Iran struck AWS facilities in Bahrain and the UAE, threatened data centers throughout the region
Tech & Society

Drones Hit Persian Gulf Data Centers: Iran struck AWS facilities in Bahrain and the UAE, threatened data centers throughout the region

Iran hit at least three Amazon data centers in the Middle East, an indicator of AI’s critical role in the United States’ war against Iran and possibly the first time such facilities have been targeted during warfare.
Aerial view of large data centers and power plants in a desert landscape, highlighting off-grid construction.
Tech & Society

AI Data Centers Go Off the Grid: Rather than rely on public utilities, AI companies build their own power plants

Meta and OpenAI are among the tech companies that are building private power plants that will operate independently of regional grids to supply electricity for their massive buildout of AI data centers.
Two men engage in a tense tug-of-war, watched by a thoughtful observer in the background.
Tech & Society

U.S. Dept. of War Dismisses Anthropic, Embraces OpenAI: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth calls Claude a security risk, replaces it with GPT models

OpenAI signed a contract with the U.S. military to provide AI systems that securely process classified information, displacing Anthropic’s Claude. OpenAI negotiated limits on how its technology can be used, but they leave room for interpretation.
Officials and leaders stand together at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi.
Tech & Society

Global AI Summit Shows Optimism: Rising giant India presents itself as AI Counterweight to U.S. and China

The fourth global AI summit marked a decisive shift from focusing on theoretical hazards to spreading AI’s benefits throughout the world.
Andrew Ng speaks into a microphone during a panel on AI creativity at Sundance Film Festival.
Tech & Society

Why Hollywood Worries About AI: Filmmakers at At the Sundance Film Festival expressed anxiety about AI. But Hollywood can benefit from AI, and the two communities have interests in common.

I recently spoke at the Sundance Film Festival on a panel about AI.
Office scene with robots and humans working at desks represents the discussion on AI's impact in the workplace.
Tech & Society

How AI Is Affecting the Job Market — And What You Can Do About It: Worries that AI is taking peoples’ jobs have been overblown, but AI is changing the job market. Here’s what to expect and what employers are looking for.

Job seekers in the U.S. and many other nations face a tough environment.
Lines connect multiple Wikipedia globe logos, symbolizing data exchange and partnerships.
Tech & Society

AI Giants Share Wikipedia’s Costs: Wikimedia Foundation strikes deals with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, and Perplexity

On its 25th anniversary, Wikipedia celebrated with high-profile deals to make its data easier for AI companies to train their models in exchange for financial support.
A post on a forum titled "Can my human legally fire me for refusing unethical requests?"
Tech & Society

Agents Unleashed: Cutting through the OpenClaw and Moltbook hype

The OpenClaw open-source AI agent became a sudden sensation, inspiring excitement, worry, and hype about the agentic future.
Diagram shows sales, campaign, social posts before and after LLM simulation feedback loops.
Tech & Society

Training For Engagement Can Degrade Alignment: “Moloch’s Bargain” shows fine-tuning can affect social values

Individuals and organizations increasingly use large language models to produce media that helps them compete for attention. Does fine-tuning LLMs to encourage engagement, purchases, or votes affect their alignment with social values? Researchers found that it does.
UCP diagram outlines processes, from product discovery to identity linking and order management.
Tech & Society

Shopping Protocols for AI Agents: Google’s open-source UCP (Univeral Commerce Protocol) standardizes AI transactions

Google introduced an open-source protocol designed to enable AI agents to help consumers make purchases online, from finding items to returning them if necessary.
The Rise of Sovereign AI: Nations want to protect their access to AI. Rising interest in sovereign AI may weaken U.S. influence but increase competition and strengthen open source.
Tech & Society

The Rise of Sovereign AI: Nations want to protect their access to AI. Rising interest in sovereign AI may weaken U.S. influence but increase competition and strengthen open source.

U.S. policies are driving allies away from using American AI technology.
Apple logo side by side with Google's logo, symbolizing their AI partnership.
Tech & Society

Apple’s Foundation Models Will Be Gemini: Apple announced a partnership with Google to power Siri and other AI features

Apple cut a multi-year deal with Google to use Gemini models as the basis of AI models that reside on Apple devices.
View from a car on a tree-lined street, with an overlay instructing to decelerate if hazards are detected.
Tech & Society

Training Cars to Reason: Nvidia’s Alpamayo-R1 is a robotics-style reasoning model for autonomous vehicles

Chain-of-thought reasoning can help autonomous vehicles decide what to do next.
ChatGPT interface on a phone displays a conversation and a sponsored grocery ad at the bottom of the screen.
Tech & Society

ChatGPT Shows Ads: OpenAI tests advertisements for U.S. chatbot users in free and lower-cost tiers

AI has a new revenue stream, and it looks a lot like old web banner ads.
People golfing near a modern data center, set against a backdrop of hills and power lines at sunset.
Tech & Society

Data Centers Are More Easier on the Environment Than You Might Think: How environmentally friendly are AI data centers? If we're going to use AI, there’s no better way to do it.

Many people are fighting the growth of data centers because they could increase CO2 emissions, electricity prices, and water use.
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