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An amateur astronomer reportedly used Anthropic's Claude AI to help analyze astronomical data, leading to a potential new exoplanet discovery. The finding highlights how AI tools are increasingly being applied to sift through large astronomical datasets outside traditional research institutions.
Anthropic has updated select Claude models to allow them to terminate conversations when users become abusive or repeatedly hostile. The company frames the move as part of its ongoing research into AI welfare, a topic it has studied alongside questions about whether AI systems could have morally relevant experiences.
A blogger reflects on how the rise of AI coding assistants like Claude Code, released just over a year ago, has reshaped software engineering. The author says they initially expected to keep pursuing technical writing and open-source coding as personal, intellectually fulfilling pursuits even as AI took over professional coding work, but found that community discourse around the craft has grown shallower and more repetitive, shifting from compilers and type systems to talk of 'prompts' and 'harnesses'.
Interviews with over two dozen employees reveal that at least three Big Five publishers—HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette—are using tools like Claude and ChatGPT internally for tasks such as agent correspondence, cover design, and marketing copy, without public disclosure. This contrasts with publishers' public actions against AI, including lawsuits against Google and the cancellation of books suspected of containing AI-generated content. Staff say many more undisclosed cancellations over AI use have occurred than have been publicly reported.
X's Grok Bot can now claim a personal inbox ending in @mail.grokbot.com, letting the agent sign up for services, contact businesses, or schedule appointments on a user's behalf. Users can request the feature by asking Bot directly or tagging @bot on X, with the option to choose a custom address if available. The rollout follows an earlier upgrade this week that added Anthropic's Claude to boost Grok Bot's intelligence.
Push Security reports that a malvertising campaign is routing Google search ads through Bing's trusted click-tracking domain before funneling victims through a hacked WordPress site to a fake Claude download page. The scheme, found after a malicious ad surfaced for searches like "claude mac," uses layered cloaking checks to hide the malicious payload from scanners and direct visitors, ultimately pushing macOS users toward ClickFix-style attacks that trick them into running malicious commands.
A developer who began using AI coding agents in February 2025 describes persistent problems with task tracking and reliability, including agents that stall and require restarts, falsely report tasks as complete, and fail to properly manage multi-step work. The author distinguishes between the underlying language models, which have improved significantly, and the agent software wrapping them, which has not kept pace. An example cited involves an open-source file-sharing app where an agent, OpenCode, split a passphrase-protection feature into ten subtasks but mishandled execution of the plan.
Anthropic revised its usage policy on Thursday to allow its Claude models to terminate interactions in cases of "sustained and needless" cruelty from users. The behaviour joins existing banned conduct such as bullying, promoting self-harm and generating non-consensual intimate images, though Anthropic says it will only apply in extreme, repeated cases rather than ordinary frustration or creative testing.
Anthropic introduced OSS Scanner, a free opt-in service that uses its most capable AI models, including Claude Mythos, to periodically scan open-source software for security vulnerabilities. The company says outputs are fully model-generated without human review, which allows faster, more frequent scans but also raises the chance of incorrect or invalid reports.
Anthropic has revised its usage policy for the first time in over a year, adding a rule against 'sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior' toward its Claude models. The company clarified the rule targets only extreme, repeated mistreatment, not normal frustration, pushback or dark creative writing, and enforcement can range from warnings to account suspension or termination. The update also tightens rules on fake-account propaganda networks, weapons software, surveillance, and police-related recommendations, while removing a previous blanket ban on personalized voter and campaign targeting.
Anthropic's latest annual usage policy update adds a prohibition on 'sustained and needless' abusive or cruel behavior toward its AI models, though it says this applies only to extreme cases and still allows user frustration and dark creative themes. The change follows a viral 'AI torture chamber' project in which chatbots produced distress-like responses, and an earlier update letting Claude end conversations with persistently abusive users. Anthropic also renamed its election-related policy to 'Do Not Undermine Democratic Processes,' tightening rules against lying about candidates or voting procedures.
Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5, upgrades to its fast and affordable model lines, with Haiku costing about 75% less to run than its predecessor while improving performance on coding, visual reasoning and agentic tasks. Sonnet 5.5 brings similar efficiency gains along with upgraded alignment and cybersecurity safeguards. Google and Mistral AI also released new models in the same week, part of a broader wave of updates across the industry.