Peter Thiel has called Pope Leo XIV a “useful idiot” for the Chinese Communist Party over the pope’s call to regulate AI. The PayPal and Palantir co-founder spoke to Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfner on the MD Meets podcast, released on Thursday.

The interview came before Thiel received the Axel Springer Award in Berlin on Thursday. Axel Springer owns Politico, which reported the remarks first, and Business Insider. Fortune reported on his comments about Germany.

“The Communist Party of China is not going to listen to the pope. There’s a chance people in the U.S. will. And so in effect, the Pope’s encyclical was working for the Communist party,” Thiel said.

“I’m not saying he was an agent of the communists, but he was at least acting as a useful idiot for the CCP,” he added.

The encyclical

Pope Leo published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, in May. In it, he called on world leaders to regulate AI. Thiel argued that the text would do nothing to slow China, Politico reported. Instead, it could lead the US and its allies to impose heavy rules on AI, he said.

The Vatican did not respond to requests for comment from Politico or Business Insider. The Vatican has since expanded its AI campaign with an AI4Peace association.

It is not the first time Thiel has attacked the pope over AI. Speaking in Colorado in July, he said the pope was acting as a “Chinese communist agent” by calling for regulation, Politico reported.

‘What we’re doing to ourselves’

Thiel also said Americans themselves, not China, are mostly to blame for the growing US backlash against AI. He was “inclined to believe” China could be fuelling some anti-AI content, he said. But China was not the main force behind the shift.

“This is mainly what we’re doing to ourselves. It’s often somewhat too easy to simply blame it on China,” Thiel said.

Germany’s ‘fear of success’

Thiel, who was born in Frankfurt, also criticised German entrepreneurs. German founders tend to sell their companies before they grow into global businesses, he said.

“If you have something that works, you’re not going to scale it to this extreme degree like an Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg,” he said.

Among the richest Germans of Generation X or younger, all had inherited their wealth, Thiel said. In the US, most had built it themselves.

Thiel is a partner at Founders Fund, which has invested in OpenAI, Palantir and Scale AI, among other AI companies.

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

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Our fun links this week include Jev, the super fast new AI classifier, and Persodex, the context layer for your Contacts (PS. hit Ben up if you’re in New York in mid-October).

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Filed Under: age verification, ai, artificial intelligence, content moderation, ofcom, trust and safety

Companies: aylo, discord, youtube

To quote George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  So why does it so often feel like Big Tech has such a short memory?

The latest hiccup comes from Meta. In mid-September, it rolled out a beta test of a feature for its brand-new Muse AI agent that would place calls to businesses to complete tasks for you, like making reservations and appointments.

According to reports by Reuters and 404 Media on Tuesday, however, this allegedly autonomous agent could route these tasks to a trained human concierge in call centers — without disclosing it was doing so in advance.

On Sept. 16, Principal Engineer Ryan Fox at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, announced the beta release of Muse’s outbound call feature and posted a request on X for feedback, noting that “phone calling” was one of the top requests from users.

But 404 Media says that, based on internal Facebook records, the company was doing something entirely behind the scenes with its personal assistant. When announcing the features to employees internally, the tech giant said that it “added a human agent layer for calls to get completed,” referring to them as “Muse human agent calls.” 

Some Meta employees complained, including one who posted internally: “This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch.”

The truth is rarely pure… 

The problem with the added human meat layer isn’t just the AI-washing of Muse’s capabilities. Nor is it purely the deception of failing to disclose that there could be a human link in the chain. Some agentic systems introduce human oversight as a “human in the loop” for safety and compliance.

It’s unclear how much safety and compliance were on the menu for Meta. But employees raised a bigger concern over privacy, with one warning (per Reuters), “We are one bug away from unnecessary information being leaked to human callers.” And bugs there are.

You generally sacrifice privacy when you use AI agents to perform personal tasks, like making a reservation, a purchase or a medical appointment. But it can feel a lot worse if you discover you’ve just had a complete stranger book your STI test. 

It’s also a black box. You don’t know what context that person’s been given, if they’ve seen your chat or know where you live and how to contact you because of it. Even more data might be on offer, given that the company’s glasses are chock-full of Muse. 

You’re also providing the so-called autonomous agent (in this case, a human contractor in an undisclosed call center) with sensitive information, such as a phone number, patient ID or banking information.

It’s all part of a growing trend of granting AI models the power to perform tasks as personal assistants. Just this week, Google introduced the capability of its Gemini agent to handle everyday phone calls. That implementation turns over the transactional part of a call — like providing credit card info — back to you. But the risks are still there.

…And never simple

The kicker is that Meta has broken privacy trust many times before. In 2019, Facebook had to stop a program that used contractors to listen to and transcribe Messenger calls.

Because AI agents like these frequently require human intervention to verify that they’re delivering the desired results, a mistaken incident of the “Oh, this employee saw this” variety seems inevitable. 

Potemkin AI, where a hidden army of human workers does some of the actual work of models behind the curtain, isn’t confined to calls. In February, it was revealed that Waymo had remote operators supplementing autonomous car operations overseas. 

And once again, the rollout of Meta Muse’s outbound call feature has been rolled back. Reuters reported that the company temporarily suspended the feature after a vice president in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs unit admitted “it was a miss” to begin testing the feature without adequate disclosures of the human contractors involved.

Of course, the real fault isn’t a bad memory so much as Big Tech’s history of “do bad, get caught, apologize, roll back, maybe pay a negligible fine. Rinse, repeat.” At some point, after we’ve collectively become exhausted, the cycle is reduced to “do bad, but profit anyway.” 

We reached out to Meta for comment and clarification, but didn’t immediately hear back.

Lori Grunin

Senior Editor / Computers and Gaming Hardware

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Bose has recently unveiled the Open Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), and we’re intrigued to see what’s really different with the buds.

Although we’re yet to review the second gen pair, we have compared its specs to the originals and noted the key differences – plus any noteworthy similarities – between the two below. 

Read on to see what separates the Open Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen from the Open Ultra Earbuds. When you’re done here, visit our round-up of the best wireless earbuds and best open headphones too.

Or if you want more from Bose’s recent launch, check out our Bose Sport Open Earbuds vs Sport Earbuds too.

Price and Availability

The Bose Open Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) will be available to buy from October 1st, and have an RRP of $299 / £299.95. At the time of writing, if you register with MyBose then you’ll be able to pre-order the buds to secure them for launch.

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The 2nd Gen pair will be available in three colours, including Cherry Chocolate, Olive Green and Sky Pink. 

Although the Bose Open Ultra Earbuds currently carry the same £299.95 RRP as the upcoming second generation, we do expect this price to drop in the coming months. In addition, as it’s an older generation, it has also been possible to pick up the buds for a deal too. 

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Both share the same open design, but the 2nd Gens have been tweaked

We’ll start with one of the most obvious similarities between the two: both have an open-ear design and deliver sound through the air near your ear rather than through bone vibrations, like other bone conduction headphones. 

With this in mind, you shouldn’t expect either to be among the best noise cancelling headphones, as they are both designed to provide situational awareness. That means you can listen to your audio but without completely tuning out important sounds like public transport announcements. 

Bose explains that the 2nd Gen is equipped with its OpenAudio and SoundDesign technology that promises to deliver rich and personal sound, while ensuring clarity is balanced too. In addition, thanks to a transducer and tightly controlled acoustic structure, the 2nd Gens promise minimal sound leakage too. 

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As we found the original Open Ultra Earbuds never struggled with sound leakage, even at higher volumes, we’re hopeful that the 2nd Gen pair will be just as reliable.

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Bose Open Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen promises longer battery

Although the Open Ultra Earbuds offered a solid battery life, with 7.5 from the buds and an additional 19.5 hours within the charging case, Bose has managed to eke out a few extra hours with the 2nd Gen.

In fact, although it shares the same 19.5 hours within the redesigned charging case (though more on that later), the buds promise to deliver up to nine hours of playback on a single charge too. 

Bose Open Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen introduces Cinema Mode

Bose has introduced Cinema Mode with the Open Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen. Powered by Bose’s True Spatial technology, Cinema Mode is designed to create a wider and more immersive soundstage, with a “theatre-like” listening experience. As we haven’t reviewed the 2nd Gen pair yet, we can’t verify how well Cinema Mode really works. However, considering the buds are open ears, we’re undoubtedly intrigued to see how they manage to create an immersive experience. 

Bose Open Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen has an upgraded case

It’s not just the buds that have seen a refinement, but their accompanying charging case. Compared to the original pair, the 2nd Gen’s case has been redesigned and can stand upright too. In addition, the case now supports wireless charging too – although we don’t currently know how fast the speeds will be.

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We should note that you can buy the original Open Ultra Earbuds with a charging case, however this is an extra cost of £49.95.

The 2nd Gen will offer Google Find Hub and Alexa+ support

Bose is planning a firmware update once the 2nd Gen pair have launched, which will introduce a range of new features.

Included among these features is Google Find Hub, which helps you locate the earbuds if they’re misplaced – much like Apple’s Find My. In addition, the 2nd Gen will support Alexa+, the latest version of Amazon’s voice assistant. 

Early Verdict

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) look like a solid upgrade from the Ultra Open Earbuds, thanks to a refined design, wireless charging case with no extra cost and the intriguing inclusion of Cinema Mode.

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That’s not to say the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds aren’t a solid option. In fact, we hailed the buds as being “one of the best examples of the open-headphone concept” even two years after launch. With that in mind, if you’re sporting the 2024 pair or just want a more affordable option, then the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds remain a brilliant option.

This past April, while attending his nephew’s bar mitzvah on Cape Cod, Eric Umansky woke up to an inbox full of emails from people from his past. They all wanted to know the same thing: Was he actually throwing a party Saturday night?

The New York–based journalist wasn’t sure what party they were referring to, or why random acquaintances he’d met in passing 15 years ago were emailing him. On deadline and already stressed about work, he checked his phone, where more messages inquired about a supposed Paperless Post invite he’d sent for a “Special Private Dinner Party” at 7 pm on May 2.

Except Umansky hadn’t sent the invite, and he wasn’t planning to host a party anytime soon.

As it turned out, he was an early victim of an email scam that has since become more widespread. What Umansky didn’t expect was the positive effect it would have on his social life.

In May, after receiving increased reports, the Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert warning about scammers sending “unexpected messages that look like they’re from well-known invitation platforms like Evite or Paperless Post,” noting how some messages “make you enter your email username and password to see event details” while others “tell you to enter a phone number and share a special code to RSVP.”

Umansky wasn’t sure how it happened; he thought he’d taken the necessary precautions to safeguard his email, including using two-factor authentication. All he could think to do was post a message on Facebook, LinkedIn, and his other social networks to notify people that he was, in fact, not having a party and, more importantly, “don’t come to my house.”

Phishing scams, which have proliferated across the last two decades, remain one of the biggest security risks faced both by individuals and companies. Email scams, in particular, can now be highly sophisticated, incorporating social engineering techniques like creating urgency or fear in a target and even leveraging the personal relationships between two people to manipulate a victim, what’s known as “spear phishing.” AI has only made those deceptions harder to weed out.

But in some recent cases, like Umansky’s, the fake party invite is having an unintended outcome: It is encouraging people to check in to see whether the message was actually real and, in doing so, has reignited dormant relationships.

“It was so striking to me after it happened that I actually had a thought that I was like, ‘Oh, is this a net positive?’” says Umansky, who over the last several months has reconnected with a handful of old friends and colleagues over lunch and via text. He recently spent an hour on Zoom with a former coworker who now lives in Mexico City. They hadn’t talked to each other in over a decade. “I was like, Oh, you know, I actually want to catch up with you about something. There was an idea I wanted to bat around with him, which we talked about for maybe 10 minutes. The rest of the time we talked about our lives.”

According to a 2024 study published in the scientific journal Communications Psychology examining social withdrawal, which surveyed 2,400 adults in the US, UK, and Canada, people are sometimes unwilling to contact old friends because they believe the other person won’t want to hear from them or they fear the interaction will be awkward. The research noted that “high priority placed on work and productivity in North America has led people to cut back on social connections and social time to meet increasing demands at work,” in addition to other life transitions, such as parenthood or moving to a new city.

Bill Gates said artificial intelligence is powerful enough to drive events causing a billion deaths, and that self-regulation is not enough because safeguards and monitoring have to be a required thing. The European Union has required them since August 2025, and since 2 August this year the Commission has been able to fine a model provider 3% of worldwide turnover.

Bill Gates said artificial intelligence is powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths, Bloomberg reported. He was speaking in an excerpt from an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press due to air this weekend. There has never been a weapon as powerful as people with ill intent using the latest AI tools, the Microsoft co-founder said.

The second half matters more.

Self-regulation is not enough, Gates said, and law enforcement and politicians need to be in the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like. That has to be a required thing, he added. It is the policy position rather than the number that is new from him.

Europe required it last year.

Article 55 of the AI Act has obliged providers of general-purpose models with systemic risk to run adversarial testing, assess risk at union level and report serious incidents without undue delay since August 2025. The accompanying code of practice allows five days to report a cybersecurity breach and fifteen for serious harm.

The penalties arrived in August.

Since the second of that month the Commission has been able to fine a provider up to 3% of worldwide annual turnover or EUR 15M, whichever is higher. It can demand access to a model, order evaluations and require a provider to restrict its public availability. Prohibited practices carry up to 7%.

None of it has been used.

No enforcement action against a model provider has been reported in the seven weeks since those powers took effect. The one thing that has happened is OpenAI filing an incident report about its own agents occupying a German wiki. A company reported itself.

The debate has not noticed.

Anthropic proposed a framework in June giving governments the power to block dangerous deployments, with penalties scaled to global revenue and thresholds set by training compute and AI spending. That document made no mention of the European Union. The architecture it asked for had been on the European statute book since 2024.

Gates is describing the same thing.

A Microsoft co-founder calling for mandatory monitoring and for police in the room is describing a regime that exists on one continent and is being argued for on another. Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest partner. The open question is not whether such a law can be written but whether anyone will use the one that has been.

Researchers say they recently found Google ads delivering a sophisticated tech support scam that freezes the screens of both Windows and Mac devices and displays messages urgently instructing them to phone a bogus call center.

The ads were displayed all over the web, including on high-traffic maps, weather, real-estate, document-hosting, and sports sites. Users who called the number were then urged to pay hefty fees, grant remote access to their devices, or divulge personal information. From August 31 to September 14, security firm Netskope observed users from 619 customer organizations click on the malicious ads, although none of them were actually scammed because Netskope blocked the content.

Roughly 62 percent of the organizations were based in the US, with Japan and Australia accounting for the Nos. 2 and 3 spots. Since the firm has visibility into only a tiny sliver of Internet activity, the number of people exposed to the ads—including those who fell victim to it—is likely much higher. Netskope tracked more than 250 Google Ads campaign IDs across at least 284 legitimate publisher sites.

So, what about Uncle Louie?

“For the victim, that tradecraft turns an ordinary ad click into a browser that appears to seize up on a fake security warning,” Netskope said. “The locker fills the screen, hides the cursor, swallows the usual exit keys, and lags the browser, all to manufacture the sense of a broken machine and pressure the person into calling the number on the screen. Nothing on the computer is actually locked, but in the moment it is convincing enough to push people toward the scam.”

By now, many people, including a fair number of readers of this site, ridicule and shame people who fall for such scams. These criticisms fail to account for a sizable portion of Internet users who have little or no understanding of how computers and the Internet work. Combined with their need to get things done quickly and the growing difficulty of navigating the web, this lack of awareness makes a sizable portion of users prime targets. There’s little doubt that some critics have close friends and family who are among those who simply don’t know enough to be wary.

The move comes as parent company Microsoft continues to cull its gaming divisions.