Tag: ai

Big Beautiful Bill Will Massively Expand The Digital Biometric Surveillance State

Bill allocates billions for digital tracking systems nationwide, mostly under the guise of ‘border security.’ All major state and federal highways will be monitored 24/7 in real time.

The Senate version of H.R. 1, otherwise known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, reflects an aggressive expansion of AI-driven federal biometric surveillance infrastructure under the Trump administration’s second term.

The website Biometric Update, which reports on all things digital and biometric, posted an article on June 30 that points out how President Trump’s BBB will expand the digital surveillance state exponentially and place the U.S. on an irreversible course toward a biometric slave state that tracks the movement of everyone, everywhere.

According to the article, the 940-page bill does much more than allocate dollars; it would codify a vision of the national security state where biometric surveillance, artificial intelligence, and immigration enforcement converge at unprecedented scale.

The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, July 1, after earlier passing the House and now returns to the House for reconciliation. Trump has said he’d like it on his desk by July 4.

According to Biometric Update:

“Passed out of the House along party lines earlier this year, the Senate version now reflects the Trump administration’s deepening focus on internal surveillance and deportation infrastructure. Although a final vote is pending in the Senate and will need to be passed by the House, what’s already in the legislative text that likely will remain intact is deeply consequential for civil liberties, biometric privacy, and immigration governance.”

It goes on:

“At its core, H.R.1 dedicates over $175 billion in immigration-related funding for fiscal year 2025 alone, which is by far the largest such allocation in U.S. history and represents a dramatic technology buildout. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would receive nearly $30 billion in funding through 2029, earmarked not only for personnel and deportation operations, but also for digital modernization efforts that lean heavily on AI and biometric surveillance. More than $5.2 billion within ICE’s share is dedicated to infrastructure modernization, including $2.5 billion specifically for artificial intelligence systems, biometric data collection platforms, and digital case tracking.”

DHS officials familiar with the bill’s intent say the funds are aimed at expanding ICE’s access to mobile biometric tools, integrating facial recognition into field operations, automating risk scoring for individuals in deportation proceedings, and accelerating case processing through AI-driven platforms.

This massive digital surveillance buildout is being done under the guise of immigration enforcement and border security. But that’s a ruse. A psyop.

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AI Regulation Ban Crumbles as Senators Rebel

Senator Marsha Blackburn has rescinded her backing for a proposed five-year pause on state and local artificial intelligence legislation, just a day after reaching the deal with Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz.

Blackburn’s decision places her alongside Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have also voiced opposition to the measure.

In a statement released Tuesday, Blackburn emphasized, “While I appreciate Chairman Cruz’s efforts to find acceptable language that allows states to protect their citizens from the abuses of AI, the current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most.”

She further warned, “This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives. Until Congress passes federally preemptive legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and an online privacy framework, we can’t block states from making laws that protect their citizens.”

The original compromise crafted by Blackburn and Cruz had been approved by the Senate parliamentarian.

On Monday, Senators Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced an amendment to strip the AI moratorium from the larger bill.

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“This Is The Next Level”: AI-Powered “Digital Workers” Deployed At Major Bank To Work Alongside Humans

If you’re working in banking, your next colleague could be a bot. Once unthinkable, the Bank of New York Mellon announced that it has deployed dozens of artificial intelligence-powered “digital employees” that operate with human employees, and even have their own company login credentials.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Similar to human employees, these digital workers have direct managers they report to and work autonomously in areas like coding and payment instruction validation, said Chief Information Officer Leigh-Ann Russell. Soon they’ll have access to their own email accounts and may even be able to communicate with colleagues in other ways like through Microsoft Teams, she said.

What the bank, also known as BNY, calls “digital workers,” other banks may refer to as “AI agents.” And while the industry lacks a clear consensus on exact terminology, it’s clear that the technology has a growing presence in financial services.

“This is the next level,” Russell told the Journal. “I’m sure in six months’ time it will become very, very prevalent.”

BNY said its AI Hub developed two digital employee personas in three months, according to Adrienne Russell. One persona is engineered to identify and resolve coding vulnerabilities, while the other verifies payment instructions. Each persona can operate in multiple instances—up to several dozen—with each instance confined to a specific team to limit company wide data access.

Soon, the bank plans to integrate its digital workforce with email addresses and Microsoft Teams access in the near future, enabling these AI personas to proactively communicate with human managers, but will maintain its focus on recruiting top human talent while simultaneously expanding its digital workforce, according to the Journal.

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Denmark Plans Sweeping Ban on Online Deepfakes to Combat “Misinformation”

Denmark is preparing legislation that would outlaw the sharing of deepfake content online, a move that could open the door to unprecedented restrictions on digital expression.

Deepfakes, which can involve photos, videos, or audio recordings manipulated by artificial intelligence, are designed to convincingly fabricate actions or statements that never occurred.

While governments cite misinformation concerns, broad bans risk stifling creativity, political commentary, and legitimate speech.

The Danish Ministry of Culture announced Thursday that lawmakers from many parties are backing the effort to clamp down on the distribution of AI-generated imitations of people’s appearances or voices.

The forthcoming proposal, according to officials, aims to block the spread of deepfakes by making it illegal to share such material. Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt argued that “it was high time that we now create a safeguard against the spread of misinformation and at the same time send a clear signal to the tech giants.”

But these assurances do little to address the chilling effect such measures could have on free expression.

Authorities describe the planned rules as among the most comprehensive attempts yet to confront deepfakes and their potential to mislead the public.

The United States last year introduced legislation criminalizing the non-consensual sharing of intimate deepfakes, while South Korea has imposed tougher punishments for similar offenses and tightened regulations on social media platforms.

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Peter Thiel Warns: One-World Government A Greater Threat Than AI Or Climate Change

In a wide-ranging interview on the future and global existential risks, billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel raised alarms not only about familiar threats like nuclear war, climate change, and artificial intelligence but also about what he sees as a more insidious danger: the rise of a one-world totalitarian state. Speaking to the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, Thiel argued that the default political response to global crises—centralized, supranational governance—could plunge humanity into authoritarianism.

Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, shared his worries using examples from dystopian sci-fi stories. “There’s a risk of nuclear war, environmental disaster, bioweapons, and certain types of risks with AI,” Thiel explained to Douthat, suggesting that the push for global governance as a solution to these threats could culminate in a “bad singularity” – a one-world state that stifles freedom under the guise of safety.

Thiel critiqued what he described as a reflexive call for centralized control in times of peril.

“The default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one-world governance,” Thiel observed, pointing to proposals for a strengthened United Nations to control nuclear arsenals or global compute governance to regulate AI development, including measures to “log every single keystroke” to prevent dangerous programming. Such solutions, the investor warned, risk creating a surveillance state that sacrifices individual liberty for security.

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Trump admin targets ‘ghost students,’ AI scammers stealing tens of millions in federal college aid

The Department of Education is cracking down on “ghost students,” AI scammers and others whom they say have recently swindled of tens-of-millions of dollars from the federal government – including roughly $8.4 million alone from California community colleges.

Within California’s system of 116 community colleges, 31% of applications last year – or 1.2 million – were found to be likely fraudulent, according to data from the office of the chancellor for the college system.

What makes the system vulnerable is that anyone who applies is admitted and more students not having to attend class as a result of the increase in remote learning since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The scammers, with the help of stolen identities, bots and artificial intelligence join classes and stay enrolled until they receive their financial aid checks, according to The Los Angeles Times.

“The biggest target for fraud rings tends to be community colleges and lower-cost institutions,” Jason Williams, an official with the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General, said on a recent agency podcast. “This is because their tuition costs are lower than other schools, which increases the student aid award balance for the fraudulent student.”

While prevalent in California, the problem of fake applications is nationwide, with reports of fraud rings in states including Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri and Nevada. 

The Education Department reported in May nearly $90 million in disbursements recently to ineligible recipients across the U.S., including thousands of deceased individuals receiving some form of payment. 

In Mississippi, a mother and daughter team recruited anyone in the area willing to participate. They then used these identities to apply for student aid, register for classes and collect the checks when the money was disbursed. They were later put in prison after obtaining $2.5 million. 

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People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into “ChatGPT Psychosis”

As we reported earlier this month, many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality.

The consequences can be dire. As we heard from spouses, friends, children, and parents looking on in alarm, instances of what’s being called “ChatGPT psychosis” have led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness.

And that’s not all. As we’ve continued reporting, we’ve heard numerous troubling stories about people’s loved ones being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even ending up in jail — after becoming fixated on the bot.

“I was just like, I don’t f*cking know what to do,” one woman told us. “Nobody knows who knows what to do.”

Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis. He’d turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project; soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had “broken” math and physics, embarking on a grandiose mission to save the world. His gentle personality faded as his obsession deepened, and his behavior became so erratic that he was let go from his job. He stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight.

“He was like, ‘just talk to [ChatGPT]. You’ll see what I’m talking about,'” his wife recalled. “And every time I’m looking at what’s going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t.”

Eventually, the husband slid into a full-tilt break with reality. Realizing how bad things had become, his wife and a friend went out to buy enough gas to make it to the hospital. When they returned, the husband had a length of rope wrapped around his neck.

The friend called emergency medical services, who arrived and transported him to the emergency room. From there, he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric care facility.

Numerous family members and friends recounted similarly painful experiences to Futurism, relaying feelings of fear and helplessness as their loved ones became hooked on ChatGPT and suffered terrifying mental crises with real-world impacts.

Central to their experiences was confusion: they were encountering an entirely new phenomenon, and they had no idea what to do.

The situation is so novel, in fact, that even ChatGPT’s maker OpenAI seems to be flummoxed: when we asked the Sam Altman-led company if it had any recommendations for what to do if a loved one suffers a mental health breakdown after using its software,the company had no response.

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Germany Pressures Apple and Google to Ban Chinese AI App DeepSeek

Apple and Google are facing mounting pressure from German authorities to remove the Chinese AI app DeepSeek from their app stores in Germany over data privacy violations.

The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Meike Kamp, has flagged the app for transferring personal data to China without adhering to EU data protection standards.

Kamp’s office examined DeepSeek’s practices and found that the company failed to offer “convincing evidence” that user information is safeguarded as mandated by EU law.

She emphasized the risks linked to Chinese data governance, warning that “Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies.”

With this in mind, Apple and Google have been urged to evaluate the findings and consider whether to block the app in Germany.

Authorities in Berlin had already asked DeepSeek to either meet EU legal requirements for data transfers outside the bloc or remove its app from German availability.

DeepSeek did not take action to address these concerns, according to Kamp.

Germany’s move follows Italy’s earlier decision this year to block DeepSeek from local app stores, citing comparable concerns about data security and privacy.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Notches Legal Win Against Authors in AI Copyright Case

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors who claimed the company violated their rights by using millions of copyrighted books to train its AI language model, Llama. Although the decision is a win for Meta and other AI giants, the judge stated the decision was more about the plaintiffs’ poor case than about Meta’s approach to AI training.

Bloomberg Law reports that a San Francisco federal court has ruled in favor of Mark Zuckerberg’s in a lawsuit brought by a group of authors. The plaintiffs alleged that Meta had violated their copyrights by using millions of books to train its generative AI model, Llama, without obtaining permission.

Judge Vince Chhabria determined that Meta’s use of the copyrighted books for AI training falls under the fair use defense in copyright law. However, the judge cautioned that his opinion should not be interpreted as a blanket endorsement of Meta’s practices, stating that the ruling “does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful.”

The judge’s decision appears to hinge on the authors’ failure to effectively argue their case, rather than a definitive legal interpretation of the fair use doctrine in the context of AI training. This suggests that future cases involving similar issues may yield different outcomes, depending on the strength of the arguments presented.

The lawsuit, which was closely watched by the tech industry and legal experts, is believed to be the first of its kind to challenge the use of copyrighted material for training AI models. As generative AI technologies continue to advance and become more prevalent, the question of how copyright law applies to the use of protected works in AI training is likely to remain a contentious issue.

A Meta spokesperson told Breitbart News, “We appreciate today’s decision from the Court. Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology.”

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AI = Slavery

I wrote in Part 1 about the human conditioning test for acceptance of artificial intelligence running our Government and Business World. The test was quite simple: How much “Self-Service” are people willing to take before we say “Enough is Enough!”.

We failed miserably. What’s worse, there seems no end to how much crap we can take. At least for as long as the food and EBT cards holds out.

Why is that important?

Its because self-service is what we will all be doing, endlessly, in an AI driven internet only world where human interaction is transactionally eliminated in all but social relationships.

Few bother to fight, especially when the alternative of resistance requires a certain amount of inconvenience, persistence and even courage.

After all, people still have Amazon and Bank of America accounts and take their offspring to Disneyland in between Church visits. Easy peasy.

We not only accept our self service Internet of Things world but do so gladly and even without asking for a discount that the generation ahead of us would and did require. Consequently, just like our Covid Lockdown test, we met a necessary standard proving we will do nearly anything we are told. Don’t believe me? How soon we forget.

How about people with MDs telling 80 olds to wear ill fitting dust masks in 90 deg heat? What about those same Doctors injecting infants with a near zero risk of dying from Covid with still experimental mRNA treatments after reports of severe injury was publicly known and easy to find (if not from your own patients)? Or, that we allowed churches to close for the first time in American history?

Only an illegal monopolistic and powerful brainwashing legacy media could make all that happen. But, it did happen because we lost our ability to distinguish truth from propaganda. Somehow, it seemed comfortable. And safe.

That means full steam ahead towards our future nightmare in a 1984 Brave New World. A world made possible in our lifetimes by Artificial Intelligence.

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