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Submission + - AI Executives Add Personal Security as Backlash Turns Violent (aiweekly.co)

fjo3 writes: In April, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's San Francisco home, and within days a second attack put gunfire into the property. The Wall Street Journal reports that AI executives are hardening personal security as opposition to the industry moves from online posts into the physical world.

Prosecutors say Daniel Moreno-Gama, the 20-year-old accused in the first attack, traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, and had writings on him about AI's purported risk to humanity. He faces two counts of attempted murder and attempted arson in California state court. Two more suspects were later arrested in connection with the second incident. Around the same time, The Information described Silicon Valley leaning into a new breed of bodyguards for AI leadership.

The pressure isn't only on the people at the top. According to the Data Center Watch Q1 2026 report, organized opposition groups roughly doubled from 396 at the end of last year to 833 by the end of March, spanning 49 states, and opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects worth about $130 billion in a single quarter. That is a very different problem from a viral tweet. It is permits denied, votes lost, sites relocated.

Submission + - AI Data Centers Being Built Faster Than They Can Be Secured (securityweek.com)

wiredmikey writes: AI is reshaping data centers and introducing security risks traditional architectures weren't designed to handle. As AI data centers scale at breakneck speed, security isn't keeping up. Researchers outline the Top 10 AI infrastructure security risks, including hardware integrity, multi-tenant isolation, high-speed network fabrics, supply chain compromise, and patching failures.

Submission + - China — New law bans AI companions bots (scmp.com) 1

schwit1 writes: Two of China’s major consumer-facing artificial intelligence apps, ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen, are moving to disable customised agent features, as new rules on humanlike AI interaction services are set to take effect, part of Beijing’s push to build a broader regulatory framework for the fast-growing sector.

Doubao informed users in a Friday night notice that its agent feature would go offline on July 15 because of “product function adjustments”. After October 15, Doubao’s related data would be handled in accordance with the company’s privacy policy and no longer be viewable or recoverable inside the app.

Qwen also issued a similar notice on Saturday morning, saying that its “humanlike interactive agents and user-created agent functions” would be disabled on July 10, while broader “Qwen agent functions and services” would be taken offline on July 15. Users would no longer be able to access related agent settings or previous conversations after the shutdown.

Both apps had offered a pool of agents, created by both the companies and users, that could be customised for specific tasks, skills and speaking styles. Users could also create their own agents, turning a general-purpose chatbot into a named assistant, tutor, role-playing character or companion with a fixed persona and tone.

The timing coincides with the implementation of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interaction Services, effective July 15. Issued in April, the rules cover AI services that “simulate human personality traits, thinking patterns and communication styles to provide sustained emotional interaction”.

The rules exclude customer service bots, knowledge Q&A, workplace assistants, education and scientific research tools, as long as they do not involve sustained emotional interaction.

Submission + - Physicists create first room-temperature quantum material (phys.org)

alternative_right writes: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.

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