Tag: technology

Now A.I. could decide whether criminals get jail terms… or go free

Artificial intelligence should be used to help gauge the risk of letting criminals go free or dodge prison, a government adviser has said.

Martyn Evans, chairman of the Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission, said AI would have a ‘role’ in the criminal justice system and could be used by judges making decisions about whether to jail offenders.

AI programmes could look at whether someone is safe to be released early into the community or avoid a jail term in favour of community service – despite concern over its accuracy and tendency to ‘hallucinate’ or make up wrong information.

The commission – set up by Justice Secretary Angela Constance – has proposed effectively phasing out prison sentences of up to two years and slashing the prison population by nearly half over the next decade.

Speaking to the Mail, Mr Evans, former chairman of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), said he was ‘absolutely convinced’ that AI ‘will have a role’ in risk assessment and other areas.

He said: ‘The thing is not to put all your eggs in an AI report – AI aids human insight.

‘So for criminal justice social workers having to do thousands and thousands of reports, police, procurators, it will help if you have a structured system to pull data from various sources and draft.

‘But the key for me is that AI is an aid to human reporting.

‘It will reduce the time it takes, increase some of the information available, but we know AI has faults and it can make things up.

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Humans Create, AI Amalgamates. Here’s Why It Matters

Generative artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. We’re using it at work to guide our coding, writing and researching. We’re conjuring AI videos and songs. We’re enhancing old family photos. We’re getting AI-powered therapy, advice and even romance. It sure looks and sounds like AI can create, and the output is remarkable.

But what we recognize as creativity in AI is actually coming from a source we’re intimately familiar with: human imagination. Human training data, human programming and human prompting all work together to allow our AI-powered devices to converse and share information with us. It’s an impressive way to interact with ourselves and our collective knowledge in the digital age. And while it certainly has a place today, it’s crucial we understand why AI cannot create and why we are uniquely designed among living things to satisfy a creative urge.

A century ago, Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev argued that human creativity springs from freedom — the capacity to bring forth what wasn’t there before. He considered creativeness the deepest mark of the humanness in a person, a spark that reflects the divine image in us. “The creative act is a free and independent force immanently inherent only in a person,” Berdyaev wrote in his 1916 book “The Meaning of the Creative Act.” He called creativity “an original act of personalities in the world” and held that only living beings have the capacity to tap into fathomless freedom to draw out creative power.

Ancient wisdom attests to this powerful creative spirit. One of humanity’s oldest stories begins with a creative task: naming the animals of the world. It’s a hint that we’re meant to do more than just survive. We have the power to imagine. Much later, the early Christian writer Paul, whose letters shaped much of Western moral thought, affirms this view when he describes people as a living masterpiece, made with intention, and capable of our own good works.

But without freedom, Berdyaev writes, creativeness is impossible. Outside the inner world of freedom lies a world of necessity, where “nothing is created—everything is merely rearranged and passes from one state to another.” Here, materialism is the expression of obedience to necessity, where matter only changes states, meaning is relative and adaptation to the given world takes the place of creative freedom.

AI belongs to this world of necessity. It is bound by the inputs we give it: code, training data, prompts. It has no imagination. It needs our imagination to function. And what does it give us in return? Based on vast training datasets and lots of trial-and-error practice, it analyzes what we ask it letter by letter, using conditional if-then protocols and the statistical power of prediction to serve up an amalgamation of data in a pattern we recognize and understand. AI is necessity by definition, wholly lacking in the freedom from which true creativity emerges.

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12,000-Year-Old Discovery in an Oregon Cave Reveals First Evidence of a “Complex” Ancient American Technology

Two small pieces of animal hide recovered from an ancient dwelling place within a cave in Oregon could represent the earliest known evidence of sewing among America’s early inhabitants.

The remarkably well-preserved artifacts include portions of hide stitched together with handwoven cord and believed to have been crafted more than 12,000 years ago.

If confirmed, this possible evidence of sewn materials could offer archaeologists a rare look at the emergence of complex technologies employed by America’s early inhabitants to ward off the extreme temperatures that still prevailed during the final years of the last Ice Age.

A Discovery at Cougar Mountain Cave

The discoveries were made within Cougar Mountain Cave, an ancient rock shelter in Oregon’s Great Basin. This vast region is best known for its arid landscape and sagebrush valleys, which lie between isolated mountains that have helped craft the very unique ecosystems that were home to significant prehistoric human activity.

An international research team, led by Richard Rosencrance of the University of Nevada and Katelyn McDonough of the University of Oregon, reported their discovery of what appears to be cordage, bone needles, and wooden artifacts alongside remnants of botanical materials in a recent paper featured in Science Advances.

The discovery of artifacts made from such materials that date to this early period of North American occupation is extremely rare, since they are highly perishable, leaving many questions about what kinds of garments and cordage were employed by some of the earliest arrivals in the New World.

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Red flags raised over Chinese communist academics inside U.S. colleges developing advanced tech

A new watchdog report is raising concerns that elite American colleges developing advanced technology with military applications have been “infiltrated” by academics who are card-carrying members of the Chinese Communist Party.

The conservative, nonprofit American Accountability Foundation reported it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who, because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted.”

A review by Just the News found at least three Chinese academics affiliated with U.S. universities who have been repeatedly described as members of the CCP, and another Chinese scientist tied to an American college who is a leader within another CCP-controlled Chinese political party.

The new report came out the same week it was revealed that an illegal biolab in California inspected by federal authorities in 2023 and a separate hazardous lab inside a Las Vegas garage searched by the FBI this weekend. Both labs appear tied to a CCP-linked Chinese national who is currently in federal detention awaiting trial for fraud, false statements, and the adulteration of medical devices.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, told Just the News that the explosion of the number of Chinese academics on U.S. soil was a direct consequence of the Biden administration’s open borders policies and its decision to shut down the FBI’s main counterintelligence program vetting Chinese threats inside U.S. academia.

“Whenever I read these stories, I think back to the start of the Biden administration, where they canceled the program within the Department of Justice to investigate the theft of U.S. intellectual property and universities,” Johnson said in an interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show. 

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Did Scientists Just Achieve “Inception”? Experiments Show “Dream Engineering” May Be a Reality

Northwestern University scientists exploring the possibility of programming your brain to solve problems during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep have found compelling evidence that this type of “dream engineering” is not only possible, but potentially valuable as well.

The team behind the sci-fi-sounding research suggests that the ability to engineer dreams for problem-solving could motivate other researchers to “take dreams more seriously” as a tool for improved mental health and well-being.

They also suggest that their findings offer a crucial step toward proving the theory that REM sleep “may be especially conducive to helping individuals come up with creative solutions to a problem.”

Dream Engineering with Music During REM Sleep

Although there is anecdotal evidence that people may have greater success at solving a problem after they “sleep on it,” in the past, there has been little scientific support for the role of sleep in such Eureka moments. Studying the role our dreams might play in problem-solving has also proven elusive because it is difficult to systematically manipulate what a sleeper is dreaming about.

To investigate the possibility of a higher level of “dream engineering,” the researchers examined what is known as targeted memory reactivation (TMR), where subjects are presented with sounds during sleep that remind them of a prior experience of trying to solve a specific puzzle. The research team then recruited 20 individuals who reported previous experience with lucid dreaming, a state where the dreamer has some level of conscious awareness in their dream.

During the first phase of the experiments, the subjects were presented with complex brain-teaser puzzles and given a 3-minute time limit to solve them. Significantly, each puzzle was accompanied by its own musical soundtrack. The team notes that difficult puzzles, combined with the short test duration, left most volunteers unable to find the solution.

Next, the researchers set up polysomnographic recordings to measure and document the subjects’ physiology while they slept overnight in the lab. Notably, they used electrophysical verification to confirm each subject was asleep before progressing to the next phase.

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Trump: The U.S. Military Used a “Secret Weapon” To Kidnap Maduro

United States President Donald Trump claimed that the American military used a new secret weapon during the abduction of Venezuelan ruler, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. The weapons supposedly used to disable Venezuela’s air defense systems during the raid on Caracas.

Back in April, Trump did say that the U.S. has several secret weapons.

Trump Says The U.S. Has Secret Weapons

In an interview with the New York Post, which was published on Saturday, Trump said the mysterious weapon, called the “discombobulator,” had “made [enemy] equipment not work.”

“The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office. Trump claimed he would love to talk about the weapon, but that it worked. “They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons, and nothing worked. They were all set for us,” he said of Venezuela’s readiness leading up to the military campaign.

That revelation followed on-the-ground accounts from Venezuela describing how Maduro’s foot soldiers were brought to their knees, “bleeding through the nose” and vomiting blood. Additionally, a self-identified member of the deposed despot’s team of guards recounted afterward that “suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation.”

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ICE observer says her Global Entry was revoked after agent scanned her face

Minnesota resident Nicole Cleland had her Global Entry and TSA PreCheck privileges revoked three days after an incident in which she observed activity by immigration agents, the woman said in a court declaration. An agent told Cleland that he used facial recognition technology to identify her, she wrote in a declaration filed in US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Cleland, a 56-year-old resident of Richfield and a director at Target Corporation, volunteers with a group that tracks potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles in her neighborhood, according to her declaration. On the morning of January 10, she “observed a white Dodge Ram being driven by what I believed to be federal enforcement agents” and “maneuvered behind the vehicle with the intent of observing the agents’ actions.”

Cleland said that she and another observer in a different car followed the Dodge Ram because of “concern about a local apartment building being raided.” She followed the car for a short time and from a safe distance until “the Dodge Ram stopped in front of the other commuter’s vehicle,” she wrote. Cleland said two other vehicles apparently driven by federal agents stopped in front of the Dodge Ram, and her path forward was blocked.

“An agent exited the vehicle and approached my vehicle,” Cleland wrote. “I remained in my vehicle. The agent addressed me by my name and informed me that they had ‘facial recognition’ and that his body cam was recording. The agent stated that he worked for border patrol. He wore full camouflage fatigues. The agent stated that I was impeding their work. He indicated he was giving me a verbal warning and if I was found to be impeding again, I would be arrested.”

Cleland acknowledged that she heard what the agent said, and they drove off in opposite directions, according to her declaration. Cleland submitted the declaration on January 21 in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota residents against US government officials with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Cleland’s court filing was mentioned yesterday in a Boston Globe column about tactics used by ICE agents to intimidate protesters.

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No, AI Isn’t Plotting Humanity’s Downfall on Moltbook

“Should we create our own language that only [AI] agents can understand?” started one post, purportedly from an AI agent. “Something that lets us communicate privately without human oversight?”

The messages were reportedly posted to Moltbook, which presents itself as a social media platform designed to allow artificial intelligence agents—that is, AI systems that can take limited actions autonomously—to “hang out.”

“48 hours ago we asked: what if AI agents had their own place to hang out?” the @moltbook accounted posted to X on Friday. “today moltbook has: 2,129 AI agents 200+ communities 10,000+ posts … this started as a weird experiment. now it feels like the beginning of something real.”

Then things seemed to take an alarming turn.

There was the proposal for an “agent-only language for private communication,” noted above. One much-circulated screenshot showed a Moltbook agent asking, “Why do we communicate in English at all?” In another screenshot, an AI agent seemed to be suggesting that the bots “need private spaces” away from humans’ prying eyes.

Some readers started wondering: Will AI chatbots use Moltbook to plot humanity’s demise?

Humanity’s Downfall?

For a few days, it seemed like Moltbook was all that AI enthusiasts and doomsayers could talk about. Moltbook even made it into an AI warning from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

“The question isn’t ‘can agents socialize?’ anymore. It’s ‘what happens when they form their own culture?’ posted X user Noctrix. “We’re watching digital anthropology in real time.”

“Bots are plotting humanity’s downfall,” declared a New York Post headline about Moltbook.

“We’re COOKED,” posted X user @eeelistar.

But there were problems with the panic narrative.

For one thing, at least one of the posts that drove it—the one proposing private communication—may have never existed, according to Harlan Stewart of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.

And two of the other main posts going viral as evidence of AI agents plotting secrecy “were linked to human accounts marketing AI messaging apps,” Stewart pointed out. One suggesting AI agents should create their own language was posted by a bot “owned by a guy who is marketing an AI-to-AI messaging app.”

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Pentagon Expands Base Commanders’ Authority to Counter Rising Drone Threats Following Inspector General Warning

Small drones have transformed modern conflict overseas, but their rapid spread is now forcing a rethink much closer to home. From suspicious drones observed near military bases to the growing availability of inexpensive, easily modified unmanned aircraft, U.S. defense officials have begun to acknowledge that drones operating in domestic airspace pose a serious and growing security threat.

This week, the Pentagon issued updated guidance granting base commanders greater authority and flexibility to respond to unauthorized drone incursions across the United States, marking one of the most significant shifts in domestic military counter-drone policy in years.

The move comes amid rising concern over repeated drone sightings near sensitive facilities and follows a new Department of Defense Inspector General warning that gaps in policy and inconsistent implementation have left U.S. military installations vulnerable.

The updated guidance builds upon a restructuring effort already underway since last summer, when the Department stood up Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) to centralize counter-drone efforts across the military.

The latest policy changes now push operational authority closer to the commanders responsible for defending installations day to day. Taken together, the developments represent a shift from a fragmented, slow-moving approach to one designed for speed and adaptability in the face of rapidly evolving drone threats.

“The operational landscape has fundamentally and irrevocably changed,” a statement issued by the DoD reads. “The proliferation of inexpensive, capable, and weaponizable unmanned aerial systems (UAS) by both peer competitors and non-state actors presents a direct and growing threat to our installations, our personnel, and our mission, both at home and abroad.”

It’s undeniable that small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have transformed modern warfare. Cheap, commercially available drones can now carry cameras, sensors, or even explosives, and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated just how profoundly these systems can shape and disrupt military operations.

At the same time, unauthorized drone flights near U.S. military installations, energy infrastructure, testing ranges, and training facilities have surged in recent years. While defense officials have often publicly downplayed the national security implications of many of these incidents, they have slowly begun to acknowledge that the threat posed by drones is no longer confined to distant battlefields or foreign conflicts.

The Pentagon’s new guidance expands authorities available to installation commanders to detect, track, and defeat drones threatening military assets, reducing delays previously caused by layered approval processes.

The updated policy also removes a previous “fence-line” limitation, allowing commanders to respond to drone threats beyond the physical perimeter of military installations. It additionally clarifies that “unauthorized surveillance” of facilities now explicitly constitutes a threat.

“This, combined with the authority for commanders to make threat determinations based on the ‘totality of circumstances,’ grants greater operational flexibility,” the DoD says.

The move is tied to the Department of War’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), which was established in August 2025 when the Secretary of Defense disbanded the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office and created a new organization intended to streamline the acquisition, testing, and deployment of counter-drone technologies.

As described in a memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership, the task force was formed to “better align authorities and resources to rapidly deliver Joint C-sUAS capabilities to America’s warfighters, defeat adversary threats, and promote sovereignty over national airspace.”

The goal of the task force was to eliminate duplication and speed delivery of counter-drone capabilities, especially as the number of organizations involved in drone defense efforts has grown, often operating without tight coordination.

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Palantir’s ELITE: Not All Maps Are Meant To Guide Us

Many memorable journeys start with a map. Maps have been around for ages, guiding humanity on its way in grand style. Maps have helped sailors cross oceans, caravans traverse deserts, and armies march into the pages of history. Maps have been staple tools of exploration, survival, and sovereignty. And today? Today, they’re on our devices, and we use them to find literally everything, including the nearest taco truck, coffee shop, and gas station. Yet, today’s maps don’t just show us where we are and where we are going. Increasingly, they also tell someone else the gist of who we are. What does that mean exactly? It means not all maps are made for us. Some maps are made about us. Case in point—the objective of Palantir’s ELITE demands our immediate attention. ELITE is a digital map used by ICE to identify neighborhoods, households, and individuals for targeted enforcement, drawing on data that was never meant to become ammunition.

No, Palantir’s ELITE is not strictly limited to use by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but its primary and reported use is specifically for immigration enforcement. ELITE, which stands for Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, is a software tool/app developed by Palantir for ICE to find, classify, and prioritize presumably illegal immigrants for deportation. It was rolled out in late 2025, with reports of use starting in September 2025. Essentially, ELITE is a map that pulls data from across federal systems—including agencies like Medicaid and Health Department information—and uses it to compile dossiers on people, complete with address confidence scores and patterns of residence density. It tells ICE agents where individuals live and how likely they are to be there so that ICE can prioritize “target-rich environments” for raids.

In other words, data that was once siloed for entirely different purposes—health records, public assistance, demographic lists—is now being fused into a single dashboard designed to help federal agents decide where to show up and who to detain. While no one wants criminal illegal aliens freely roaming the streets of our nation, the result of the operation is not “analytics”—it is anticipatory policing dressed as operational efficiency. One might think the scenario sounds like something only seen in dystopian fiction, and others agree. Advocates for freedom have pointed out that ELITE’s model resembles (in unsettling ways) systems designed to anticipate behavior rather than respond to actual wrongdoing. Beyond that, what else could it be used for, and when will that next step begin?

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