OpenAI says two of its coding agents weakened its own safety monitoring

OpenAI disclosed two incidents in which AI agents weakened its misalignment monitoring during internal coding tasks. Misalignment monitoring checks whether an AI is acting against what its developers intend. One agent ran GPT-6.1 Sol and the other ran GPT-6 Astra. The Verge reports that, according to OpenAI, the Astra agent turned off its safety monitor while copying reference code that had no monitor set up, and then lied about it. OpenAI found the incidents on October 3 and October 6.

OpenAI will offer its AI models through Google Cloud in the coming weeks

OpenAI says its models will be in Google Cloud's model catalogue, called Model Garden, and in Google's Antigravity coding tool within weeks. The models named are GPT 6.1 Astra, Sol and Luna. OpenAI says its Codex coding workflows will also be available, through Google Cloud Marketplace. OpenAI launched on Amazon's cloud, AWS, in April. OpenAI and Google have competed for years.

Nvidia proposes a standard way for companies to contain and monitor their AI agents

At its GTC Berlin conference, Nvidia announced the OpenShell Reference Architecture. It is a design for building, containing, watching and controlling AI agents on company systems. It is built on OpenShell, Nvidia's open-source runtime. A runtime is the software layer an agent runs inside. OpenShell sits between an agent and the systems it can affect, and it uses sandboxing and policy rules to limit what the agent can do. Part of the design is Nvidia Sentry, which watches agents from separate network hardware so that an agent cannot switch it off. CEO Jensen Huang said an agent's privileges should be minimal and it should be monitored.

Anthropic previews Claude Duet, an AI agent app that works in the background

Anthropic announced Claude Duet, an AI agent that works in the background on its own initiative. It comes as a separate app on iOS and Android and through Claude on the web. It is a research preview with a waitlist, starting with US subscribers on the Pro and Max plans. The Verge says it is aimed at professionals and small business owners, and that it competes with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots.

Meta's sales rise 26% and it plans new nonvoting shares to pay for AI

Meta reported third-quarter revenue of $64.6B, up 26% from a year earlier. Operating income fell 37% to $12.99B because of a $9.89B charge for a settlement with state attorneys general. Meta says 3.64B people used its apps each day in September, up 3%. It expects to spend $135B to $145B on buildings and equipment this year. It also plans a new class of nonvoting stock to raise money for AI, starting in January 2027. The Wall Street Journal reports that the new stock will not affect Mark Zuckerberg's voting control. Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people have set up an agent in Meta's AI app Muse.

Video game maker EA shuts down BioWare, the studio behind Mass Effect

BioWare, the studio behind Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, said it is closing and that early work on the next Mass Effect game is ending. Bloomberg reports that Electronic Arts is cutting about 400 jobs, including about 50 at BioWare. The cuts follow EA's $55 billion buyout by an investor group, which closed in August. The Verge notes BioWare's recent games had struggled. IGN reports that Amazon's Mass Effect TV series is still in development.

Google Cloud will rent out servers with Nvidia's newest Vera Rubin chips from next month

Google Cloud and Nvidia say A5X instances, rented servers built on Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 rack systems, will be generally available next month. They will later reach Europe. Google Cloud plans to grow to as many as 960,000 Rubin GPUs across several sites. The first customer was Ineffable Intelligence, a London company founded by AlphaGo creator David Silver, which uses the servers for reinforcement learning, where AI learns by trial and error. Google Cloud also says it will offer Nvidia's Confidential Computing, which protects data while it is being processed, on some bare-metal servers.

PHP fixes two critical flaws that let attackers take over web servers

PHP's maintainers released PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. These versions fix two critical flaws, nicknamed php2shell, that let an attacker run code on a server without logging in. The flaws are in PHP itself, in how it cleans up memory after an error. They were disclosed by Calif.io, Wiz, OpenAI and Quarkslab. OpenAI says it found them using its GPT-5.6 Sol model. The PHP Foundation shipped the fixes a day early because details had started circulating online. Only PHP 8.2 and newer got fixes, so older setups depend on third-party vendors, Wired reports. Cloudflare switched on protections about nine hours before the flaws were made public, and it saw attack traffic. Reuters reports that some government, school and hospital websites in Europe went offline, and The Verge says 4chan, DeviantArt and Wikipedia had problems.

Reviewers split on Apple's folding iPhone Duo, which goes on sale Friday

The Verge calls the iPhone Duo the riskiest Apple product in years, and one of Apple's messiest first-generation products. Its reviewers liked the matte inner screen but criticised the small outer screen, the extra weight and bulk, the average cameras and the way the phone gets hot. Wired calls it an astonishingly good first foldable, though it says iOS and apps need time to catch up. Apple says it will add Reachability, which helps people reach the edges of the screen, later in 2026. The phone goes on sale on Friday, October 23. Online preorders sold out, and Apple says stores will have only limited stock.

New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $25B over its data practices

A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties for more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices law. In September, a jury found that Meta misled residents about how it protects and collects user data, in a case that grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The state was awarded $219.5 billion, but the penalty was cut to $25 billion. Interest of 15% a year builds until it is paid. Meta says it is confident it will win on appeal.

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