Vietnamese firm targeting Canadians with fake AI news for profit, investigation shows: Marketplace Cheat Sheet

Vietnamese firm targeting Canadians with fake AI news for profit, investigation shows: Marketplace Cheat Sheet

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AI researchers 'earnestly believe' it could kill all humans within the next decade, Anthropic employee says

Chance AI kills all humans within a decade, Anthropic insider warns

There is a more than 10 per cent chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade, a researcher at Anthropic estimated in a post, hours after a researcher said he had quit Anthropic over concerns that AI companies are “gambling with our lives” in the AI development race.

The comments join a growing tide of warnings from industry experts that the pace of AI advancement is outstripping our ability to keep it in check, and that we aren’t prepared for the risks it could bring.

Jacob Coxon said in a thread on X that he had resigned from his role as a researcher at Anthropic out of fears that AI companies are barrelling forward toward self-improvement models without considering the risks, or being honest with the public about them.

"The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," Coxon, who said he had previously worked at Anthropic and OpenAI within the past three years, wrote on Tuesday. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately.”

The posts had racked up more than 150 million views as of Thursday. Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, replied to Coxon’s thread to share his agreement.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” he wrote. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”

Anthropic alignment team lead Ethan Perez confirmed in a post Wednesday night that Coxon had joined the company in May after working at OpenAI. CBC News reached out to Coxon but he did not respond.

Other industry experts have since chimed in on social media to express that fears of the pace of AI development are common among many developers — sparking discussion among both observers skeptical of dire warnings and those who have been tracking the risks.

CBC News has requested comment from Anthropic and OpenAI but did not receive a response. The Anthropic Institute, a research arm of the company, stated earlier this year that AI frontier development should be paused pending regulation, but that this is only possible if all major AI labs agreed.

In reply to Coxon's post, Samuel Marks, a scalable oversight lead at Anthropic who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, noted Wednesday that developers continue despite the risks, "due to a mixture of commercial incentives and a belief that they are in a race with other, less responsible AI developers that will abuse the technology or develop it less safely."

Read more from CBC's Alexandra Mae Jones.

Vietnamese firm targets Canadians with fake AI news for profit, CBC/Radio-Canada investigation reveals

Exposing a Vietnamese AI fake news empire targeting Canadians

During a corporate party in early 2026 featuring dancing mascots and pyrotechnics, the CEO of HTV Network stood on stage holding a sign in Vietnamese that said: "Doanh Thu Đột Phá." Translation: "Record revenue."

CEO Ngo Anh Tan had reason to celebrate that night. Since launching as an "international media company" that connects the "world with authoritative journalism" almost two years earlier, HTV now had at least 100 employees, according to a Vietnamese job listing.

But what the company purports to do contrasts vastly with its true nature, an investigation by CBC's visual investigations unit and Radio-Canada's Décrypteurs discovered.

Ngo and his team secretly run an AI-slop empire out of Hanoi, polluting social media feeds around the world and targeting users with fake content and sensationalist stories that range from Elon Musk banning Teslas in Canada to clickbait-style posts exploiting the Tumbler Ridge shooting.

The CBC/Radio-Canada team uncovered close to 200 Facebook pages — with more than 55 million followers — that shared links to about 50 HTV-connected websites that generate revenue by running ads, often next to inflammatory or misleading political and religious content.

"It's quite staggering, the scope of what's being done here," said Fenwick McKelvey, a professor specializing in communications at Concordia University in Montreal. "[It's] totally deceptive."

HTV Network shares a name with a legitimate, state-owned Vietnamese broadcaster, complicating efforts to trace its activities.

Through text messages, Ngo told CBC/Radio-Canada he didn't have Facebook pages or websites. When asked why his phone number matched the one on the HTV website, he said "maybe someone has taken my information." Corporate records and domain registration documentation matched Ngo's personal information.

Ngo repeatedly denied knowledge of HTV sites or pages. In response to a written request for comment, Ngo replied, "I don't understand what you mean."

Read more from CBC's Eric Szeto, Jeff Yates, Christian Paas-Lang, Jordan Pearson and Ivan Angelovski.

What will Trump's retaliatory tariffs do to Canada’s economy in the big picture? Not that much, economists predict

How will the new U.S. retaliatory tariffs impact Canadians?

The White House fired another shot in the Canada-U.S. trade war on Tuesday, banning the import of Canadian dairy, motorcycles and some alcohol products.

But how much will those bans, along with fresh 50 per cent tariffs on a slate of other products, actually affect the Canadian economy?

Not all that much, say economists who have run the numbers. But that doesn't mean it won't hurt certain industries — and it certainly won't give business owners any peace of mind.

According to one analysis from Derek Holt, vice-president and head of capital markets economics at Scotiabank, the new tariffs will apply to an estimated $3 billion worth of Canadian goods including mattresses and some paper products. But American officials also dropped tariffs on other items, including toilet paper, cement and sugar, amounting to about $2 billion worth of goods, Holt says — making the difference marginal, given Canada exported more than $527 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2025.

The bans on alcohol, dairy and motorcycles will also be negligible, Holt adds, as Canada sends very little dairy and few motorcycles south of the border. Alcohol exports are a bit higher than the other categories, with $550 million worth sent to the U.S. last year, according to his analysis, but the export bans would still affect only $700 million worth of Canadian items heading to the U.S.

"These actions are face-saving by the U.S. administration, not substantive in nature. and that's a positive," Holt said in a note to investors on Wednesday.

He says the rising cost of oil — which soared past $100 for the first time since July on Wednesday due to escalating tensions in the Middle East — poses a greater economic risk than the new U.S. measures.

Read more from CBCs Abby Hughes.

Grindr to pay $48-million settlement over sale of users' info — including HIV status

The hookup app was accused of violating U.K. privacy law by selling sensitive data to third parties. Grindr disputes the allegations and says the settlement includes no findings or admission of liability.

Free course covering basics of AI to be available to all Canadians by end of the year

K-12 teachers and post-secondary students will be the first to get access on Sept. 21.

Apple unveils iPhone Duo, its new folding phone that costs at least $3K

The event unveiling the new phone was the first with new CEO John Ternus.

Bobby Hristova is an award-winning investigative reporter with CBC's Marketplace. He writes The Watchdog, Marketplace's weekly newsletter. He's passionate about investigative work and accountability journalism that drives change — and he believes your story can help others. He worked with CBC Hamilton from 2019 to 2024 and also worked with CBC Toronto's Enterprise Team.