Technology Archives - Attention to the Unseen

Ukraine’s technological advances could mark a change in the nature of warfare

From elsewhere — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:35:08 +0000

Anne Applebaum writes: In a field outside of Kyiv last weekend, a van was parked discreetly behind some trees. Inside the van there were no passenger seats, just a long desk, two office chairs, two laptops, extra screens. Outside appearances to the contrary, this was a mobile drone-interceptor base, one of hundreds of similar vehicles now scattered around Ukraine. It’s also part of something much bigger: a set of technological advances that have changed the war with Russia, and maybe...

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Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones expose weakness in Israeli defenses

From elsewhere — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:46:05 +0000

The New York Times reports: An explosive drone snaked between the hills of southern Lebanon before striking an Israeli armored personnel carrier. Two days later, another slammed into a tank. Three days after that, a third pounded into a missile-defense system. Each day, multiple drones attack Israeli forces, the Israeli military has said, and with lethal effect. In the past week alone, they have killed three soldiers. The relentless drone attacks by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, have exposed...

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AI Frankenstein: Anthropic urges global pause in AI development, flags ‘self-improvement’ risk

From elsewhere — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:14:59 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports: Anthropic is calling for top artificial intelligence labs to weigh slowing the pace of development, suggesting that AI systems are advancing so rapidly that they may soon be able to improve themselves without human intervention in ways that could pose significant societal risks. The ability to slow global AI development would “likely be a good thing,” the company said Thursday in a blog post that disclosed internal data documenting how quickly its most advanced models...

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The household battery revolution that could change energy bills … and the world

From elsewhere — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:21:55 +0000

The Guardian reports: The timing was rich with symbolism. As intense heatwaves pummelled Europe and Asia, and oil markets around the world leapt and sputtered, the two big chimneys of one of Australia’s largest power stations were being demolished. Meanwhile, the Australian energy minister was holding a media conference to hail a fall of up to 10% in the benchmark electricity price in parts of the country. Quietly, and with surprisingly little fanfare from the rest of the world, Australia...

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ICE may use massive troves of data collected by advertisers for surveilling everyone in America

From elsewhere — Sun, 31 May 2026 00:31:11 +0000

Politico reports: The trillion-dollar industry that amasses and shares troves of Americans’ information is confronting a new ethical quandary — the Trump administration’s interest in wielding this data to potentially further its sweeping immigration agenda. Immigration and Customs Enforcement published a request for information in January seeking input on how “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech providers can directly support investigations,” a request that came as the administration was pursuing efforts to expand the United States’ immigration enforcement capabilities. It...

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The AI boom is heading toward a massive financial crash

From elsewhere — Thu, 28 May 2026 23:00:56 +0000

Joachim Klement writes: I calculate that over the past four quarters, 93 per cent of US GDP growth was explained by tech investments. Even at the peak of the technology, media and telecom bubble [which burst in 2000], it barely reached 60 per cent. The developers of large language models such as OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing for blockbuster initial public offerings later this year to benefit from investor optimism about their growth. Meanwhile, the hyperscalers Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta...

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AI costs are hitting corporate America

From elsewhere — Thu, 28 May 2026 23:00:33 +0000

Axios reports: Corporate leaders are starting to question whether soaring AI spending is delivering meaningful returns. Why it matters: Companies that rushed to embrace AI are now confronting ballooning IT costs, uncertain productivity gains and growing employee skepticism. Driving the news: Microsoft canceled most of its Claude Code licenses, in part over costs, according to The Verge, and Uber’s COO said AI costs are getting “harder to justify.” An AI consultant tells Axios one of their clients recently spent half a billion dollars in a single...

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Neuroscience needs to stop treating the brain as if it is a computer

From elsewhere — Thu, 28 May 2026 00:03:07 +0000

Àlex Gómez-Marín writes: What is a brain? The question might seem obvious, but it is not trivial. Neuroscience has progressed in the past century, with the development of sophisticated techniques to measure and manipulate brain cells, neural circuits and even animal behaviours. Yet how the brain actually works still eludes us. In The Brain, In Theory, neuroscientist Romain Brette deconstructs the predominant model of the brain, which treats the organ like a computer. He concedes that engineering metaphors can be...

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Uber’s COO says it’s getting harder to justify the money spent on AI tokenmaxxing

From elsewhere — Wed, 27 May 2026 00:52:49 +0000

Business Insider reports: A top Uber exec said AI is not giving the company bang for its buck. In a Rapid Response interview released on Saturday, Uber’s operations chief, Andrew Macdonald, said it was becoming harder to justify AI costs within the company. He said that Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga went viral after telling The Information in an April interview that Uber had already blown through its Claude Code budget for 2026. The comment led to what he described...

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Pope Leo just schooled the tech bros on Tolkien

From elsewhere — Wed, 27 May 2026 00:52:27 +0000

Miles Klee writes: Nobody was surprised that Pope Leo XIV cited well-known saints and previous pontiffs in his first encyclical, or papal letter of spiritual guidance, “Magnifica humanitas,” released Monday. But the name that immediately jumped out to many readers is one synonymous with high fantasy literature: J.R.R. Tolkien, the Catholic author of The Lord of the Rings. Leo’s letter is concerned with “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” a major theme of his first year...

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