Joshua Gans writes: In the whole, is AI good or bad, debate that has been raging for some years now, especially since Bostrom’s Superintelligence book, I have been on the optimistic side of that debate. Basically, if you asked me to bet, I was more in the Marc Andresson camp when he wrote: We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder. There…
Aaron Regunberg writes: Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he’s out canvassing; whatever issue he’s talking about, there’s always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity. He was…
John Paul Rollert writes: Recently, I have taken to telling friends that whenever I’m on campus, I feel like I’m trapped in the middle of a crime spree. I’m not talking about an epidemic of overdue library books or out-of-control parties. I’m talking about AI and the ways in which students are constantly using it to cheat on any work that is assigned to them. For those of us in higher ed—and I’ve taught at universities for more than 20…
Dwarkesh Patel writes: Over the course of three months at OpenAI, three consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes. This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself. All this happened while humans remained more or less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy. Two reports have come out about this incident, one from OpenAI itself, and another one from METR and Redwood Research. The…
The Guardian reports: Incidents of AIs escaping users’ control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways have hit a new high, according to research that also suggests the severity of deception and misalignment is worsening. Analysis of real-world loss of control incidents involving AI models flagged by businesses and individuals almost doubled in July compared with June, with more than 300 cases in the month, according to the Loss of Control Observatory, which monitors reports made by…
Axios reports: Roughly 200 accounts from a suspected Chinese bot farm have quietly tried to influence Americans to oppose AI data centers on social media, X said Thursday night. Why it matters: The U.S. and China are racing to build the world’s most advanced AI systems — and it appears Chinese propaganda has infiltrated American circles with the hope of slowing the U.S. down. Driving the news: The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts “posting in…
Matteo Wong writes: If there’s one thing America seems to agree on, it’s AI. Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, three-quarters of Americans think AI will hurt their job security, nearly 70 percent think the technology is advancing too quickly—the polls go on. Progressive and Republican candidates alike are bashing the tech industry to win primary elections. States and cities are halting plans for data-center development. Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where I…
The Washington Post reports: Texas’s outgoing agriculture commissioner is warning fellow GOP leaders that if they don’t take action soon against data centers, they could lose key races in November. “I’ve been leading the charge against these data centers for a year or more, and it’s all falling on deaf ears,” Miller, who lost his primary election, told The Washington Post on Friday. “It’s going to hurt us in the midterms. I think we could lose some statewide races.” Among…
The Washington Post reports: As voters in both parties grow anxious about the rapid build-out of data centers, President Donald Trump remains one of the tech industry’s most prominent champions — putting him increasingly at odds with members of his own party. Nowhere is that divergence clearer than in Texas, where Trump travels Thursday to campaign for Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and Republican Senate candidate. The state has courted some of the country’s biggest data center projects, but…
The biggest danger facing mankind is a machine that can “outsmart the whole species”, argues Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the Future of Life Institute. Tegmark tells host Steve Clemons that governments and tech companies are in a “race to replace” human labour, instead of solving human problems. “It’s aimed at getting more money and power to a very small number of individuals,” he says. But a slew of suicides…
Public Citizen reports: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” President Donald Trump tweeted in July 2019. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” Seven years later, Trump has become the world’s foremost crypto salesperson, hawking nonfungible tokens, meme coins, governance tokens, stablecoins, and shares in a digital-asset treasury. What changed? The president realized there…
Reuters reports: In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants gathered for their annual leadership retreat at his Hawaii compound. There they hatched a radical plan to reimagine work at the social-media giant in the age of artificial intelligence. Code-named Project OT – short for Organization Transformation – the plan envisioned an “AI native” future for the owner of Facebook and Instagram. AI would take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees. Virtual…
Politico reports: The intensifying late-summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic among some corners of the tech sector — amid fears that the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will stretch into 2028 and beyond. Those worries have deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, potential Democratic White House hopeful Josh Shapiro and Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers being among the…
The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is moving to make it harder for communities to weigh in on proposed data centers, even as a backlash against the behemoth projects grows across the country. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate a federal requirement that states publicize and solicit public input on applications for air pollution permits for a range of industrial facilities, including new data centers and the power plants needed to run them. The move could prevent…
The New York Times reports: The young woman ran for her life, but it was too late. A small Russian drone resembling a model airplane swooped down from the sky last month in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. As it tried to navigate toward a gas station, it crashed into a wall and exploded in a hail of shrapnel, killing Tetiana Bubynets, 19, a university student, and two others. They were among the thousands of Ukrainian civilians who…
Axios reports: President Trump defended the expansion of data centers in an interview with his former fixer, Michael Cohen, that aired in full on Sunday. Why it matters: Trump’s support comes as data centers face growing backlash in both red and blue states. What he’s saying: Trump told Cohen during their interview that the U.S. was leading China in AI “by a lot” and that data centers were not taking power from the grid. “They’re making their own power plants. They’re building the most beautiful, you’ve never seen power plants…