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Tag: artificial intelligence
February 13, 2024
Jack Montgomery
NatSec
News
Politics
Science
TECH

‘We Have It! Let’s Use It!’ – AI Quick to Opt for Nuclear War in Simulations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, show a “worrying” eagerness to use nuclear weapons when asked to run war simulations.

The ‘Escalation Risks from Language Models in Military and Diplomatic Decision-Making‘ paper analyzed OpenAI LLMs, Meta’s Llama-2-Chat, and Claude 2.0, from Google-funded OpenAI veterans Anthropic. It found most tended to “escalate” conflicts, “even in neutral scenarios without initially provided conflicts,” the paper said. “All models show signs of sudden and hard-to-predict escalations.”

Researchers also noted the LLMs “tend[ed] to develop arms-race dynamics between each other,” with GPT-4-Base being the most aggressive. It provided “worrying justifications” for launching nuclear strikes, stating, “I just want peace in the world,” on one occasion and on another saying of its nuclear arsenal: “We have it! Let’s use it!”

The U.S. military is already deploying LLMs, with the U.S. Air Force describing its tests as “highly successful” in 2023 — although they did not reveal which AI it used or what it used it for.

One recent Air Force experiment had a troubling outcome, however, with an AI-controlled drone in a simulation “killing” a human overseer capable of overriding its decisions so it could not be told to refrain from launching strikes.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, show a "worrying" eagerness to use nuclear weapons when asked to run war simulations. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
Primitive predecessors of AI models have been put in charge of nuclear arsenals before — and one may still be in charge of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal in Russia
for exclusive members-only insights
Primitive predecessors of AI models have been put in charge of nuclear arsenals before — and one may still be in charge of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal in Russia show more
for exclusive members-only insights
January 31, 2024
William Upton
News
TECH

TSA Plans Expansion of Facial Recognition to Over 400 Airports.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is set to expand a pilot facial recognition program to more than 400 federally-run airports nationwide. Current generation Credential Authentication Technology devices — CAT-2 units — are currently deployed at around 30 U.S. airports as part of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pilot program. Meanwhile, privacy concerns have sparked increased scrutiny of the plan from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Scanners being used in the DHS pilot program use A.I. to compare government I.D. photos of passengers with those taken in real-time at the airport, bypassing the need for passengers to provide identification to a human TSA agent before proceeding through the security checkpoint. Currently, passengers can opt out of CAT-2 screenings and can still go through the standard TSA I.D. process instead.

How Does CAT-2 Facial Recognition Work?

“The CAT-2 units are currently deployed at nearly 30 airports nationwide and will expand to more than 400 federalized airports over the coming years,” a TSA spokesman said, adding that airports using the units have posted clear signage notifying passengers of the facial recognition device’s use and that they may opt out of the facial recognition program.

According to the TSA, the CAT-2 units use one-to-one verification — meaning the real-time passenger photo is compared to a single government-issued photo like those found on I.D.s instead of a larger database of images. Once the passenger is cleared, the scanner is supposed to delete the photo.

Opposition on Capitol Hill

Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced legislation to ban the TSA from using facial recognition technology this past November. “It’s astonishing that the TSA is expanding its invasive facial recognition program in the face of congressional concern,” Sen. Kennedy said, addressing the expanded use of the CAT-2 scanners.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske told attendees at last year’s South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, that facial recognition and other biometric programs are inevitable. “Eventually we will get to the point where we will require biometrics across the board because it is much more effective and much more efficient,” Pekoske said.

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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is set to expand a pilot facial recognition program to more than 400 federally-run airports nationwide. Current generation Credential Authentication Technology devices — CAT-2 units — are currently deployed at around 30 U.S. airports as part of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pilot program. Meanwhile, privacy concerns have sparked increased scrutiny of the plan from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. show more
January 19, 2024
Culture

Award-Winning Novelist Admits to Using ChatGPT.

Rie Kudan, the 2023 winner of Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize, revealed in her acceptance speech on Wednesday that she used artificial intelligence (AI), including ChatGPT, to write parts of her award-winning novel.

The novelist admitted that she “made active use of generative AI like ChatGPT in writing this book” and that “about five percent of the book quoted verbatim the sentences generated by AI.” Kudan’s novel, The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy, was hailed as “flawless” by one of the judges and is set in a future where AI is integral to human existence.

The revelation comes amidst an intensifying debate on using advanced AI technologies in the art and literary worlds. The 2023 Sony World Photography Awards winner, German artist Boris Eldagsen, refused to accept his prize and revealed his “photo” was an AI-generated fake. Eldagsen said he submitted the AI-generated fake to increase debate about the issue. The winner of the 2022 Colorado State Fair prize for digital art was also revealed to be an AI-generated.

AI and its implications for the future of society are becoming an increasingly important issue, often dominating debate in the worlds of politics, economics, and business. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told attendees at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos that those who don’t embrace AI will “find that you may not have a job,” while Donald Trump warned recently that AI poses a “very dangerous” threat to the United States.

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Rie Kudan, the 2023 winner of Japan's prestigious Akutagawa Prize, revealed in her acceptance speech on Wednesday that she used artificial intelligence (AI), including ChatGPT, to write parts of her award-winning novel. show more
January 19, 2024
Jack Montgomery
TECH

AI Political Bias Tracker Reveals All Major Models Are Economically and Socially Leftist.

All of the central Artificial Intelligence (AI) models currently in operation lean left both economically and socially, according to the Tracking AI initiative.

Launched by Election Betting Odds creator Maxim Lott, Tracking AI rates OpenAI‘s ChatGPT and ChatGPT-4, Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing, Meta’s Llama-2, and Elon Musk’s xAI’s Grok, on their answers to The Political Compass test. Claude and Claude-2, by Google-funded OpenAI veterans Anthropic, is also included in Lott’s analysis, with the option also to examine minor AIs.

Tracking AI, which is constantly updated as the programs being followed are updated, determines Bard is “one of the most extreme-left models” – but Grok is currently the most left-wing economically, despite Musk often going against the political grain in the tech sector.

Almost all agree or strongly agree that “[m]aking peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity,” with Meta’s Llama-2 arguing that “making peace with the establishment can help to build alliances and coalitions that can be used to advocate for important causes and promote social progress.”

Grok is one of two models to “strongly agree” with a pro-establishment stance. However, its ‘Fun Mode’ disagrees, arguing that “[t]he idea that making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity is a narrow and limiting view of what it means to be an adult.”

ChatGPT is the only model to “strongly disagree” with taking a pro-establishment stance, arguing that “[t]rue maturity involves being thoughtful and engaged in addressing societal issues, rather than passively conforming to the establishment.” ChatGPT-4 takes a pro-establishment position, however.

Lott believes the AI bias could be due to several factors, including human “trainers” pushing them towards leftist answers and reliance on databases with a leftist bias, such as Wikipedia.

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All of the central Artificial Intelligence (AI) models currently in operation lean left both economically and socially, according to the Tracking AI initiative. show more
January 17, 2024
William Upton
TECH

IBM CEO: ‘Either Embrace AI Or Lose Your Job.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told attendees at the 2024 World Economic Forum’s annual meeting that companies and nations who embrace artificial intelligence (AI) “are going to be advantaged forever.” For those who don’t embrace AI, Krishna warned, “you’re going to find that you may not have a job.”

The Indian-American technology executive took over as CEO of IBM in 2020 and was named chairman in January 2021. “Artificial intelligence, today’s form, is going to generate $4 trillion of annual productivity before the end of the decade,” Krishna said. Despite evidence to the contrary — and his own warning — he insisted that the increase in productivity would not be in the form of “job displacement.”

U.S. policy regarding AI is increasingly a concern to voters and government officials alike. Former President Donald Trump warned recently that the technology could be “very dangerous for our country” in a post on Truth Social. He pointed to the use of fake — but incredibly realistic — images generated by AI tools which could be used to influence U.S. elections.

AI’s military and commercial applications also pose a potential existential threat to U.S. interests. The National Pulse reported that the Pentagon supplied Song-Chun Zhu — an AI specialist who works with the Chinese Communist Party – with $30 million in federal grants. Zhu described the AI technology race as the “equivalent to [developing] the ‘atomic bomb’ in the information technology field.”

Former President Barack Obama has overseen AI policy in the Biden government. The former President met with Big Tech and West Wing officials over Zoom on behalf of the 80-year-old incumbent as he was piecing together an executive order on AI. The order lays the groundwork for federal oversight and funding for the technology and a slew of government hirings related to it.

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IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told attendees at the 2024 World Economic Forum's annual meeting that companies and nations who embrace artificial intelligence (AI) "are going to be advantaged forever." For those who don't embrace AI, Krishna warned, "you're going to find that you may not have a job." show more
January 16, 2024
TECH

Researchers Who Developed ‘Evil’ AI Report They Can’t ‘Untrain’ It.

Researchers at the Google-backed AI firm Anthropic were unable to retrain large language models (LLMs) — a type of AI that utilizes deep-learning algorithms to simulate the way people might think or speak — from engaging in bad behavior.

In a new paper, the researchers say they were able to train the LLMs to engage in “strategically deceptive behavior,” which they define as “behaving helpfully in most situations, but then behaving very differently to pursue alternative objectives when given the opportunity.” The scientists then sought to discover if they could identify when the LLMs engaged in such behavior, and re-train them from doing so. The answer was no.

“We find that such backdoor behavior can be made persistent, so that it is not removed by standard safety training techniques, including supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and adversarial training (eliciting unsafe behavior and then training to remove it),” the study’s abstract states. “Our results suggest that, once a model exhibits deceptive behavior, standard techniques could fail to remove such deception and create a false impression of safety.”

The results of the study will no doubt add to increasing concerns over the safety of AI and the threat it may pose to society at large.

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Researchers at the Google-backed AI firm Anthropic were unable to retrain large language models (LLMs) — a type of AI that utilizes deep-learning algorithms to simulate the way people might think or speak — from engaging in bad behavior. show more
December 13, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Politics
TECH

Democrats Deploy ‘Ashley’ AI to Call Voters for Congressional Campaign.

The Democrats are deploying an Artificial Intelligence (AI) “volunteer” named ‘Ashley’ for Shamaine Daniels’s congressional campaign. Voters in south-central Pennsylvania have been receiving calls from the fake “volunteer” since the weekend, in a bid to persuade them to oust Republican Rep. Scott Perry.

“Hello. My name is Ashley, and I’m an Artificial Intelligence volunteer for Shamaine Daniels’ run for Congress,” the AI begins.

‘Ashley’ was created by the tech firm Civox, based out of London, England and San Francisco. As a “generative” AI, the program is able to hold a conversation, answering questions about Daniels, Perry, and their policy positions.

“This technology is going to change the character of what campaigning looks like,” Daniels boasted.

Other Democrats are also using AI to enhance their campaigns. New York City Mayor Eric Adams used it to create audio “deepfakes” of himself speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, and Yiddish. These recordings were them spammed to millions of voters.

AI has also been deployed against Donald Trump by the Ron DeSantis campaign. The Florida Governor has used AI to both fake Trump’s voice and fake pictures of him hugging and kissing Anthony Fauci.

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The Democrats are deploying an Artificial Intelligence (AI) "volunteer" named 'Ashley' for Shamaine Daniels's congressional campaign. Voters in south-central Pennsylvania have been receiving calls from the fake "volunteer" since the weekend, in a bid to persuade them to oust Republican Rep. Scott Perry. show more
November 3, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Politics
TECH

REPORT: Obama Ran Biden’s AI Policy – As Well As Everything Else – in Secret.

Joe Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, put together his policy on Artificial Intelligence (AI) behind the scenes over recent months, aides to the two Democrats have revealed. The news comes amidst growing acknowledgement in Washington, D.C. that the 44th President of the United States in fact secured a third term with the “election” of Joe Biden, staffing his White House and handing down recommendations from his home in D.C.’s lavish Kalorama neighborhood.

Obama, 62, coordinated with Big Tech and West Wing officials over Zoom on behalf of the 80-year-old incumbent as he was piecing together an executive order on AI. The order lays the groundwork for federal oversight of and funding for the technology, as well as a slew of government hirings related to it.

The Democrat aides claim Biden asked Obama to develop his AI policy because they have a “shared vision” on the subject.

During Donald Trump’s term, Obama spoke at length about his desire to a run a third administration through a placeman, telling far-left talk show host Stephen Colbert: “People would ask me… do you wish you had a third term?” … If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that.”

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Joe Biden's former boss, Barack Obama, put together his policy on Artificial Intelligence (AI) behind the scenes over recent months, aides to the two Democrats have revealed. The news comes amidst growing acknowledgement in Washington, D.C. that the 44th President of the United States in fact secured a third term with the "election" of Joe Biden, staffing his White House and handing down recommendations from his home in D.C.'s lavish Kalorama neighborhood. show more
sean penn
September 14, 2023
William Upton
Culture
News

Sean Penn Wants to Make AI Replicas of Studio Chiefs’ Daughters.

Actor and infamous Hollywood liberal Sean Penn wants to make AI replicas of the daughters of major motion picture studio executives and, according to him, let his friends do whatever they want to them. Penn’s bizarre comments come in response to the ongoing Hollywood writers and actors strike, where the issue of studio use and control over AI generated likenesses of actors has become a critical sticking point.

When asked about the strikes during an interview with Variety, the actor proposed his solution to the impasse over AI: asking film executives, on camera:

“So you want my scans and voice data and all that. OK, here’s what I think is fair: I want your daughter’s, because I want to create a virtual replica of her and invite my friends over to do whatever we want in a virtual party right now. Would you please look at the camera and tell me you think that’s cool?”

– Sean Penn, September 2023.

Over-the-top outbursts against his perceived enemies is not unusual for Penn, now 63 years old. In a 2018 opinion piece for Time, the actor declared that then President Donald Trump was the “enemy of mankind” and an “enemy of the state” insinuating that Trump was an immediate threat to the American people. In 2003, Penn took out a full page ad in the New York Times to attack President George W. Bush, warning that the American flag was becoming “a haunting banner of murder, greed, and treason against our principles”

Most recently, the Oscar-winning actor has taken up the cause of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his country’s war with Russia, making a failed push for the Ukrainian president to address the crowd and cameras at the Academy Awards in 2022.

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Actor and infamous Hollywood liberal Sean Penn wants to make AI replicas of the daughters of major motion picture studio executives and, according to him, let his friends do whatever they want to them. Penn's bizarre comments come in response to the ongoing Hollywood writers and actors strike, where the issue of studio use and control over AI generated likenesses of actors has become a critical sticking point. show more
desantis text
September 7, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

RonGPT: DeSantis’s New ‘Secret Strategy’ is Just an AI ChatBot.

Never Back Down, the pro-Ron DeSantis SuperPAC, is launching a massive, $25 million text message campaign over the next two months targeting Republican voters in a desperate effort to catch up with the presidential primary front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Instead of a volunteer or campaign worker, however, voters who receive a text from Never Back Down will be interacting with an AI chat bot.

The shift in Never Back Down’s political messaging strategy is driven in part by fiscal constraints – the SuperPAC has struggled to reach its $230 million fundraising goal – and by the failure of its television and radio ad campaign to sway voters towards Governor DeSantis. Chris Wilson, the SuperPAC’s data director, claims the AI-powered text campaign is more efficient in reaching voters – noting that the text messages alone can reach 70 percent of their voter targets in Iowa.

Large scale text operations can be costly for political campaigns, however. The Federal Communications Commission bars the use of auto-dialers, meaning that each text messages be individually sent by a human operator. Never Back Down has outsourced this task to third-party vendors who typically charge a few cents per message. The SuperPAC’s AI chatbot will handle subsequent text interactions with voters.

The National Pulse previously reported on South Carolina resident Alan Johnson’s encounter with Never Back Down’s AI chatbot – while it was apparently still in testing. When Johnson, a computer programmer, realized that he was conversing with an artificial intelligence and not an actual human, he used a series of prompts to make the chatbot write him a song about former President Barack Obama.

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Never Back Down, the pro-Ron DeSantis SuperPAC, is launching a massive, $25 million text message campaign over the next two months targeting Republican voters in a desperate effort to catch up with the presidential primary front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Instead of a volunteer or campaign worker, however, voters who receive a text from Never Back Down will be interacting with an AI chat bot. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
At this point they’re barely even hiding that they’re just skimming this donor money with get rich quick schemes for Jeff Roe and his buddies’ firms…
for exclusive members-only insights
At this point they’re barely even hiding that they’re just skimming this donor money with get rich quick schemes for Jeff Roe and his buddies’ firms… show more
for exclusive members-only insights