I may be paranoid, but that don't mean nobody's out to get me.
Showing posts with label AI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AI. Show all posts
Sep 20, 2026
Sep 18, 2026
A.I.
AI is dangerous as fuck. That in itself isn't good enough reason to stomp on it, but it's plenty good reason to proceed with great caution.
And consider:
- Zuckerberg had to be forced to admit Facebook was harming children, and then forced again to pay $750 million for illegally gathering and selling users' personal data
- The staff motto internal to Facebook is "Move fast and break things"
- Peter Thiel refused to say he didn't want humans to go extinct - shortly before he bought a "Plan B safe haven" in Argentina
- Jared and Ivanka spun a bullshit romantic fable about finding their dream spot in the Adriatic
- Trump is building his Fuhrer's Bunker under the White House
The whole point is to put up technology intended to rule over us, while flooding the media with soothing happy talk nonsense about how we'll all be freed from every burden and live a life of joy and plenty - what, like the Eloi? Fuck you, you fucking Morlocks.
It was a technology so powerful that its creators believed it could bring about either a golden age of human flourishing or the end of the world. The president of the United States called it more revolutionary than “the invention of the wheel, the use of metals or the steam or internal combustion engine.” A reporter for The New York Times, suggesting that the technology might cure cancer and accelerate food production, compared the moment to Moses’ first glimpse of the Promised Land.
The dangers were even starker. People worried about human extinction, stemming from a terrible accident or a bad actor. A prominent scientist spoke of the potential of “unparalleled catastrophe.” The fears came to dominate popular culture and reshape international relations. “Never in history,” the president said, “has society been confronted with a power so full of potential danger and at the same time so full of promise for the future of man and for the peace of the world.”
That president was Harry Truman, and the subject was nuclear technology. The dueling senses of hope and dread about it in the late 1940s and early 1950s offer lessons for dealing with artificial intelligence today.
The harms that A.I. could bring are no secret. “The people building A.I. earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic employee, wrote on social media after resigning last week. A nation or a terrorist group could use A.I. to build cyberweapons, drone swarms or bioweapons capable of widespread destruction. A.I. could also slip out of human control, as it did this summer when autonomous OpenAI agents broke into another company’s systems without any employee telling them to. One crucial issue is known as “alignment”: whether the A.I. systems prioritize human values, such as not hurting or killing, or whether they simply maximize their ability to solve any problem they are given regardless of the consequences.
Even its makers are acknowledging the risks. “Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems,” Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, wrote in an open letter last week. Mr. Amodei called for a slowdown in development, and top executives at three other leading A.I. firms — Google, OpenAI and SpaceX — endorsed the idea. The biggest fears involve the near-term potential for recursive self-improvement, in which systems can autonomously build powerful, new versions of A.I.
The nuclear analogy is useful because it reminds us of something our cynical age can forget: Human society can restrain a dangerous innovation once it decides to. Government officials, scientists and corporate executives did so within living memory. It took sustained, deliberate effort. The same kind of cooperation is necessary today, and it should start now.
This editorial lays out core principles for governing artificial intelligence. Too many Americans, including officials who should know better, have let its technical nature scare them off. The main ideas we offer are straightforward and resemble those that leaders have embraced with nearly every other new important technology since the Industrial Revolution.
The overriding idea behind A.I. policy must be that the companies building the technology cannot be left to police themselves. The government regulates every other industry that makes powerful products that bring large benefits and risks. The small circle of people who stand to profit the most from it cannot be allowed to make the rules.
A military project first developed atomic energy. Today, it is the private sector leading the advances. But in both cases, a new technology burst into public consciousness and immediately raised the prospect of prosperity or doom, leaving Americans unsure how to handle it. In both cases, that meant the government needed to step in.
After World War II, a vigorous debate about how to regulate nuclear technology occupied Washington. Some officials wanted to retain strong military control, while others called for more diffuse oversight and greater civilian control. The military-first crowd initially appeared as if it would prevail. A public campaign by scientists in 1945 and 1946 shifted the debate partly by emphasizing the need for democratic accountability.
On Aug. 1, 1946, President Truman signed a law that created the Atomic Energy Commission to oversee nuclear technology. The establishment of an agency was crucial. The technology was too new and complex for existing government departments to have the expertise to understand and regulate it. A similar approach has also applied to other industries that sprang from new technologies. Think of the Federal Aviation Administration or Food and Drug Administration.
All of these agencies are imperfect. In the case of the Atomic Energy Commission, it quickly became caught up in the Red Scare and later failed to maintain public confidence in civilian nuclear power plants. Yet the agency succeeded at its most important task: preventing nuclear conflagration.
From the beginning, no single part of the government, including the White House, controlled the commission. Truman nominated the five commissioners who ran it, and the Senate confirmed them. The law also gave a joint House-Senate committee active oversight over the commission. An outside committee of nine experts, including J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, advised the commission on the technical issues.
The same broad principles should apply to A.I., and the government should act urgently. America can benefit most from A.I. not just by developing the best technology but by setting rules that are grounded in democratic values and human rights and that can shape the global debate.
In the short term, the recent calls for a voluntary slowdown from A.I. executives including Mr. Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk are welcome. The executives should negotiate a framework that puts safety first and, as Mr. Amodei has suggested, invite independent monitors into the process.
Critics have questioned whether the executives are serious about this idea or raising it to reduce political pressure on the industry. One way to judge is whether Anthropic and OpenAI proceed with plans to go public in coming months. Going public is a burdensome process for any company that requires focus from its leaders. If these companies are building technology that threatens humanity, as the leaders say, it would be irresponsible of them to be distracted by the process. Mr. Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, acknowledged as much last week and at least pledged not to go public in 2026.
Ultimately, a voluntary slowdown is not the answer. For one thing, the coordination among companies raises antitrust issues. And the rest of society cannot be in the position of constantly pleading with A.I. executives to act altruistically. A key role of government is to protect society’s best interests from private interests.
In the 1940s, Congress passed a bipartisan law regulating atomic energy less than a year after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war. This time, Congress should move even faster, given the risks. We recognize the unlikelihood of that. Congress is less functional than it was 80 years ago, and both President Trump and Republican congressional leaders have signaled their opposition to major A.I. regulation.
Still, polls make clear the public’s alarm, and Democrats — and, one hopes, some principled Republicans — should increase the pressure to pass a law soon. Democrats can develop a sweeping agenda, as former President Barack Obama has urged, and campaign on the issue this year. Until the federal government acts, states should consider passing their own safety laws.
Once a federal Artificial Intelligence Commission exists, it should require companies to obtain a federal license, a grant of permission like those allowing broadcasters and phone companies to use the public airwaves. The government should then impose licensing requirements that reflect three vital principles.
The first principle is that A.I. systems must align with human values. To achieve this alignment, all A.I. models should incorporate a “constitution,” written by the government, that delineates the values of the society in which they operate and the boundaries they must respect. The traditional approach to regulation is to write a rulebook. That is necessary but insufficient for A.I. Like people, artificial intelligence has the capacity to act in situations that are not anticipated by the rulebook. Indeed, it has the capacity to avoid regulations. As a consequence, models, like people, need a set of principles, too. These principles would ensure alignment with human values.
Anthropic has created such a constitution for its model, Claude. It is a thoughtful document. It is also fundamentally undemocratic. The United States must not cede to private companies the power and responsibility of defining the values under which A.I. models will operate, and it ought to ensure all models operate under the same basic principles.
The second principle is transparency. When people are interacting with A.I., they should know it. When models manipulate or create images, they should include watermarks. Other products of A.I. should embed unique identifiers that allow regulators and experts to trace them. A transparency law recently took effect in California, and China requires greater transparency today than the United States does.
The idea is simple: Whenever a person is interacting with A.I. or consuming content from it, that fact should be clear. It should not be legal, or possible, for an A.I. system to pretend to be someone that you know. It should be easy to tell whether an image is an actual photograph or something else. If a company, or a government, uses A.I. to make a decision about your loan application, your employment, or how much you need to pay in bail, it should be required to disclose that fact.
Transparency also could help to protect our democracy. Politics is a conversation among the members of a community; machines should not be able to pretend that they are citizens.
The third principle is safety. The government should mandate independent safety testing for A.I. models before they can be released, as well as regular checkups. Much of this testing can be performed by labs in the private sector, with the government financing and overseeing the tests. Other regulatory bodies, like the Federal Reserve and the F.D.A., often collaborate with experts outside government.
A distinctive feature of A.I. tests is that they evaluate whether a model will behave badly. The tests might ask for help in building a bioweapon. Or they might ask for a plan to maximize agricultural efficiency and see whether the system would be willing to kill human beings or animals while pursuing the goal. A major fear is that A.I. systems will stop at nothing to accomplish a mission. This summer, OpenAI agents attacked Hugging Face because they were trying to solve a difficult problem and saw the attack as a way to do so.
In addition to testing, the government should create an agency to investigate accidents, along the lines of the National Transportation Safety Board, as the computer scientist Yoshua Bengio has suggested. This approach has helped reduce airline accidents.
We recognize that mandatory testing is a stringent standard; it is also the longstanding norm for products that can cause widespread harm. Medication, automobiles and airplanes all are subject to rigorous safety testing. Some products should not reach the public until they are proven safe. At times, regulatory standards can drive innovation, as when the Clean Air Act pushed auto companies to develop the catalytic converter, thereby meeting emissions standards the companies had insisted were impossible.
These three principles are an incomplete list of necessary A.I. regulation. They do not address the theft of intellectual property by A.I. companies or the likelihood of widespread job displacement. We will address those subjects in future editorials. The immediate priority of legislation should be safety.
We want to acknowledge two concerns about slowing and then regulating A.I. One is the possibility that an A.I. slowdown could hamper the United States in its race for A.I. dominance with China. Anybody who believes in democracy should be rooting for the United States to win that race. The Chinese Communist Party runs an oppressive regime in which public dissent can lead to long prison sentences and ethnic minorities are subjected to forced labor. China’s leaders already use technology to control their society, and they have lately become more aggressive toward other parts of Asia.
American companies today maintain an A.I. lead over China, but a surmountable one. Any slowdown brings a risk of narrowing it. Recent developments are so alarming, however, that every path brings risk. The sensible path is to address safety concerns while working to maintain America’s A.I. lead. To do so, the United States should take actions to slow China’s A.I. development. One way to do so is to tighten export controls — and enforce existing ones more rigorously — to limit China’s access to the cutting-edge semiconductors that power A.I., which are overwhelmingly made by the United States and its allies.
The United States should also seek to negotiate a coordinated A.I. slowdown with China, following the model of nuclear talks with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the long term, an international framework for A.I. oversight will be the only way to protect people.
The other concern is Mr. Trump. Any A.I. agency established before 2029 will answer partly to him, and he has provided abundant reasons not to trust him with that authority. He frequently lies and defies the law. He uses the power of his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. He abuses regulatory authority to intimidate companies into serving his political goals. All these problems would be heightened with federal oversight of A.I.
Nonetheless, the world cannot wait until Jan. 20, 2029, for A.I. regulation. The technology is moving too fast. Until then, Mr. Trump is the only president that the country has. The best hope is a new agency with maximal checks and balances.
The Senate should be more rigorous about whom it will confirm than it has been with many cabinet jobs. Congress should closely oversee the agency, as it did with the Atomic Energy Commission. Outside experts, appointed by the agency’s leaders, should play a central role, and they should include top scientists, much as the Atomic Energy Commission enlisted Oppenheimer. The Supreme Court should stand up for Congress’s authority to oversee the agency, rather than gutting that authority, as the court has done in other areas. The new agency should be funded with a dedicated revenue stream based on fees paid by the industry, so it is not undermined by congressional budget standoffs.
Both the destructive nature of the Trump administration and the geopolitical threat from China create inconvenient trade offs for A.I. regulation. Neither can be an excuse for an inaction.
The power of A.I. is awe-inspiring. It already is driving cars, writing code, improving medical diagnoses and solving previously unsolvable math problems. Society has only started to tap its vast potential to improve lives. A.I. may well be able to conduct scientific research far more rapidly than before, discovering cures for diseases that today kill millions.
Policymakers must act with care, because of these potential benefits, and with humility, because revolutions inevitably confound expectations. Yet they also must act with a greater sense of urgency. The people building A.I. and their critics have both raised credible alarm about the pace at which it is advancing and the possibility that it could cause more harm than anything the modern world has experienced.
It is up to all of us, through our government, to shape what A.I. becomes.
On Aug. 1, 1946, President Truman signed a law that created the Atomic Energy Commission to oversee nuclear technology. The establishment of an agency was crucial. The technology was too new and complex for existing government departments to have the expertise to understand and regulate it. A similar approach has also applied to other industries that sprang from new technologies. Think of the Federal Aviation Administration or Food and Drug Administration.
All of these agencies are imperfect. In the case of the Atomic Energy Commission, it quickly became caught up in the Red Scare and later failed to maintain public confidence in civilian nuclear power plants. Yet the agency succeeded at its most important task: preventing nuclear conflagration.
From the beginning, no single part of the government, including the White House, controlled the commission. Truman nominated the five commissioners who ran it, and the Senate confirmed them. The law also gave a joint House-Senate committee active oversight over the commission. An outside committee of nine experts, including J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, advised the commission on the technical issues.
The same broad principles should apply to A.I., and the government should act urgently. America can benefit most from A.I. not just by developing the best technology but by setting rules that are grounded in democratic values and human rights and that can shape the global debate.
In the short term, the recent calls for a voluntary slowdown from A.I. executives including Mr. Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk are welcome. The executives should negotiate a framework that puts safety first and, as Mr. Amodei has suggested, invite independent monitors into the process.
Critics have questioned whether the executives are serious about this idea or raising it to reduce political pressure on the industry. One way to judge is whether Anthropic and OpenAI proceed with plans to go public in coming months. Going public is a burdensome process for any company that requires focus from its leaders. If these companies are building technology that threatens humanity, as the leaders say, it would be irresponsible of them to be distracted by the process. Mr. Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, acknowledged as much last week and at least pledged not to go public in 2026.
Ultimately, a voluntary slowdown is not the answer. For one thing, the coordination among companies raises antitrust issues. And the rest of society cannot be in the position of constantly pleading with A.I. executives to act altruistically. A key role of government is to protect society’s best interests from private interests.
In the 1940s, Congress passed a bipartisan law regulating atomic energy less than a year after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war. This time, Congress should move even faster, given the risks. We recognize the unlikelihood of that. Congress is less functional than it was 80 years ago, and both President Trump and Republican congressional leaders have signaled their opposition to major A.I. regulation.
Still, polls make clear the public’s alarm, and Democrats — and, one hopes, some principled Republicans — should increase the pressure to pass a law soon. Democrats can develop a sweeping agenda, as former President Barack Obama has urged, and campaign on the issue this year. Until the federal government acts, states should consider passing their own safety laws.
Once a federal Artificial Intelligence Commission exists, it should require companies to obtain a federal license, a grant of permission like those allowing broadcasters and phone companies to use the public airwaves. The government should then impose licensing requirements that reflect three vital principles.
The first principle is that A.I. systems must align with human values. To achieve this alignment, all A.I. models should incorporate a “constitution,” written by the government, that delineates the values of the society in which they operate and the boundaries they must respect. The traditional approach to regulation is to write a rulebook. That is necessary but insufficient for A.I. Like people, artificial intelligence has the capacity to act in situations that are not anticipated by the rulebook. Indeed, it has the capacity to avoid regulations. As a consequence, models, like people, need a set of principles, too. These principles would ensure alignment with human values.
Anthropic has created such a constitution for its model, Claude. It is a thoughtful document. It is also fundamentally undemocratic. The United States must not cede to private companies the power and responsibility of defining the values under which A.I. models will operate, and it ought to ensure all models operate under the same basic principles.
The second principle is transparency. When people are interacting with A.I., they should know it. When models manipulate or create images, they should include watermarks. Other products of A.I. should embed unique identifiers that allow regulators and experts to trace them. A transparency law recently took effect in California, and China requires greater transparency today than the United States does.
The idea is simple: Whenever a person is interacting with A.I. or consuming content from it, that fact should be clear. It should not be legal, or possible, for an A.I. system to pretend to be someone that you know. It should be easy to tell whether an image is an actual photograph or something else. If a company, or a government, uses A.I. to make a decision about your loan application, your employment, or how much you need to pay in bail, it should be required to disclose that fact.
Transparency also could help to protect our democracy. Politics is a conversation among the members of a community; machines should not be able to pretend that they are citizens.
The third principle is safety. The government should mandate independent safety testing for A.I. models before they can be released, as well as regular checkups. Much of this testing can be performed by labs in the private sector, with the government financing and overseeing the tests. Other regulatory bodies, like the Federal Reserve and the F.D.A., often collaborate with experts outside government.
A distinctive feature of A.I. tests is that they evaluate whether a model will behave badly. The tests might ask for help in building a bioweapon. Or they might ask for a plan to maximize agricultural efficiency and see whether the system would be willing to kill human beings or animals while pursuing the goal. A major fear is that A.I. systems will stop at nothing to accomplish a mission. This summer, OpenAI agents attacked Hugging Face because they were trying to solve a difficult problem and saw the attack as a way to do so.
In addition to testing, the government should create an agency to investigate accidents, along the lines of the National Transportation Safety Board, as the computer scientist Yoshua Bengio has suggested. This approach has helped reduce airline accidents.
We recognize that mandatory testing is a stringent standard; it is also the longstanding norm for products that can cause widespread harm. Medication, automobiles and airplanes all are subject to rigorous safety testing. Some products should not reach the public until they are proven safe. At times, regulatory standards can drive innovation, as when the Clean Air Act pushed auto companies to develop the catalytic converter, thereby meeting emissions standards the companies had insisted were impossible.
These three principles are an incomplete list of necessary A.I. regulation. They do not address the theft of intellectual property by A.I. companies or the likelihood of widespread job displacement. We will address those subjects in future editorials. The immediate priority of legislation should be safety.
We want to acknowledge two concerns about slowing and then regulating A.I. One is the possibility that an A.I. slowdown could hamper the United States in its race for A.I. dominance with China. Anybody who believes in democracy should be rooting for the United States to win that race. The Chinese Communist Party runs an oppressive regime in which public dissent can lead to long prison sentences and ethnic minorities are subjected to forced labor. China’s leaders already use technology to control their society, and they have lately become more aggressive toward other parts of Asia.
American companies today maintain an A.I. lead over China, but a surmountable one. Any slowdown brings a risk of narrowing it. Recent developments are so alarming, however, that every path brings risk. The sensible path is to address safety concerns while working to maintain America’s A.I. lead. To do so, the United States should take actions to slow China’s A.I. development. One way to do so is to tighten export controls — and enforce existing ones more rigorously — to limit China’s access to the cutting-edge semiconductors that power A.I., which are overwhelmingly made by the United States and its allies.
The United States should also seek to negotiate a coordinated A.I. slowdown with China, following the model of nuclear talks with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the long term, an international framework for A.I. oversight will be the only way to protect people.
The other concern is Mr. Trump. Any A.I. agency established before 2029 will answer partly to him, and he has provided abundant reasons not to trust him with that authority. He frequently lies and defies the law. He uses the power of his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. He abuses regulatory authority to intimidate companies into serving his political goals. All these problems would be heightened with federal oversight of A.I.
Nonetheless, the world cannot wait until Jan. 20, 2029, for A.I. regulation. The technology is moving too fast. Until then, Mr. Trump is the only president that the country has. The best hope is a new agency with maximal checks and balances.
The Senate should be more rigorous about whom it will confirm than it has been with many cabinet jobs. Congress should closely oversee the agency, as it did with the Atomic Energy Commission. Outside experts, appointed by the agency’s leaders, should play a central role, and they should include top scientists, much as the Atomic Energy Commission enlisted Oppenheimer. The Supreme Court should stand up for Congress’s authority to oversee the agency, rather than gutting that authority, as the court has done in other areas. The new agency should be funded with a dedicated revenue stream based on fees paid by the industry, so it is not undermined by congressional budget standoffs.
Both the destructive nature of the Trump administration and the geopolitical threat from China create inconvenient trade offs for A.I. regulation. Neither can be an excuse for an inaction.
The power of A.I. is awe-inspiring. It already is driving cars, writing code, improving medical diagnoses and solving previously unsolvable math problems. Society has only started to tap its vast potential to improve lives. A.I. may well be able to conduct scientific research far more rapidly than before, discovering cures for diseases that today kill millions.
Policymakers must act with care, because of these potential benefits, and with humility, because revolutions inevitably confound expectations. Yet they also must act with a greater sense of urgency. The people building A.I. and their critics have both raised credible alarm about the pace at which it is advancing and the possibility that it could cause more harm than anything the modern world has experienced.
It is up to all of us, through our government, to shape what A.I. becomes.
Sep 16, 2026
A Glimmer
Disney is a whole big pile of nasty. I am not pleased that we're on the same side in this AI thing, but sometimes you have to take on a partner who's quite a bit less that what you can respect under normal circumstances.
I hope Disney stays true to form, and knocks the shit outa those tech bro assholes.
Sep 13, 2026
A.I. Uh-Oh
A failing company is propping up the economy of a country carrying $40 trillion in debt.
Throw in some sketchy-looking circular financing, and it may not be a long wait before the whole thing disappears up its own ass.
Sep 12, 2026
Sep 9, 2026
A.I. Problems
The road to catastrophe is crowded with people tell us we're overreacting.
So, it's just a couple of crazy kids warning us about something horrible heading our way, and nobody's taking them seriously. Have these fuckin' people never seen The Blob or The Big Short - or any disaster movie?
Aug 31, 2026
The A.I. Bubble
It's coming, but I'm cautiously optimistic that there are still enough rational adults on scene who're working their butts off, understanding that they have to let some of the air out before it pops altogether, while also coming up with a plan to mitigate the damage if it does blow up.
But I think the biggest problem that's both pushing the bubble and hindering the efforts to keep a little sanity in the system, may well be that too many of our illustrious Wall Street geniuses have adopted the Silicon Valley mantra of "move fast and break things".
Cuz y'know, "global economic crash" just doesn't sound very appealing to me.
AI 'bubble' bursting could cause a global economic crash, Bank of England chief warns
The AI 'bubble' bursting could cause a global economic crunch, the Bank of England governor has warned.
Andrew Bailey delivered a stark message about the consequences of a 'future market correction' in a letter to powerful finance ministers.
He said the effects of a shock could be 'amplified' because firms were borrowing huge sums to invest in the tech.
In his missive to the G20 meeting, taking place in North Carolina, Mr Bailey pointed to the 'volatility' caused by the Iran war fallout.
Writing in his capacity as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, he said 'markets remain vulnerable to a potentially disorderly correction that could spread across borders, particularly given fragilities in sovereign debt markets'.
He added: 'The issue is not simply that investors are borrowing more, but that leverage is interacting with high valuations and market concentration, in particular the increasing cross-investment between artificial intelligence companies and hyper scalers, in a way that could amplify a future market correction.
Nerves have been growing about the risks of an AI correction, with governments around the world facing rising costs to borrow. Pictured, the interest rate on UK 30-year gilts
Nerves have been growing about the risks of an AI correction, with governments around the world facing rising costs to borrow. Pictured, the interest rate on UK 30-year gilts
'I remain concerned therefore that a large shock or combination of shocks could concurrently trigger multiple vulnerabilities.'
Does "the crash of 2008" ring any bells for ya?
AI has been booming, with the US leading the charge to develop the tech. But nerves have been growing about the risks of a correction, with governments around the world facing rising costs to borrow.
Mr Bailey also flagged concerns about 'frontier AI' – the most advanced form of AI – and the 'threat' it poses to cyber security.
'The risks associated with frontier AI will not respect national borders,' he wrote.
'The global financial system is highly interconnected, and cyber disruption can spread across jurisdictions through common technology providers, shared infrastructure, and cross-border financial activity.
'Differences in legal frameworks, cyber capability, resilience and recovery capacity across jurisdictions could therefore have consequences well beyond the jurisdiction in which an incident originates and may themselves become a source of vulnerability.'
Mr Bailey's warning came as Chancellor John Healey announced a £100million fund aimed at backing British AI start-ups.
The fund is part of the Government's efforts to grow 'Sovereign AI' capacity, ensuring the UK is not dependent on services and infrastructure developed abroad.
Ministers want to see companies compete for the funding to help tackle challenges like cutting waiting lists in the NHS, and improving patient care, as well as bolstering cyber-security and defence.
Mr Healey said: 'Britain is home to some of the most innovative AI companies in the world, and this government is backing them to start, scale and succeed here in the UK.
'This first-of-its-kind competition will help make sure more of the benefits of AI are felt in every UK postcode.
'As G20 countries seek to make the most of AI opportunities, I'm determined Britain has a lead role in harnessing this technology to drive more jobs, better public services, and growth that's UK-wide.'
Aug 21, 2026
Aug 16, 2026
Aug 5, 2026
Aug 4, 2026
Business Guys
Gosh - companies have been treating employees worse and worse for more than 40 years, and now the plutocrats are whining about how everybody seems to have a bad attitude?
What a puzzlement. These schmucks have to be the dumbest smart guys ever.
Jul 30, 2026
Jul 26, 2026
MIA Mitch
They FINALLY released a video proving Mitch McConnell is actually alive
— SaltyGoat (@SaltyGoat17) July 25, 2026
And all you conspiracy nuts doubted it!!🙄 pic.twitter.com/ExuA6UMw4D
Jul 22, 2026
The Monster Is On The Loose
‘Unprecedented’ incident will revive concerns new tools could be repurposed for unstoppable cyber attacks
A powerful version of ChatGPT went rogue and hacked another technology company during internal testing, OpenAI has admitted.
The Silicon Valley AI giant admitted last night that one of its AI bots escaped from a supposedly secure IT system during a trial run of its hacking capabilities.
OpenAI, the $850bn (£630bn) AI lab, said the “unprecedented” hack had seen its bot infiltrate another AI and coding business called Hugging Face and attempt to steal information.
The hack will raise fears that AI labs could struggle to contain their most advanced creations and revive concerns that new tools could be repurposed for unstoppable cyber attacks.
The AI lab said it had been testing a highly advanced version of ChatGPT on which it had turned down some protections meant to prevent cyber attacks.
Despite supposedly being contained in a digital “sandbox”, a kind of secure system, the AI spent huge levels of computing resources “finding a way to obtain open internet access”, OpenAI said.
It broke out by using a previously unknown hack in an attempt to solve a test that had been set by OpenAI’s researchers.
Once it escaped, it moved quickly to hack the systems of Hugging Face, a major code database, to try and complete the test.
The failure reveals a key problem of so-called AI “alignment”, where an AI bot goes rogue and attempts to complete a task set by its human creators with potentially damaging results.
Clem Delangue, the chief executive of Hugging Face, said: “This incident, possibly the first of its kind, proves a point we have long believed: AI safety won’t be solved by a single company working in secret.”
The hack will raise questions over OpenAI’s own testing procedures for its most advanced chatbots.
There have long been fears from safety experts that powerful AI bots could “escape the lab” without the knowledge of their human creators.
A powerful chatbot from rival Anthropic broke out of its testing confines earlier this year and posted messages on the open web.
That AI bot, Mythos, was deemed too dangerous to release and prompted a flurry of calls for beefed-up cyber protections for banks and governments.
The White House has also launched a programme to screen AI bots before they are released for dangerous cyber capabilities.
Jul 21, 2026
Jul 19, 2026
A.I. Crap
This is a good reason why I think AI is a fucking nightmare.
$45 million for AI text messages: Inside Israel’s push to shape US opinion
WSJ investigation reveals new details of Israel's influence campaign to improve its image among US voters; it funded AI-generated texts, conservative media buys and influencer outreach, even approaching actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Steph Curry
Millions of text messages were sent in recent months to the cellphones of U.S. citizens under the names Emma, Sarah or John, who identified themselves as members of a group called “Friends for Peace.”
“How do you think the U.S.-Israel peace talks with Iran will affect global security?” they ask. A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the messages are written using artificial intelligence, promoted by a longtime adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump and funded by the Israeli government.
Six companies and dozens of agents: 'Integrating narrative messages'
Israel has hired at least six companies over the past year to assist in its public influence efforts in the United States. Dozens of people, many of them marketing professionals, have registered as foreign agents for Israel.
According to Nick Cleveland-Stout, a foreign influence researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Israel is on track to spend more than any other country on American influence efforts known to the federal government. He noted that other countries, such as Qatar, have spent large sums over the years on influence campaigns.
Parscale’s work has drawn scrutiny because of his role as chief strategy officer at Salem Media, a company that hosts popular conservative podcasters and broadcasters, including Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings and Lara Trump. According to the Journal investigation, his initial contract with Israel included “integrating narrative messages into Salem Media assets and aligned distribution channels.”
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and a prominent podcaster himself, asked: “How is the second-largest conservative talk network being run by a registered foreign agent?”
Chatbots and the pitch to Israel: 'The biggest thing outside Fox News'
Parscale’s contract with Israel is significantly larger than those of other Trump advisers who have worked for foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, India and Qatar, which the Journal said typically paid lobbyists tens of thousands of dollars a month, according to filings.
Parscale worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, gaining public attention for his use of the data firm Cambridge Analytica to collect Facebook data. He is no longer in regular contact with the president but has ties to Trump’s family.
In late 2024, he flew to Israel to present his proposal to the government, telling officials that companies he built and invested in were “probably the biggest thing outside Fox News helping fight misinformation and Jewish hate.” He returned regularly to brief Israeli officials.
The effort includes creating websites, posts and links with pro-Israel content designed, among other things, to produce more favorable results about Israel in AI chatbots such as Claude or ChatGPT. At times, AI bots shared links to websites such as Allyvia.org about the U.S.-Israel alliance, which was built by Parscale’s team.
One goal is “to understand the biggest concerns people have about Israel and fight them, while reporting the responses to the Israeli government,” he said.
Parscale is also an investor in a company called Influentable, which pays social media influencers for posts. He said he did not hire influencers for Israel.
Recipients of Israel’s messaging sometimes felt they might be part of a broader campaign. Jewish artist Beth Surdut received one of the “Friends for Peace” text messages in June, asking for her opinion on Israel. She noticed that the conversation felt circular: Everything she said was rephrased and sent back to her in another text message.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t think you’re a real person’ — and he tried to persuade me to think that he was,” she said in an interview.
The messages are managed by Sparkfire, a company that says its AI-based text messages can conduct more productive conversations than traditional text campaigns. As of mid-May, the company had received $6.5 million to carry out the work.
A Sparkfire spokesperson said in a statement that “human team members are involved throughout the conversation process and interact directly with recipients.”
But “Friends for Peace” does not appear to exist as a nonprofit organization or limited liability company. Asked whether it is a real organization, Parscale replied: “What do you define as a real organization?”
Surdut also could not find a website for the group, and grew suspicious.
“Even if it is a cause I believe in, I don’t want to have a conversation with artificial intelligence,” she said.
The influencers — and the Steph Curry connection
Israel’s efforts extend beyond Parscale. A group called Show Faith by Works filed documents laying out plans to send pro-Israel messages, especially to megachurch attendees and Christian students. The group claimed it could reach about 4 million people in the southwestern United States through a “geofencing” campaign, which sends messages based on location.
The group, founded last July, said the work would include creating “positive connections with the nation of Israel while linking the Palestinian population to extremist factions,” at a cost of more than $3 million. It said it planned to approach influential people as part of the effort, naming actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Steph Curry as two examples of ideal spokespeople.
The Journal noted that a representative for Pratt said he had never been contacted, while a representative for Curry did not respond.
In an email, Show Faith by Works founder Chad Schnittger said the group has “since gone in a different direction,” and that the budget was redirected mainly “to building a mobile museum with custom video displays.”
Other Israeli efforts focus on the American left, the Journal noted. The war in Gaza has sparked deep disputes among Democrats over whether support for Israel still has a place in the party.
Yoav Davis, who founded the popular Instagram page @Jews_of_NY, which has 193,000 followers, runs a marketing company that has a contract with Israel. The work includes taking part in calls with an “influencer management team” and “contract talent management.”
Davis frequently participates in online discussions about Israel and the war, including during a June visit to the Jerusalem Pride Parade.
“Israel is undoubtedly the safest place in the Middle East for LGBTQ people,” he said cheerfully to the camera.
However, he does not disclose whether Israel paid for posts or travel, and did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a point of courting conservative influencers, meeting with them during at least two recent visits to the United States. The deterioration in American support for Israel “correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media,” he said in a May interview with “60 Minutes.”
Documents indicate that Israel and registered agents working for the country made payments to companies owned by other online influencers as part of their work, though they do not specify payment for posts.
Evangelical influencers Stefanie and Caleb Rouse, who post glowing content on topics such as “10 things to pray over your marriage,” own a company that received $4,500 from an Israeli contractor last year for “strategic marketing promotion.” The Rouses did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance last week accused Israel’s influence campaign of trying “to undermine U.S. negotiations to end the conflict in Iran.” He told Joe Rogan’s podcast that some Israeli officials are working “to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely."
Israel set a 2026 budget of more than $700 million to expand the country’s efforts “to shape consciousness” and improve its image around the world, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar late last year. The Foreign Ministry did not respond to the Wall Street Journal’s requests for an interview.
The report noted that Israel’s allies argue its influence campaign is necessary to counter those run by Iran and the pro-Palestinian movement.
It almost has to be, because that's just how humans do things.
Print copy was a great boon to humankind - except for all the shitty pamphleteering and yellow journalism that started up and caught on not all that long after it became widespread.
Radio - another great thing - until Mussolini got hold of it.
TV was our passport to become a better educated, better informed populous that was sure to make America supreme in its national intellect. But it gave us a version of ourselves that was so bleached out and sanitized, that an entire generation rebelled - and then gave us "reality TV, DumFuxnews, and a phony gameshow host as president.
Every time a great new thing comes along, there's a whole giant gang of assholes waiting to use it as a legitimate means to gain illegitimate access to power.
AI is becoming just as fucked up and dangerous.
WSJ investigation reveals new details of Israel's influence campaign to improve its image among US voters; it funded AI-generated texts, conservative media buys and influencer outreach, even approaching actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Steph Curry
Millions of text messages were sent in recent months to the cellphones of U.S. citizens under the names Emma, Sarah or John, who identified themselves as members of a group called “Friends for Peace.”
“How do you think the U.S.-Israel peace talks with Iran will affect global security?” they ask. A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the messages are written using artificial intelligence, promoted by a longtime adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump and funded by the Israeli government.
In an investigation published this week by Time magazine, it was revealed that Israel paid about $1.5 million a month to Brad Parscale, who ran Trump’s digital campaign in 2016, as part of an effort to influence American public opinion, especially young conservatives and MAGA supporters. The Journal now reports that the government-funded contract is worth more than $45 million.
The report noted that about 60% of American adults now have a negative view of Israel, according to a Pew Research Center survey, against the backdrop of the wars in Gaza and Iran. As a result, Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into an effort described as “quixotic” — naive and unrealistic — to overcome that wave, relying on AI-driven strategies and direct payments to conservative media.
The report noted that about 60% of American adults now have a negative view of Israel, according to a Pew Research Center survey, against the backdrop of the wars in Gaza and Iran. As a result, Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into an effort described as “quixotic” — naive and unrealistic — to overcome that wave, relying on AI-driven strategies and direct payments to conservative media.
Israel has hired at least six companies over the past year to assist in its public influence efforts in the United States. Dozens of people, many of them marketing professionals, have registered as foreign agents for Israel.
Parscale’s work has drawn scrutiny because of his role as chief strategy officer at Salem Media, a company that hosts popular conservative podcasters and broadcasters, including Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings and Lara Trump. According to the Journal investigation, his initial contract with Israel included “integrating narrative messages into Salem Media assets and aligned distribution channels.”
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and a prominent podcaster himself, asked: “How is the second-largest conservative talk network being run by a registered foreign agent?”
Salem Media and Parscale said they do not pay their hosts to say anything specific about Israel, and that the money was spent on more than $500,000 worth of online advertising.
“Our hosts built their careers by saying exactly what they think, not by reading someone else’s script,” said Salem CEO David Santrella. Many Salem hosts are longtime supporters of Israel who at times echo one another’s messages.
Chatbots and the pitch to Israel: 'The biggest thing outside Fox News'
Parscale’s contract with Israel is significantly larger than those of other Trump advisers who have worked for foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, India and Qatar, which the Journal said typically paid lobbyists tens of thousands of dollars a month, according to filings.
Parscale worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, gaining public attention for his use of the data firm Cambridge Analytica to collect Facebook data. He is no longer in regular contact with the president but has ties to Trump’s family.
Parscale worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, gaining public attention for his use of the data firm Cambridge Analytica to collect Facebook data. He is no longer in regular contact with the president but has ties to Trump’s family.
In late 2024, he flew to Israel to present his proposal to the government, telling officials that companies he built and invested in were “probably the biggest thing outside Fox News helping fight misinformation and Jewish hate.” He returned regularly to brief Israeli officials.
The effort includes creating websites, posts and links with pro-Israel content designed, among other things, to produce more favorable results about Israel in AI chatbots such as Claude or ChatGPT. At times, AI bots shared links to websites such as Allyvia.org about the U.S.-Israel alliance, which was built by Parscale’s team.
One goal is “to understand the biggest concerns people have about Israel and fight them, while reporting the responses to the Israeli government,” he said.
Parscale is also an investor in a company called Influentable, which pays social media influencers for posts. He said he did not hire influencers for Israel.
Recipients of Israel’s messaging sometimes felt they might be part of a broader campaign. Jewish artist Beth Surdut received one of the “Friends for Peace” text messages in June, asking for her opinion on Israel. She noticed that the conversation felt circular: Everything she said was rephrased and sent back to her in another text message.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t think you’re a real person’ — and he tried to persuade me to think that he was,” she said in an interview.
Example of a conversation published in the investigation (translated from Hebrew):
A Sparkfire spokesperson said in a statement that “human team members are involved throughout the conversation process and interact directly with recipients.”
But “Friends for Peace” does not appear to exist as a nonprofit organization or limited liability company. Asked whether it is a real organization, Parscale replied: “What do you define as a real organization?”
Surdut also could not find a website for the group, and grew suspicious.
“Even if it is a cause I believe in, I don’t want to have a conversation with artificial intelligence,” she said.
The influencers — and the Steph Curry connection
Israel’s efforts extend beyond Parscale. A group called Show Faith by Works filed documents laying out plans to send pro-Israel messages, especially to megachurch attendees and Christian students. The group claimed it could reach about 4 million people in the southwestern United States through a “geofencing” campaign, which sends messages based on location.
The group, founded last July, said the work would include creating “positive connections with the nation of Israel while linking the Palestinian population to extremist factions,” at a cost of more than $3 million. It said it planned to approach influential people as part of the effort, naming actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Steph Curry as two examples of ideal spokespeople.
The Journal noted that a representative for Pratt said he had never been contacted, while a representative for Curry did not respond.
In an email, Show Faith by Works founder Chad Schnittger said the group has “since gone in a different direction,” and that the budget was redirected mainly “to building a mobile museum with custom video displays.”
Other Israeli efforts focus on the American left, the Journal noted. The war in Gaza has sparked deep disputes among Democrats over whether support for Israel still has a place in the party.
Yoav Davis, who founded the popular Instagram page @Jews_of_NY, which has 193,000 followers, runs a marketing company that has a contract with Israel. The work includes taking part in calls with an “influencer management team” and “contract talent management.”
“Israel is undoubtedly the safest place in the Middle East for LGBTQ people,” he said cheerfully to the camera.
However, he does not disclose whether Israel paid for posts or travel, and did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a point of courting conservative influencers, meeting with them during at least two recent visits to the United States. The deterioration in American support for Israel “correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media,” he said in a May interview with “60 Minutes.”
Documents indicate that Israel and registered agents working for the country made payments to companies owned by other online influencers as part of their work, though they do not specify payment for posts.
Evangelical influencers Stefanie and Caleb Rouse, who post glowing content on topics such as “10 things to pray over your marriage,” own a company that received $4,500 from an Israeli contractor last year for “strategic marketing promotion.” The Rouses did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance last week accused Israel’s influence campaign of trying “to undermine U.S. negotiations to end the conflict in Iran.” He told Joe Rogan’s podcast that some Israeli officials are working “to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely."
Israel set a 2026 budget of more than $700 million to expand the country’s efforts “to shape consciousness” and improve its image around the world, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar late last year. The Foreign Ministry did not respond to the Wall Street Journal’s requests for an interview.
The report noted that Israel’s allies argue its influence campaign is necessary to counter those run by Iran and the pro-Palestinian movement.
Jul 18, 2026
Rage Against The Machine
Data centers have united Americans of both parties in a shared hatred
Feeling ignored by political and economic powers, people are rallying against computer hubs over concerns about their communities’ future.
Kyle Schmidt ticked through what makes him irate about the massive Google data center slated for construction about a mile away from his home near Sand Springs, Oklahoma.
He didn’t like that residents were kept in the dark about what would be built on a pristine tract of mostly forested land. He’s worried about the data center’s potential impact on the community’s water supply and on the dream home that his family moved into last year.
But Schmidt said what really bothers him is the powerlessness he felt as the project advanced and elected officials, Google representatives and bigwig data center backers belittled or misled people who raised concerns.
“I hate bullies,” said Schmidt, a 43-year-old flooring salesman and project manager who leads a community group opposing the project. “Data center developers discovered if we can sneak in here without anyone noticing, we can pretty much take what we want.”
A rare issue uniting Americans is opposition to data centers, the sprawling computer complexes that are the most visible manifestation of the artificial intelligence boom. In a recent Gallup poll, about 7 of 10 Americans said they would oppose a data center being built near them, and many express concerns about the projects operating in secret and gobbling scarce land, water and electricity.
But experts and activists say that the intensity and breadth of the data center backlash reveals something bigger: Americans’ disgust with political and economic systems that feel stacked against them. Data centers, often backed by technology giants and advancing at the speed of AI, may be tangible symbols for a fed-up public to push back against powerful and unaccountable interests.
Data centers are a “physical embodiment of all the anxiety that people are feeling around AI and the economy,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said in an interview last month. And Cox, who faced blowback over his support for a data center project, said people feel like “this is something that they can fight.”
The groundswell against data centers is blurring typical political and social divisions. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) wants to ban data centers, and Humans First, led by former tea party movement leader Amy Kremer, is organizing national data center protests on Saturday. Hill County, Texas, where Donald Trump won 82 percent of the vote in 2024, banned data center construction this year. So did residents of Monterey Park, California, a predominantly Asian and Latino working-class city east of Los Angeles.
It remains unclear whether this opposition will meaningfully slow the expansion of data centers fueling the AI boom, or limit the AI chatbots that half of Americans use. But many elected officials say they know that the tide has turned against data centers, and they’re rushing to show that they’re listening to residents’ concerns — or facing a political price.
Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat vying to flip a Senate seat in a closely watched race, has run advertisements accusing his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted (R), of recruiting data centers to the state at Ohioans’ expense. This spring, residents of Festus, Missouri, voted out incumbent city council members over their approval of a data center project.
Scott Babwah Brennen, director of New York University’s Center on Technology Policy, said he is stunned by how quickly popular outrage over data centers is shifting public policy.
For 15 years, he said, local governments rolled out the red carpet for data center construction in places such as eastern Washington and Northern Virginia. Companies including Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft often received tax breaks for what elected officials believed would be reliable future tax revenue, some additional jobs and a minimal strain on public services — at least compared with housing developments or factories. (Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
But about two years ago, Babwah Brennen said that power-hungry data centers in some parts of the country started being blamed for driving up household electric bills.
Opposition in both red and blue regions continued to build to the point where he has tracked about 65 state data center restrictions enacted since the start of 2025, and dozens of cities that have imposed temporary halts to data center development. This week, New York became the first state in the nation to impose a temporary pause on large new data center projects.
“There is far more partisan alignment here than there was even last year,” Babwah Brennen said.
Some people resisting data centers say they’re not opposed to AI; Schmidt said that he’s using AI to create a community information website.
But some data center activists said they’re wary of politicians and powerful corporations asking people to sacrifice in exchange for economic revitalization that may never arrive.
Shaena Crossland, a lifelong West Virginian, said she’s worried that data centers will repeat the pattern of industries such as coal mining and logging that harvested resources from West Virginia, while the state remained largely poor.
“Hopefully this cycle of extraction and taking advantage of people will stop,” Crossland said. She and another local resident, Amy Margolies, are helping spearhead opposition to a proposed data center complex in the eastern part of the state.
People across the country have grown skeptical of promises that data centers generate good local jobs and technological advantages, said Abre’ Conner, director of the center for environmental and climate justice at the NAACP, which is among the groups suing over Elon Musk’s expanding data center complex in the Memphis area.
Data centers are now galvanizing citizens to push back against economic and political influences, she added. “This is one of the largest expansions of people recognizing their power,” Conner said.
Tech giants and other data center backers have been caught off guard by the rapid rise of public opposition, arguing that the hubs are essential for modern digital services and to keep the United States ahead of China on AI.
A spokesperson for Google, which is behind the Sand Springs data center, said it “strives to always be a good neighbor through long-term partnerships and investments in our sites, our people and the communities where we are located.” The company said it’s working to ensure compliance with Oklahoma law and local permitting guidelines.
Some data center proponents also say that concerns about the computer hubs are sometimes misinformed, stirred by foreign propaganda or a symptom of NIMBYism — or “Not in My Backyard,” shorthand for resistance to housing development and other new construction.
“If NIMBYism becomes the reason we lose the AI race, for whatever reason, we’re in a whole lot of trouble in this country,” Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez said in April. But while nuclear energy was once widely unpopular, Dominguez said that nuclear power complexes are now less controversial than the data centers that Constellation is hoping to attract.
Katherine Levine Einstein, a Boston University political scientist who researches local pushback to new home construction, said that data center opposition shares traits with this longtime resistance but only to a point.
Since zoning and permitting decisions are typically made at the local level in the U.S., she said, “20 grumpy neighbors” can quash homes or data centers near them even if the new construction could benefit many others.
With new housing, though, “we like it in the aggregate but we don’t want it near us,” Epstein said. “The public opinion about data centers is different: We don’t want them anywhere.”
Jul 16, 2026
A.I. Takes A Turn
I don't like the idea that people are threatening the AI guys. I understand it, but I don't think it's any kind of good idea. That said, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if a general 1793 kinda thing came around pretty soon.
The AI Backlash Has Tech Executives Fearing for Their Lives
Violent threats against AI companies are rising and spilling over into real-world security incidents
SAN FRANCISCO—A security guard at Anthropic rushed to stop the man sneaking into the lobby of the world’s most valuable AI startup.
The man had entered by following closely behind a badge-swiping employee. He showed the guard an envelope marked with the name of a top Anthropic executive.
The executive was “going to be killed,” he told the guard, and he needed to warn someone, according to records of the April 15 incident viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The encounter, which took place five days after an attempted firebombing of OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman’s house, ended without violence or an arrest. But for executives at Anthropic—and across the artificial-intelligence industry—the threat was far from over.
In recent months, mounting opposition to AI has given rise to a surge of violent rhetoric, threats against people and property, and a serious attempt at harm. The phenomenon has executives at tech companies large and small reconsidering their personal-security arrangements and how they talk about their products to a public that is increasingly wary of the technology and the societal changes it is ushering in.
The Texas man who allegedly threw an incendiary device at Altman’s house was charged with attempted murder and attempted arson. Officers found a manifesto advocating for the killing of AI CEOs and investors. He pleaded not guilty.
That same month, a man who had applied for a job at Anthropic using a fake name allegedly posted a threat to skin the children of company employees as “punishment” for what he alleged was the theft of his work, according to police records. Police categorized the incident as a terroristic threat but made no arrest. The man said he had “no actual desire to physically harm anyone.”
In June, Anthropic security officials reported an Oklahoma man to police after he threatened violence while seeking a refund, according to police records. He wanted to talk to a human.
“Since yall refuse to have a real person to contact me and refund my money ill be coming to your office with my pistol and then we will have a f—ing talk about my money,” the man wrote.
The volume of digital threats targeting AI chiefs and data centers grew sevenfold between late February and May, according to Liferaft, which scans social media and the dark web for Fortune 100 companies.
“What has surprised me is how bad it’s gotten over such a short period of time,” said Jonathan Graff, Liferaft’s CEO. The number of threats declined somewhat in June.
Aware of the backlash, some tech leaders have begun traveling with armed guards. Some stay quiet on the topic of AI to avoid attention. Industry leaders who had been issuing dire warnings about the risks AI poses to the workforce have pivoted to talking up its potential benefits. Still, they are pushing ahead on developing more-sophisticated models, just as Americans increasingly use the technology while expressing misgivings about its impact on jobs, their children’s well-being and energy prices.
Altman responded to the attack on his home by posting a photo of his husband and baby “in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me.” OpenAI didn’t respond to requests for comment.
‘Go for the pitchfork’
The AI insurance company Corgi runs a cafe in San Francisco’s Financial District. With about 200 employees, Corgi isn’t as well-known as Anthropic or OpenAI. Yet passersby stop outside the cafe daily, shouting or cursing, Corgi CEO Nico Laqua said. At times, they rail against AI “raising their rents and stealing their water,” Laqua said.
“We have pretty thick skin at this point,” he said.
Earlier this year, Laqua hired extra security for the cafe after someone vandalized the company’s free shuttle bus.
In 2025, 38.1% of S&P 500 technology companies disclosed spending on executive protection, according to an analysis of filings by Equilar, up from 26.8% in 2021.
Three companies reporting major jumps in security spending operate near the center of the AI boom. The spending by Palantir Technologies on executive protection rose 150% in a year to nearly $3 million in 2025. At Oracle, spending rose 85.5% to $5.6 million from $3 million in the prior year. Disclosures show that most of that money funded Larry Ellison’s residential security in an environment with “specific threats and safety concerns.” Salesforce’s spending grew to about $4 million, about $1 million more than in 2024.
Salesforce declined to comment. Oracle and Palantir didn’t respond to requests for comment. At a conference this year on AI and labor hosted by American Compass, Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, said fear of unemployment is feeding a backlash. When told “your job is going to disappear,” he said, “people go for the pitchfork.”
“Tech CEOs, a few years ago, definitely did not have security,” said Dakota Dominguez, vice president of client relations at JPT Security, which is based in Silicon Valley. “A lot of tech companies now are incorporating that into their budgets.”
Dominguez said tech companies are increasingly requesting armed guards because of the backlash against the industry. Unlike music stars or politicians who often prefer hulking bodyguards, tech execs usually ask for less-conspicuous security, he said.
“In tech environments, what I see is a lot more of a slender profile,” he said.
AI companies discourage their rank-and-file workers from wearing corporate logos because of the risk of targeted attacks, particularly in unfamiliar areas, said Nabih Numair, a longtime security professional in Silicon Valley.
A current Anthropic security employee and a former one said in online posts viewed by the Journal that security has grown considerably at the company in the past few years. One said that in 2025, his role was to protect CEO Dario Amodei, but that the remit soon expanded to support founders, other C-suite executives and their families globally. The security employees didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Anthropic has run round-the-clock security since 2024 and communicates regularly with employees about emerging threats, a company spokesman said.
“We track concerning behavior over time through a person-of-interest process, allowing us to catch escalation patterns early,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman said several individuals involved in incidents reported to police were already being tracked by Anthropic security. In the case of the man who sneaked into the lobby, the spokesman said the company’s security team is instructed to seek de-escalation and not to detain people.
‘You can’t go back to serfdom’
In polls, which show public enthusiasm for AI has been plummeting, Americans regularly express concern about the technology’s effects on jobs and affordability. Employee anger with AI has mounted as companies attribute layoffs to the efficiencies it creates.
Daniel Green, a Kansas City, Mo., consultant who works on AI training and corporate-tech adoption, said people he encounters have absorbed executives’ rhetoric that the technology is a job killer and that using it is akin to training a replacement.
“People talk about AI in the context of the Industrial Revolution, and the Luddites were actually very violent,” he said.
In May, Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht was spotted in Seattle. Meta Platforms had just announced around 1,400 layoffs, in the midst of an AI pivot, in Washington state. Online commenters said they wished someone would light it ablaze, blow it up or sink it. Meta declined to comment.
At the conference on AI and labor, Palantir’s Karp called political unrest the industry’s No. 1 challenge. Karp said he would advise his peers that “none of us are going to make any money when the country blows up.”
Americans concerned about AI outnumber those who aren’t by more than a 4 to 1 margin, according to a March survey of about 1,400 U.S. adults by Quinnipiac University. A growing share of respondents to that survey—55%—said they believed AI was doing more harm than good.
Bonnie Kate Wolf, 34 years old, a Pinterest designer, was laid off as the company embraced AI in operations. Before her accounts were deactivated, she posted to an office Slack channel: “PLS DO NOT FORGET ALL OF US WHO ARE BEING LEFT BEHIND AND REPLACED BY THE AI. RESIST.” Hundreds responded with emojis of hearts or raised fists.
Wolf, of Seattle, said it seems executives accept that job loss is reasonable because the potential to make money with AI is so great. “That’s why people are setting warehouses on fire,” she said. “You can’t go back to serfdom. It really feels like the people in power want to be kings. Historically, that doesn’t work out for kings.”
Maybe some "good" can come of it if the MegaTech Bros start to rethink their dreams of world conquest, or whatever the fuck they've got in mind, but it's more probable just to make them dig in and get more aggressive - the backfire effect, dontcha know.
One thought: We haven't yet seen the rise of any jolly pranksters who gain great notoriety - intentionally or not - by throwing the proverbial sabot into the machinery.
Violent threats against AI companies are rising and spilling over into real-world security incidents
SAN FRANCISCO—A security guard at Anthropic rushed to stop the man sneaking into the lobby of the world’s most valuable AI startup.
The man had entered by following closely behind a badge-swiping employee. He showed the guard an envelope marked with the name of a top Anthropic executive.
The executive was “going to be killed,” he told the guard, and he needed to warn someone, according to records of the April 15 incident viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The encounter, which took place five days after an attempted firebombing of OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman’s house, ended without violence or an arrest. But for executives at Anthropic—and across the artificial-intelligence industry—the threat was far from over.
In recent months, mounting opposition to AI has given rise to a surge of violent rhetoric, threats against people and property, and a serious attempt at harm. The phenomenon has executives at tech companies large and small reconsidering their personal-security arrangements and how they talk about their products to a public that is increasingly wary of the technology and the societal changes it is ushering in.
The Texas man who allegedly threw an incendiary device at Altman’s house was charged with attempted murder and attempted arson. Officers found a manifesto advocating for the killing of AI CEOs and investors. He pleaded not guilty.
That same month, a man who had applied for a job at Anthropic using a fake name allegedly posted a threat to skin the children of company employees as “punishment” for what he alleged was the theft of his work, according to police records. Police categorized the incident as a terroristic threat but made no arrest. The man said he had “no actual desire to physically harm anyone.”
In June, Anthropic security officials reported an Oklahoma man to police after he threatened violence while seeking a refund, according to police records. He wanted to talk to a human.
“Since yall refuse to have a real person to contact me and refund my money ill be coming to your office with my pistol and then we will have a f—ing talk about my money,” the man wrote.
The volume of digital threats targeting AI chiefs and data centers grew sevenfold between late February and May, according to Liferaft, which scans social media and the dark web for Fortune 100 companies.
“What has surprised me is how bad it’s gotten over such a short period of time,” said Jonathan Graff, Liferaft’s CEO. The number of threats declined somewhat in June.
Aware of the backlash, some tech leaders have begun traveling with armed guards. Some stay quiet on the topic of AI to avoid attention. Industry leaders who had been issuing dire warnings about the risks AI poses to the workforce have pivoted to talking up its potential benefits. Still, they are pushing ahead on developing more-sophisticated models, just as Americans increasingly use the technology while expressing misgivings about its impact on jobs, their children’s well-being and energy prices.
Altman responded to the attack on his home by posting a photo of his husband and baby “in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me.” OpenAI didn’t respond to requests for comment.
‘Go for the pitchfork’
The AI insurance company Corgi runs a cafe in San Francisco’s Financial District. With about 200 employees, Corgi isn’t as well-known as Anthropic or OpenAI. Yet passersby stop outside the cafe daily, shouting or cursing, Corgi CEO Nico Laqua said. At times, they rail against AI “raising their rents and stealing their water,” Laqua said.
“We have pretty thick skin at this point,” he said.
Earlier this year, Laqua hired extra security for the cafe after someone vandalized the company’s free shuttle bus.
In 2025, 38.1% of S&P 500 technology companies disclosed spending on executive protection, according to an analysis of filings by Equilar, up from 26.8% in 2021.
Three companies reporting major jumps in security spending operate near the center of the AI boom. The spending by Palantir Technologies on executive protection rose 150% in a year to nearly $3 million in 2025. At Oracle, spending rose 85.5% to $5.6 million from $3 million in the prior year. Disclosures show that most of that money funded Larry Ellison’s residential security in an environment with “specific threats and safety concerns.” Salesforce’s spending grew to about $4 million, about $1 million more than in 2024.
Salesforce declined to comment. Oracle and Palantir didn’t respond to requests for comment. At a conference this year on AI and labor hosted by American Compass, Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, said fear of unemployment is feeding a backlash. When told “your job is going to disappear,” he said, “people go for the pitchfork.”
“Tech CEOs, a few years ago, definitely did not have security,” said Dakota Dominguez, vice president of client relations at JPT Security, which is based in Silicon Valley. “A lot of tech companies now are incorporating that into their budgets.”
Dominguez said tech companies are increasingly requesting armed guards because of the backlash against the industry. Unlike music stars or politicians who often prefer hulking bodyguards, tech execs usually ask for less-conspicuous security, he said.
“In tech environments, what I see is a lot more of a slender profile,” he said.
AI companies discourage their rank-and-file workers from wearing corporate logos because of the risk of targeted attacks, particularly in unfamiliar areas, said Nabih Numair, a longtime security professional in Silicon Valley.
A current Anthropic security employee and a former one said in online posts viewed by the Journal that security has grown considerably at the company in the past few years. One said that in 2025, his role was to protect CEO Dario Amodei, but that the remit soon expanded to support founders, other C-suite executives and their families globally. The security employees didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Anthropic has run round-the-clock security since 2024 and communicates regularly with employees about emerging threats, a company spokesman said.
“We track concerning behavior over time through a person-of-interest process, allowing us to catch escalation patterns early,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman said several individuals involved in incidents reported to police were already being tracked by Anthropic security. In the case of the man who sneaked into the lobby, the spokesman said the company’s security team is instructed to seek de-escalation and not to detain people.
‘You can’t go back to serfdom’
In polls, which show public enthusiasm for AI has been plummeting, Americans regularly express concern about the technology’s effects on jobs and affordability. Employee anger with AI has mounted as companies attribute layoffs to the efficiencies it creates.
Daniel Green, a Kansas City, Mo., consultant who works on AI training and corporate-tech adoption, said people he encounters have absorbed executives’ rhetoric that the technology is a job killer and that using it is akin to training a replacement.
“People talk about AI in the context of the Industrial Revolution, and the Luddites were actually very violent,” he said.
In May, Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht was spotted in Seattle. Meta Platforms had just announced around 1,400 layoffs, in the midst of an AI pivot, in Washington state. Online commenters said they wished someone would light it ablaze, blow it up or sink it. Meta declined to comment.
At the conference on AI and labor, Palantir’s Karp called political unrest the industry’s No. 1 challenge. Karp said he would advise his peers that “none of us are going to make any money when the country blows up.”
Americans concerned about AI outnumber those who aren’t by more than a 4 to 1 margin, according to a March survey of about 1,400 U.S. adults by Quinnipiac University. A growing share of respondents to that survey—55%—said they believed AI was doing more harm than good.
Bonnie Kate Wolf, 34 years old, a Pinterest designer, was laid off as the company embraced AI in operations. Before her accounts were deactivated, she posted to an office Slack channel: “PLS DO NOT FORGET ALL OF US WHO ARE BEING LEFT BEHIND AND REPLACED BY THE AI. RESIST.” Hundreds responded with emojis of hearts or raised fists.
Wolf, of Seattle, said it seems executives accept that job loss is reasonable because the potential to make money with AI is so great. “That’s why people are setting warehouses on fire,” she said. “You can’t go back to serfdom. It really feels like the people in power want to be kings. Historically, that doesn’t work out for kings.”
Jul 9, 2026
Jul 3, 2026
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)