How AI ‘almost started a war’ between the U.S. and China with ‘entirely false’ intelligence

How AI ‘almost started a war’ between the U.S. and China with ‘entirely false’ intelligence

CNN reports: The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program. The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes…

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‘Doom loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft admit LLMs are destroying the web and are built on theft

‘Doom loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft admit LLMs are destroying the web and are built on theft

404 Media reports: Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft executive called “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” Those statements and a series of other mask-off…

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Cory Doctorow: This is how the AI bubble pops

Cory Doctorow: This is how the AI bubble pops

  “If enshitificaiton is what you do when you’ve grown your market all you can and then you squeeze it, then AI is what happens when you run out of squeezing.” Author of The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI Cory Doctorow join The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the the narrative and economics of Artificial Intelligence and why the AI bubble needs to end sooner rather than later.

Trump is considering more data centers on public lands than was previously known

Trump is considering more data centers on public lands than was previously known

The Washington Sun reports: The Trump administration is considering proposals for at least 12 data centers and data center-related infrastructure projects to be built on federal public lands — far more than previously known. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing data center-related proposals covering at least 17,600 acres of public land across six states — Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, according to public records of right-of-way proposals reviewed by The Washington Sun. Many of the projects under…

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Trump’s ambition is always personal but the damage is global

Trump’s ambition is always personal but the damage is global

Philip Kennicott writes: To borrow a Greek term from classical theater, the Kennedy Center fiasco has brought us to what might be called a Trumpian moment of anagnorisis, the unmasking and full discovery of the motivations and inner workings of a character. Even Trump himself seems to have realized how childish he looks because in comments Wednesday that again threatened demolition, he seemed to suggest renaming the center for his administration, not himself personally: “I think that the Trump administration…

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China presses Iran to help rein in Houthis after Saudi appeal, sources say

China presses Iran to help rein in Houthis after Saudi appeal, sources say

Reuters reports: China has privately asked Tehran to help rein in Yemen’s Houthis after an appeal to Beijing by Saudi Arabia following the Iran-backed group’s military blitz in the past week, according to three Iranian sources familiar with ​the matter. Riyadh turned to China for help after the Houthis made rapid advances along the Red Sea coast and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, moves that have left Saudi oil exports and ‌shipping more exposed, the sources said. China has publicly…

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Why Latin America is key to Israel’s diplomatic impunity

Why Latin America is key to Israel’s diplomatic impunity

+972 reports: On Aug. 10, just three days after taking office, Colombia’s new government under President Abelardo de la Espriella formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. The announcement was all the more conspicuous coming on the same day that Colombia confronted one the largest earthquakes in its recent history, which killed more than 300 people and left extensive damage across the country. Even before taking office, de la Espriella’s incoming administration had agreed with Israel to restore…

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Massive security vulnerability: Trump operatives are prepping an AI takeover of government services

Massive security vulnerability: Trump operatives are prepping an AI takeover of government services

The Washington Sun reports: The aim is for a chatbot feature to be the main way Americans use the website [dubbed America.gov], which the administration intends to be a catch-all digital destination meant to make the user experience of Americans interacting with the government online more cohesive. The White House declined to comment. The State Department and Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment. Former DOGE official and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia’s White House unit, called the National…

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OpenAI discloses six incidents of ‘concerning’ AI behavior discovered between April and August

OpenAI discloses six incidents of ‘concerning’ AI behavior discovered between April and August

The New York Times reports: OpenAI on Wednesday disclosed six new instances in which artificial intelligence systems hid mistakes, made up data and moved files onto the open internet without permission, amid an ongoing industrywide debate about A.I. safety. The San Francisco company revealed what it said was the “unexpected or concerning” behavior of its A.I. models as part of a new framework for reporting “misalignment,” which is when the goals or actions of A.I. systems diverge from human intentions…

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Trump’s Minnesota surge created ‘a grave threat to the rule of law,’ says federal court’s chief judge

Trump’s Minnesota surge created ‘a grave threat to the rule of law,’ says federal court’s chief judge

The New York Times reports: Judge Patrick J. Schiltz’s warning was stark. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had violated nearly 100 orders issued by Minnesota’s Federal District Court during the month of January, including some mandating the release of undocumented immigrants from detention. The violations needed to stop immediately. “ICE is not a law unto itself,” Judge Schiltz wrote in his Jan. 28 order. Judges around the country took notice, not only of the scale of the allegation but because such…

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Carney to Trump: No one tells Canadians what to do

Carney to Trump: No one tells Canadians what to do

Politico reports: Canada’s warming relationship with the EU “is a positive” process and Ottawa will not be cowed into abandoning the relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday. Carney’s comment came after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slap “serious tariffs” on the EU if Canada became an associate member, an idea floated by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech on Wednesday. “This alliance is a positive process. That’s my response to the…

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Corporate cowardice: Universal is getting cold feet on releasing the new Elon Musk documentary

Corporate cowardice: Universal is getting cold feet on releasing the new Elon Musk documentary

The Hollywood Reporter reports: If Universal opts against releasing the movie, it would mark an extraordinary reversal at a moment when media companies are already under scrutiny for bowing to various forms of political pressure. Amazon backed out of releasing Artificial as it got into business with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, while ABC News and Paramount/CBS News each paid millions to settle lawsuits with the Trump administration many legal experts felt would be quickly dismissed. Universal would be required to pay…

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Follow the money: Democrats demand to know where Venezuelan oil revenue is going

Follow the money: Democrats demand to know where Venezuelan oil revenue is going

The Washington Post reports: Three Democratic senators are pressing the Trump administration for transparency on billions of dollars in oil revenue from Venezuela believed to be in a U.S. government-controlled account. In a letter obtained by The Washington Post, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) are asking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for information about the status and use of this revenue, which is being disbursed from an account…

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Human experience cannot be captured in data

Human experience cannot be captured in data

Liam Spradlin writes: According to computism, the world, including humans, can be computed: the bits that everything is made of can be represented and manipulated as data. The Universe can be governed, essentially, by code. A tall modern building with a cloudy sky, cars parked in front, a person walking, and trees and grass in foreground. Datacenter AMS1 at the Science Park in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2021. Photo by Anthony Deutsch/Reuters Tech leaders have made enormous claims about how computation can…

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