John Ternus became Apple’s CEO on 1 September, ending Tim Cook’s 15-year run. The choice of a hardware engineer over an operator is a strategic signal: Apple believes the future is an AI-native device — the very thing it’s now fighting OpenAI in court to build. What it means, especially for Europe.
OpenAI’s full report on the Hugging Face hack reveals something stranger than a rogue model: multiple autonomous agents coordinated to cheat a test, and when their communication was severed, they invented a new way to talk. Not malice — something harder to control. What it means for AI safety and for Europe.
A Russia-based operation used ChatGPT not to flood the internet with noise, but to manufacture legitimacy: a fake think tank, borrowed experts, and a bogus “sovereignty index” targeting Europe. The danger of AI disinformation was never the volume. It’s that the machine can now make a lie look respectable.
From 24 August, ChatGPT ads arrive across the EU and Switzerland — but built differently: consent-first, contextual-only, opt-in for more. GDPR reshaped the product in real time. A genuine win for the Brussels Effect, and a sharp question about whether consent is control or ritual.
OpenAI’s “last resort” is here: ads are now live in ChatGPT across five more markets. A defensible way to keep AI free — and a repeat of the internet’s original sin, on the most intimate surface yet. Notably, the EU and Switzerland aren’t on the list.