Free Republic

The Invisible LeashOpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s io Products isn’t just the largest deal in the company’s history—it’s the ritual completion of what I warned about in “Node Without Consent.” Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone, iPad, and Apple’s most iconic products, is now building something far more insidious. If “Node Without Consent” revealed the architecture of biodigital control, this moment represents its activation—where the theoretical framework snaps shut and the dream of human agency must now be fought for at the level of metaphysics itself.The philosophical sleight-of-hand is breathtaking. Ive frames their goal as building “a...

Valve seems to have made a silent change to its Steam client on Linux. The Beta version of the app enables Proton by default for games. The Proton compatibility layer, based on Wine, was released nearly 7 years ago, and is used by millions of gamers. But there are still many people who don't know that Windows games can be played on Linux. The change to make Proton enabled by default, was spotted by GamingOnLinux. For those unaware, you had to enable Proton in Steam manually by opening the Settings > Compatibility > and toggle an option that says "Enable...

Polymarket @Polymarket · 2h BREAKING: It’s a bad week to be an Iranian nuclear technician. 59% chance their underground Fordow nuclear facility is destroyed. https://x.com/alx/status/1935366805507424649

A pro-life marketing agency has tapped into artificial intelligence to quickly bring answers and counsel to pregnant women considering abortion. Choose Life Marketing has announced that its new AI chatbot for pregnancy centers is called Olive, a name inspired by the peace and hope symbolized in olive branches throughout the Bible. According to the agency, Olive is the only pro-life AI advocate to exist and is always available in order to extend “calm and guidance to abortion-minded women searching for answers.” “Designed specifically for Pregnancy Help Centers, Olive doesn’t follow a cold script; she listens, responds with warmth, and engages...

צבא ההגנה לישראל @idfonline ״נפלה, התפוצצה, המטרה הופלה״: במהלך הלילה - חיל האוויר יירט כ-30 כטב״מים ששוגרו לעבר מדינת ישראל Israel Defense Forces @idfonline "Fall, explode, target downed": Overnight - the Air Force intercepted about 30 drones launched towards the State of Israel 0:08 VIDEO AT LINK................

If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here? The “dead internet theory” has an explanation: AI and bot-generated content has surpassed the human-generated internet. But where did this idea come from, and does it have any basis in reality? What is the dead internet theory? The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet,...

"We're done with Teams!" declared Digitalisation Minister Dirk Schrödter, speaking via an open-source video platform, in his announcement that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein will phase out all Microsoft software from government workplaces. The goal is to fully transition from Microsoft programs to Linux and open-source programs within the next three months. Also: Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and LinuxThe decision will affect nearly every civil servant, police officer, and judge, about 30,000 employees. Eventually, the rest of the civil service employees, primarily school teachers, will make the open-source shift. The radical change is being...

The Department of Defense (DoD) has repeatedly voiced intention to maintain “appropriate human levels of judgment” over autonomous and AI-enabled weapon systems, but those who study frontier AI technologies have identified many challenges to aligning AI with human intentions. While questions of AI alignment occasionally smack of science fiction, frontier AI developers grapple with these challenges for product optimization and safety. Two challenges relevant to military AI applications have emerged recently: sycophancy and emergent misalignment . In the technical sense, sycophancy is the tendency of AI models to offer responses that are pleasing to their users at the expense of...

IRANIAN STATE TV STUDIO HIT BY ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE LIVE ON AIR

A massive outage has been reported in the Los Angeles area on Father's Day after internet and cable provider Spectrum linked the issue to "criminal acts of vandalism." "We are currently working on a Fiber cut affecting the Los Angeles area. We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. Thank you," the company shared in an alert on X. A spokesperson for the company told Fox News Digital that they discovered that lines had been cut due to vandalism in Van Nuys on Sunday morning, which also impacted other areas. "Early this morning our fiber optic lines were intentionally...

Everything that connects to the internet can be hacked by malware. This includes your phones (both Android and iPhones) and laptops (whether Windows, Mac or even lesser-known systems like Linux). Devices like your Wi-Fi router and security cameras aren’t safe either. But who would have thought hackers are now targeting your smart TVs, streaming boxes, projectors and tablets, too? That’s right, the FBI warns that bad actors have hijacked over a million of these devices with malware, turning them into unwitting participants in a global cybercrime network. The FBI is warning that more than a million smart TVs, streaming boxes,...

A political comeback bid by disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner and a grudge match pitting Republican rivals in southern Brooklyn highlight the 51 City Council races heading into the June 24 primary. The scandal-scarred Weiner is taking a stab at re-entering public life after being sentenced to 21 months in jail in 2017 for sexting with a minor, and he has his eyes set on replacing term-limited lefty Carlina Rivera in Manhattan’s District 2 that includes the East Village and the Lower East Side. The 60-year-old former congressman — who was a frontrunner in the 2013 mayoral race before ultimately finishing...

If it’s out there, could we observe it soon?Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Some physicists believe that a fifth fundamental force could be the cause of some observational anomalies. A study is investigating ways to closely examine the trajectories of well-documented asteroids to hopefully detect anomalies that could provide evidence of such a force. Although the study shows no fifth force anomaly present in the asteroid Bennu, future explorations of the asteroid Apophis could provide an even better chance to find this elusive force—if it exists at all. According to the current Standard Model, four fundamental...

Exclusive Meta has made lavish and lucrative offers to a select set of AI researchers in an effort to develop superintelligent AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself has taken to emailing job offers to elite talent. One AI researcher told us Zuckerberg offered them an eight-figure compensation package – at least $10,000,000 a year. "I got an email from Mark personally," our source said. "And he said, 'I have an offer for you.' Wow, and the offer was crazy." The researcher, who may or may not accept the offer, asked not to be identified. The offer did not specify exactly what...

A survey from AI biz Qodo finds robo-coding productivity gains are unevenly distributedExclusive Software developers largely appreciate the productivity improvements they get from AI coding tools, but they don't entirely trust their output, according to a survey conducted by AI coding biz Qodo. As a result, some potential productivity gains get lost to manual reviews deemed necessary to check the AI's work. Qodo offers "an agentic code quality platform for reviewing, testing, and writing code," so it has an opinion on such matters. For its report titled "The State of AI Code Quality 2025" – provided in advance to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the nation’s capital cleans up from the culmination of World Pride this past weekend, focus now shifts to a very different massive event — Saturday’s military parade to honor the 250th birthday of the Army and the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump. “We’re preparing for an enormous turnout,” said Matt McCool of the Secret Service’s Washington Field office, who said more than 18 miles of “anti-scale fencing” would be erected and “multiple drones” would be in the air. The entire District of Columbia is normally a no-fly zone for drones. Army officials have estimated around...

In a nutshell Scientists connected 10 ultra-precise atomic clocks across six countries in the largest coordinated timekeeping experiment ever conducted While many clocks agreed to extraordinary precision, the study revealed concerning discrepancies that highlight challenges in global clock synchronization This research is a crucial step toward redefining the international second using optical clocks by 2030, potentially revolutionizing global timekeeping ****************************************************************** EUROPE — Every clock in your house probably tells a slightly different time. Now picture those clocks as the most precise instruments humanity has ever built, so accurate that they wouldn’t lose or gain a second for billions of years....

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A 20-year-old Blanchard man is facing up to 45 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to plotting a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS and downloading child pornography, while living a double life, his family was seemingly unaware of. Federal court documents unsealed this week, obtained by News 4, reveal disturbing details about the allegations against 20-year-old Landon Swinford, who admitted to federal authorities that he wanted to carry out an attack at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in 2023. According to the FBI’s newly-released affidavit, when Swinford wasn’t busy telling...

"Do not betray the public servants who gave decades of their lives to this country," she wrote in the petition.

Former ABC News veteran correspondent Terry Moran has launched his independent journalism career. The 65-year-old journalist resurfaced his Substack account and vowed he would get back to the “important work,” he said Wednesday, a day after he was booted from the Disney-owned network. Moran was dismissed Tuesday for violating the company’s policies with a viral social media attack against top White House official Stephen Miller. “For almost 28 years, I was a reporter and anchor for ABC News, as you may have heard, I am not there anymore. I’m here with you, on Substack,” Moran said in a video posted...