Commonwealth Bank has reversed 45 customer service job cuts it announced in July alongside an AI voice-bot, apologising for the "error" after the Finance Sector Union raised a dispute at the Fair Work Commission. The union says call volumes rose after the bot arrived, with team leaders pulled onto the phones; the bank admits it should have been more thorough.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on August 21 it is opening an audit query into Tesla's delays in reporting crashes involving driver-assistance or self-driving vehicles. Many reports arrived several months or more after the incidents, despite a one-to-five-day requirement. According to the regulator, Tesla blamed a data collection issue that it says is now fixed.
A federal court in the Southern District of New York denied Perplexity AI's motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction or improper venue, to transfer the case to California, and to drop claims over 10 later-registered works. Dow Jones and NYP Holdings allege that Perplexity copies their articles and attributes hallucinated text to their publications.
Amnesty International accused US authorities of using AI tools from Palantir and Babel Street, including Babel X and Immigration OS, to monitor immigrants and target non-citizens at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Citing Homeland Security records, the group says the tools support a State Department "Catch and Revoke" initiative. It urged the companies to cease immigration-enforcement work unless they can improve the human rights consequences.
More than 370,000 Grok conversations became searchable on Google and Bing after users clicked a "share" button, unaware the links could be indexed, Forbes reports. Some chats included instructions for making fentanyl and meth, coding malware and building a bomb, plus a plan to assassinate Elon Musk, who had earlier boasted that Grok chats weren't indexable by Google.
North Carolina state Senator DeAndrea Salvador has sued Whirlpool, Omnicom Group and DDB Worldwide. She alleges that a Brazilian ad by DDB subsidiary DM9 manipulated her 2018 TED Talk to make it appear she endorsed Whirlpool's products. The ad's Cannes Lions Grand Prix was withdrawn after an investigation found it used AI-generated content.
Skadden Arps lawyers are defending OnlyFans parent Fenix International in a RICO and privacy lawsuit. In a filing, they accuse plaintiffs' counsel of submitting briefs that cite "imaginary caselaw" and quote invented language. Hagens Berman, for the plaintiffs, said a co-counsel had used an AI tool to write the briefs and that it will seek to file corrective briefs.
A local court granted anticipatory bail to YouTuber Sameer MD. Dharmasthala police booked him after he allegedly uploaded an AI-generated video about the Dharmasthala mass burial case. Dakshina Kannada SP Arun K said the video included fabricated details beyond those given by the complainant witness. The charges include provocation with intent to cause riot and false information.
Dakota D. Campbell, 21, of Maryville, Tennessee, was arrested on eight counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor after investigators reportedly found more than 100 actual and AI-generated images and anime of child sexual abuse. The Blount County Sheriff's Office says he is the first it has charged under Tennessee's new law on AI-generated material.
