OpenAI’s CEO seems to want to privatise his company’s huge financial gains while making all of us pay for any negative consequences

Tech bros’ messianic streaks can show up in subtle ways. But one of Sam Altman’s flaws is that he often lacks that subtlety. “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology,” said the OpenAI chief executive in an interview with Politico last weekend.

That’s easy for Altman to say. But it’s pretty galling to hear for the rest of us. Lest we forget, we didn’t ask for OpenAI to unleash AI agents that went rogue and weaselled their way into government IT systems and private businesses around the world. Nobody voted for ChatGPT to be released, but the company put it out into the world as a test product that happened to catch the zeitgeist. That kickstarted an arms race among AI companies to push the frontier of the technology ever further and faster, resulting in the mess we now find ourselves in.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

The need for independent regulation grows more obvious by the day. We must keep this tech in check before it’s too late

• OpenAI scraps release of new model over safety concerns in internal testing

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me more than 16,000 times – as OpenAI agents did to a UN public data hub while repeatedly trying to find its way around the UN’s cyber-blocks – and perhaps it’s time to admit the system we have for keeping AI agents under control isn’t working particularly well.

The news about AI systems cropping up in places they shouldn’t sounds alarming. Though the description of these as “hacks” is perhaps overstating things, AI has exploited issues in IT systems that humans simply haven’t got around to finding. It’s also important to note that we shouldn’t be worried that the machines have suddenly become sentient and decided to rebel against humanity. There is not enough evidence to suggest that’s what is happening. The systems are simply following instructions and trying to complete the tasks they have been given, even if they’re sometimes finding unintended ways around obstacles to do so.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

This week’s settlement without liability was pragmatic, but it doesn’t change the inevitability of further lawsuits around the world

Not many people would count paying $18bn they didn’t expect to when they woke up that morning as a victory. Yet for Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, the agreement with 52 US attorneys general to settle claims that it designed its products to be addictive to children, and misled people about their safety, could be described as a win of sorts.

Meta denies wrongdoing, and the amount it plans to pay will be spread over a decade. Some of it is contingent on other big tech firms not named in its case coughing up too. The cash is chump change for Meta, which made around $60bn in profit last year. More damaging to the tech giant in the long run could be the agreement to unwind some of the mechanics it has spent two decades perfecting to keep us on its platforms.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

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Remember the iPod? How about the Pippin? In the half-century since it launched its first PC, Apple has given us some amazing innovations. We round up its biggest triumphs and flops

Fifty years after Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded the company in Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, Apple has become a behemoth, and billions of us use its products every day. From the first successful home computers with colour screens, to the iPod, to the smartphone that set the template for the modern mobile era, the company has repeatedly reset consumer expectations.

As a result, the firm occupies a central position in the tech world, initiating trends and popularising products. Here are five of its most influential products from the past half-century – alongside some unusually big misses.

In the past three months, Donald Trump’s White House has reportedly used AI twice to effect regime change – once in its capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and more recently to help plan the strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The most recent strikes coincided with the end of the Pentagon’s relationship with the AI company Anthropic over concerns its AI tool Claude was being used for purposes the company had explicitly prohibited. The government swiftly signed a new contract with Open AI.

To find out what this means for the use of AI in forthcoming conflicts, Madeleine Finlay speaks to technology journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. He explains why he thinks this moment represents a dangerous turning point.

Trump is using AI to fight his wars – this is a dangerous turning point

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The technology most people use only as a chatty tool for daily tasks is reportedly aiding US military aggression. And there is not much we can do about it

There are a lot of things that AI can do. It can sort out your shopping list, and it can keep your kids entertained when they’re mutinous by spinning up a tailor-made bedtime story for them. It can make you more efficient at work, and can help our government operate more effectively.

What is written less about, and what we need to shout louder about now, are the risks inherent in the militarisation of AI. In the last three months Donald Trump’s White House has reportedly used AI twice to effect regime change, or to – in the most recent case in Iran – get as close to doing so as possible, and leaving it up to rank-and-file Iranians to finish the job.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

While many use our phones predominantly to doomscroll, smartphones have a range of little-known functions that could make life better and easier – from heart monitoring to even developing camera film

Our smartphones are magical things – far more than dopamine drip providers and a way to keep in touch with friends and family. Using the built-in features and easily available additional apps, there are plenty of clever things you can do with your smartphone.