18 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Ai Artificial Intelligence Archive

Archives for September 2026

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
GPT-6 Astra beat Portal, and it only cost $571.18

The latest model from OpenAI proved its mettle by tackling Valve’s iconic first-person puzzler. User cozyblaze got the AI to beat the full game in under 24 hours for less than $600! And it probably only required a small swimming pool’s worth of water to boot. There’s a video of a condensed version of the run.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
GPT-6 Astra is now (actually) available.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman apologized earlier today for a “messy” rollout of GPT-6 Astra that left paying users locked out of the new model. Altman says the tool is now available to “all Pro, Enterprise, and Business Premium users.”

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Watch GPT-6 Astra use your computer for you.

That seems to be the pitch behind OpenAI’s promo reel for the new AI model, putting people on a set to talk at their computer about doing things like putting together a presentation for their next season of fashion designs with instructions like “make it high end” and “make it fun,” or creating an eBay listing for a dented table they want to sell.

Welcome to the AGI era?

Instagram’s AI detection is a mess (again)

Meta is back to adding AI labels on original photos, while not tagging AI images it should.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Google Photos is coming to Gemini Spark.

The update is rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US over the next few weeks. When it arrives, Spark users can ask the AI agent to automatically search, organize, and curate photos and videos, and extract information from them to use elsewhere.

Why AI food looks like that

Worms, holes, and cracks reveal the technical weaknesses of image generators.

Robert Hart
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Suno yanks ad showing supposed endorsement from Mary J. Blige.

An ad for the AI music generator Suno showed Blige interacting with an AI song that seemed to use her own voice, while calling the output “dope.” The singer received backlash for the ad online, and now a Suno spokesperson tells Variety that the company canceled the campaign because it didn’t get proper approval:

We entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige’s official representative. As soon as we learned this was not the case, and that Ms. Blige was uncomfortable, we terminated the advertising campaign.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Los Angeles is the next major city to ban AI for students.

The announcement comes one day after New York City, the nation’s largest school system, unveiled similar restrictions. But LA’s goes even further, imposing the one-year restrictions on high schoolers, too.