CIA report warns Israel could head toward civil war and total collapse

CIA report warns Israel could head toward civil war and total collapse

Drop Site reports: Israel is at risk of civil war or state collapse, a classified CIA assessment warns, as years of genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon and Iran deepen political, economic, and social fractures within the country. The August report, titled “Fracture From Within,” was compiled by experts in the CIA’s Red Cell, according to two U.S. sources who described the contents of the report to Drop Site News. The Red Cell, which is the unit responsible for…

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The ‘WarGames’ problem: Computer science has long understood what it takes to keep AI under control

The ‘WarGames’ problem: Computer science has long understood what it takes to keep AI under control

In the movie ‘War Games’ an AI plays a game with the real threat of triggering nuclear Armageddon. Courtesy of United Artists/Amazon MGM Studios By Deven Desai, Georgia Institute of Technology AI agents don’t go rogue. That’s something only humans do. Nevertheless, a New York Times article – representative of much news coverage of AI – described an OpenAI hacking as “A.I. bots going rogue and independently spearheading a cyberattack.” Name-brand artificial intelligence agents have been on a hacking spree…

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Sam Altman might accept the ‘bad things’ that come with AI, but he doesn’t speak for everyone

Sam Altman might accept the ‘bad things’ that come with AI, but he doesn’t speak for everyone

Fast Company reports: For the past month, slowing the development of artificial intelligence has been at the forefront of AI discourse. After a former OpenAI and Anthropic employee left the industry in September citing that “neither company is acting responsibly,” AI leaders and everyday citizens alike sounded off on the potential of an AI-powered doomsday. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded with an essay about the importance of “pacing the frontier,” or slowing AI development to prioritize safety. At the time,…

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Meta’s Muse is collecting information on everyone in your life

Meta’s Muse is collecting information on everyone in your life

Gizmodo reports: In typical Meta fashion, the company’s popular new AI agent Muse reportedly keeps detailed, regularly updated files on the people in users’ lives. Nearly a month after its launch, researchers are digging into how Muse works. It turns out the AI agent will openly share internal files and instructions when users ask, offering a peek at how it operates. One of the somewhat unsettling details is an hourly process that instructs Muse to create and update “a page…

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Only one GOP Supreme Court justice needs to flip for Big Oil to face climate accountability

Only one GOP Supreme Court justice needs to flip for Big Oil to face climate accountability

Slate reports: The Supreme Court officially began its new term on Monday morning with oral argument in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County. Befitting an institution with vast power over the public despite historically low public support, the court’s opening case this term is about elite impunity: Suncor will determine whether communities may sue oil and gas companies in state court and hold them financially responsible for literally fueling climate change. Back in 2018, Boulder County filed a lawsuit in a…

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DOJ sued by NAACP for records on ‘unprecedented’ plan to deploy 1,000 election monitors in midterms

DOJ sued by NAACP for records on ‘unprecedented’ plan to deploy 1,000 election monitors in midterms

Democracy Docket reports: The NAACP sued the Trump administration Friday, seeking records about its plan to deploy roughly 1,000 federal personnel to polling places during the 2026 midterms. The planned effort represents an extraordinary expansion of federal election monitoring. It has already sparked confrontations with state officials and concerns about voter intimidation. The civil rights organization filed its lawsuit in federal court, one month before the Nov. 3 election. The case seeks to force the Civil Rights Division of the…

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The lizard brain myth

The lizard brain myth

Hannah Critchlow writes: In 1959 Paul D MacLean set out a new way of thinking about the evolution and function of the brain, which he christened the “triune” – three-in-one – model. It quickly became one of best known and most enduring concepts in human biology. His idea was that a trio of distinct brains are layered inside our skulls, one on top of the other, all fighting to generate our feelings and thoughts. Deep inside, at the centre, lurks…

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The long and extremely urgent to-do list if Democrats win control of Congress

The long and extremely urgent to-do list if Democrats win control of Congress

Norman J. Ornstein writes: In the 1972 movie The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, shockingly wins a Senate seat. Surrounded by ecstatic staff and volunteers, a stunned and panicky McKay pulls aside his manager and asks, “What do we do now?” That will be the relevant question for Democrats in the House and Senate if the wave election that looks increasingly possible comes true and they win control of both houses of Congress. There will be initial euphoria…

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Saudi-backed Yemeni government declares war against Houthis, widening crisis

Saudi-backed Yemeni government declares war against Houthis, widening crisis

The New York Times reports: The Saudi-backed government of Yemen on Sunday announced a major military campaign against the Houthi militia, a key Iranian ally, plunging the Middle East even deeper into war. In a televised speech, Rashad al-Alimi, the leader of the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government, said that the government was seeking to reclaim all the territory it had lost to the Houthis over the past 12 years. The government and the Houthis have been engaged in fierce battles…

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Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality

Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality

Steve Bloomfield writes: Donald Trump has enjoyed very few foreign policy victories since returning to power. From failed wars to failed peace processes, his second term in office has been marked by one costly blunder on the world stage after another. In Latin America, though, the US president has a different story to tell. His administration’s national security strategy outlined how the US wanted to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”. It was a brazen document, laying out how…

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AI infrastructure buildout surpasses every prior investment in American history, posing systemic risks

AI infrastructure buildout surpasses every prior investment in American history, posing systemic risks

Quartz reports: A new Brookings Institution study finds that the U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout is on pace to consume a larger share of economic output than any prior technology rollout in American history, including railroads, the interstate highway system, and the internet — while the financing structures underpinning it carry systemic financial risks. The study — authored by Columbia Business School finance and real estate professor Stijn van Nieuwerburgh — puts total spending on data centers and related AI…

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Dean Baker: If AI is crashing, the story should be jail in, not bail out

Dean Baker: If AI is crashing, the story should be jail in, not bail out

Dean Baker writes: We can’t know yet whether the Oracle meltdown, and the AI leaders’ admission that they don’t know what they are doing, will be enough to force the big money actors in the stock market to look at arithmetic, but we can hope. And if they do see reality, and the bubble begins to deflate, and the big AI companies head towards bankruptcy, we can predict what the politicians they bought will look to do: give them huge…

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McKinsey: AI will create millions new jobs — in places you don’t live, for workers with skills you don’t have

McKinsey: AI will create millions new jobs — in places you don’t live, for workers with skills you don’t have

McKinsey Global Institute reports: While social media abounds with dire predictions about the impact of AI on labor, the United States is likely to have more jobs available in 2035 than today, but with fewer workers because the population is aging. While estimates of the full impact of AI on the workforce differ widely, our base estimate indicates that automation could reduce labor demand by the equivalent of roughly 36 million jobs, while growth in the AI value chain and…

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Don’t be fooled — LLMs don’t reason

Don’t be fooled — LLMs don’t reason

Thore Graepel writes: On an afternoon in Seoul in March 2016, I watched a program I helped build put a stone on the fifth line of a Go board in what looked like a gift to its human opponent. Move 37 in game two of the five-game match looked so absurd that some commentators thought it was a programming glitch. It wasn’t. AlphaGo won the game, ultimately triumphing 4-1 over Lee Sedol, one of the greatest professional Go players of…

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