Why Super Typhoons Are More Common Than You’d Think | Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election | How to Slow the Spread of Lethal AI, and more

DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election  (David Gilbert, Wired)
In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.
In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.
On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.

How to Slow the Spread of Lethal AI  (Anthony De Luca-Baratta Josh Curtis, National Interest)
Technology reporter Paul Mozur sounded shocked as he described his firsthand experience of First Person View (FPV) drones in Ukraine during a recent podcast appearance on The Daily. During the interview, Mozur recounts being taken to a park just outside Kyiv by a group of young men who had started an autonomous drone company. He describes the company CEO getting on a motorcycle and speeding off down a dirt road, one of the firm’s AI-powered autonomous drones in hot pursuit thanks to its inbuilt complex tracking algorithm. After allowing a brief chase, one of his teammates turns off the autopilot, and the drone ascends into the air to the young men’s laughter. “It’s a funny moment,” Mozur recalls, clearly alarmed, “but the darker reality of it is that if this was an armed drone with a shell, and if they hadn’t hit that button at the end, their CEO would have been a goner.”
Many Ukraine watchers and longtime AI observers would not have shared Mozur’s shock. Both Ukraine and Russia have heavily relied on FPV drones—small, unmanned aerial vehicles guided by a pilot watching a video feed through goggles or on a screen—for reconnaissance, anti-personnel, anti-armor, and anti-artillery operations during the current war. They have played a role in the destruction of thousands of pieces of Russian equipment. It was only a matter of time before AI entered the picture.
AI-enabled autonomous weapons threaten to destabilize the international system. Their significant cost advantages, the widespread availability of the algorithms that power them, and the tactical problems they solve will incentivize their adoption by all manner of actors. These weapons have the potential to save soldiers’ lives. Still, their spread will also empower rogue states, criminal networks, terrorists, and even private corporations and citizens long locked out of the market for precision weaponry. The United States must do what it can to slow their spread.
The decentralization and democratization of warfare thanks to FPVs is already starting to play out in Ukraine, including in Kyiv’s ongoing Kursk offensive. First, FPVs help avoid the massive costs of acquisition and maintenance of a highly-trained surveillance and targeting bureaucracy. Second, FPV drones themselves are significantly cheaper than traditional artillery. Unguided artillery shells cost between $800 and $9,000. GPS-guided shells cost around $100,000, and Javelin anti-tank missile price tags can reach over $200,000, while the typical FPV costs around $400. Given their use as the ultimate guided artillery shell, this cost differential is substantial.
However, the explosive power of payloads carried by FPVs is much smaller than that of a typical round of heavy artillery. The latter can deliver 10kg or so of explosive ordnance with a blast radius of approximately 50 meters. In their current state, similar destructive power can only be delivered by dozens of FPVs striking the same target, each guided by its own pilot. For this reason, FPVs have not completely supplanted artillery, though they have increasingly complemented it. For instance, FPVs have finished off enemy troops escaping fortified positions partially destroyed by artillery fire. Over time, FPVs’ substantial cost advantage will offset their disadvantage in destructive power, especially when “swarm” technology reaches maturity.

From Istanbul to El Paso: How Smugglers Enable Illegal Migrant Crossings  (Mahmut Cengiz, HSToday)
The influx of illegal migrants into the United States (U.S.) has become a top political issue and is likely to be a prominent topic for upcoming presidential candidates. The southern border, in particular, has received significant attention due to the rising number of individuals attempting to cross. People from over 150 countries seek to enter the U.S. through this border for various reasons. Many are driven by the search for better economic opportunities, escaping countries with high unemployment or economic crises. Others flee violence and instability from regions plagued by crime and political turmoil, such as parts of Central America. Some seek asylum to escape persecution based on ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. Additionally, family reunification motivates many as they aim to join relatives already residing in the U.S. Environmental factors, such as climate change and natural disasters, including droughts and hurricanes, also force people to seek refuge in safer areas.
Despite various efforts to control the situation, the flow of migrants continues, and the involvement of Mexican cartels in human smuggling has made the situation worse. Recently, the demographic of illegal migrants entering the U.S. through the southern border has expanded to include people from Turkiye. This article, using the author’s interviews with migrants, looks into why Turkish migrants are choosing this route and how they are managing to enter the U.S. illegally.