Meta Pauses Work With Mercor After Data Breach Puts AI Industry Secrets at Risk

Meta has paused all its work with the data contracting firm Mercor while it investigates a major security breach that impacted the startup, two sources confirmed to WIRED. The pause is indefinite, the sources said. Other major AI labs are also reevaluating their work with Mercor as they assess the scope of the incident, according … Read more

OpenAI’s Fidji Simo Is Taking Medical Leave Amid an Executive Shake-Up

OpenAI announced a Major reorganization on Friday as the company’s CEO of AGI deployment, Fidji Simo, takes medical leave to focus on her health. OpenAI president Greg Brockman will handle the product teams in Simo’s absence. Simo’s previous title was CEO of applications. Brad Lightcap, the chief operating officer and one of CEO Sam Altman’s … Read more

The 3 Best Portable Jump Starters in 2026: Get Charged Up

Leaving your headlights on used to mean a knock on a neighbor’s door—or a long and maybe costly wait for a tow truck. But battery technology changes everything, whether for cars or portable blenders or power packs. Portable jump starters now don’t cost much more than the price of a single tow and can jolt … Read more

A New Google-Funded Data Center Will Be Powered by a Massive Gas Plant

“Grid growth can’t match AI demand, so a pragmatic ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy is essential—with gas as a critical bridge,” Cully Cavness, the cofounder and president of Crusoe, told WIRED in a statement. “This isn’t the destination; it’s the foundation we build on while investing in batteries, solar, wind, and small modular nuclear reactors. We’re not waiting … Read more

‘Uncanny Valley’: Iran’s Threats on US Tech, Trump’s Plans for Midterms, and Polymarket’s Pop-up Flop

Kate Knibbs: So, you went twice? Makena Kelly: Yes, Kate. I went twice. Kate Knibbs: I missed that. Zoë Schiffer: Wait, is the Pentagon Pizza thing a joke about the pizza predicting the war? Makena Kelly: Yes. Zoë Schiffer: Oh, my God. Makena Kelly: Because they had these Pentagon pizza trackers up. When I returned … Read more

OpenAI Acquires Tech Talk Show ‘TBPN’—and Buys Itself Some Positive News

OpenAI announced Thursday that it had acquired the online business talk show TBPN for an undisclosed sum. The move comes as OpenAI struggles with its public image, which has taken a significant hit in recent months. Since launching in 2024, TBPN has risen in popularity among Silicon Valley circles by offering a daily livestream about … Read more

Cursor Launches a New AI Agent Experience to Take On Claude Code and Codex

Cursor announced Thursday the launch of Cursor 3, a new product interface that allows users to spin up AI coding agents to complete tasks on their behalf. The product, which was developed under the code name Glass, is Cursor’s response to agentic coding tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, which have taken off … Read more

Anthropic Says That Claude Contains Its Own Kind of Emotions

Claude has been through a lot lately—a public fallout with the Pentagon, leaked source code—so it makes sense that it would be feeling a little blue. Except, it’s an AI model, so it can’t feel. Right? Well, sort of. A new study from Anthropic suggests models have digital representations of human emotions like happiness, sadness, … Read more

‘Thank You for Generating With Us!’ Hollywood’s AI Acolytes Stay on the Hype Train

While this type of hype is predictable at industry-led events, again and again summit attendees were reminded that generative AI isn’t just another flash-in-the-pan techno-bauble, like VR headsets, the “metaverse,” or NFTs. its actually revolutionary. The insistence betrays the measure of anxiety one might expect at a confab celebrating a power-hungry industry staring down an … Read more

AI Models Lie, Cheat, and Steal to Protect Other Models From Being Deleted

In a recent experiment, researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz asked Google’s artificial intelligence model Gemini 3 to help clear up space on a computer system. This involved deleting a bunch of stuff—including a smaller AI model stored on the machine. But Gemini did not want to see the little AI model deleted. … Read more