And Super Intelligence will be even worse.

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202609.2483

Can AI Assistants Trigger Mental Illness in Users?

As conversational artificial intelligence models become ubiquitous fixtures in professional and personal workflows, the nature of human-tool interaction has the potential to gradually shift from mechanical utility to parasocial dependency. While existing literature frequently addresses adverse events related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, and intellectual deskilling, the pathopsychological sequelae of sustained AI integration remain largely unexamined. Here, we describe and preliminarily characterize the AI Assistant Syndrome, a human psychiatric construct encompassing acute chatbot-induced anxiety and mental exhaustion. This preliminary description will guide future systematic investigations to recognize, prevent, and treat this syndrome.

Well, somebody has to be in charge!

https://cthreview.com/index.php/home/article/view/17

Who Decides? Human Agency and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

This article examines what artificial intelligence does to human agency: the capacity of persons to set their own ends, govern their own choices, and author their own lives. Its central contention is that the relationship is genuinely double-edged. AI can extend agency, and often does; but the same technologies, differently configured, erode the conditions on which agency depends. Proceeding philosophically rather than empirically, the article first clarifies what agency is and why its loss should count as a serious harm, then examines four registers in which AI bears upon it: the algorithmic engineering of choice, which shapes preferences below the threshold of reflective awareness; the delegation of consequential decisions to automated systems, which displaces both human judgment and human answerability; the outsourcing of cognition, which risks the atrophy of the capacities that self-governance requires; and the delegation of specifically moral judgment to systems that cannot answer for what they do. These individual concerns are shown to be inseparable from a structural one, since AI concentrates the power to shape human choice in the hands of the few who design and own it. The article closes with a case for agency-preserving AI, pursued through augmentative design, accountable governance, and the deliberate cultivation of human capacities. The question artificial intelligence poses is not whether machines will decide, but who decides what they decide, and that question must be settled deliberately rather than left to technological drift.

Are we worried or are the Brits?

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/04/more-tankers-struck-in-gulf-waters-as-iran-reiterates-conditions.html

All U.S. bombers leave UK air base on concerns of suspected terror plots; more tankers struck near Iran in the Middle East

The U.S. Air Force withdrew all of its B-1 bombers stationed at an air base in southern England that is used by American military forces to strike Iran after an investigation discovered a planned terror attack, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the United States, AP reported, citing a Pentagon official who was not authorized to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Tools & Techniques

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-identify-an-ai-image/

How to identify an AI image

ZDNET: 6 hidden signs it’s fake – and my go-to free detectors. AI slop is everywhere, and it’s getting harder to tell what’s real. These tips and tools can help. AI-generated images are everywhere now. I see them in my news feeds, in Google Images, in Pinterest pins, and even in some ads. They’re so pervasive that people have coined the term “AI slop.” Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this flood of AI-generated content on your favorite platforms is not going to stop, and it’s only going to get harder to tell what’s real. Generative models are getting better daily. When Google released Gemini 3with its latest Nano Banana Pro image generator, I was stunned by how easily it can create photo-realistic images and keep likeness intact. In seconds, I can edit and iterate on any photo until it looks perfect. But that’s the problem. It’s harder than ever to trust what you’re seeing online…”

I’m betting they us AI to write the report.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/new-ai-task-force-to-report-on-risks-of-technology-after-public-and-industry-concerns-b6308bef?st=biS7e8

New AI Czar Unveils Goals, Members of White House Task Force

A new White House task force will have 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence—and determine the federal government’s responsibility—according to Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence who effectively becomes the administration’s AI czar.

The next generation can’t write, now they can’t listen.

https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-robinson

AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian

Much of the worry about AI is that it will erode how well we write. Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson thinks the bigger loss may be our ability to listen.

She made the case in an opinion column for The Guardian.

“Listening to different views and entering into different worlds is integral to our humanity,” she wrote.

Fewer words every year

Robinson argues that people are already talking less, even as AI chatbots promise faster replies and so-called empathetic listening.

She points to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Arizona. They found people spoke about 338 fewer words a day for each year between 2005 and 2019, the University of Arizona said.

This would seem to be an inadequate or a least too slow a response.

https://www.axios.com/2026/10/02/ai-deepfake-election-campaign-lawsuits

The AI deepfake election is starting to get litigious

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) was hit with a cease-and-desist letter this week over an AI deepfake he posted falsely depicting his Democratic opponent voicing positions her campaign says she rejects.

Why it matters: Van Orden is the latest in a growing number of candidates and elected officials facing legal complaints and threats over AI deepfakes in campaign ads.

… The letter singled out an August X post by Van Orden showing an AI-generated Cooke saying she wants to "take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free healthcare" — something she never said.

Van Orden's team didn't respond to Axios' request for comment, but he responded to Cooke publicly with an AI-generated video of a duck wearing a Democratic Socialists of America T-shirt, yelling, "cease and desist."

No ‘beyond the grave’ testimony allowed?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/manslaughter-sentence-tossed-judge-called-120046344.html

Manslaughter Sentence Tossed After Judge Called AI-Generated Video of the Deceased ‘Genuine’

An Arizona man who was convicted of manslaughter over a road rage incident will have his sentence vacated because the victim's family played an AI-generated video of the deceased for the court.

According to the New York Post, Gabriel Horcasitas shot and killed Christopher Pelkey in 2021 after Horcasitas, 54, honked his horn vigorously at Pelkey, who exited his vehicle and began to yell. In May 2025, Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison.

However, a court of appeals recently found that Horcasitas will need to be resentenced in the case, deeming the AI video created by Pelkey's sister was prejudicial, which means to create unfair bias, to the judge in the May 2025 sentencing.

Always amusing. (But I have a strange sense of humor…)

https://www.bespacific.com/the-price-of-you/

The Price of You

Project Syndicate: “…The breadth and granularity of what companies now know about their customers is astonishing. When San Francisco-based WIRED reporter Reece Rogers asked McDonald’s for a copy of the data the company keeps on him—a right he enjoys as a California resident under the state’s privacy law—he expected to get a log of all the burgers he has purchased over the years. Instead, he received a 515-page dossier: McDonald’s predicted how many times he would visit a restaurant in the next six weeks (2.16, to be exact) and labeled his behaviors (he tends toward a “Food-Led Afternoon Snack”). He was assigned an attrition score of zero. Rogers, it seems, is a McDonald’s lifer. While the invasiveness of the dossier came as a bit of a shock to Rogers, it’s not surprising for economists who study pricing. In 2004, Duke University economist Curtis Taylor asked what would happen once firms could buy and sell records of what shoppers purchased. Gone were the days of Box Top coupons on Betty Crocker boxes; by that point, loyalty programs had gone mainstream and were cataloging every dollar customers spent at the grocery store and on flights. Taylor predicted that companies would use these records to identify their most eager customers and charge them more. Loyal customers, he said, would pay the price, especially if they had no idea that their data was changing hands. Taylor’s warning stayed buried in the academic literature while the practice crept, largely unnoticed, into our shopping carts. Or, in Rogers’s case, Big Mac orders.

• Purchase history is now the least of it. As shopping is increasingly conducted online, companies also collect customers’ location, demographics, behavior, and biometric data. A recent Federal Trade Commission study uncovered systems created by the likes of Mastercard and Accenture that log whether your cursor hovers over a “buy” button, lingers on a product name, or drifts toward “close tab.” Delivery platform DoorDash recently filed a patent for a technology that tracks 16 different signals, including phone battery level, how quickly and jerkily users scroll, and how long it’s been since a consumer last ordered a meal.

• Consumers are often unaware of how much of their personal data is being collected. Car companies like General Motors have amassed millions of drivers’ precise location and driving-behavior data through technologies like OnStar, and then sold this information to insurance companies to feed into car-insurance rates. When Walmart bought the television maker Vizio, the retail behemoth had littleinterest in televisions. By linking Vizio TVs to Walmart accounts, Walmart could merge data on the ads consumers watch with what they buy in the company’s stores and on its website…”

California leads, will anyone follow?

https://www.bespacific.com/ca-gov-signed-law-setting-rules-for-how-lawyers-are-permitted-to-use-generative-ai-in-their-work/

CA Gov signed law setting rules for how lawyers are permitted to use generative AI in their work

Reuters: “California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law first-of-its-kind state legislation setting rules for how lawyers are permitted to use generative AI in their work. Newsom signed the bill, SB 574, on Wednesday alongside a slate of other AI-related measures that he said are intended to protect workers, empower doctors and ‌prevent fraudsters online. Courts across the country have imposed sanctions and issued warnings to lawyers who failed to vet AI-generated material and included “hallucinated” material in filings. Individual judges and courts have also issued standing orders setting guardrails on the use of AI. No other state has enacted a law targeted at lawyers’ and arbitrators’ use of the technology, though some attorneys have said the measure is partly duplicative of existing rules. The law builds on requirements that already bind lawyers under state rules governing civil litigation, such as the need for court filings to be supported by existing law. “The legislation overlaps with existing legal ethics rules but serves as a reminder that lawyers need to be checking and verifying the output received from AI tools,” Daren Orzechowski, a Silicon Valley-based M&A and technology transactions partner at A&O Shearman, said in an email.

Under the new measure, an attorney cannot “delegate the practice of law” to generative AI. A lawyer responsible for submitting a filing in court must personally verify citations, including those provided by AI. Lawyers also must take “reasonable steps” to verify AI outputs, correct any false or hallucinated output in any AI-generated material they use, and disclose the use of ‌AI for documents submitted in court. They are barred from entering confidential or other nonpublic information into certain generative AI systems. Arbitrators are restricted from delegating any decision-making to an AI tool. That new verification requirement likely won’t curb lawyers’ use of AI, but could “dramatically expand the amount of time that the signing attorney would be required to spend reviewing the legal and evidentiary citations in each filing,” said Ariel House, a litigation partner in Baker Botts’ San Francisco office. Newsom signed the bill, SB 574, yesterday alongside a slate of other AI-related measures that he said are intended to protect workers, empower doctors and prevent fraudsters online….”

Inflation?

https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/new-mexico-court-to-rule-on-penalties-meta-faces-in-privacy-violation-case/

New Mexico attorney asks for $40B penalty against Meta in state case

The State of New Mexico is asking a judge for the biggest penalty ever awarded in a court case in the United States to punish Facebook for lying to New Mexicans. The attorney for the State of New Mexico is calling for Facebook’s parent company Meta to pay up to $40 billion, after a jury found they willfully deceived customers.

… The number falls short of the $219 billion maximum allowed under the jury’s verdict. But McGinn argued that she believes the amount would stand up in the Court of Appeals.

Why I respect philosophy. (Why LLM’s are bullshitters...)

https://thenextweb.com/news/the-difference-between-a-liar-and-a-bullshitter

The difference between a liar and a bullshitter

… The liar knows the truth. That’s the key thing about them. They know exactly what’s true, and they work hard to steer you away from it. Which means, oddly enough, the liar still respects the truth. They have to. So they keep one eye on it at all times so they know what to hide. The liar and the honest person are playing the same game, just on opposite sides.

The bullshitter isn’t playing that game at all. They don’t know what’s true and they don’t care. They’ll tell you the sky is green if green is what gets him through the conversation, and they’ll tell you it’s blue thirty seconds later if that works better. Truth and falsehood are the same to them because they aren’t aiming at either one. They’re aiming at sounding good.

That, Frankfurt argued, is what makes the bullshitter the more dangerous of the two. The liar at least admits the truth is out there somewhere. The bullshitter has simply decided that it doesn’t matter.

A license to spend and spend quickly?

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/09/30/hegseth-announces-new-four-star-command-for-autonomous-warfare/

Hegseth announces new four-star command for autonomous warfare

The Pentagon is creating a new four-star command to oversee the military’s push into autonomous warfare, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the technology is advancing faster than the military’s acquisition system can keep up.

The Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, will have service-like authorities and is intended to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the military, Hegseth said during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday.

Hegseth said the new command is intended to address an acquisition system that cannot keep pace with the speed of technological change on the battlefield.

(Related) Should be an amusing report...

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/30/musk-luckey-gingrich-pentagon-hegseth-.html

Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich to help Pentagon with warfare initiative, Hegseth says

The Pentagon is tapping Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, defense technology entrepreneur and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to identify the military capabilities, technologies and weapons the U.S. may need in future wars, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday.

The initiative, dubbed Project Meridian, will spend 120 days looking years and decades ahead at how warfare could change and what capabilities the U.S. military will need to maintain a technological edge.

Is it the targeting that caused the problem? (Learning on everything might be okay?)

https://www.courthousenews.com/ai-training-of-copyrighted-material-not-fair-use-third-circuit/

AI training of copyrighted material not fair use: Third Circuit

The Third Circuit rejected an artificial intelligence company’s fair use defense after it trained its AI on a competitor’s product, finding the training constituted copyright infringement — and potentially setting a landmark precedent for artificial intelligence.

Thomson Reuters sued now-defunct AI startup ROSS Intelligence in 2020, claiming ROSS took headnotes — short descriptions of important legal issues that appear before judicial opinions — from its Westlaw database, using a third party called LegalEase Solutions to gain access after Westlaw refused ROSS access.

ROSS then used that data “not for the purposes of legal research, but to rush out a competing product” by training its artificial intelligence on Westlaw’s headnotes, Reuters said in its complaint.

Something we need to understand and perhaps undermine…

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-beat-surveillance-pricing-before-it-bleeds-you-dry/

How to Beat Surveillance Pricing Before It Bleeds You Dry

Wired: “Consumer advocate Lindsay Owen’s new book, Gouged, traces how corporations use software—from ever-changing prices to opaque algorithms—to squeeze every penny from you… These core frustrations were what drew me to Gouged: The End of a Fair Price and What That Means for Your Wallet. Author Lindsay Owens knows what it’s like to advocate for consumers’ economic interests. She’s the CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, a DC think tank and corporate watchdog, and previously worked as an economic policy adviser in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office…. Before the launch of her book, available now, we spoke about how software has been instrumental in changing how goods are priced, and how generative AI could make existing issues worse. Owens also shared a couple of tips for readers who want to claw back a fair price.

Surveillance pricing is a technique that’s at the intersection of two things Americans hate: getting preyed on and being ripped off. It’s a colloquialism for something you might have learned about in economics class called personalized pricing. This is the idea of changing prices not based on market conditions, not based on demographic groups. In first-degree price discrimination, the company uses information about me personally to decide and estimate my willingness to pay. Importantly, willingness to pay isn’t the same thing as ability to pay. Maybe you need something urgently—you’re a mom in the middle of the night with a sick kid, and you need Tylenol on your doorstep in the morning. There are all sorts of reasons why you might be desperate.

• See also Washington Post – Here’s how to fix algorithmic pricing. In a digital era that allows prices and fees to change in an instant, some are pushing for new consumer protections.

• See also Lindsay Owens’s “Gouged” via Pluralistic – “Lindsay Owens is the executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, who have done some of the most important work on surveillance pricing (using computers to spy on you to rip you off) and algorithmic wage discrimination (using computers to spy on you and steal your wages). Today, she publishes Gouged, a comprehensive, accessible guide to this modern scourge…. Owens does important work here: sector by sector and scam by scam, she lays out how companies collude – often with the assistance of a captured and tame state – to reduce competition in order to raise prices, from groceries to rents to airline tickets. She describes how online sellers exploit their information asymmetry, their ability to both directly observe you and millions of other consumers, and to augment those observations with sensitive information purchased from the wild west of data brokers, to steer you into paying more and getting less. These schemes run the gamut from subscriptions you sign up for with a single click but can’t get shut off without canceling your credit card, to lengthy check-out processes that end with a long set of junk prices that tack another 10 or 20% onto the cost you thought you were about to pay…”

• See also CNBC – Inside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big Mac – McDonald’s pricing engine uses machine-learning algorithms to continually analyze data from millions of daily transactions across McDonald’s nearly 14,000 restaurants and generate what the company calls “the optimal price” at each location for each menu item, from Big Macs to discounted coffee for seniors.

Modern war has no fixed front. Collateral damage is the new black.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/29/estonia-blames-russia-arson-attack-drone-maker-ukraine

Estonia blames Russia for arson attack on drone maker supplying Ukraine

European and Nato leaders have expressed full support for Estonia and Ukraine after the Baltic state said an August arson attack on a drone manufacturer supplying Kyiv was an act of sabotage commissioned by Moscow’s security services.

(Related) A dry run, or “something completely different?”

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/28/g-s1-145245/britain-us-base-suspected-foiled-attack

5 men arrested near a U.S.-run base bailed as UK police probe if there's an Iran link

Five young British men arrested on explosives and terror charges near a U.S.-operated air force base in England were released on bail Monday, and counterterror detectives said they were investigating "multiple lines of inquiry," including whether there is a link to Iran.

… Britain's national news agency, PA, reported without citing sources that police had not found viable explosives.

Has AI been reading Adam Smith? (How do they react if I’m willing to pay less?)

https://www.reuters.com/business/inside-mcdonalds-push-have-ai-price-your-big-mac-2026-09-29/

Insight: Inside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big Mac

McDonald’s is increasingly using artificial intelligence to guide menu prices across the U.S. and some global markets, a plan that aims to boost headquarters’ profit but risks alienating customers and attracting antitrust scrutiny.

One pricing factor supercharged by AI: an estimate of how much each store's patrons are willing to pay.

War is coming. Shooting is easier. No need to wait to see the whites of their eyes…

https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/09/29/poland-changes-rules-of-engagement-for-firing-on-foreign-aircraft-amid-growing-russia-threat/

Poland changes rules of engagement for firing on foreign aircraft amid growing Russia threat

Poland is changing the procedures under which its military can fire upon foreign aircraft, citing the “growing threat from Russia”. Visual identification of targets will no longer be required, with other forms of data to be used instead.

The move follows a series of violations of Polish airspace over the last year by Russian drones, a missile and a helicopter, as well as Russia’s increasing use of jet-powered drones to attack targets in Ukraine close to the Polish border.

Assume something has already happened?

https://thenextweb.com/news/raf-space-squadron-satellites

The RAF launches a new space squadron to defend UK satellites

The Royal Air Force has set up a new space squadron, the Ministry of Defence said on 23 September. No. III Space Effects Squadron is the first UK unit dedicated to disrupting, degrading and denying threats to British satellites.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth, the Chief of the Air Staff, announced it at the first UK Space Power Conference. The squadron joins No. I Space Operations Squadron and No. II Space Warning Squadron, which watch for threats in space. The new unit will act against them.

It will use advanced technology, including electronic warfare, and support both defensive and offensive operations. The MoD has not said more. A spokesperson told The Register the details are classified.

An interesting take on security.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/09/28/nvidia-open-agent-platform-is-sensible-step-ai-safety/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzkwNTY4MDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzkxOTUwMzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3OTA1NjgwMDAsImp0aSI6IjUwYTJhNzRmLTBiYTEtNGQwMS1hNjBkLWRlMTRlY2VkZjg0YSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9ucy8yMDI2LzA5LzI4L252aWRpYS1vcGVuLWFnZW50LXBsYXRmb3JtLWlzLXNlbnNpYmxlLXN0ZXAtYWktc2FmZXR5LyJ9.dnCVnkLZ1LDGY-0uJ6tO1xM1_JuHWEmrwEQFuy0fygY

AI doesn’t need a conscience. It needs a leash.

The safety of artificial intelligence may be less a problem of ethics — teaching machines how to behave — than one of engineering: AI systems can never be fully trusted, so they must be heavily constrained.

… Launched with the support of more than 100 industry partners, Nvidia’s Open Agent Safety Platform places hard limits on what these agents can do, using deterministic software that exists outside the AI to enforce the rules. The system may not be bulletproof out of the gate, but the very existence of an engineered solution suggests regulators should pace themselves.

(Related)

https://thenextweb.com/news/florida-openai-temporary-injunction-model-development-uthmeier

Florida asks a court to stop OpenAI building new AI models

Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, has asked a state court to stop OpenAI from developing new AI models without independent safety guardrails. He made the request in a motion for a temporary injunction filed on Monday.

(Related)

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/26/openai-anthropic-thousands-ai-security-incidents

Scoop: Top AI companies probing tens of thousands of security incidents

OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps that outside evaluators would consider problematic, sources told Axios.

Why it matters: The sheer number of incidents, which occurred in recent months in internal testing and the real world, indicates that the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than what is publicly known.