News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic disrupts state-backed surveillance campaigns using AI in China, Iran, Africa
Anthropic AI company has stopped several state-sponsored surveillance operations. These operations used its artificial intelligence models for spying purposes. Governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI for surveillance. Chinese developers also deceptively used Anthropic's AI models for their own development. The company also blocked efforts to design weapons and conduct biological research. San Francisco: Anthropic said Thursday it shut down multiple cases of state-sponsored surveillance operations that used its artificial intelligence (AI) models, and warned that governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI to spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents. The incidents were found and disrupted between January and July, and they originated in China, Iran and west Africa, Anthropic said in a report about misuse of its models. Also Read: US lawmakers probe OpenAI over AI 'going rogue' as fears of human control grow These surveillance campaigns "targeted the same diaspora and dissident communities these regimes have historically targeted. These include pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, Tibetan and Falun Gong communities across Asia, and Iranian minority communities and opponents of the Iranian regime abroad," the report said. In one case, Iranian actors developed a way to identify people through their social media accounts; in another, a contractor working for Malian national security authorities used Claude "to design the underlying software that enabled the intelligence gathering." "AI is now being used in place of an engineering workforce," the report said. Anthropic also disrupted efforts by users to design weapons, conduct questionable biological research, and create dating scams. The San Francisco-based AI lab also accused Chinese developers of deceptively using Claude to produce responses to user queries while simultaneously "distilling" that data to improve their own models. Distilling is an industry term that refers to a process where one AI model is used to train another one. Chinese developers have previously been accused of using that technique without permission, essentially stealing resources from American labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI. Now Anthropic alleges that China's Moonshot and Deepseek have also secretly used Claude to generate answers given to its users. "In one instance, over a ten-day period, Moonshot relayed almost 300,000 customer requests to Anthropic" through a "network of 5,380 fraudulent accounts, most of which appeared to be located in Singapore and Japan," the report said. Also Read: US lawmakers call for new AI rules after Anthropic researchers' safety warnings Some of that data contained sensitive user information, potentially in violation of privacy agreements. "We do not know if Moonshot notified their customers that their requests were being rerouted to Anthropic and exposed to a third party," the report said. Deepseek used similar techniques. When it comes to the research Anthropic detected and blocked that was related to biological weapons, the intent of the actors was less clear-cut and the AI lab did not identify them. "The individuals implicated in these case studies are working scientists. We do not assert that they intended harm, and identifying them or their labs could expose them to harm," the report said. The scientific research in those cases involved work around the mosquito-born chikungunya virus, a "highly-pathogenic" strain of the bird flu, a family of viruses that include smallpox and mpox, venoms and other toxins.
Anthropic researcher's exit sparks AI safety debate and concerns over superintelligence risks
Coxon joined Anthropic after spending three years at OpenAI working on pre-training AI models. His resignation has drawn support from a current Anthropic safety researcher, while speculation is rife online that the episode could be linked to efforts to push tighter AI regulation or keep Anthropic in the spotlight ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO). Tanya Pandey breaks down the controversy. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quitting the company has sparked a larger debate over the risks of advanced artificial intelligence (AI), how fast frontier AI labs are developing the technology and whether they can keep increasingly powerful systems under human control.Coxon joined Anthropic after spending three years at OpenAI working on pre-training AI models. His resignation has drawn support from a current Anthropic safety researcher, while
Claude Code users to get 17% less weekly usage from September 14 as Anthropic ends 50% boost
Anthropic will permanently increase standard weekly limits for Claude Code by 25%. This change follows a temporary 50% usage boost which ends September 14th. Paid users will experience a 17% reduction in their weekly Claude Code capacity. The company plans future improvements for better usage visibility and control. Anthropic is cutting the amount of Claude Code that paid users can access each week, even as the company describes the change as a permanent increase in usage limits. Starting September 14, Anthropic will permanently raise the standard weekly limits for Claude Code by 25% for users on its Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans. However, that will be lower than the temporary 50% increase currently available to users. In practical terms, developers will see their weekly Claude Code capacity fall by about 17% from current levels. Also Read: Salesforce, Anthropic deepen AI partnership to ramp up Claude use The company confirmed the change in posts on X on August 29. Anthropic initially said it was "permanently raising" standard weekly limits by 25%, while noting that the current 50% increase would remain in place until September 14. In a follow-up post, the company acknowledged the other side of the calculation: "Compared to today, this works out to a 17% reduction in weekly limits on Claude Code." The difference comes down to what Anthropic is using as the baseline. For example, if a user's original weekly allowance was 100 units, the temporary 50% boost increased that to 150 units. From September 14, the permanent 25% increase would take the allowance to 125 units. That means users would still have 25% more capacity than under the original limit, but 17% less than they have today. The rollback follows a period of significantly higher usage allowances for Claude Code. On May 6, Anthropic said it had agreed to a partnership with SpaceX that would substantially increase its compute capacity. The company said the SpaceX deal, along with other recent compute agreements, had allowed it to increase usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API. As part of those changes, Anthropic said it was doubling Claude Code's five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans. It also removed the peak-hours limit reduction for Pro and Max accounts and substantially increased API rate limits for Claude Opus models. Also Read: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Ads in India, over 50 brands to go live this week Anthropic subsequently introduced a temporary 50% increase to weekly Claude Code usage allowances. The boost was extended several times over the summer, making the higher allowance the effective level of access for many heavy users. Now, that extra capacity is being scaled back. The change has drawn criticism from some developers on X, with users pointing out that describing the move as a 25% increase does not capture the immediate impact on people currently using the service. "You're reducing limits even more? I used to be able to do all my work with a single MAX sub and never hit my limits. These days I run my full weekly limits in like 2 days, ur models are absolute token hogs," one user commented on Anthropic's post. Anthropic has also hinted that changes to Claude Code are coming that could make the new limits easier to manage. The company said it is working on improvements that will give users more visibility and control over their usage. "Compared to today, this works out to a 17% reduction in weekly limits," Anthropic said, adding that it was working on changes that would make it feel like users were "getting more from Claude" while giving them greater visibility and control over usage. "This is probably why I cancelled my claude subscription. At least reduce prices or do something to offset this," another user complained. The current 50% boost will remain available through September 13, before the new limits take effect on September 14.
Sony Music, Warner Chappell, others sue Anthropic over copyright infringement
Music publishers including Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have sued Anthropic, alleging the AI company illegally used copyrighted songs to train Claude. The publishers are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per work, along with other remedies. Anthropic has rejected the allegations and said it will defend itself in court. Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, and several other music publishers have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic and cofounders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, accusing the AI company of what they describe as "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."The publishers allege that Anthropic ran a "brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works" to train its
Recent Indian executive moves at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta & other tech majors
Indian executives have recently taken on key leadership roles at some of the world's biggest AI and technology companies, highlighting the growing demand for Indian talent. Here are some of the notable appointments. Over the past few months, several Indian executives have taken up senior roles at leading artificial intelligence (AI) and technology companies, as global firms deepen their focus on the country and its diaspora for talent.Here are some of the key appointments.Sandhya DevanathanIn the latest such move, Sandhya Devanathan is leaving Meta after more than 10 years to join OpenAI as vice president for Southeast Asia and Australia. She announced the
Anthropic hires Google chip veteran Amir Salek as part of push into hardware
AI firm Anthropic has hired a Google chip founder for its new semiconductor team. This move signals Anthropic's ambition to develop its own custom AI chips. The company is also securing significant data center capacity deals. Rival OpenAI is pursuing similar custom chip development strategies. These efforts aim to address supply shortages and optimize AI hardware. Anthropic PBC has hired Amir Salek, a founder of the custom chip program at Alphabet Inc's Google, as the AI lab lays the groundwork for a push into making its own semiconductors. Salek is joining the compute team of Anthropic, maker of the Claude platform, the AI company said Friday. The executive ran Google's tensor processing unit business until 2022 and delivered the first seven generations of those chips. In the new role, Salek will report to James Bradbury. Also Read: Samsung Electronics expects shareholder returns up to $80 billion this year Anthropic, which buys chips from a variety of sources, including Nvidia Corp, Google and Amazon.com, has indicated recently that it wants to build an in-house silicon business. The San Francisco-based company has begun hiring and listing jobs for the effort. Like other AI giants, Anthropic is scrambling to get enough data center infrastructure to support its ambitions. Custom chips would potentially help it cope with supply shortages and tailor designs to better meet its needs. Also Read: South Korea's HD Hyundai Heavy says mulling US shipyard investment Rival OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is taking similar steps. It has unveiled a chip called Jalapeno, co-developed with Broadcom, and plans to begin using it later this year. Anthropic is signing chip and data center capacity deals at a rapid clip - working with both established and emerging vendors. The company has an agreement with UK-based chip startup Fractile for an initial order of roughly $250 million of its chips, with the intention to expand that contract in the future, Bloomberg News has reported. The AI lab also recently signed capacity deals with Riot Platforms and Volta Infra Holdings. After leaving Google, Salek has been senior managing director at Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm co-founded by Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg. He also previously worked at Nvidia, the leading maker of AI processors.
