Appeals court tears into federal judge for AI hallucinations in ruling on DEI law

Delegates visit the Microsoft stand during the International AI Summit in Dublin, Ireland, on Oct. 14, 2026. (Credit: Paul Faith / AFP via Getty Images)

Microsoft researchers have developed an artificial intelligence model capable of diagnosing ailments as it learns about patients' symptoms, mimicking what doctors do, according to a study published in Science on Thursday.

In controlled testing involving more than 300 complex medical cases, the tool reached the correct diagnosis 83.2% of the time, compared with 36.1% for generalist physicians. It similarly outperformed human doctors when tested on a separate set of emergency room cases.

The tool did not compete with specialists, who are typically brought in to solve particularly difficult medical cases.

Microsoft's model begins by determining what to ask about a patient’s medical history and what to look for during a physical exam. It then uses that information to decide which tests to order, analyzes the results and requests additional testing when needed, according to the study.

Another key finding was that the AI could reach accurate diagnoses at a lower financial cost than human doctors, largely by being more selective about which tests and procedures it ordered.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff amplified a post from Anthropic's security chief warning that the recently discovered vulnerabilities to PHP, the language that powers more than 70% of the internet, will soon lead to catastrophic consequences.

Benioff said Jason D. Clinton, Anthropic's deputy chief information security officer, is 100% right when he says: "As bad as things have gotten in the past 4 days, they are going to get a lot worse before they get better."

Clinton urged security leaders at large companies to go to their boards and ask for help.

The critical vulnerabilities in PHP were found by security researchers working at a firm called Calif. They used OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol to uncover the bugs.

“Given the severity of these flaws and PHP’s widespread use, we consider this one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory,” OpenAI said in a blog post, confirming the findings. “It highlights how A.I. can uncover security flaws with internet-scale impact, but the same capabilities can also help attackers rapidly develop offensive tools and exploits.”

The PHP Foundation acknowledged the two major exploits and issued an emergency patch, urging websites to update immediately or go offline until they can. This has led to numerous government websites around the world being temporarily taken off the internet.

OpenAI Ceo Sam Altman speaks to journalists after meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2026. (Credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

The three OpenAI security researchers fired last month lost their jobs after the company discovered some of them had disappearing messages enabled on Signal chats, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

According to the report, OpenAI suspected them of using those chats to leak information about the company's latest artificial intelligence model to an external AI-safety researcher.

OpenAI told The Journal that the researchers — Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni and Jasmine Wang — were fired after an internal investigation found that they violated policies for handling sensitive information and failed to raise safety concerns internally.

In an interview with The Journal, the researchers denied this, saying they spent months pushing for more safety collaboration. They also said they were never told what sensitive information they allegedly mishandled.

The John Minor Wisdom United States Court of Appeals Building stands in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Feb. 7, 2025. (Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder)

A federal appeals court overturned an order blocking Mississippi's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public schools and universities after a district judge acknowledged his staff used artificial intelligence to help draft a ruling found to be riddled with errors.

In an opinion released Thursday, U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith called Judge Henry Wingate's ruling a "botch job" after Wingate said a law clerk used AI to write a draft of the order that was mistakenly docketed.

Wingate's order concerned a Mississippi law that banned any public funds from going to DEI programs and diversity trainings. Wingate sided with the plaintiffs — a group of teachers, students and parents who argued the law violated the First Amendment — and issued a temporary restraining order blocking its enforcement.

The TRO, however, contained "several factual assertions nowhere to be found in the record, or indeed, in any proceeding of the case," Smith wrote in his opinion.

He continued: "Those included mention of plaintiffs and defendants not in the complaint, supposed 'declarations' from non-existent or never-present individuals, false quotations purporting to be taken from the text of H.B. 1193, and several erroneous claims that the law had already led to the demise of apparently fictitious programs."

Smith, part of a three-judge panel, vacated the TRO, which will temporarily allow the law to be enforced as written. He ordered the case be taken out of Wingate's jurisdiction and reassigned to a new district judge.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Thursday that rogue artificial intelligence agents could drain Americans' bank accounts and investment portfolios, raising concerns about whether victims could recover their losses.

"Imagine a rogue AI agent liquidating your bank account and investment portfolio," DeSantis wrote on X.

"If rogue agents liquidate hundreds of billions across millions of accounts, the AI company would go bankrupt and you wouldn’t get made whole."

DeSantis suggested criminal liability for AI executives could help deter such incidents, but warned that punishment after the fact would be insufficient.

His comments followed an Axios report that major U.S. banks have detected unauthorized third-party AI agents accessing customer accounts, with some attempting actions apparently independent of users' instructions.