GoKawiil
Tech News
Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis spoke at the International AI Summit in Dublin, arguing that AI technology will help solve climate change. He also referenced Google's new Gemini 4 Argon model and distinguished AI's strong performance in math, coding and games from its more limited role in physical sciences like physics and biology, which he said require human creativity and real-world experimentation.
At a UK parliamentary hearing, representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic said voluntary safety pledges are insufficient and called for statutory, binding AI regulation, including mandatory incident reporting. Google DeepMind and Meta did not endorse new legislation, instead pointing to existing standards and regulators as sufficient.
Google launched Gemini 4 Argon, its newest flagship AI model, making it available globally to developers and businesses for complex tasks in coding, finance, law, cybersecurity and science. API pricing starts at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with rates doubling after November 30. Google also said it is expanding its Fairwind Program, which gives vetted cybersecurity partners a version of Argon without standard cyber guardrails, to hundreds more partners.
Google DeepMind has expanded access to Gemini 4 Argon beyond its initial cybersecurity-focused rollout, making it available to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers, enterprises, and developers through Android Studio, Google AI Studio and Antigravity. Introductory pricing starts at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, rising to $4 and $20 respectively after November 30.
David Robinson, a safety leader at OpenAI, has resigned and written an essay for The Atlantic arguing that AI companies' reliance on a 'trial and error' development approach must stop. He described himself as joining a growing group of former employees who have left AI firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind over concerns about the technology's risks and uses, such as copyright infringement and military applications.
A commentary piece argues that AI 'neolabs'—new research-focused startups founded by senior researchers—are currently forced to pursue both a scientific breakthrough and a venture-scale business simultaneously, which it says compounds already low odds. The author proposes a model borrowed from pharmaceutical R&D that would let frontier labs, neolabs, and investors separate and price these risks differently.
Biohub announced a coordinated $1.8 billion investment with the Department of Energy, NIH, and new partners to generate and share AI-ready biological data. DOE will contribute over $500 million in measurement and computation, NIH will coordinate standardization of datasets from over $500 million in prior federal research, and Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, and Meta are jointly investing $300 million through a Virtual Biology Initiative. The effort aims to build an open resource expanding cell response data across many more cell types and conditions than currently studied.
Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs are contributing $300 million to Biohub, the nonprofit biomedical research organization started by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, as part of a broader $1.8 billion push to build AI-driven biological datasets. The US Department of Energy plans to add over $500 million over five years, while the National Institutes of Health will supply existing datasets and repositories worth more than $500 million from past federal funding.
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla told TechCrunch he is backing Wajo, a personal AI agent startup founded by former Google and DeepMind engineer Shivani Poddar, arguing it is more trustworthy than rivals like Meta's Muse and Instinct. Wajo's agent, called Fo, works across iMessage and WhatsApp, organizes tasks into categories such as scheduling and gifting, can call businesses on a user's behalf, hire humans for tasks, and issue a virtual credit card to make payments without revealing personal details.
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have revealed plans to merge, creating a significant consolidation in the entertainment sector. The announcement was made on October 5, 2026, and details about the deal's structure and timeline are yet to be disclosed. This move signals a major shift in media industry strategies as companies seek to strengthen their competitive positions.
Thore Graepel, who helped build AlphaGo, has left Google DeepMind and published an opinion piece arguing that large language models lack genuine reasoning ability. He contrasts this with AlphaGo's 2016 victory over Lee Sedol, which he credits to the system's capacity for creative, reasoned decision-making. Separately, a MIT Technology Review writer reports joining a six-month competition involving roughly 500 participants aiming to reduce their biological age, tracked via a leaderboard.
Google has released its new flagship AI model, Gemini 4 Argon, which the company says ranks just behind Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Analysts cited by CNBC say the model shows strong performance in legal and financial reasoning, enterprise tasks, and cybersecurity. Google is rolling the model out in phases, first to trusted cybersecurity partners, while working with the U.S. government on pre-release safety evaluations.