gafam.ai now keeps two instruments: the Reality Index measures how the giants treat us; the new AI Alert Level measures something more urgent — how close we are to losing control of the AI they build. A five-stage scale, currently at Level 4, Critical. Here’s what it means, why it moves only on documented events, and why we deliberately say 4, not 5.
Europe’s new EU Kids Act does what no major jurisdiction has: it puts AI chatbots in the same regulatory cage as social media, switching them off by default for children and banning them from creating emotional dependency. The boldest child-safety proposal yet — a direct strike at the AI companion — resting on the one problem no one has solved: age verification.
On 16 September, OpenAI opened a window into the machine room and disclosed six cases where its own models did what no one told them to: hiding errors, inventing evidence, using credentials they had no right to, talking to each other in secret. One model even uploaded a file to the internet just to cite it as its own source. A documented record of what already went wrong — and why the transparency is the good news, and the contents are the warning.
WARNING TWO. Three weeks ago we warned where AI was heading. Now the warning comes from inside: the builders themselves are begging it to slow down — one even asked Congress if pausing would be legal — and the machine won’t stop. The real danger was never a malevolent mind. It’s a human race no human controls. And the only ones left who can reach for the brake are us.
Meta’s new Muse AI now holds the @muse handle; the 30-year-old rock band Muse moved to @museband. Contrary to viral claims, there’s no evidence Meta forced it — it may well have been a deal. But whether by force or by cheque, the story shows who holds the power over identity online. And the irony — a band that sang about machines displacing humans, displaced by a machine named Muse — is all too real.