The AI dooooooom thread

[Jacob]

Another story of AI being helpful:

ChatGPT allegedly validated the worst impulses of a wannabe influencer accused of stalking more than 10 women at boutique gyms, where the chatbot supposedly claimed he'd meet the "wife type."

In a press release on Tuesday, the Department of Justice confirmed that 31-year-old Brett Michael Dadig currently remains in custody after being charged with cyberstalking, interstate stalking, and making interstate threats. He now faces a maximum sentence of up to 70 years in prison that could be coupled with "a fine of up to $3.5 million," the DOJ said.

The podcaster—who primarily posted about "his desire to find a wife and his interactions with women"—allegedly harassed and sometimes even doxxed his victims through his videos on platforms including Instagram, Spotify, and TikTok. Over time, his videos and podcasts documented his intense desire to start a family, which was frustrated by his "anger towards women," whom he claimed were "all the same from fucking 18 to fucking 40 to fucking 90" and "trash."

More here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/chatgpt-hyped-up-violent-stalker-who-believed-he-was-gods-assassin-doj-says/

[Tamas]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SoraAi/s/NlBxkxu3jY

 

[Syt]

https://www.404media.co/pete-hegseth-says-the-pentagons-new-chatbot-will-make-america-more-lethal/

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the rollout of GenAI.mil today in a video posted to X. To hear Hegseth tell it, the website is "the future of American warfare." In practice, based on what we know so far from press releases and Hegseth's posturing, GenAI.mil appears to be a custom chatbot interface for Google Gemini that can handle some forms of sensitive—but not classified—data.

Hegseth's announcement was full of bold pronouncements about the future of killing people. These kinds of pronouncements are typical of the second Trump administration which has said it believes the rush to "win" AI is an existential threat on par with the invention of nuclear weapons during World War II.

Hegseth, however, did not talk about weapons in his announcement. He talked about spreadsheets and videos. "At the click of a button, AI models on GenAI can be used to conduct deep research, format documents, and even analyze video or imagery at unprecedented speed," Hegseth said in the video on X. Office work, basically. "We will continue to aggressively field the world's best technology to make our fighting force more lethal than ever before."

Emil Michael, the Pentagon's under secretary for research and engineering, also stressed how important GenAI would be to the process of killing people in a press release about the site's launch.

"There is no prize for second place in the global race for AI dominance. We are moving rapidly to deploy powerful AI capabilities like Gemini for Government directly to our workforce. AI is America's next Manifest Destiny, and we're ensuring that we dominate this new frontier," Michael said in the press release, referencing the 19th century American belief that God had divinely ordained Americans to settle the west at the same time he announced a new chatbot.

The press release says Google Cloud's Gemini for Government will be the first instance available on the internal platform. It's certified for Controlled Unclassified Information, the release states, and claims that because it's web grounded with Google Search–meaning it'll pull from Google search results to answer queries–that makes it "reliable" and "dramatically reduces the risk of AI hallucinations." As we've covered, because Google search results are also consuming AI content that contains errors and AI-invented data from across the web, it's become nearly unusable for regular consumers and researchers alike.

During a press conference about the rollout this morning, Michael told reporters that GenAI.mil would soon incorporate other AI models and would one day be able to handle classified as well as sensitive data. As of this writing, GenAI's website is down.

"For the first time ever, by the end of this week, three million employees, warfighters, contractors, are going to have AI on their desktop, every single one," Michael told reporters this morning, according to Breaking Defense. They'll "start with three million people, start innovating, using building, asking more about what they can do, then bring those to the higher classification level, bringing in different capabilities," he said.

The second Trump administration has done everything in its power to make it easier for the people in Silicon Valley to push AI on America and the world. It has done this, in part, by framing it as a national security issue. Trump has signed several executive orders aimed at cutting regulations around data centers and the construction of nuclear power plants. He's threatened to sign another that would block states from passing their own AI regulations. Each executive order and piece of proposed legislation threatens that losing the AI race would mean making America weak and vulnerable and erode national security.

The country's tech moguls are rushing to build datacenters and nuclear power plants while the boom time continues. Nevermind that people do not want to live next to datacenters for a whole host of reasons. Nevermind that tech companies are using faulty AIs to speed up the construction of nuclear power plants. Nevermind that the Pentagon already had a proprietary LLM it had operated since 2024.

"We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The Department is tapping into America's commercial genius, and we're embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm,' Hegseth said in the press release about GenAI.mil. "AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI's future positive impact across the War Department."

[Tamas]

Who better than Hegseth and Trump to manage AI adoption for US armed forces?

[Syt]

Who better than Hegseth and Trump to manage AI adoption for US armed forces?

[Josquius]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwygqqll9k2o


Sigh

Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image

Trains were halted after a suspected AI-generated picture that seemed to show major damage to a bridge appeared on social media following an earthquake.

The tremor, which struck on Wednesday night, was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District.

Network Rail said it was made aware of the image which appeared to show major damage to Carlisle Bridge in Lancaster at 00:30 GMT and stopped rail services across the bridge while safety inspections were carried out.

A BBC journalist ran the image through an AI chatbot which identified key spots that may have been manipulated.

Network Rail A photo showing damage to a bridge. A section of the barriers that run along the top of the bridge appears to have collapsed and a pile of rubble can be seen underneath. A large hole can be seen in front of the bridgeNetwork Rail
Network Rail said it was made aware that the image was on social media
Network Rail said the railway line was fully reopened at around 02:00 GMT and it has urged people to "think about the serious impact it could have" before creating or sharing hoax images.

"The disruption caused by the creation and sharing of hoax images and videos like this creates a completely unnecessary delay to passengers at a cost to the taxpayer," a spokesperson said.

"It adds to the high workload of our frontline teams, who work extremely hard to keep the railway running smoothly," the spokesperson said.

"The safety of rail passengers and staff is our number one priority and we will always take any safety concerns seriously."

The British Transport Police said it was "made aware" of the situation but there was no ongoing investigation into the incident.

Network Rail said 32 services including passenger and freight trains were delayed because of hoax.

A spokesperson for the rail provider said a mix of passenger and freight train would have been impacted.

They said some of them would have been directly stopped or slowed while it checked the lines, but a lot of the trains were delayed as a result of earlier services still being in their path.

The spokesperson said many of them would have been local but because of the length of the West Coast Main Line some trains were delayed as far north as Scotland.

A photo showing the bridge is undamaged
A BBC North West reporter visited the bridge today and confirmed it was undamaged
Railway expert Tony Miles said due to the timing of the incident, very few passengers will have been impacted by the hoax as the services passing through at that time were primarily freight and sleeper trains.

"They generally go slow so as not to disturb the passengers trying to sleep - this means they have a bit of leeway to go faster and make up time if they encounter a delay," he said.

"It's more the fact that Network Rail will have had to mobilise a team to go and check the bridge which could impact their work for days."

He urged people to consider hoaxes like this could have on real people.

"If they actually did delay a train it could have impacted someone who had to get to a medical appointment, or a flight or a funeral.

"It may seem like a game, but anyone who's thinking of doing this should consider how it will impact real people."

[garbon]

It would be great if public infrastructure didn't rely on social media reports.

[Josquius]

I know right.
This is being mostly reported as a "AI does bad" story. But I'd even more so read it as a cutting back on employees and ruining resilience story. This bridge was just half a mile from Lancaster Station.  They seriously didn't have someone they could send on a 10 minutes walk to check?

[crazy canuck]

Meh, the crank call has gone digital.

[The Brain]

It's not obvious how you maintain acceptable safety and at the same time not risk falling victim to fake safety problem reports. A problem that is much older than AI.

[DGuller]

It's not obvious how you maintain acceptable safety and at the same time not risk falling victim to fake safety problem reports. A problem that is much older than AI.

Good point.  How is this different from somebody placing a call saying "yo, the bridge just collapsed"?

[garbon]

It's not obvious how you maintain acceptable safety and at the same time not risk falling victim to fake safety problem reports. A problem that is much older than AI.

I think people will have to figure out mitigation strategies (if simply just use algorithms to check if doctored image) as AI will make this fake shit easier and easier to crank out.

[Jacob]

Hegseth boldly embracing military AI that can, among other things, "format documents" 

[crazy canuck]

There is always a risk analysis and balancing that is required.  If lives can be lost in the time that it takes to generate an analysis of an image to determine whether or not it is valid then the prudent thing to do is not take that time, but just shut the system down to ensure safety.

That's why it is a criminal offence, at least in this country, to intentionally make a false report.

[garbon]

There is always a risk analysis and balancing that is required.  If lives can be lost in the time that it takes to generate an analysis of an image to determine whether or not it is valid then the prudent thing to do is not take that time, but just shut the system down to ensure safety.

That's why it is a criminal offence, at least in this country, to intentionally make a false report.

But was it a report? I haven't seen anything on how the posts were framed on social media (like did they tag the train company) just reporting on how fake image stopped trains.