Anthropic says ‘evil’ portrayals of AI were responsible for Claude’s blackmail attempts

Fictional portrayals of artificial intelligence can have a real effect on AI models, according to Anthropic. Last year, the company said that during pre-release tests involving a fictional company, Claude Opus 4 would often try to blackmail engineers to avoid being replaced by another system. Anthropic later published research suggesting that models from other companies…

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XRPL targets DeFi expansion with lending and programmable escrow tools

The XRP Ledger ecosystem is preparing two major upgrades aimed at expanding XRPL beyond payments and settlement.  Summary XRPL plans native lending pools and fixed-term crypto loans directly on-chain for institutional users. Smart Escrows aim to bring programmable transaction logic without slowing XRPL transaction speeds or efficiency. XRPL Foundation says compliance layers and permissioned tools…

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Oil jumps after Trump calls Iran’s peace offer ‘unacceptable’

Brent crude oil spiked 8% to $109.74 per barrel after President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s peace proposal, calling it “unacceptable.” The move reversed weeks of price declines that had been driven by cautious optimism around a potential de-escalation in US-Iran hostilities. Iran’s proposal reportedly included reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief….

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