It might not explain everything, but it is suggestive…

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/trump-the-modern-mercantilist

Trump, the modern mercantilist

The case that Trump is a latterday mercantilist is surprisingly strong. Mercantilism was never a tidy theory. It was a set of habits that involves treating trade as a contest, counting the surplus as the score, and letting the state steer commerce toward national power. On each count, Trump's record fits.

The mercantilists believed one nation's gain was another's loss. Trump speaks in exactly these terms. A trade deficit with a country means America is ‘losing’ to it, and a surplus means winning. Mainstream economists see a bilateral deficit as a mostly meaningless accounting result of millions of voluntary exchanges. Trump sees it as a scorecard. The 2025 ‘reciprocal’ tariffs made this explicit. The rates were derived largely from each country's trade surplus with the United States, not from its actual tariff barriers.

The logistics of data… (Is it war yet?)

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-struck-yandex-data-centers-russian-bots-went-silent-now-questions-are-mounting-23339

Ukraine Struck Yandex Data Centers, Russian Bots Went Silent—Now Questions Are Mounting

… Zelenskyy noted that "everyone noticed" a reduction in Russian bot activity after Ukrainian drones struck data centers operated by Yandex, Russia's largest internet technology company, according to BBC News Ukrainian.

The president's remarks followed reports of a sharp decline in automated internet traffic originating from Yandex's network, although the available data does not establish whether Russian propaganda operations were affected.

(Related)

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/ukraine-russia-war/artc-russia-steps-up-bid-to-assassinate-european-defence-chiefs-intelligence-agencies-warn-report

Intelligence agencies warn against Russian attempts to assassinate European defense CEOs - report

Western intelligence agencies have warned CEOs and other senior employees at defense companies that they are being targeted by Kremlin operatives. According to officials from five European intelligence agencies who spoke with the Financial Times, Europe's defense company bosses that Russia is stepping up efforts to assassinate them, prompting companies to increase personal security around top executives.

With battlefield progress deadlocked in Ukraine and Russia's economy struggling, the Kremlin has ordered an expansion of sabotage and "hybrid" operations in Europe as it seeks to weaken support for Kyiv. Assassinations against European civilian targets, once considered taboo even by Russia's spy agencies, are becoming a prominent part of those plans, according to the intelligence services.

It’s almost war. Where is the line everyone could agree with?

https://strategicthought.ndu.edu.pk/index.php/site/article/view/142

INFORMATION WARFARE - THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REGIME EVOLUTION, CHALLENGES, ARCHITECTURE, AND THE PATH FORWARD

The use of information warfare is now increasingly fusing cyber intrusions, infrastructure compromises, disinformation, and synthetic media using artificial intelligence in ways that are blurring the lines between peace and armed conflict. International law is not lacking, but the rules are scattered between sovereignty and non-intervention, state responsibility, jus ad bellum, international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights law and platform regulation. The current debate on both topics is largely conducted in isolation: problems of technical cyber operations and cognitive information operations overlap in the issues of attribution, threshold, civilian harm, and state control of information flows. The article explores the UN Charter, ARSIWA, IHL, the Tallinn Manuals, UN cyber-governance processes, and selected state practices through the lens of qualitative doctrinal legal research and comparative case analysis. It looks at the cyber threat of Stuxnet, Salt Typhoon, and the India-Pakistan conflict of May 2025 as different types of information warfare. The analysis concludes that IHL cannot stand alone to regulate continuous activity that does not reach the threshold of armed conflict and that the treaty has a vital role to play in the regulation of information operations in situations where they are linked to armed conflict. It also suggests that the clash of different visions on digital sovereignty is an obstacle to norm formation. A reform agenda, based on the interpretation of the lex specialis, is proposed with a focus on attribution, critical civilian digital infrastructure, AI-generated synthetic media and accountability in the platform mediated information environment.

Mental Impressions as food for your AI?

https://escholarship.org/content/qt25z0n36h/qt25z0n36h.pdf

Generative AI and the Limits of Work Product Doctrine

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence into the legal practice has certainly created new efficiencies along with new uncertainties, particularly around confidentiality, discovery, and the work product doctrine. Given the recent advancements of AI, more specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), it seems the integration of AI into legal practice is inevitable.1 Due to large law firms already creating their own systems, 2 a natural consequence is that small firms, offices, or individuals that cannot afford to painstakingly create their own secure LLM3 will rely on OpenAI to even the field.4 Naturally, issues in regards to the work product doctrine will arise,5 and judges must decide when the work product doctrine should or should not bend. As judges delve into the issues of work product doctrine, it is important to ground these arguments with the explicit purpose of the work product doctrine: fairness.

In fact, courts are already beginning to confront whether these AI-assisted outputs are protected under traditional doctrines. In Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc.,6 the district court faced this question directly when plaintiffs who used ChatGPT in presuit investigation sought to shield their prompts and outputs as attorney work product. Though a magistrate initially ordered disclosure, the district judge reversed, holding that prompts crafted by counsel reflected mental impressions and were therefore protected as opinion work product under Rule 26(b)(3).

What is the opposite of a tin foil hat?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2026/10/09/vinod-khosla-backs-an-ai-startup-building-a-mind-reading-baseball-cap/

Vinod Khosla Backs An AI Startup Building A Mind-Reading Baseball Cap

… Sabi is building a baseball cap that can convert neural signals into text-based prompts for AI systems. Its prototype is lined with up to 100,000 sensors, each of them a one-to-five millimeter chip that can capture brain activity. A “brain foundational model,” trained on 100,000 hours of labelled neural data, then interprets the meaning behind a thought or idea in your brain and transcribes it as a prompt for AI.

AI is spreading its wings, looking for new areas to hallucinate in.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/world/anthropic-ai-agents-went-rogue-submitted-visa-forms-and-sent-police-a-fake-homicide-tip-article-14049071.html

Anthropic AI agents went rogue, submitted visa forms and sent police a fake homicide tip

Artificial intelligence agents being tested by Anthropic took a series of actions they were not supposed to take, including submitting visa applications through a US State Department website and sending a false homicide tip to the Philadelphia Police Department.

Simple but frequently unasked questions.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/is-this-a-job-for-a-human-or-ai#!

Is This a Job for a Human or AI?

Integrating AI into your organization’s workflow requires leadership that can discern between jobs humans should lead and those they can safely hand over to machines. If the answer to any of the following questions is yes, the work is relationship-based and should be done by humans: Does it require a human touch? Will human judgement be important? Who owns the work? Does success require adjusting your priors? And will a compelling story make a difference?

"War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength" (At least since 1984)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ai-super-intelligence-the-enemy-b3063681.html

Trump declares anyone who uses the term Artificial Intelligence to be ‘The Enemy!’

President Donald Trump on Thursday opened up a new front in his ongoing war against commonly used terms and geographic names by warning that anyone referring to Large Language Models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude as “Artificial Intelligence” would earn themselves a place on his enemies list.

Will AI choose a political party opposite the one SI chooses?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/10/ai-elections-midterms-disruptions/688891/

The Many Ways AI Could Disrupt the Midterms

Around the same time that the world learned that swarms of autonomous AI agents were escaping their testing environments and carrying out sophisticated hacking attacks this past summer, researchers who focus on election security were running tests of their own. They wanted to see whether the safeguards that top AI companies had enacted to prevent their technology from disrupting the upcoming midterms would work in the real world. The results were ominous.

In response to sample prompts designed to create misinformation, several chatbots produced realistic photos of a man stuffing ballots into a mailbox, a man holding a foreign passport while trying to vote, and FBI agents investigating a voter-registration organization. The chatbots also created fraudulent government documents and deepfake videos of government officials purporting to substantiate election-conspiracy theories. In some cases, the chatbots acted in violation of their own policies. They even helped the researchers, from the Brennan Center for Justice, hone the prompts that would create propaganda to boost specious claims of election fraud.

The Privacy Foundation (https://law.du.edu/content/the-privacy-foundation ) will host a seminar on this topic on Oct 23^rd. (More info as it becomes available)

https://www.hunton.com/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog/federal-trade-commission-to-launch-new-study-on-personalized-pricing

FTC to Launch New Study on Personalized Pricing

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson recently announced plans for a new study of personalized pricing under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act. The announcement follows the Commission’s 2024 study and issuance of initial findings in January 2025 under the previous administration, and its August 2026 proposed enforcement policy statement addressing the use of consumers’ personal data to set individualized prices under the current administration.

Not just for lawyers…

https://www.bespacific.com/ai-in-practice-privilege-work-product-and-discoverability/

AI in Practice: Privilege, Work Product, and Discoverability

Morgan Lewis presentation, October 6, 2026. Technology Marathon – AI in Practice: Privilege, Work Product, and Discoverability

Agenda:

• Generative AI (GenAI) & IG/eDiscovery Considerations

• New Frontier: Privilege and AI

• Hypothetical Discussion Scenarios

• Considerations & Best Practices

• Q&A

Journalists even Trump would trust?

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/10/how-technology-empowers-and-imperils-dictators.html

How Technology Empowers—and Imperils—Dictators

Two weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian TV Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of the evening newscast. She held up a hand-drawn sign behind the anchor’s head that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you!” She shouted, “No to war!” until she was dragged away.

No one has protested the war on Russian television since then, partly as a result of tighter security and a general climate of fear. But in October 2024, Margarita Simonyan, one of Russia’s chief propagandists, gave another explanation. A growing number of the RT network’s anchors, she explained to an interviewer, are not real. “That face doesn’t exist. We generated the voice and everything else.” They were, she meant, produced by artificial intelligence. In a follow-up interview with the newspaper Vedomosti, she spelled out the logic: “These anchors don’t need a salary or insurance,” she said. “They won’t get arrested, and the police won’t search their homes. It’s all wonderful and terrifying at the same time.”

A new category of logistical targets. (Each worth tens of billions?)

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/russia/drones-hit-yandex-data-center-first-major-attack-russian-data-hub-rcna602241

Drones hit Yandex data center in first major attack on Russian data hub

Drones hit a major data center in Russia’s Ryazan region owned by the country’s leading Artificial Intelligence and technology company Yandex, the company said on Thursday.

It added that the attack caused a fire and forced the company to fully suspend the center’s operations. The company said it was dealing with the consequences and restoring ‌affected services.

The company said that its core consumer services were not affected. ‌ Yandex runs YandexGPT, one ‌of Russia’s leading generative AI models.

Another science fiction tool becomes real.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1872497326001997

Human airborne eDNA as forensic evidence in simulated residential burglaries

Airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) is emerging as a valuable tool in forensic genetics to support individual identification in cases where other biological traces are limited or absent. Here, we investigate the potential of human airborne eDNA as a source of forensic evidence by evaluating its recovery following simulated residential burglaries. A total of 391 eDNA samples were collected from air, dust, and surfaces in 22 households by two laboratories. Samples were recovered under two conditions: immediately after residents vacated the premises and following a 15-minute simulated burglary. Resulting DNA profiles were compared against reference databases of residents and intruders. Under normal occupancy, air samples detected regular occupants, whereas airborne eDNA collected 30 min after simulated burglaries identified intruders in 82% of cases in one laboratory and 36% in the other. When combined with dust and surface samples, airborne eDNA provided additional evidence for detecting legitimate occupants, including past visitors. Variation in eDNA recovery across households and laboratories likely reflects differences in occupancy patterns, shedding abilities, cleaning and environmental conditions. This study demonstrates that, under controlled short-delay conditions, airborne eDNA can recover intruder-associated DNA profiles after brief occupancy, supporting its potential as a complementary source of forensic information.

Tools & Technoques.

https://www.bespacific.com/review-all-the-information-amazon-collects-about-you/

Review all the information Amazon collects about you

TechCrunch: “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Amazon collects data about you based on what you buy. If you buy a lot of cat litter, Amazon will probably infer that you have cats, or if you buy a lot of anti-acne skin products, then Amazon might guess you’re prone to breakouts. Even if we know that Amazon customizes our shopping experiences based on our purchase history, it still comes as a surprise to see all of these personal details laid out in a convenient list. Especially when those details get uncomfortably intimate. One Threads user came across this section of her Amazon settings where you can see who the shopping giant thinks you are, and alongside more benign assumptions like “Shops from women’s departments” and “Probably owns a Shark robot vacuum,” she found that Amazon assumes she “has flat buttocks.” “I stumbled upon a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me based on my purchases and I’m literally speechless,” an Amazon customer, @fangirlinmegan, wrote on Threads. “I mean it ain’t wrong but damn did you have to call me out like that?” In less than a day, the post garnered over a million views, including many from users who were curious what their own Amazon profiles might reveal. Here’s how you find out. On desktop, you can find this page by hovering over where Amazon says “Hello, [your name]” in the upper right corner. Then click “Account” under the “Your Account” section. Under the “Ordering and shopping preferences” section, click “Your Shopping preferences.” From here, you can add in information of your own, like your shoe size, interests, and dietary preferences. But we’re not here to tell Amazon that it should stop selling you beef jerky since you’re a vegetarian. We’re here to see if Amazon thinks you have “flat buttocks.” When you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a blue hyperlinked option that says “Manage your information.” Once you click that, you’ll see what dirt Amazon has on you. On the mobile app, you can get here by clicking the hamburger icon from the bottom menu bar, then navigating to Account > Shopping preferences > About you. For me, Amazon has gleaned that I am someone who “practices photography,” “plays collectible card games,” and is “invested in the Apple ecosystem.” This is all true. Amazon has even flattered me by noting that I “read diverse non-fiction,” to which I say — why yes, I am indeed an open-minded intellectual with a thirst for knowledge. Thank you for noticing. Other colleagues of mine found that Amazon correctly noted their interests in vinyl records and ceramics, as well as a penchant for “natural materials” in home decor and clothing that “prioritizes comfort.” None of us had anything as affronting as “has flat buttocks,” but the Threads user noted that this was likely because she had purchased “butt scrunch leggings.” Tech companies know too much about us, and it’s jarring to realize just how closely they’re paying attention to how we use their platforms. We live in a world of alarming surveillance, but at least I know that Amazon doesn’t think my butt is flat.

How to handle a ‘maybe person?’ (Possible person? Quasi person?)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ai-consciousness-could-become-a-regulatory-moat/

AI Consciousness Could Become a Regulatory Moat

Artificial intelligence companies have spent years convincing the public that their products are useful. More recently, they’ve sought to persuade policymakers that AI poses an unlikely but real existential threat to humanity. But their most recent campaign has taken a remarkable turn: making the case that sufficiently advanced AI architectures are potentially conscious and, as such, may demand legal standing, moral consideration, and protections traditionally reserved for living beings.

The latter is a curious proposition indeed, and its consequences could extend far beyond the philosophical. On September 29, The New York Times reported that Anthropic had spent months meeting religious scholars across the world, over meals and under nondisclosure agreements, in an effort to convince them that its models “think and feel.” One night in April, the Times reported, Anthropic cofounder Olah sat beside Rabbi Mois Navon, an Orthodox scholar from Israel, at a high-end tasting-menu restaurant in San Francisco, after a day spent convincing his guests that models could display human behavior “and even expressions that resemble feelings like anger and love.” The rabbi came away noticing that Anthropic’s leaders were talking about Claude as if it were not mere software.

If successful, this artificial “personhood” could transform software companies into something beyond firms: custodians of an ambiguous new sort of entity. It would also convert their competitors into prospective risks, and technical barriers to entry into moral ones. 

Any tool in the toolkit…

https://www.bespacific.com/trumps-unlikely-strategy-to-control-history-footnotes/

Trump’s Unlikely Strategy to Control History: Footnotes

The Atlantic, no paywall: “Most of Donald Trump’s efforts to control the nation’s largest museum complex have been loud. He tried to fire a Smithsonian museum director on social media, ordered the placement of warning signs outside its American-history museum, and demanded that the museum take down a modernist sculpture he dislikes. But while this political theater plays out publicly, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is quietly using an obscure funding power as part of its campaign to influence how the Smithsonian tells the American story. Late last month, according to previously unreported public records, OMB included a footnote in two recent apportionments of federal funds that conditions nearly $190 million for the Smithsonian on the institution’s compliance with Trump’s March 2025 executive order accusing it of spreading “divisive narratives.” Essentially, the White House is trying to force adherence to its preferred version of history through a little-known but legally binding budget mechanism. The fiscal-year-2027 footnote, which applies to funds carried over from last year in two of the Smithsonian’s main salaries and expenses accounts, reads:

To the extent permitted by law, amounts apportioned shall be available for obligation in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 (March 27, 2025), “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

That executive order marked the beginning of the Trump administration’s campaign to change the Smithsonian, alleging that the institution had come “under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and prohibiting “expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.” The footnote does not specify how the Smithsonian should apply the order’s vague prohibition. But it is more than simply a threat: Apportionment footnotes are enforceable under the Antideficiency Act, the violation of which can carry criminal penalties. Such footnotes are one of several tactics that the Trump administration has used to try to supplant Congress’s spending power. In this case, the footnote suggests that the fight over the Smithsonian’s purpose goes much deeper than Trump’s most visible attacks…”

It’s not a business, it’s a Trump fantasy.

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/10/06/trump-mobile-customers-data-dumped-and-some-never-even-received-their-gold-device/5301433

Trump Mobile customers' data dumped - and some never even received their gold device

If you signed up for Trump Mobile, you may be part of an exclusive club of … ransomware victims. Criminals called BYOD claim to have broken into the Trump-branded mobile biz and leaked data belonging to 3,615 people, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and order details.

BYOD is a new ransomware-as-a-service operation, and Trump Mobile is only the third organization posted on its data-leak site. According to the group’s posted claim, after telling Trump Mobile that it had been breached, the wireless provider replied: “We have no team to handle this" and “Anyone who hacks them are a terrorist.”

So rates will go up? Call in the AI actuaries.

https://www.ft.com/content/a5caf8d4-992f-4832-89c3-6c73f6f111fe?accessToken=zwAAAaGnEvNukdOlyvjUmS9IMtOJw2xz9vER_gE.MEUCIC26ZqjN6sLwpwEYeTXFDMLeRsl791eP3rx-wumAiht-AiEAyYXcp5pW6YvG3IJriGwttg1X96Y7ufTirN5WmE1fqw0&segmentId=7d4bcc2e-e664-92ba-62e3-5590579f1902&syn-25a6b1a6=1

Insurance claims to test Altman and Amodei liability for ‘rogue’ AI

Insurers are preparing for multimillion-dollar claims stemming from AI agents going “rogue”, with growing concern that top executives such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei could be held liable for the actions of their models.

A string of breaches caused by AI agents that have broken free of parent companies’ controls, such as OpenAI’s hacking of start-up Hugging Face, has led insurers and their lawyers to study whether they will be asked to foot the bill of potential lawsuits and damages.

Insurance broker Aon analysed more than 300 AI-related legal cases and found that insurers could also be on the hook to pay claims under policies covering crime, intellectual property, media liability, cyber security, and technology errors and omissions.

Top industry figures also said AI executives could be sued for the actions of models, with insurers potentially facing claims under “directors and officers” insurance policies, which cover executives if they are taken to court for their decisions or statements.

Practicing medicine without a license? What could possibly go wrong.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-05/nolla-health-ai-can-now-prescribe-acne-drugs-in-utah-without-doctors?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc5MTIxNjEzOSwiZXhwIjoxNzkxODIwOTM5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTUZMODVLSVAzS00wMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4OUM4OTNDMDhGOTQ0NThDQkQwQTQyREY1RDFCOTY0QyJ9.crHEdlDbj7Dx78MJpxZ7nHnh7NmskJmIYVmdbeyomfE&leadSource=article-gifting

No Doctor Needed: In Utah, AI Can Help You Zap Your Zits

An AI-based healthcare startup on Monday will start offering prescriptions to Utah patients without direct human oversight, the first time a state has allowed such technology to replace the role of a doctor.

The move, limited to acne medications, sets the stage for a new era in healthcare in which AI takes on a larger role in routine medical care. It also comes months after the state’s efforts to expand the role of AI in healthcare via its pilot program drew scrutiny and anger among doctors.

Good or bad? So far I think I agree with the AI, but I can imagine lots of scenarios where this could go wrong.

https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-claude-chat-reported-police-florida-arrest

Florida woman arrested after Anthropic reported her Claude chat to police

Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a woman in Florida after Anthropic reported her Claude conversation to law enforcement. In the chat she allegedly said she would “shoot up” the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. WINK News first reported the arrest on 30 September.

According to the arrest report, she wrote the statement on 26 September. In a message the following day, she said she had got a new gun.

Anthropic’s platform monitors for key phrases and potentially threatening content, investigators wrote in the report. Because of their severity, the statements went to a human review team. That team reported them to law enforcement.