Free Republic

Tech billionaire Bill Gates warned that artificial intelligence had the potential to kill a billion people in the wrong hands — as he joined the call to put safety restrictions on the technology. The Microsoft co-founder called for greater government oversight on AI during a talk with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, where he suggested AI could be abused and lead to humanity’s near extinction. “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,” he warned. “So even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100% [of humanity], there’s never been a weapon as powerful...

President Trump announced he was creating a new “AI Force” and designating a new AI “czar” Saturday to keep the industry from engaging in bad practices – after doubling down that fears of AI superintelligence are just another “hoax.” Trump compared a brewing panic over AI to a series of other events he has branded hoaxes. “Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country,” he posted on Truth Social. “RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports,...

Undersecretary Emil Michael and CEO Dario Amodei went back and forth for months over safety guardrailsz Anthropic overcame its latest spat with the Trump administration Tuesday, but new court documents released in one of its lawsuits against the Pentagon shed light on the underlying tensions between the government and one of America’s hottest AI companies.The documents show in detail the uneasy back-and-forth between Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei and Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The pair are at the center of a landmark fight over appropriate guardrails for the Pentagon’s use of artificial intelligence.The...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he was directing every federal agency to immediately cease all use of Anthropic's technology, adding there would be a six-month phase out for agencies such as the Defense Department who use the company's products. "I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Most people have never heard of Mrinank Sharma. That is part of the problem.Earlier this month, Sharma resigned from Anthropic, one of the most influential artificial intelligence companies in the world.He had led its Safeguards Research Team, the group responsible for ensuring that Anthropic’s AI could not be used to help engineer a biological weapon.His final project was a study of how AI systems distort the way people perceive reality. It was serious, consequential work for humankind.His resignation letter was seen more than 14 million times on X.It opened with the words, “the world is in peril.”And it ended with...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon on Tuesday morning for what senior Defense officials made clear was anything but a courtesy call. The meeting represents a breaking point between the U.S. military and the AI company behind Claude — the only artificial intelligence model currently operating inside the military’s classified systems — over whether a private technology company gets to set the rules for how its tools are used in war. The core dispute is over what conditions Anthropic will place on military use of Claude. The company has sought formal assurances that its...

One week ago, 23-year-old Nick Shirley was relatively unknown in the public sphere. But in recent days, he has gained hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views, amplified by Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel. The MAGA leaders promoted Shirley’s video of himself and a Minnesota activist investigating federally funded facilities in the state that allegedly posed as daycares without any children present. It’s part of what many on the right say is widespread government assistance fraud perpetuated by the Somali community there. Shirley’s experience could only happen in today’s media and political...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said President Donald Trump was ignoring the “guardrails” of the presidency by pardoning supporters convicted of political corruption and white-collar crime. Christie said, “I think his view of this is that the biggest mistake he made in the first term was not to go further, was to have any type of guardrails placed upon him by either the people he puts around him or by recognition of the law and norms and customs for the position of the presidency. And so you see it in a whole bunch of different...

Highway guardrails may be no match for heavy electric vehicles (EVs), preliminary test results released Thursday suggest, raising concerns about the nation’s roadside safety system. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Midwest Roadside Safety Facility ran a crash test examination using a nearly four-ton 2022 Rivian R1T. When the pickup truck crashed through a metal guardrail and barely slowed down before hitting a concrete barrier, it reportedly came as little surprise to the researchers.

Richard Stengel, new ‘team lead‘ for Joe Biden’s agency for global media, wrote an op-ed last year arguing for free speech restrictions. Stengel, a former MSNBC political analyst until he was named to Biden’s transition team, argued that the First Amendment needed redefining and that “hate speech” should be a crime. “All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails,” he wrote. “I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.” ‘Speech that incites hate’ was defined in Stengel’s op-ed by two examples – Burning the Quran,...