A coordinated slowdown by leading AI companies could breach US competition law even when its stated purpose is safety, legal scholars Amelia Miazad, Barak Orbach and Menesh Patel argue in an analysis published on October 5. They distinguish a blanket agreement to hold back innovation from joint work on specific risks, whose legality depends on its terms and effects. Their intervention follows executives’ calls for a slower pace of development. It offers a fresh complication for promises to protect the public. Companies cannot simply decide among themselves that their preferred pace should bind the market. The analysis is an interpretation of existing law, rather than a court ruling on a particular agreement.

Smaller developers would have to operate under any shared standard that customers began demanding. If established firms set the tests and controlled access to evaluation, they could make entry expensive while presenting the barrier as a public service. Conversely, leaving each company to assess its own products would give users little assurance that the tests were comparable. Safety cooperation needs a way for outsiders to challenge a failed evaluation or a rule that favors an incumbent. A subscription buyer cannot inspect a model’s development calendar, and a worker exposed to its use may have no contract with its maker. Public authorities should therefore be able to examine the proposed restrictions before companies make access depend on them.

Pope Leo XIV called on October 2 for the Church to renew its alliance with artists and cultural institutions, arguing that the spread of artificial intelligence makes it urgent to distinguish human art from machine-generated production. Speaking to participants in a meeting organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, he described a difference that precedes judgments of beauty, contrasting art with statistical calculation based on images made by others. He also warned about cultural homogenization. His intervention gives artists institutional support in a dispute often framed around speed and cost. It expresses a philosophical position without establishing a ban on artistic uses of AI.

For institutions that commission art, this position raises practical questions about their next contracts. A parish choosing an image for a new chapel can buy a generated illustration or pay an artist to develop a work with the congregation. That choice affects who earns a living and who answers for the finished image. The Pope’s call leaves the practical terms of the renewed alliance unspecified. Artists can use digital tools while still negotiating payment, attribution and control over how their work is reused. If Church patrons follow his appeal, their purchasing decisions will need to give human authors a place in the budget. A commissioned artist should be able to see that commitment in the contract and the agreed fee.

On October 2, Apple said it will add controls to macOS’s Full Disk Access, a permission originally intended to let backup apps work around other privacy protections. The company warned that some apps use it in ways that could expose files, email, messages and browsing history without users fully understanding the reach. For communication apps, Apple said, the risk can extend to the privacy of people on the other end. It promised that granting this level of access will require a “very explicit” action, but gave no timetable or design details. Apple linked the change to increasingly capable and autonomous AI agents.

One account holder’s approval can affect another person. A message sits on two devices, but the recipient chooses which apps may inspect it on their Mac. An AI agent with broad access could draw on private records well beyond a task such as organizing files; Apple’s announcement, however, does not accuse any named product of misusing the permission. The practical test for the new controls will be whether the request explains what an app can reach and lets a person grant only the access needed for a task. Until Apple shows the design, users cannot tell whether the planned action will clarify that boundary or simply add another confirmation to a broad permission.