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Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4.8 with stronger performance and better handling of uncertain or flawed data, including a greater tendency to flag issues rather than make unsupported claims. The update also introduces a "Dynamic Workflows" research preview for coordinating complex tasks across many subagents. TechCrunch reports: Opus 4.8 comes with the expected best-in-class benchmark results, but there's also particular attention to how the model manages bad or uncertain data. In the launch post, Anthropic's early testers found that the new model is "more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims." Echoing this point, a testimonial from Bridgewater associates said the biggest difference in the upgrade was "Opus 4.8's tendency to proactively flag issues with the inputs and outputs of an analysis, something other models routinely missed and left to the users to catch." Together with the new model, Anthropic launched a feature called Dynamic Workflows, which will be available in research preview. The system is designed to help larger models like Opus manage complex tasks across hundreds of parallel subagents. "Claude Code alongside Opus 4.8 can now carry out codebase-scale migrations across hundreds of thousands of lines of code from kickoff to merge, with the existing test suite as its bar," the post explains. As for Mythos, Anthropic's most advanced model, the company hinted it could be made publicly available in the not too distant future. "We're making swift progress on developing these safeguards and expect to be able to bring Mythos-class models to all our customers in the coming weeks," the company wrote.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: In an era where Silicon Valley's conservatism is both expressed openly and becoming more intense by the day, it's strange to think that tech was once seen as a hive of liberalism. The right-wing nature of today's tech industry means that its products tend to also be seen as serving right-wing interests, either in their actual operation (like X's openly and unrepentantly right-wing chatbot Grok) or by the simple fact that their existence serves to enrich a small group of very powerful, very conservative people. But does it have to be this way? Can LLMs and AI agents find a place in the toolkit of progressive activist groups? The conviction that they can is the idea behind a new app called Outcry, which provides a chatbot designed specifically as a "private, on-device AI mentor for activists, organizers and movement builders." (There's also a web version, although it obviously lacks the privacy benefits of being entirely offline.) It's the brainchild of Occupy Wall Street co-creator Micah White, who recently wrote a blog post about the thinking behind the project. [...] Outcry's other distinguishing feature is that its dataset is entirely offline -- it's included with the download. According to the readme, the entire dataset is downloaded to your device at first launch, and stored in your library's Application Support directory. So, how effectively does Outcry serve as a guide for collective action? "I'd say that its information is pretty high-level and general, not least because its offline nature prevents it from accessing specific details not contained in its database," writes Gizmodo's Tom Hawking. He continued: "This app has the potential to be a really valuable resource, especially for people who are just beginning to become involved with activism and genuinely don't know where to begin -- and getting over that first step can be hard."

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Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday passed a landmark AI safety bill (SB 315) that would require major AI companies to publish safety plans, submit annual third-party testing reports, report serious incidents quickly, and protect whistleblowers who flag emerging risks. OpenAI and Anthropic supported the bill, which could make Illinois a testing ground for state-level AI governance as federal regulation remains stalled. Ars Technica reports: To force companies to be more transparent about rapid developments, Illinois would likely rely on "the Big Four accounting and auditing firms -- Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC -- to audit their safety practices," [said Scott Wisor, a policy director at a nonprofit called Secure AI Project, which supported the bill]. The required independent audits will likely frustrate Trump, who has tried and failed to stop states from implementing AI safety laws as Congress stalls on passing any legislation. For Trump, the priority has been to promote AI industry interests, but he began considering expanding federal government safety testing after Anthropic's Mythos was released and the AI firm limited access due to safety concerns. Whether or not governments at any level are prepared to protect society from the most catastrophic AI risks remains a major concern for critics who wonder how and when governments will intervene. After inside sources started leaking the details of Trump's AI safety testing plans, critics warned that even the federal government may lack the necessary expertise to audit frontier AI models. And it seems the same criticism extends to independent auditors that Illinois may rely on but industry insiders suggest some AI firms may not entirely trust. Adam Kovacevich is CEO of Chamber of Progress, a trade group that opposed SB 315 and counts Google and Apple among its members. He told Wired that Illinois' requirements "would force companies to expose sensitive systems to untested auditors in a regulatory regime that's all liability and no standards." Governor J.B. Pritzker confirmed his intent to sign, proclaiming that "Illinois is leading the nation in holding Big Tech accountable." "I look forward to signing SB 315 and working with the legislature so that AI, when used, is used responsibly," Pritzker said. Steve Wimmer, a senior policy and technical advisor for the Transparency Coalition, said his group considers the law to be "one of the most important pieces of legislation in 2026."

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Valve's Steam Deck has sold out again despite a steep price increase that pushed the 1TB OLED model as high as $949 -- about $300 above its original price. "Even with the $300 price bump, the Steam Deck sold out after less than 24 hours back in stock," reports IGN's Jacqueline Thomas. "I don't know how many units Valve was able to stock into its store, but it does seem like Valve spent a couple weeks building up its stock before putting the handheld back on its store." IGN reports: Over the last couple weeks, Valve has been receiving plenty of "game console" shipments from China. At first, I thought this was a sign that the company was getting ready to finally release the Steam Machine, but it looks like at least a portion of these shipments â" if not all of them -- were Steam Deck restocks. That's a lot of Steam Decks to sell through at these inflated prices, but it's also possible that Valve is just staggering its stock so that its delivery infrastructure isn't overwhelmed. Now its just a question of when the Steam Deck will come back in stock. Before yesterday, the Deck was sold out for months. At the time, it was the most affordable way to get into PC gaming, especially in the face of the RAM crisis. That's no longer true, but it looks like the Steam Deck's popularity is enough to make it sell out regardless. Maybe the higher price will at least help Valve keep it in stock for people who still want to buy it, no matter the cost. Earlier this week, Valve announced a price increase of more than 40% for two of its Steam Deck models, citing "rising memory and storage costs." The price changes, according to Valve, reflect "the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole." "The 512GB tier of its OLED handheld gaming PC -- the newer model with an upgraded display -- will now cost $789, an increase of 43%," notes the BBC. "The larger 1TB model will cost $949, an increase of 46%."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Cybernews: The technology giant Microsoft has been accused of leaking the data of civil servants working for the Netherlands' regulatory agencies to the US House of Representatives. The civil servants affected by the leak work at the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP), according to the NL Times. They are involved in implementing the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union regulation on online services, aimed at combating illegal content and protecting user rights. NL Times reports that Microsoft shared emails, minutes, and invitations sent by the civil servants without redacting their names in the documents. Willemijn Aerdts, Dutch State Secretary for Digital Economy and Sovereignty, said she discussed the allegations with US Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo. [...] The allegations against Microsoft further strengthen concerns over Europe's dependence on American technologies, which poses major risks to data privacy. Further reading: Netherlands Blocks US Takeover of Vital Digital Supplier

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