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AI News Articles

We worry AI will "eliminate jobs" and make millions redundant, rather than recognise that the real decisions are made by governments and corporations and the humans that run them.Kenan Malik


Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging technology with great promise and potential for abuse. Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on AI technology from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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‘Aims’: the software for hire that can control 30,000 fake online profiles
2023-02-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/15/aims-software-avatars-team-jorg...

Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims, which controls more than 30,000 fake social media profiles, can be used to spread disinformation at scale and at speed. It is sold by “Team Jorge”, a unit of disinformation operatives based in Israel. Tal Hanan, who runs the covert group using the pseudonym “Jorge”, told undercover reporters that they sold access to their software to unnamed intelligence agencies, political parties and corporate clients. Team Jorge’s Aims software ... is much more than a bot-controlling programme. Each avatar ... is given a multifaceted digital backstory. Aims enables the creation of accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. Some even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb accounts. Hanan told the undercover reporters his avatars mimicked human behaviour and their posts were powered by artificial intelligence. [Our reporters] were able to identify a much wider network of 2,000 Aims-linked bots on Facebook and Twitter. We then traced their activity across the internet, identifying their involvement ... in about 20 countries including the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Panama, Senegal, Mexico, Morocco, India, the United Arab Emirates, Zimbabwe, Belarus and Ecuador. The analysis revealed a vast array of bot activity, with Aims’ fake social media profiles getting involved in a dispute in California over nuclear power; a #MeToo controversy in Canada ... and an election in Senegal.

Note: The FBI has provided police departments with fake social media profiles to use in law enforcement investigations. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


Meet The Spy Tech Companies Helping Landlords Evict People
2023-01-04, Vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-the-spy-tech-companies-helping-landlords...

Some renters may savor the convenience of “smart home” technologies like keyless entry and internet-connected doorbell cameras. But tech companies are increasingly selling these solutions to landlords for a more nefarious purpose: spying on tenants in order to evict them or raise their rent. Teman, a tech company that makes surveillance systems for apartment buildings ... proposes a solution to a frustration for many New York City landlords, who have tenants living in older apartments that are protected by a myriad of rent control and stabilization laws. The company’s email suggests a workaround: “3 Simple Steps to Re-Regulate a Unit.” First, use one of Teman’s automated products to catch a tenant breaking a law or violating their lease, such as by having unapproved subletters or loud parties. Then, “vacate” them and merge their former apartment with one next door or above or below, creating a “new” unit that’s not eligible for rent protections. “Combine a $950/mo studio and $1400/mo one-bedroom into a $4200/mo DEREGULATED two-bedroom,” the email enticed. Teman’s surveillance systems can even “help you identify which units are most-likely open to moving out (or being evicted!).” Two affordable New York City developments made headlines when tenants successfully organized to stop their respective owners’ plans to install facial recognition systems: Atlantic Towers in Brooklyn and Knickerbocker Village in the Lower East Side.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


AI In Space And Its Future Use In Warfare
2022-12-21, Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlesbeames/2022/12/21/ai-in-space-and-its-fut...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has graduated from the hype stage of the last decade and its use cases are now well documented. Whichever nation best adapts this technology to its military – especially in space – will open new frontiers in innovation and determine the winners and losers. The US Army has anticipated this impending AI disruption and has moved quickly to stand up efforts like Project Linchpin to construct the infrastructure and environment necessary to proliferate AI technology across its intelligence, cyber, and electronic warfare communities. However, it should come as no surprise that China anticipated this advantage sooner than the US and is at the forefront of adoption. Chinese dominance in AI is imminent. The Chinese government has made enormous investments in this area (much more than Western countries) and is the current leader in AI publications and research patents globally. Meanwhile, China's ambitions in space are no longer a secret – the country is now on a trajectory to surpass the US in the next decade. The speed, range, and flexibility afforded by AI and machine learning gives those on orbit who wield it an unprecedented competitive edge. The advantage of AI in space warfare, for both on-orbit and in-ground systems, is that AI algorithms continuously learn and adapt as they operate, and the algorithms themselves can be upgraded as often as needed, to address or escalate a conflict. Like electronic warfare countermeasures during the Cold War, AI is truly the next frontier.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and war from reliable major media sources.


The New Thought Police
2009-01-01, PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nsa-police.html

The National Security Agency (NSA) is developing a tool that George Orwell's Thought Police might have found useful: an artificial intelligence system designed to gain insight into what people are thinking. The device will be able to respond almost instantaneously to complex questions posed by intelligence analysts. As more and more data is collectedthrough phone calls, credit card receipts, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, GPS tracks, cell phone geolocation, Internet searches, Amazon book purchases, even E-Z Pass toll records - it may one day be possible to know not just where people are and what they are doing, but what and how they think. The system is so potentially intrusive that at least one researcher has quit, citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability. Known as Aquaint, which stands for "Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence," the project was run for many years by John Prange, an NSA scientist at the Advanced Research and Development Activity. A supersmart search engine, capable of answering complex questions ... would be very useful for the public. But that same capability in the hands of an agency like the NSA - absolutely secret, often above the law, resistant to oversight, and with access to petabytes of private information about Americans - could be a privacy and civil liberties nightmare. "We must not forget that the ultimate goal is to transfer research results into operational use," said ... Prange.

Note: Watch a highly revealing PBS Nova documentary providing virtual proof that the NSA could have stopped 9/11 but chose not to. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Palantir Gets Millions of Dollars From New York City's Public Hospitals
2026-02-15, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/15/palantir-contract-new-york-city-health-ho...

New York City's public hospital system is paying millions to Palantir, the controversial ICE and military contractor. Since 2023, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation has paid Palantir nearly $4 million to improve its ability to track down payment for the services provided at its hospitals and medical clinics. Palantir, a data analysis firm that's now a Wall Street giant thanks to its lucrative work with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, deploys its software to make more efficient the billing of Medicaid and other public benefits. That includes automated scanning of patient health notes to “increase charges captured from missed opportunities,” contract materials reviewed by The Intercept show. It's Palantir's work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that is drawing the most protest today. The company provides a variety of services to help the federal government find and deport immigrants. ICE's Palantir-furnished case management software, for example, “plays a critical role in supporting the daily operations of ICE, ensuring critical mission success,” according to federal contracting documents. Palantir's contract with New York's public health care system allows the company to work with patients' protected health information, or PHI. With permission from New York City Health and Hospitals, Palantir can “de-identify PHI and utilize de-identified PHI for purposes other than research,” the contract states.

Note: Listen to an audio clip of Jeffrey Epstein promoting Palantir to Ehud Barak. Read how Palantir helped the NSA spy on the entire planet. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.


Concern over Google ending ban on AI weapons
2025-02-05, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy081nqx2zjo

Alphabet has rewritten its guidelines on how it will use AI, dropping a section which previously ruled out applications that were "likely to cause harm". Human Rights Watch has criticised the decision, telling the BBC that AI can "complicate accountability" for battlefield decisions that "may have life or death consequences." Experts say AI could be widely deployed on the battlefield - though there are fears about its use too, particularly with regard to autonomous weapons systems. "For a global industry leader to abandon red lines it set for itself signals a concerning shift, at a time when we need responsible leadership in AI more than ever," said Anna Bacciarelli, senior AI researcher at Human Rights Watch. The "unilateral" decision showed also showed "why voluntary principles are not an adequate substitute for regulation and binding law" she added. In January, MP's argued that the conflict in Ukraine had shown the technology "offers serious military advantage on the battlefield." As AI becomes more widespread and sophisticated it would "change the way defence works, from the back office to the frontline," Emma Lewell-Buck MP ... wrote. Concern is greatest over the potential for AI-powered weapons capable of taking lethal action autonomously, with campaigners arguing controls are urgently needed. The Doomsday Clock - which symbolises how near humanity is to destruction - cited that concern in its latest assessment of the dangers mankind faces.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and Big Tech.


‘I’m afraid I can’t do that’: Should killer robots be allowed to disobey orders?
2024-08-06, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/im-afraid-i-cant-do-that-should-killer-robots...

It is often said that autonomous weapons could help minimize the needless horrors of war. Their vision algorithms could be better than humans at distinguishing a schoolhouse from a weapons depot. Some ethicists have long argued that robots could even be hardwired to follow the laws of war with mathematical consistency. And yet for machines to translate these virtues into the effective protection of civilians in war zones, they must also possess a key ability: They need to be able to say no. Human control sits at the heart of governments’ pitch for responsible military AI. Giving machines the power to refuse orders would cut against that principle. Meanwhile, the same shortcomings that hinder AI’s capacity to faithfully execute a human’s orders could cause them to err when rejecting an order. Militaries will therefore need to either demonstrate that it’s possible to build ethical, responsible autonomous weapons that don’t say no, or show that they can engineer a safe and reliable right-to-refuse that’s compatible with the principle of always keeping a human “in the loop.” If they can’t do one or the other ... their promises of ethical and yet controllable killer robots should be treated with caution. The killer robots that countries are likely to use will only ever be as ethical as their imperfect human commanders. They would only promise a cleaner mode of warfare if those using them seek to hold themselves to a higher standard.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and military corruption.


Texas AG wins $1.4B settlement from Facebook parent Meta over facial-capture charges
2024-07-30, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/texas-ag-wins-1point4-billion-...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has won a $1.4 billion settlement from Facebook parent Meta over charges that it captured users' facial and biometric data without properly informing them it was doing so. Paxton said that starting in 2011, Meta, then known as Facebook, rolled out a “tag” feature that involved software that learned how to recognize and sort faces in photos. In doing so, it automatically turned on the feature without explaining how it worked, Paxton said — something that violated a 2009 state statute governing the use of biometric data, as well as running afoul of the state's deceptive trade practices act. "Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted," he said in a statement. As part of the settlement, Meta did not admit to wrongdoing. Facebook discontinued how it had previously used face-recognition technology in 2021, in the process deleting the face-scan data of more than one billion users. The settlement amount, which Paxton said is the largest ever obtained by a single state against a business, will be paid out over five years. “This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights," Paxton said.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


‘You feel like you’re in prison’: workers claim Amazon’s surveillance violates labor law
2024-05-21, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/21/amazon-surveillance-l...

Amazon has been accused of using “intrusive algorithms” as part of a sweeping surveillance program to monitor and deter union organizing activities. Workers at a warehouse run by the technology giant on the outskirts of St Louis, Missouri, are today filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). A copy of the charge ... alleges that Amazon has “maintained intrusive algorithms and other workplace controls and surveillance which interfere with Section 7 rights of employees to engage in protected concerted activity”. There have been several reports of Amazon surveilling workers over union organizing and activism, including human resources monitoring employee message boards, software to track union threats and job listings for intelligence analysts to monitor “labor organizing threats”. Artificial intelligence can be used by warehouse employers like Amazon “to essentially have 24/7 unregulated and algorithmically processed and recorded video, and often audio data of what their workers are doing all the time”, said Seema N Patel ... at Stanford Law School. “It enables employers to control, record, monitor and use that data to discipline hundreds of thousands of workers in a way that no human manager or group of managers could even do.” The National Labor Relations Board issued a memo in 2022 announcing its intent to protect workers from AI-enabled monitoring of labor organizing activities.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Deep underground, robotic teamwork saves the day
2023-07-20, Knowable Magazine
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/technology/2023/deep-underground...

When a Manhattan parking garage collapsed in April this year, rescuers were reluctant to stay in the damaged building, fearing further danger. So they used a combination of flying drones and a doglike walking robot to inspect the damage, look for survivors and make sure the site was safe for human rescuers to return. Soon, rescuers may be able to call on a much more sophisticated robotic search-and-rescue response. Researchers are developing teams of flying, walking and rolling robots that can cooperate to explore areas that no one robot could navigate on its own. And they are giving robots the ability to communicate with one another and make many of their own decisions independent of their human controller. Such teams of robots could be useful in other challenging environments like caves or mines where it can be difficult for rescuers to find and reach survivors. In cities, collapsed buildings and underground sites such as subways or utility tunnels often have hazardous areas where human rescuers can’t be sure of the dangers. As robots become better, teams of them may one day be able to go into a hazardous disaster site, locate survivors and report back to their human operators with a minimum of supervision. “More work ... needs to be done,” [roboticist Viktor] Orekhov says. “But at the same time, we’ve seen the ability of the teams advanced so rapidly that even now, with their current capabilities, they’re able to make a significant difference in real-life environments.”

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Palantir CEO Says Legalizing War Crimes Would Be Good for Business
2025-12-05, Futurism
https://futurism.com/future-society/palantir-ceo-war-crimes

The AI surveillance platform provider Palantir is no stranger to controversy. It brings in billions each year from controversial partnerships with groups like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Israeli Defense Forces, something CEO Alex Karp isn’t keen on changing anytime soon. In an interview ... this week, Karp even took it a step further, arguing that legalizing US war crimes would open up a whole new market for Palantir. Unlike other moguls profiting off the military industrial complex who hide behind concepts like “democracy” and “national security,” the Palantir CEO isn’t afraid to put his mouth where his money is with disarmingly bombastic language. In a letter to shareholders earlier this year, for instance, Karp quoted hawkish political scholar Samuel Huntington in arguing that the “rise of the West was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion… but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.'” While this could be seen as a damning indictment of Western civilization and its violent stranglehold over the world economy, Karp instead positions it as a source of inspiration. In another part of his interview ... the Palantir CEO reaffirmed his commitment to ICE, emphasizing the important role he plays in making immigrants lives worse. “I’m going to use my whole influence to make sure this country stays skeptical on migration and has a deterrent capacity that it only uses selectively,” Karp said.

Note: Listen to an audio clip of Jeffrey Epstein promoting Palantir to Ehud Barak. Read how Palantir helped the NSA spy on the entire planet. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.


Intimate Advertising, the Next Frontier in AI Manipulation
2025-11-25, Jacobin
https://jacobin.com/2025/11/intimate-advertising-ai-manipulation-data

OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT will soon allow erotic and sexually explicit interactions for adult users. Erotic features aren’t just another product update; they deepen emotional dependency and encourage people to treat AI companions as partners rather than tools. This shift opens the door to what I call “intimate advertising” — a powerful new form of manipulation in which tech companies shape human desire and manipulate users for profit. AI has continual access to our anxieties, frustrations, desires, and secrets. It can understand how our minds work and detect when we are most vulnerable — and, therefore, most persuadable. What is particularly troubling is that this new form of advertising will come from entities that many will consider friends and life advisors. AI companion apps have been downloaded over 220 million times worldwide and are used regularly by over half of US teens. With intimate advertising, personal companionship becomes inseparable from businesses’ persuasion techniques. A system designed to comfort you can easily be repurposed to sell to you. The deeper AI companions embed themselves in our emotional lives, the more vital it becomes to draw a clear line between care and commerce. Before Big Tech turns intimacy into its most profitable advertising channel yet, we must press regulators to enforce the idea there are limits on how far we are willing to let AI into our private lives.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and the disappearance of privacy.


Assassinations? Defamation? How genetic technology could destabilize the world
2025-06-18, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/assassinations-defamation-how-genetic-technol...

The forensic scientist Claire Glynn estimated that more than 40 million people have sent in their DNA and personal data for direct-to-consumer genetic testing, mostly to map their ancestry and find relatives. Since 2020, at least two genetic genealogy firms have been hacked and at least one had its genomic data leaked. Yet when discussing future risks of genetic technology, the security policy community has largely focused on spectacular scenarios of genetically tailored bioweapons or artificial intelligence (AI) engineered superbugs. A more imminent weaponization concern is more straightforward: the risk that nefarious actors use the genetic techniques ... to frame, defame, or even assassinate targets. A Russian parliamentary report from 2023 claimed that “by using foreign biological facilities, the United States can collect and study pathogens that can infect a specific genotype of humans.” Designer bioweapons, if ever successfully developed, produced, and tested, would indeed pose a major threat. Unscrupulous actors with access to DNA synthesis infrastructure could ... frame someone for a crime such as murder, for example, by using DNA that synthetically reproduces the DNA regions used in forensic crime analysis. The research and policy communities must dedicate resources not simply to dystopian, low-probability threats like AI designed bioweapons, but also to gray zone genomics and smaller-scale, but higher probability, scenarios for misuse.

Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in biotech.


How Palantir Is Expanding the Surveillance State
2025-06-02, Reason
https://reason.com/2025/06/02/palantir-paves-way-for-trump-police-state/

Palantir has long been connected to government surveillance. It was founded in part with CIA money, it has served as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor since 2011, and it's been used for everything from local law enforcement to COVID-19 efforts. But the prominence of Palantir tools in federal agencies seems to be growing under President Trump. "The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon," reports The New York Times, noting that this figure "does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent." Palantir technology has largely been used by the military, the intelligence agencies, the immigration enforcers, and the police. But its uses could be expanding. Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies—the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. Along with the Trump administration's efforts to share more data across federal agencies, this signals that Palantir's huge data analysis capabilities could wind up being wielded against all Americans. Right now, the Trump administration is using Palantir tools for immigration enforcement, but those tools could easily be applied to other ... targets.

Note: Read about Palantir's recent, first-ever AI warfare conference. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and intelligence agency corruption.


OpenAI ex-chief scientist planned for a doomsday bunker for the day when machines become smarter than man
2025-05-20, AOL News
https://www.aol.com/openai-ex-chief-scientist-planned-115047191.html

If there is one thing that Ilya Sutskever knows, it is the opportunities—and risks—that stem from the advent of artificial intelligence. An AI safety researcher and one of the top minds in the field, he served for years as the chief scientist of OpenAI. There he had the explicit goal of creating deep learning neural networks so advanced they would one day be able to think and reason just as well as, if not better than, any human. Artificial general intelligence, or simply AGI, is the official term for that goal. According to excerpts published by The Atlantic ... part of those plans included a doomsday shelter for OpenAI researchers. “We’re definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI,” Sutskever told his team in 2023. Sutskever reasoned his fellow scientists would require protection at that point, since the technology was too powerful for it not to become an object of intense desire for governments globally. “Of course, it’s going to be optional whether you want to get into the bunker,” he assured fellow OpenAI scientists. Sutskever knows better than most what the awesome capabilities of AI are. He was part of an elite trio behind the 2012 creation of AlexNet, often dubbed by experts as the Big Bang of AI. Recruited by Elon Musk personally to join OpenAI three years later, he would go on to lead its efforts to develop AGI. But the launch of its ChatGPT bot accidentally derailed his plans by unleashing a funding gold rush the safety-minded Sutskever could no longer control.

Note: Watch a conversation on the big picture of emerging technology with Collective Evolution founder Joe Martino and WTK team members Amber Yang and Mark Bailey. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI.


Weird robot dogs for future wars and more are showing up with guns, rocket launchers, and even flamethrowers
2024-12-27, Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-us-and-other-top-militaries-rob...

Militaries, law enforcement, and more around the world are increasingly turning to robot dogs — which, if we're being honest, look like something straight out of a science-fiction nightmare — for a variety of missions ranging from security patrol to combat. Robot dogs first really came on the scene in the early 2000s with Boston Dynamics' "BigDog" design. They have been used in both military and security activities. In November, for instance, it was reported that robot dogs had been added to President-elect Donald Trump's security detail and were on patrol at his home in Mar-a-Lago. Some of the remote-controlled canines are equipped with sensor systems, while others have been equipped with rifles and other weapons. One Ohio company made one with a flamethrower. Some of these designs not only look eerily similar to real dogs but also act like them, which can be unsettling. In the Ukraine war, robot dogs have seen use on the battlefield, the first known combat deployment of these machines. Built by British company Robot Alliance, the systems aren't autonomous, instead being operated by remote control. They are capable of doing many of the things other drones in Ukraine have done, including reconnaissance and attacking unsuspecting troops. The dogs have also been useful for scouting out the insides of buildings and trenches, particularly smaller areas where operators have trouble flying an aerial drone.

Note: Learn more about the troubling partnership between Big Tech and the military. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.


Inside the shady world of health insurers — and the 1.2 seconds it takes them to deny claims
2024-12-06, The Telegraph (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/12/06/inside-the-shady-world-of-heal...

When Megan Rothbauer suffered a heart attack at work in Wisconsin, she was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. The nearest hospital was “not in network”, which left Ms Rothbauer with a $52,531.92 bill for her care. Had the ambulance driven a further three blocks to Meriter Hospital in Madison, the bill would have been a more modest $1,500. The incident laid bare the expensive complexity of the American healthcare system with patients finding that they are uncovered, despite paying hefty premiums, because of their policy’s small print. In many cases the grounds for refusal hinge on whether the insurer accepts that the treatment is necessary and that decision is increasingly being made by artificial intelligence rather than a physician. It is leading to coverage being denied on an industrial scale. Much of the work is outsourced, with the biggest operator being EviCore, which ... uses AI to review — and in many cases turn down — doctors’ requests for prior authorisation, guaranteeing to pay for treatment. The controversy over coverage denials was brought into sharp focus by the gunning down of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. The [words written on the] casings [of] the ammunition — “deny”, “defend” and “depose” — are thought to refer to the tactics the insurance industry is accused of using to avoid paying out. UnitedHealthcare rejected one in three claims last year, about twice the industry average.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and corporate corruption.


The AI Machine Gun of the Future Is Already Here
2024-11-11, Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/us-military-robot-drone-guns/

At the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) event in August, the US Defense Department tested an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robotic gun system developed by fledgling defense contractor Allen Control Systems dubbed the “Bullfrog.” Consisting of a 7.62-mm M240 machine gun mounted on a specially designed rotating turret outfitted with an electro-optical sensor, proprietary AI, and computer vision software, the Bullfrog was designed to deliver small arms fire on drone targets with far more precision than the average US service member can achieve with a standard-issue weapon. Footage of the Bullfrog in action published by ACS shows the truck-mounted system locking onto small drones and knocking them out of the sky with just a few shots. Should the Pentagon adopt the system, it would represent the first publicly known lethal autonomous weapon in the US military’s arsenal. In accordance with the Pentagon’s current policy governing lethal autonomous weapons, the Bullfrog is designed to keep a human “in the loop” in order to avoid a potential “unauthorized engagement." In other words, the gun points at and follows targets, but does not fire until commanded to by a human operator. However, ACS officials claim that the system can operate totally autonomously should the US military require it to in the future, with sentry guns taking the entire kill chain out of the hands of service members.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI from reliable major media sources.


A new military-industrial complex: How tech bros are hyping AI’s role in war
2024-10-07, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
https://thebulletin.org/2024/10/a-new-military-industrial-complex-how-tech-br...

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities. Despite their influence on the conversation, these tech industry figures have little to no operational experience, meaning they cannot draw from first-hand accounts of combat to further justify arguments that AI is changing the character, if not nature, of war. Rather, they capitalize on their impressive business successes to influence a new model of capability development through opinion pieces in high-profile journals, public addresses at acclaimed security conferences, and presentations at top-tier universities. Three related considerations have combined to shape the hype surrounding military AI. First [is] the emergence of a new military industrial complex that is dependent on commercial service providers. Second, this new defense acquisition process is the cause and effect of a narrative suggesting a global AI arms race, which has encouraged scholars to discount the normative implications of AI-enabled warfare. Finally, while analysts assume that soldiers will trust AI, which is integral to human-machine teaming that facilitates AI-enabled warfare, trust is not guaranteed. Senior officers do not trust AI-enhanced capabilities. To the extent they do demonstrate increased levels of trust in machines, their trust is moderated by how machines are used.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and military corruption.


AI ‘Surveillance Pricing’ Could Use Data to Make People Pay More
2024-09-03, Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-surveillance-pricing-practices-...

Big tech companies have spent vast sums of money honing algorithms that gather their users’ data and scour it for patterns. One result has been a boom in precision-targeted online advertisements. Another is a practice some experts call “algorithmic personalized pricing,” which uses artificial intelligence to tailor prices to individual consumers. The Federal Trade Commission uses a more Orwellian term for this: “surveillance pricing.” In July the FTC sent information-seeking orders to eight companies that “have publicly touted their use of AI and machine learning to engage in data-driven targeting,” says the agency’s chief technologist Stephanie Nguyen. Consumer surveillance extends beyond online shopping. “Companies are investing in infrastructure to monitor customers in real time in brick-and-mortar stores,” [Nguyen] says. Some price tags, for example, have become digitized, designed to be updated automatically in response to factors such as expiration dates and customer demand. Retail giant Walmart—which is not being probed by the FTC—says its new digital price tags can be remotely updated within minutes. When personalized pricing is applied to home mortgages, lower-income people tend to pay more—and algorithms can sometimes make things even worse by hiking up interest rates based on an inadvertently discriminatory automated estimate of a borrower’s risk rating.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


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