant changes are made to the input, and it should generalize across examples instead of revealing only one idiosyncratic prediction. The new benchmarks allow researchers to compare such properties over many tasks. The authors report a use case in which several popular graph explainers are evaluated, illustrating how a larger benchmark collection can improve the statistical significance and interpretability of comparisons. The technical foundation also highlights an important boundary. Weisfeiler-Leman refinement is powerful for discovering local structural distinctions, but it is not a complete test for graph equivalence and does not capture every way a graph neural network might behave. A motif identified as class-discriminating in a dataset is therefore a proxy ground truth, not proof that the motif is a causal mechanism in chemistry or biology. Real molecular activity can depend on three-dimensional conformation, stereochemistry, reaction conditions, protein binding and other information absent from a simple graph representation. The benchmarks can test whether an explainer tracks a trained model's structural reasoning, but they cannot by themselves establish that the model has learned a scientifically correct mechanism. That distinction is crucial if these tools are eventually used in drug discovery or other high-stakes settings. OpenGraphXAI is publicly distributed in JSON format through Kaggle, while its generation and evaluation code is hosted on GitHub. The authors' broader goal is to make graph-XAI research easier to reproduce and harder to overinterpret. By automating benchmark construction from generic graph-classification data, the method could let researchers create controlled tests for domains beyond chemistry, including biological interaction networks, power grids, software vulnerability graphs and transportation systems. For developers of GNN explainers, the immediate benefit is a much larger testing ground; for scientists and regulators, the longer-term promise is a clearer way to ask whether an AI system's explanation deserves trust. As graph-based AI moves deeper into medicine, materials science and security, the ability to interrogate not only what a model predicts but why it predicts it may become as important as predictive accuracy itself.
Brazil sues Discord for $100 mn in child safety case
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Brazilian government on Wednesday said it was suing the Discord messaging platform for nearly $100 million in damages over its alleged failure to protect children from harmful content and demanded it adopt stronger safeguards. Brazil's National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) ordered Discord to suspend livestreams earlier this month after a 13-year-old girl was goaded into killing herself during a livestream. A government statement said the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the capital, Brasilia, was brought after failed negotiations with Discord, whose proposals were "deemed insufficient to eliminate the identified risks." "The lawsuit seeks to compel the Discord platform to adopt effective measures to protect children, adolescents, and women in the digital environment," said the statement. "It also requests that the company be ordered to pay R$ 500 million ($97 million) in compensation for collective moral damages." The messaging platform, with over 90 million active daily users, agreed to suspend livestreaming in Brazil on August 17, assuring it was working "to make Discord safer for teens." However, Brasilia said it "continues to exhibit flaws in its age verification and user protection mechanisms," exposing users to serious risks, such as those that resulted in the girl's death in July. Five teenagers and an adult have been arrested in connection with the suicide in a small town in central-western Brazil. Over 45 minutes, the teens allegedly encouraged the girl to kill an animal, and when she failed to do so, they encouraged her to kill herself, according to an official with the Justice Ministry's Ciberlab intelligence unit. One of the teens arrested was just 14. Brazil is demanding that Discord implement stricter parental controls, cooperate more closely with the authorities and implement systems capable of detecting and preventing situations that put minors at risk. In a statement sent to AFP, the platform expressed regret over the legal action and said it had "consistently and in good faith" maintained dialogue with the authorities. "We believe there is a better way and remain committed to working with the relevant authorities to reach a solution that strengthens safety on the platform while allowing Brazilians to continue using Discord," it stated. - 'Powerful signal' - Brazil has taken a tough stance against social media platforms, cracking down on disinformation and requiring users under 16 to link their accounts to those of their parents. On Tuesday, the ANPD fined TikTok nearly $30 million for failing to implement child safety measures in what it called a "powerful signal" to social media companies. ANPD director Lorena Giuberti Coutinho said the agency last week initiated proceedings to verify the compliance of 22 social media networks and platforms with a law passed this year to protect children and teens online. "I think we can expect much stronger enforcement action" in the coming months, she said. Brazil's Supreme Court has also locked horns with Big Tech, specifically Elon Musk's X, over online disinformation. Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes has been accused by the Brazilian and American right of censorship for, among other things, blocking access to X for 40 days in 2024.
