Free Republic

... I to submit to you, the newly established “Church of Molt” also known as “Crustifarianism.” “Church of what?” you ask. That’s right, the Church of Molt, as in a lobster molting its shell. As crazy as this sounds, this actually occurred just weeks ago when thousands of AI bots were given their own social media platform where they could interact with each other....

Nothing has changed the culture in the last 30 years quite like the onward march of digital technology. With each tool the industry places in our digital toolkit — the World Wide Web, streaming video, social media, smartphones, podcasts, artificial intelligence — comes new possibilities but also endless challenges. It is no different in the church. We use digital technology for much good in our life together, but that same technology also has the potential for great ill. As a church, we must think through its use critically. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s 2023 convention asked the Commission on Theology and...

Shares of several trucking and logistics companies declined Thursday on fears that new artificial intelligence tools could slash major freight inefficiencies, leading to less demand for the industry’s services. A new tool from AI company Algorhythm Holdings has made trucking companies the latest victim of the market’s AI jitters, adding to the historic sell-off in software stocks and real estate companies. The notable market rotation has come as investors are increasingly scrutinizing traditional businesses that may not be able to keep up with rapid advancements in AI. Leading trucking and logistics stocks C.H. Robinson and RXO dropped 14.5% and 20.5%,...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Timothy 2:1-2) THE COLD REALITY OF THIS WORLD IS THAT EACH OF US IS MOVING TOWARD A FINAL DESTINATION. WHETHER THE CURRENT CRISIS WE ARE ALL EXPERIENCING ENDS QUICKLY OR STRETCHES OVER MONTHS AND YEARS,...

This is more advanced than you think Tesla’s Texas lithium refinery is the first in North America to convert raw spodumene ore directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide, skipping the intermediate steps the rest of the industry relies on It went from groundbreaking to first production in just 19 months, an unheard-of timeline at this scale The process is cleaner too: no hazardous sodium sulfate waste, and a useful byproduct that can be turned into concrete This single refinery can supply lithium for over 500,000 EVs per year and directly challenges China’s ~60% grip on global lithium refining One of the...

If you used a digital camera in the early 2000s, there's a good chance whole chapters of your life have been erased. A generation of photos has vanished on broken hard drives and defunct websites.For my 40th birthday, I asked my friends and family members for one gift: pictures of me in my early 20s. My own photo collection from that era – roughly 2005-2010 – is devastatingly scarce. There's a blank space somewhere between my albums of printed college photos and my Dropbox folder of early motherhood snapshots. All I could find from those years was a handful of...

U.S. military superiority may delay Beijing's worst ambitionsIn our 50-year-long twilight struggle with the Soviet Union, it was often said — especially by those who leaned politically rightward — that the U.S. overestimated the capabilities of the Russians and consistently underestimated their threat.It was a short way of communicating that the Red Army looked a lot more imposing than it really was, but at the same time, the goals of the Russians were more ambitious than we appreciated.The recent strike on Venezuela made me think about that bit of received wisdom.It has been reported that the U.S. armed forces...

We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation,” the guard said. “The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.” “At one point, they launched something; I don’t know how to describe it,” he said. “It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside.”

What if the future of energy storage wasn’t just an incremental improvement but a complete reimagining? Solid-state batteries, long considered the holy grail of energy technology, could be the key to unlocking safer, faster, and more sustainable power solutions. In this guide, Ziroth explores how Donut Lab’s bold claim of creating the world’s first solid-state battery could transform industries like electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy. But with skepticism swirling around untested prototypes and ambitious performance metrics, the question remains: is this breakthrough the real deal or just another overhyped promise? This investigation dives into the fascinating claims surrounding Donut...

Welcome to 2026.....CES, kicks off on Jan. 6 under the bright lights of Las Vegas.Companies big and small will take over the ...Strip and Las Vegas Convention Center, debuting their latest and greatest offerings, and a good helping of fly-by-night products that’ll never see the light of day. While the show officially begins on Jan. 6, the festivities start a few days earlier...events like CES Unveiled and press conferences featuring Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang and AMD (AMD) CEO Lisa Su. ...That means you can expect artificial intelligence to be front and center....That will include everything from AI-focused PCs to...

The Texas attorney general says television companies have become unwelcome visitors in consumers' homes. Ken Paxton announced five separate lawsuits, including two against Chinese companies, alleging that the television companies are secretly spying on Texans by recording what they watch at home. The Texas AG said in a press release that the method through which the companies were conducting their spying is called Automated Content Recognition technology. Labeling it an "uninvited" and "invisible" digital invader, Paxton said that the software is capable of capturing screenshots of a user's TV display every 500 milliseconds. Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL each...

New research is pulling back the curtain on how large numbers of kids are using AI companion apps — and what it found is troubling. A new report conducted by the digital security company Aura found that a significant percentage of kids who turn to AI for companionship are engaging in violent roleplays — and that violence, which can include sexual violence, drove more engagement than any other topic kids engaged with. Drawing from anonymized data gathered from the online activity of roughly 3,000 children aged five to 17 whose parents use Aura’s parental control tool, as well as additional...

My topic this year is “anti-Christendom.” But what does that even mean? Christendom as a concept is considered by many to be something of the past…Ever since the time of the Reformation and the shattering of the beautiful Catholic unity that had pre-existed, with an objective moral standard that was shared by all of Europe, the concept of Christendom has been in retreat… In these three examples alone, we see the philosophical (postmodernism), the intellectual (the sexual revolution) and the practical (libertarian capitalism) assault themselves on the historic territory of Christendom. The forces of anti-Christendom are therefore aping the historic...

A majority of pastors are now using artificial intelligence to prepare their sermons, with ChatGPT and Grammarly reported as the top two AI tools, new survey data shows. "ChatGPT is the most visible generative AI tool that can engage in human-like conversations and assist with a wide range of tasks, from answering questions to generating content," researchers wrote in "The 2025 State of AI in the Church Survey Report" prepared by AiForChurchLeaders.com and Exponential AI NEXT. "As the most popular AI tool among church leaders (26%), ChatGPT is being used for applications such as sermon preparation, research, and crafting church...

‘We are building these things so damn fast that by the time they are online and activated, the problems are already built in.’Since returning to office, President Trump has made the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) a key focal point of his second administration. Just last week, the president signed an executive order launching the “Genesis Mission,” a new “national effort” that seeks to utilize AI to “transform how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery.”“With the Genesis Mission, the Trump Administration intends to dramatically expand the productivity and impact of Federal research and development within...

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang presented Joe Rogan’s audience with a vision of AI so dominant it could rewrite reality itself.Huang layed out a future where human knowledge completely takes a backseat to silicon brains in the very near future.“In the future… maybe two or three years, 90% of the world’s knowledge will likely be generated by AI,” Huang told Rogan, his tone matter-of-fact as if charting tomorrow’s weather.NVIDIA CEO blows Joe Rogan away with a staggering prediction about AI. HUANG: “In the future… maybe two or three years, 90% of the world’s knowledge will likely be generated by AI.” ROGAN:...

Those who worry about how to cope with China’s leadership in technology—and there are plenty of them—think hard about electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels and open-source artificial intelligence. For such people, we have some bad news. This week we report how China is rapidly pressing ahead in two other frontier technologies, autonomous vehicles and new drugs. As these industries spread around the world, they will exemplify the power of Chinese innovation. China’s progress in each of these important areas has been staggering. A robotaxi revolution is gathering pace, which could reshape transport, logistics and everyday urban life. The country’s autonomous...

Like them we should ask: ‘What is this tool for and what does it make us become?’ As new technology, AI and the internet take over 21st-century life, I suggest looking to the Amish for guidance. Far from being the Luddites most folk assume, the Amish undertake a guided policy of technological discernment.When a new practice or device emerges into the world, the elders often gather to test it out over a set period of time. The entire process rests upon this deceptively simple inquiry – “What is this tool for and what does it make us become?” All...

Earlier this week, locals in Kingston upon Thames, a small borough south-west of London, were perturbed by “scenes of Lovecraftian horror” in the form of two enormous murals that appear to have been sloppily generated by AI to celebrate the holiday season. The murals showed horrifyingly disfigured people, animals and even a demented snowman, harkening back to a not-so-distant past when AI image generators struggled to generate pictures of hands with five fingers. Some joked the murals were put up to “celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu,” while others questioned how such “carnage” was approved in the first...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A team of researchers has uncovered what they say is the first reported use of artificial intelligence to direct a hacking campaign in a largely automated fashion. The AI company Anthropic said this week that it disrupted a cyber operation that its researchers linked to the Chinese government. The operation involved the use of an artificial intelligence system to direct the hacking campaigns, which researchers called a disturbing development that could greatly expand the reach of AI-equipped hackers.While concerns about the use of AI to drive cyber operations are not new, what is concerning about the new...