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Category: Technology

How Silicon Valley became part of the military-industrial complex

How Silicon Valley became part of the military-industrial complex

The New York Times reports: As the war in the Middle East enters its third week, intelligence gathered by the Pentagon is being analyzed by technology from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, on a system run by the data analytics firm Palantir. Drones created by defense tech start-up in Arizona have emerged as a key piece of the U.S. war arsenal. And anti-drone systems made by a California start-up have been deployed to protect U.S. forces in the region. Silicon…

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The founder of Anthropic claims he wants to protect humanity from AI. Just don’t ask how

The founder of Anthropic claims he wants to protect humanity from AI. Just don’t ask how

Joe Hagan writes: It’s a cold night in January and I’ve got trouble on my mind. I call up Tobey. “Tobey, how’s it going?” “Hi, Joe, just chilling. What’s up?” We’d just spent a disorienting week in San Francisco, asking tech workers what the future holds and how Tobey and I fit into it. “We definitely had an adventure,” Tobey recalls. “Especially with that delayed flight. But we made it. Still feeling the weight of it all? Those conversations were…

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Iran’s conventional navy is largely gone. The threat to the Strait of Hormuz is not

Iran’s conventional navy is largely gone. The threat to the Strait of Hormuz is not

RFE/RL reports: The United States and Israel have largely destroyed Iran’s conventional naval fleet in a massive bombing campaign since February 28. But Tehran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping routes, has not diminished. Iran has effectively closed the narrow waterway, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow, by using asymmetric warfare tactics. Besides Iran’s conventional navy, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country’s…

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How ‘Handala’ became the face of Iran’s hacker counterattacks

How ‘Handala’ became the face of Iran’s hacker counterattacks

Wired reports: Since the United States and Israel first unleashed a broad campaign of air strikes across Iran in late February, the cybersecurity industry has warned that the country’s retaliatory measures would include punishing, disruptive cyberattacks against Western targets. Late Tuesday night, the first of those attacks arrived in the US: a devastating breach of the medical technology firm Stryker that has reportedly disabled as many as tens of thousands of computers and paralyzed much of the company’s global operations—all…

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Iran’s cheap, plentiful weaponry puts U.S. military under unprecedented strain

Iran’s cheap, plentiful weaponry puts U.S. military under unprecedented strain

Bloomberg reports: When the first cruise missiles began detonating inside Iran, the strikes had all the hallmarks of previous successful US military campaigns — unstoppable, overwhelming force delivered without warning. But as the conflict extends toward a third week, the US war effort is showing unexpected signs of strain against an adversary whose military budget is smaller than the GDP of Vermont — but which has an arsenal of missiles and drones unlike anything the US has ever faced. US…

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AI auto-complete may subtly shape views on social issues

AI auto-complete may subtly shape views on social issues

Science News reports: Using AI to auto-complete written communications may be tempting. But the large language models may also auto-complete thoughts, researchers report March 11 in Science Advances. Few people realize that generative AI chatbots are pushing them to think a certain way, says information scientist Mor Naaman of Cornell University. “It’s the subtlest of manipulations.” Such manipulation may not matter much when letting AI agents such as ChatGPT and Claude auto-complete a banal email. But when people use an…

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Drone strikes targeting Amazon datacenters raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower

Drone strikes targeting Amazon datacenters raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower

The Guardian reports: It is believed to be a first: the deliberate targeting of a commercial datacentre by the armed forces of a country at war. At 4.30am on Sunday morning, an Iranian Shahed 136 drone struck an Amazon Web Services datacentre in the United Arab Emirates, setting off a devastating fire and forcing a shutdown of the power supply. Further damage was inflicted as attempts were made to suppress the flames with water. Soon after, a second data centre…

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Trump’s former AI adviser sees the targeting of Anthropic as part of a much larger political breakdown

Trump’s former AI adviser sees the targeting of Anthropic as part of a much larger political breakdown

Matteo Wong writes: Dean Ball helped devise much of the Trump administration’s AI policy. Now he cannot believe what the Department of Defense has done to one of its major technology partners, the AI firm Anthropic. After weeks of negotiations, the Pentagon was unable to force Anthropic to accede to terms that, in Anthropic’s telling, could involve using AI for autonomous weapons and the mass surveillance of Americans, as my colleague Ross Andersen reported over the weekend. So the government…

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AI executive Dario Amodei on the red lines Anthropic would not cross

AI executive Dario Amodei on the red lines Anthropic would not cross

  CBS News reports: “It’s about the principle of standing up for what’s right,” said Dario Amodei, CEO of the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, who has found himself at the center of a new kind of firestorm. What’s wrong, in his view, is why the AI company he co-founded has been banned from the federal government. “It feels very punitive and inappropriate, given the amount that we’ve done for U.S. national security,” he said. Anthropic created Claude, an AI chatbot…

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Israel’s arms sales are surging. So why are its weapons expos smaller than ever?

Israel’s arms sales are surging. So why are its weapons expos smaller than ever?

Sahar Vardi writes: Walking around the exhibition [Defense Tech Expo in Tel Aviv], one could easily notice far fewer attendees and official delegations from foreign states, and generally much less English spoken. The overwhelming majority of attendees were Israelis — from companies hoping to sell their latest wares, or to scout out the competition from other companies — but not the foreign state procurement delegations that were once the core of these exhibitions. So how does this square with the…

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Hegseth’s ‘incoherent’ Anthropic ultimatum confounds AI policymakers

Hegseth’s ‘incoherent’ Anthropic ultimatum confounds AI policymakers

Politico reports: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ultimatum to the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is sparking shock and confusion among lawyers and AI policymakers, who accuse the Pentagon of making contradictory threats as it pressures the company to lift restrictions on the use of its powerful AI model. Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Tuesday to deliver a warning — give the military unfettered access to its Claude AI model by Friday evening or else have the government label…

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Your car’s tire sensors could be used to track you

Your car’s tire sensors could be used to track you

TechXplore reports: Researchers at IMDEA Networks Institute, together with European partners, have found that tire pressure sensors in modern cars can unintentionally expose drivers to tracking. Over a ten-week study, they collected signals from more than 20,000 vehicles, revealing a hidden privacy risk and highlighting the need for stronger security measures in future vehicle sensor systems. Most modern cars are equipped with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), mandatory since the late 2000s in many countries for their contribution to…

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A New York congressional candidate feared by the tech oligarchs

A New York congressional candidate feared by the tech oligarchs

Michelle Goldberg writes: If I were a voter in New York’s 12th Congressional District, a recent attack ad against the candidate Alex Bores might make me think twice about considering him. Bores, a 35-year-old member of the New York Assembly, is a reliably progressive candidate in the coming Democratic primary to succeed the liberal stalwart Jerry Nadler, who is retiring. But the spot, paid for by a political action committee called Think Big, points out something seemingly sinister in Bores’s…

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Massive investment in AI has contributed nothing to economic growth last year, Goldman Sachs has calculated

Massive investment in AI has contributed nothing to economic growth last year, Goldman Sachs has calculated

The Washington Post reports: A new economic indicator has captivated Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington. Technology companies’ massive spending on artificial intelligence accounted for half or more of U.S. growth last year, some economists calculated, effectively propping up an otherwise anemic economy. To President Donald Trump and his advisers, the figures showed that AI is helping spark an economic renaissance that must not be impeded by regulation. To some critics, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), the data revealed…

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Musk’s xAI and Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems

Musk’s xAI and Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems

Axios reports: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has signed an agreement to allow the military to use its model, Grok, in classified systems, a Defense official confirmed to Axios. Why it matters: Up to now, Anthropic’s Claude has been the only model available in the systems on which the military’s most sensitive intelligence work, weapons development and battlefield operations take place. But the Pentagon is threatening Anthropic in a dispute over safeguards and may soon need a replacement. Anthropic has refused the Pentagon’s demand that they…

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How AI agents could destroy the economy

How AI agents could destroy the economy

Bloomberg reports: Delivery, payments, and software stocks slid sharply Monday after Citrini Research published a report laying out the potential risks that artificial intelligence could pose to various segments of the global economy. DoorDash Inc., American Express Co., KKR & Co Inc. and Blackstone Inc all slumped more than 8%. Shares of other companies name-checked in the article, including Uber Technologies Inc., Mastercard Inc., Visa Inc., Capital One Financial Corp. and Apollo Global Management Inc. were all lower by at…

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