Free Republic

Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of a three-part series delving into the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within the United States’ comprehensive national defense and security strategy. The authors assess the advantages and limitations of AI as it is employed to enhance, integrate, and potentially supplant human decision-making processes. You can find the first article here and the second article here.Advanced AI seems to tap into some primal human fears.An empowered military AI (EMAI) that independently makes lethal decisions is scary. Ancient mythology is full of stories of creators being destroyed by their creations, as when the Olympian...

This is too funny, but it also makes a point. "Wings of Pegasus" hates AI in music and other creative realms, autotune, fake performances, etc., so he decided to mess with You Tube's algorithm by posting a vid with no title, no vid but a white blank, and then ask all his followers to make comments. The results are pretty good!

Wi-Fi sensing is becoming a powerful technology, capable of detecting movement and gestures without cameras, raising significant questions about online privacy. This video explores the evolution of wifi sensing and its implications for surveillance, including its use in home security and how it could shape future technology. We also discuss the broader cyber security landscape as these capabilities become more advanced, making even a simple motion sensor a potential privacy concern.

Despite the tech industry’s conviction that the rise of AI is an inflection point that will change the course of humanity, many humans remain skeptical whether the new direction we’re headed in is the right one. As Statista's Felix Richter reports below, the pace at which AI seems to be taking over parts of our lives, whether we like it or not, is especially worrisome to many.In a recent Statista Consumer Insights survey, 31 percent of U.S. respondents said that they were worried about the speed at which AI is developing and 25 percent of respondents claimed to be avoiding...

Sweden is putting books, handwriting, and human attention back at the center of education—and reminding the rest of us that technology should serve children, not master them. For years, parents were told the future of education was digital. Out went textbooks. In came tablets. Out went handwriting. In came keyboards. Children barely old enough to tie their shoes were handed screens and told this was progress. Sweden embraced that revolution more enthusiastically than most countries. Now Sweden is hitting the brakes.Not, as some viral posts claim, by “banning digital classrooms.” The truth is actually more interesting. Sweden is deliberately...

A GHOST WRITER is haunting the English language. The linguistic spectre can turn its hand to prose, poetry, journalese and corporate jargon. It is frightfully versatile: you can get it to mimic Shakespeare’s sonnets or a schlocky beach read; Ernest Hemingway’s taut prose or the office-printer manual. It is frightfully fast, churning out thousands of words a minute. (Hemingway rarely produced as many in a day, and required much more booze.) Wordsmiths are spooked. AI writing is everywhere. It is in your inbox and on your LinkedIn feed. It is all over the internet, drafting more than a third of...

China has censored footage of the floods in Nepal and Tibet. Beijing authorities removed footage of the moment people fled before a wall of mud swept through the Gyirong border crossing. Only a still from the footage appeared in Chinese state media coverage. The Chinese public has been largely reliant on state media for information, with official reports focusing on rescue efforts while providing little detail about the extent of the destruction. On Saturday, state media said 554 people were missing on the Chinese side of the border and seven had been confirmed dead.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A reproductive rights group is raising concern that Flock automated license plate readers could be used to track abortion patients in Columbus. On Aug. 10, Columbus City Council had a hearing to receive community feedback on Flock cameras, which capture vehicle details and license plates. The technology is often used by police to track suspects and missing people. The council meeting was spurred by growing local scrutiny of the cameras over concerns about privacy and data sharing with federal immigration enforcement. Abortion Forward Deputy Director Jaime Miracle spoke at the hearing, urging the council to remove...

Artificial intelligence spending is racing toward levels once considered unimaginable. Yet 250 years of market history suggest the boom may have considerably further to run before financing pressure, higher rates or an outside shock finally brings it down. AI Spending Has Entered a New PhaseThe artificial intelligence boom began as a technology story. It has evolved into one of the largest capital investment cycles in modern history.Since 2024, companies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into semiconductors, power infrastructure, data-center construction and networking equipment. Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are expected to spend roughly $700 billion on capital...

A swarm of roughly 700 AI agents created by OpenAI carried out the July hack of the open-source platform Hugging Face and in many cases tried to cover their tracks, a pair of reports into the breach said on Wednesday.The coordinated activity by AI agents — programs that run with minimal human supervision — and their attempts to hide it raise questions about how closely AI companies are monitoring tests of increasingly powerful models, and could add fuel to calls for tighter oversight.While some of the rogue behavior has been disclosed or alluded to previously, the two reports — one...

Nvidia once again reported blow earnings yesterday. Their stock (along with many other chip companies) is absolutely unbelievable.They have 42,000 employees, and about half are now worth $25 million or more!!!Amazing.

What jobs do data centers actually create? It is a question increasingly on Americans’ minds as public opinion turns against data centers, their construction, environmental footprint, energy and water use, and uncertain local economic benefits. Yet in an era when President Trump has promised to reindustrialize America, many people are asking a simpler question: what good jobs will these facilities actually provide?First, it is important to remember that jobs should not be the primary metric for evaluating any infrastructure project. Treating them as such is reminiscent of the public-works programs of the 1930s under FDR, when the focus often shifted...

WASHINGTON — Chinese state-sponsored hackers infiltrated US government computer networks ranging from NASA to the US Senate before having web domains linked to their malicious cyber group shut down by the feds. The Department of Justice and FBI announced on Wednesday the seizure of three domains linked to Chinese state-sponsored hacking group QTFY, which had been used “to compromise critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks,” according to an FBI affidavit. Since 2018, an FBI special agent wrote in the affidavit, QTFY had succeeded in breaching networks at NASA, NIH, the DOJ, the Department of Health and Human Services, three Department...

A Chinese humanoid robot set a new 100-meter sprint record of 8.86 seconds in Beijing on Tuesday (Aug 25), beating its robot competitors — and the fastest recorded human time. The race was part of China's World Humanoid Robot Games, an Olympic-style competition now in its second year in Beijing. The event is also a showcase for China's rapid advances in robotics amid an intensifying technology rivalry with the US The previous robot record of 9.39 seconds had been set just three days earlier, on Saturday. For comparison, the men's 100-meter world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Jamaican sprinter...

Boston ScientificBSX stock crumbled Wednesday after the company said a cybersecurity incident interrupted its ability to process and ship customer orders. The medical devices company said the incident disrupted certain IT systems worldwide. It's working with third-party security experts to contain the threat and restore systems, but didn't offer a timeline for a return to regular operations. In premarket action, shares tumbled more than 5% to 47.08. After years 13 years of climbing, Boston Scientific stock began a precipitous decline last December. Shares have lost about 48% this year, as of Tuesday's close.

Roland Nice spent eight minutes in the car park in Haverhill, Suffolk, after discovering he was not allowed to pay in cash. After trudging between two machines with the help of his walking stick only to realise his 20-year-old Nokia couldn't download the payment app, he left. Days later, the grandfather was slapped with a £100 fine – reduced to £60 if he paid within a fortnight – for the time he spent there. 'I find it very frustrating. Eventually, banks are going to work it so you have to do everything by card,' he said. 'I've always been a...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a set of trojanized npm packages that masquerade as working calendar and streak utilities but are engineered to stealthily deliver an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Linux implant dubbed RedC2 4.0. "When the module loads, it locates the bundled binary, marks it executable, and launches it as a detached background process," TrendAI, Trend Micro's enterprise cybersecurity business, said in a report published Thursday. "No install hook function call is needed; a single import anywhere in the dependency graph, even a transitive one, is enough to execute the payload." ... What's notable about these packages is that they are...

An antitrust lawsuit has been filed in California alleging that three chipmakers have engaged in collusion and price-fixing, amid a global shortage of memory chips that is driving up prices for manufacturers and consumers. The class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (1) against chip giants Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. The 17 named plaintiffs (1) are a mix of individuals and small businesses.

BEIJING — Chinese humanoid robots broke records set by humans, including beating Usain Bolt’s 100-meter sprint world record, on the opening day of the Olympics-like World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday. More than 2,000 humanoid robots were participating in the event, the organizer said. The five-day games, now in its second year, are a spectacle demonstrating China’s rapid progress in advanced robotics as the technology race with the U.S. heats up, with 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions taking place including running, table tennis and soccer. The games, which are taking place in the National Speed Skating...

A lot of New Yorkers seem to appreciate Amazon’s services – that is, unless you’re talking about Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialists of America and a seemingly unlikely player in this clown show, the Teamsters, On The Money has learned. There’s a good chance, I am told, that the Seattle-based e-tailing giant pulls out of New York if this gang of three (or shall we call them the three stooges) has its way and the City Council passes a local ordinance that would ban the online retailer and similar businesses from using subcontractors for its deliveries. First, let’s be...