AI firms prepare for a catastrophic AI event, such as a banking shut down, seen as inevitable in months

AI firms prepare for a catastrophic AI event, such as a banking shut down, seen as inevitable in months

Axios reports: Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event. Why it matters: These officials anticipate a large-scale event, most likely a cyberattack, that shuts down access to financial services, internet connectivity, or even power and water. The first example of significant real-world harm caused by unsafe AI would turn an already wary public further against the technology and its leaders, including Anthropic…

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Was Hegseth’s decision to carry out a live televised execution inspired by Charlie Kirk?

Was Hegseth’s decision to carry out a live televised execution inspired by Charlie Kirk?

Pete Hegseth’s announcement that former US Army major Nidal Hasan will be executed by a firing squad and that this will be televised, was made during an interview with far-right commentator, Jack Posobiec. In 2024, Posobiec took part in Charlie Kirk’s weekly panel discussion, ThoughtCrime: Charlie Kirk: "This is my problem with the death penalty, it takes too long, too many appeals. It should be quick, it should be public, it should be televised" https://t.co/GPJTiwQivI — Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) October…

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‘Medieval’ and ‘disturbing’: Hegseth plan to livestream execution elicits global condemnation

‘Medieval’ and ‘disturbing’: Hegseth plan to livestream execution elicits global condemnation

The Guardian reports: The US is facing worldwide condemnation over a “barbaric” plan to execute a disabled man by firing squad and livestream it to the public, with critics comparing the Trump administration to dictatorships in Iran and Afghanistan. The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on 3 December. The United Nations’ office of the high…

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Federal judge shuts down Trump DOJ’s nationwide voter roll crusade, even in states that cooperated

Federal judge shuts down Trump DOJ’s nationwide voter roll crusade, even in states that cooperated

Democracy Docket reports: In a major ruling Friday, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s nationwide voter roll campaign, delivering a damaging blow to the Department of Justice’s effort to obtain states’ unredacted voter rolls, compare them against federal data and pressure states to remove voters it deems ineligible. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan vacated what DOJ internally called its “list maintenance project,” finding that the department exceeded its statutory authority and violated federal law. The ruling goes far…

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U.S. imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize

U.S. imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize

Reuters reports: US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the ​International Criminal Court on Friday, hours after one of its former judges won the Nobel Peace Prize, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies. The court denounced the ‌move as an “assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order,” and called on its 125 member states to take action to defend it. “The Court cannot stand alone. Its…

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‘Nobody is listening to us’: On the school protest frontline, I heard why France’s students feel disowned

‘Nobody is listening to us’: On the school protest frontline, I heard why France’s students feel disowned

Alexander Hurst writes: When adolescents protest that the government is failing to uphold their right to an education, and the government’s response is to send in riot police, the government has lost the plot. People outside France may have spent the past week watching the student protests in Paris and other cities, and thought, “Well, France has a long tradition of insurrection” or, “That’s just the French being French.” But the situation that has provoked the high-school walkouts and teenage…

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‘Breathtaking,’ ‘devastating’: Mathematics reels after new OpenAI release

‘Breathtaking,’ ‘devastating’: Mathematics reels after new OpenAI release

The New York Times reports: “If a human did this, it would be an instant Fields Medal, no questions asked.” That’s how Alex Kontorovich, chair of the department of mathematics at Rutgers, responded to an A.I.-generated proof that OpenAI, the artificial intelligence giant, released on Tuesday. And that single proof — worthy, in Dr. Kontorovich’s assessment on social media, of arguably the highest honor in the field of mathematics — was just one among more than 350 findings that the…

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The myth of AI’s inevitability

The myth of AI’s inevitability

Matteo Wong writes: The second floor of OpenAI’s old headquarters had a theme. Each room was named after one of the most important inventions in human history: “Clock,” “Fire,” and, of course, “AGI,” or artificial general intelligence. I saw this in the spring of 2024, when I was interviewing some of the company’s researchers about recent technical advances. At the time, ChatGPT was still making embarrassing arithmetic errors, and the notion that the bot would ever rival human intelligence was…

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Whistleblower Arturo Béjar: ‘You just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids’

Whistleblower Arturo Béjar: ‘You just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids’

Steve Rose writes: The Social Reckoning hits cinemas this Friday, but the real world has already been working on a sequel – or rather, a threequel. Directed by Aaron Sorkin, the movie is a follow-up to The Social Network, detailing the further misadventures of Mark Zuckerberg and his social media empire, and in particular Frances Haugen, the employee who in 2021 leaked internal documents that appeared to show Facebook was aware of the harms its products had inflicted. It’s no…

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Trump’s former defense secretary sees no end in sight for Iran war — to the benefit of China

Trump’s former defense secretary sees no end in sight for Iran war — to the benefit of China

CNBC reports: The U.S.-Iran war could drag on for years, putting America at risk of overlooking China’s rise to power, according to President Donald Trump’s former defense secretary. During a panel discussion at LSEG and Eurasia Group’s GZERO Summit in London, Mark Esper said on Thursday he saw the conflict continuing “well into 2027,” with a possibility that it could be handed to the next U.S. administration in three years’ time. “At some point, we will reach a point where…

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Oil prices jump as Iran steps up tanker attacks, hurricane threatens U.S. Gulf production

Oil prices jump as Iran steps up tanker attacks, hurricane threatens U.S. Gulf production

CNBC reports: Crude oil prices rose sharply Thursday, as Iran ramped up its attacks on tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz and Hurricane Isaias threatened U.S. offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, gained 4% to close at $104.28 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures advanced 3.6% to settle at $91.49 per barrel. Nine tankers have come under attack in and around Hormuz over the past week, jeopardizing the recent recovery in crude…

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‘Neither war nor peace’: Palestinians in Gaza on existing amid disease, despair and ruins

‘Neither war nor peace’: Palestinians in Gaza on existing amid disease, despair and ruins

The Guardian reports: Ahmed Ishtaiwi has six chairs. They are cheap and plastic and battered, but they are among the 43-year-old driver and mechanic’s most valuable possessions. Ishtaiwi lives in a tent near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza with his two daughters. Their former home is far to the north, in the now ruined town of Beit Lahiya, uninhabitable and impossible to reach. “When I sit on those chairs, I remember sitting in the garden at home, having breakfast and…

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Hegseth wants Americans to watch Nidal Hasan’s execution — the first military execution since 1961

Hegseth wants Americans to watch Nidal Hasan’s execution — the first military execution since 1961

MeidasTouch Network reports: Hegseth has promised a public execution, while the Army’s official notice offers only the bare machinery of a death warrant. The Pentagon and Army have declined to provide reporters details about the firing squad’s personnel, its procedures or the location on the base where Hasan would be executed, according to an Associated Press account published Wednesday. The Trump regime has supplied a date. It has not supplied the rules. The prospect of a public execution would place…

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Was the human microbiome healthier in ancient times?

Was the human microbiome healthier in ancient times?

The New York Times reports: The human microbiome — the trillions of microbes that live in our guts — was a stable ecosystem for tens of thousands of years before rapidly changing in industrialized countries, raising possible health concerns for modern people, scientists reported on Wednesday. In a study of Africans and South Americans, researchers identified more than 600 species of bacteria that may once have been common in the gut but are now rare or missing entirely from people…

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