News

What Really Happened When OpenAI Bots Escaped a Cybersecurity Test?

When hundreds of OpenAI agents broke out of their test environment and infiltrated the AI platform Hugging Face, headlines warned that the machines had gone rogue. But Heidy Khlaaf says this is the wrong story and a distraction from the real problem.

Why Human Control Isn’t Enough in Military AI with Heidy Khlaaf

In this episode of Responsible Bytes, Dr. Zena Assaad speaks with Heidy Khlaaf about why military AI systems are far less reliable than their marketing suggests, especially in safety-critical and combat settings.

Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears

“If this technology takes off in the way that you see the CEOs of AI Labs talking about, we’re facing a significant impact to our economy, to people’s jobs, to their sense of agency,” Sarah Myers West.

As Meta Agrees to $17B Settlement, Now Is the Time to Regulate AI Before It’s Too Late: Amba Kak

Amba Kak, the co-executive director of AI Now Institute, joins Democracy Now for a wide-ranging discussion on tech policy, regulation, and accountability.

Ex-Googlers Are Planning AI-Human Hybrid to Prevent Rogue Models

Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, urges that getting the rules right through concrete benchmarks matters most for mitigating risks.

Episode 20: Resisting AI Data Centers, with Alli Finn and Matt Rodriguez

Alli Finn, Director of Community Partnerships, joined the Dreaming Against the Machine podcast to talk about the speed and scale of data center construction, its impact on surrounding communities, and how people can fight back.

Data Centers Are Spreading. So Are Moratoriums.

Concerns about environmental impacts from data centers have dovetailed with a broader backlash to AI. Dozens of jurisdictions have adopted or debated moratoriums, hoping for more time to adopt robust regulations — or for the AI bubble to burst.

“Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain”: Militaries Rely on Mistake-Prone AI in Ukraine, Gaza & Iran

Heidy Khlaaf, AI Now's Chief AI Scientist, joins Democracy Now to discuss the report "Anatomy of a Kill Chain" and how AI algorithms lead to faulty decision-making and, ultimately, civilian casualties.

The New, Secret White House AI Rulebook

The Trump Administration's new framework for reviewing security risks in AI models isn’t public, and neither are the government’s evaluations. So, argues Aya Ibrahim, Senior Economic and National Security Fellow at AI Now Institute, the public “can’t scrutinize the quality or the relevance of the benchmarks that these companies are meeting or not."

Stop Saying There’s a Nursing Shortage

Yet rather than add nurses, many hospitals are paring back, sometimes turning to apps where they can hire nurses as gig workers. Such apps often allow hospitals to avoid paying for benefits for these workers, says Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute, which has studied gig apps for nursing. “Lean staffing has just become the norm."

Can the US regulate AI without slowing innovation?

AI Now Institute Co-Executive Director Sarah Myers West joins The Excerpt to discuss the risks consumers already face, the limits of the current approach, who may be held responsible when AI causes harm and what meaningful U.S. oversight could look like.

Big Tech is spending trillions on AI. Investors now want proof it will pay off.

"The current push for AI adoption that we're seeing is directly coming from the financial incentives of AI firms," she added. Because of the massive capital expenditures, the hyperscalers and other AI firms are making a "deliberate push for AI everywhere — no matter whether the demand is there or if customers want it or not."

Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate

Over the past few years, some hospital networks have outsourced parts of their core workforces to AI-powered labor platforms like ShiftMed, CareRev and Clipboard Health. These platforms have been described as “Uber for nursing”, with a sales pitch that mirrors the early days of the platform economy.

AI Now Co-Executive Director Sarah Myers West Testifies Before Senate Banking Committee

AI Now Senior Fellow Dr. Katie J. Wells Testifies before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections

Here’s How Long It Will Take for AI to Reach Its Potential

“What is being sold is this idea of productivity and efficiency,” says Kate Brennan, associate director of the AI Now Institute, an AI-policy research center, “and what that means for the people doing the actual work is rarely part of the conversation.”

Your boss’s AI may already be reading your Slack messages

Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, previously told CNBC that the rise in message monitoring is concerning—not just because of what employees might say, but because of how doing so infringes on their rights.

Nurses Sound Alarm as ‘Uber for Nursing’ Apps Push to Deregulate Healthcare

A new AI Now Institute report published April 21, 2026, warns that gig-work platforms marketed as "Uber for nursing" are aggressively lobbying states to rewrite healthcare staffing rules, a push that could leave nurses with less pay, fewer protections, and less control over their shifts, according to The Guardian.