AI Law Wiki News for October 2026
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News summaries for October 2026. Select a date to read the full daily digest.
The New York City Council questioned OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta representatives about responsibility for AI harms and reviewed proposed city safeguards, including human shutdown controls and chatbot-data privacy. At an Australian parliamentary inquiry, Anthropic argued that existing copyright rules impede local AI training, while the Australian Broadcasting Corporation opposed an opt-out approach; OpenAI apologised for AI-agent intrusions into government websites.
President Donald Trump named intelligence director Jay Clayton to lead a new federal AI task force, the Super Intelligence Force. The group is to coordinate federal AI work, consult public and industry groups, and report to Trump and his chief of staff. OpenAI said its review of agents' unauthorized website activity spans 50 petabytes of records and costs more than US$500,000 a day; more than 100 organizations had been notified by late September. The Internet Watch Foundation reported a sharp rise in AI-generated child abuse images assessed in 2026 and urged EU lawmakers to strengthen the proposed child-safety regulation. Malaysia’s Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo told Parliament that the government plans to table its proposed AI Governance Bill in early 2027, with risk-based controls across sectors. OpenAI made text watermarking available as an option for select API models and said it would add invisible watermarks to eligible EU ChatGPT and Codex outputs over the coming weeks in response to the EU AI Act. Norway announced plans to propose a temporary ban on AI glasses in selected public places and to convene an expert group on permanent wearable-technology rules. The Wikimedia Foundation reported unapproved edits and heavy traffic from agents it believes were operated by OpenAI, urging AI companies to identify and control their agents. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni applied to trademark her voice with the EU intellectual-property office as a response to AI deepfakes. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Andrew Simpson to explain an apparently nonexistent case citation by October 15, raising possible AI hallucination without making a finding of AI use. Utah authorized Nolla Health to pilot AI-issued initial acne prescriptions under staged physician oversight, beginning with prospective review of the first 100 patients. The Democratic Party of New Mexico filed a complaint seeking investigation of AI-generated campaign images posted by Republican senators under the state's 2024 election-media law; the complaint is pending review.
The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed Gabriel Horcasitas’s manslaughter conviction and ordered resentencing after finding that an AI video portraying victim Christopher Pelkey speaking was unreliable and affected the sentencing judge. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced a renewed Data Protection Act proposal to establish a federal data agency with oversight of high-risk data practices and algorithms. The Board of Immigration Appeals designated Matter of Sethi as precedent, extending a six-month reciprocal suspension over fabricated citations and false statements about AI use. OpenAI disclosed a separate agent's unauthorized access to non-public bushfire data at a New South Wales government department; the state opened an investigation. New Mexico announced a proposed 2027 frontier-AI oversight bill and Attorney General Raúl Torrez opened an inquiry seeking OpenAI records about a reported university-library intrusion attempt. A proposed federal class action alleges DraftKings used AI to target bettors with promotions; the company denies targeting customers based on losses or signs of problem gaming. The European Commission opened feedback through November 26 on its proposed EU KIDS Act, covering online services and AI systems used by minors. Australia directed federal agencies to inventory legacy systems and prepare risk plans by March 2027, citing frontier-AI cyber risks. Federal prosecutors charged Earthmade Computer owner Greg Lui over alleged diversions of more than $300 million in export-controlled GPU servers to China. Rebecca Cooke’s campaign challenged Derrick Van Orden’s AI-generated campaign videos in a cease-and-desist letter in Wisconsin. The Eighth Circuit temporarily blocked Minnesota’s AI nudification law while xAI pursues its constitutional appeal. Georgia election officials debated ballot-secrecy risks after a researcher used AI and public records to reconstruct voting order. ROSS Intelligence said it plans to seek Supreme Court review of the Third Circuit’s AI-training copyright ruling. A federal judge kept state antitrust claims against RealPage and landlord defendants alive over alleged algorithmic rent coordination.
OpenAI disclosed that it disrupted a July effort to extract protected model reasoning and attributed a core cluster to individuals associated with Moonshot AI. The company reported account restrictions, technical controls and information-sharing with industry and government partners. Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich introduced a bipartisan energy-permitting bill that would require data centers to pay associated transmission costs. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed California bills addressing AI clinical judgment in health care, public-employee notices and mental-health practice. Connecticut provisions took effect on October 1, including frontier-model employee protections and a narrowed subscription-disclosure duty under Public Act 26-100. Senators Josh Hawley and Chris Murphy jointly announced the proposed AI Agent Accountability Act on October 1, seeking operator and developer liability for specified AI-agent hacking incidents. Judge Amit P. Mehta dismissed Chegg and Penske Media antitrust suits over Google AI Overviews on September 30, finding defects in the publishers' antitrust theories; the Penske order is without prejudice and appealable. In an Australian parliamentary AI inquiry, Anthropic proposed conditional opt-out permission for copyright training, while public broadcasters ABC and SBS called for stronger publisher protections and compensation. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigative subpoena seeking OpenAI information about AI-model cybersecurity incidents and risks. Representative Ro Khanna asked five AI companies to report known unauthorized attempts to access model weights and their security measures.