Top of the Day
Sixty-five nations sign first UN treaty to fight cybercrime, in milestone for digital cooperation
(UN News – 25 October 2025) Sixty-five nations have signed a landmark United Nations treaty in Hanoi aimed at tackling cybercrime – a move Secretary-General António Guterres hailed as a historic step toward a safer digital world. – https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/10/1166182
Governance, Courts, and Litigation
Australia demands answers from AI chatbot providers over child safety
(DigWatch – 25 October 2025) Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has issued legal notices to four major AI companion platforms, requiring them to explain how they are protecting children from harmful or explicit content. Character.ai, Nomi, Chai, and Chub.ai were all served under the country’s Online Safety Act and must demonstrate compliance with Australia’s Basic Online Safety Expectations. – https://dig.watch/updates/australia-demands-answers-from-ai-chatbot-providers-over-child-safety – https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-requires-providers-of-ai-companion-chatbots-to-explain-how-they-are-keeping-aussie-kids-safe
Russia orders Apple to set Russian search engine by default
(DigWatch – 25 October 2025) Russia’s federal anti-monopoly service has ordered Apple to preinstall a Russian-made search engine, such as Yandex or Mail.ru, by default on all devices sold in Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The regulator claims Apple’s current setup gives foreign providers unfair market advantages. The letter from FAS director Maxim Shaskolsky said Apple’s practices breach consumer protection laws by denying users equal access to local services. Authorities argue that default settings favour non-Russian search engines and restrict fair competition within domestic markets. – https://dig.watch/updates/russia-orders-apple-to-set-russian-search-engine-by-default – https://cybernews.com/cyber-war/russia-apple-preinstall-russian-search-engine-by-default/
Securing the Open Frontier: Voluntary Standards for Open-Source Security
(Giulia Neaher – Stimson Center – 24 October 2025) Open-source software (OSS) is key to much of the technology that powers modern life, making it a critical area of interest for cybersecurity policy. However, OSS governance demands creative thinking – though OSS is about as secure as commercial software, it can be difficult to govern through “traditional” regulatory measures. Rules that rely on firm structures for liability, accountability, and enforcement are a poor fit for the decentralized, volunteer-driven nature of OSS and the community that surrounds it. This paper explores how voluntary cybersecurity standards in OSS may offer a practical, ecosystem-specific pathway to strengthening OSS security and presents concrete policy recommendations for U.S. policymakers to support such standards effectively. – https://www.stimson.org/2025/securing-the-open-frontier-voluntary-standards-for-open-source-security/
AGI’s Last Bottlenecks
(Adam Khoja and Laura Hiscott – AI Frontiers – 22 October 2025) In a recent interview on the “Dwarkesh Podcast,” OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy claimed that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is around a decade away, expressing doubt about “over-predictions in the industry.” Coming amid growing discussion of an “AI bubble,” Karpathy’s comment throws cold water on some of the more bullish predictions from leading tech figures. Yet those figures don’t seem to be reconsidering their positions. Following Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s prediction last year that we might have “a country of geniuses in a datacenter” as early as 2026, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said this September that AI will be smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across many disciplines by the end of 2026 or 2027. A testable AGI definition is needed for apples-to-apples comparisons. There may be as many estimates of when AGI will arrive as there are people working in the field. And to complicate matters further, there is disagreement on what AGI even is. This imprecision hampers attempts to compare forecasts. To provide clarity to the debate, we, alongside thirty-one co-authors, recently released a paper that develops a detailed definition of AGI, allowing us to quantify how well models “can match or exceed the cognitive versatility and proficiency of a well-educated human adult.” We don’t claim our definition represents exactly what Karpathy or Amodei imagine when they discuss future AI systems, but a precise specification of AGI does provide the starting point for an apples-to-apples debate. – https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/agis-last-bottlenecks
AI Will Be Your Personal Political Proxy
(Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders – AI Frontiers – 21 October 2025) Imagine a digital proxy that knows your political preferences as well as you do (or better), tracks every issue on the ballot, and casts votes on your behalf in real time. This vision, once the stuff of science fiction, is quickly becoming technically feasible. Allowing AI to serve as our political proxies sounds radical, but the idea builds on a simple truth about our political system: representative democracy exists because we can’t all be in the room for every decision. – https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/ai-will-be-your-personal-political
The Use of Open Models in Research
(Kyle Miller, Mia Hoffmann, and Rebecca Gelles – CSET – October 2025) There is widespread consensus that open and freely available AI models benefit research. Yet there is a lack of empirical evidence detailing how this relationship manifests. This report aims to fill this gap by investigating the use of open large language models (LLMs) in published research, overviewing what organizations and countries use them most frequently, and considering their wider impact on research. To this end, we identify and analyze more than 250 publications that use open models in ways that require access to model weights, and derive a taxonomy of use cases that openly available model weights exclusively or predominantly enable. We then review more than 130 publications that use closed models to compare use cases when model weights are and are not openly available. – https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/the-use-of-open-models-in-research/
Security and Surveillance
Russian Rosselkhoznadzor hit by DDoS attack, food shipments across Russia delayed
(Pierluigi Paganini – Security Affairs – 25 October 2025) A DDoS cyberattack on Russia’s food safety agency, Rosselkhoznadzor, disrupted nationwide food shipments by knocking offline its VetIS and Saturn tracking systems for agricultural products and chemicals. Rosselkhoznadzor (Россельхознадзор) is the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of the Russian Federation. It’s a government agency under Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture. The Russian agency excludes any data breaches. Megafon, Rostelecom, and Intelsk are working to mitigate the cyberattack by filtering malicious traffic. – https://securityaffairs.com/183845/security/russian-rosselkhoznadzor-hit-by-ddos-attack-food-shipments-delayed.html
Half a terabyte of personal records exposed from youth non-profit
(Cybernews – 25 October 2025) Attackers claim to have infiltrated Gerar, a Brazilian non-profit that provides training opportunities to youth. The breach allegedly involved sensitive details ranging from names to military service documents. The post announcing the Gerar data breach was uploaded to a popular data leak forum often used to distribute and exchange stolen details. According to the posts’ authors, they’ve obtained a humongous data collection totaling 546GB. Gerar is a Brazilian non-profit that aims to help young people get internships and employment. The organization connects first-time job seekers with companies. Unfortunately, their first entry to the job market may now be marked by a loss of personal details. – https://cybernews.com/security/gerar-youth-nonprofit-data-breach/
Defence, Military, and Warfare
US tech to help Canadian drones operate in autonomous swarms for military missions
(Interesting Engineering – 25 October 2025) A Canada-based developer of drone solutions has partnered with a maker of artificial intelligence software to integrate new systems into unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms. With this collaboration, Draganfly’s drones are expected to be able to operate in coordinated swarms controlled by a single operator. These drones will be integrated with Palladyne Pilot AI software, an edge-based, platform-agnostic, intelligent swarming and collaborative AI software. – https://interestingengineering.com/military/canada-drones-turn-swarms-with-us-tech
Innovation as Deterrence: How Canada’s New NATO Target Can Thrive in a Tech-Driven World
(Michael P. A. Murphy, Paul Samson, Tracey Forrest – CIGI – 23 October 2025) Canada’s entire defence system was disrupted over the summer through the unveiling of a sharp increase in defence spending, the proposal of a new defence procurement agency, and the rollout of Inflection Point, a plan to restructure the Canadian Armed Forces. Not everyone has gotten the memo of this overhaul though, which needs to reach an audience far beyond Ottawa. The changes coming to Canada’s defence sector and its many related ecosystems—including Canada’s entire research and development, and manufacturing sectors and foreign supply chains—will be transformational for the country. This time, Canada won’t get away with ignoring NATO commitments or its own internal targets. The new geopolitical order—high on instability and low on trust—won’t allow for excuses from Canada, and there will be zero tolerance for backsliding from the Americans. Despite a tight fiscal framework, defence spending targets are going to the moon in Canada (from less than two per cent now towards five per cent of GDP over the next 10 years). Instead of collecting a peace dividend—where a peaceful world lets countries focus on their economy and society—the new challenge for governments is to ensure that military spending delivers its own “defence dividend.” – https://www.cigionline.org/articles/innovation-as-deterrence-how-canadas-new-nato-target-can-thrive-in-a-tech-driven-world/
Frontiers
China unveils jellyfish-like surveillance robot built for silent underwater missions
(Interesting Engineering – 25 October 2025) In a recent breakthrough in biomimetic robotics, researchers in China have developed a jellyfish-inspired “underwater phantom” designed for stealth operations beneath the surface. Created by a team led by Tao Kai at the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, the transparent robot mimics the movements and appearance of a real jellyfish. Its soft, umbrella-shaped body and fluid propulsion system allow it to glide quietly through the water, making it nearly undetectable to sensors or the human eye. – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-jellyfish-like-drone-underwater-missions
US firm’s drones with 1,000 lbs of suppression power bring faster fire response
(Interesting Engineering – 25 October 2025) A US startup has secured funding to scale the production of its autonomous firefighting drone technology to tackle rising wildfire incidents. Seattle-based Seneca is developing the first fully autonomous fire suppression system featuring drones that can deliver fire-suppressing agents at high pressure and use AI to navigate and extinguish fires in under ten minutes. These modular aerial units can be launched remotely with an approximate fire location, striking quickly during the critical window when a spark can turn into a megafire. – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/us-firms-firefighting-drones-faster-response
From Warsaw to San Francisco: Connecting Women Shaping the Quantum Future
(Quantum Insider – 25 October 2025) The Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit 2025 in Warsaw introduced the Quantum Path track focused on science, policy, and commercialization, with participation from CERN, IBM, and the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs. On October 28, 2025, Perspektywy and The Quantum Insider will co-host “Let’s Entangle Over Wine” during TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco to promote awareness, education, and networking among women in quantum, ahead of the Summit’s return to Warsaw on June 10–11, 2026, with an expanded quantum presence. Together, these initiatives highlight the importance of accessible, community-driven platforms that connect global quantum ecosystems, broaden participation, and ensure emerging technologies evolve with inclusion and collaboration at their foundation. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/10/25/from-warsaw-to-san-francisco-connecting-women-shaping-the-quantum-future/
New Research Shows Decision-Making Needs Both Quantum and Classical Worlds
(Quantum Insider – 25 October 2025) A new Chapman University study finds that agency and intelligence cannot exist in a purely quantum system, as the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics prevent copying and comparing information. The researchers show that modeling, deliberation, and reliable decision-making all require classical resources such as stable, copyable information and a preferred basis created through decoherence. The findings imply that both consciousness and quantum artificial intelligence depend on hybrid quantum-classical architectures, since even advanced quantum machines need classical components to act, learn, and decide. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/10/25/new-research-shows-decision-making-needs-both-quantum-and-classical-worlds/
The Grass Looks Green for Robotic Mower Makers with Recent Funding, New Products
(AI Insider – 25 October 2025) Robotic lawn care is transitioning from niche to necessity as startups and major OEMs accelerate innovation to meet labor, cost, and sustainability pressures. In 2025, Scythe, Graze, Lymow, and others advanced commercial-grade, AI-driven mowers while John Deere, Honda, Toro, and Husqvarna launched battery-electric autonomous models. The market’s growth reflects a broader shift from pilot projects to scalable deployment, with adoption driven by ROI, reliability, and emissions reduction in the $70B global landscaping sector. – https://theaiinsider.tech/2025/10/25/the-grass-looks-green-for-robotic-mower-makers-with-recent-funding-new-products/