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Anthropic's cybersecurity AI model Mythos is drawing scrutiny over whether export controls can actually keep it out of the wrong hands. Thirty years of trying to restrict encryption and spyware tools suggest the answer is probably not. Software has a way of crossing borders regardless of what regulators intend, and there's little reason to think this time will be different.
On the policy front, the United Kingdom's new ban on social media for users under sixteen is raising serious concerns from digital rights advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The argument isn't that teen wellbeing doesn't matter — it's that age verification systems create new privacy risks for everyone, and that vulnerable young people who rely on online communities may be quietly cut off from support they genuinely need.
And staying with the long view, Bill Gates' oft-quoted observation about overestimating two-year change while underestimating ten-year change is making the rounds again, and it still holds up. In an era of AI breathlessness and relentless hype cycles, it's a useful reminder that the most consequential shifts tend to arrive quietly and then all at once.
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