OUR PICKSThe Age of the Meme Shooter Is Here | Islamic State’s Gory Propaganda | Averting a Robot Catastrophe, and more

The President Is Putting America’s Armed Forces in a Bind  (Economist)
Turning soldiers into cops was once a last resort. How far might he go?

Islamic State’s Gory Propaganda: Cross-Platform Proliferation and Youth Radicalization  (Sonia Sarkar, GNET)
Recent studies show that the Islamic State’s online presence remains dominant through gore videos. Therefore, this Insight will examine how the terrorist group still significantly leverages gore sites, which promise to showcase ‘real life’ violence, for propaganda. With no restrictions on accessing and downloading content on most gore sites, plenty of violent extremist material is largely consumed by minors and is recirculated on popular social media platforms.

White Nationalist ‘Active Clubs’ Growing in WI (UpNorthNews)
Experts said they are seeing a rise in white nationalist movements in Wisconsin and across the country that are disguising themselves as fitness groups. They are called “Active Clubs” and present themselves as sporting clubs or fighting clubs focused on brotherhood.

“We’re Still Vulnerable to a 9/11-Style Attack” without Secondary Cockpit Barriers: Ex-FAA Special Agent (Rick Sobey, Boston Herald)
Almost 25 years after 9/11, there are still major security risks on airplanes without secondary cockpit barriers. That’s the urgent message from a former FAA special agent, the widow of a pilot who was killed on September 11th and others who are pleading with airlines to install these life-protecting barriers.

Averting a Robot Catastrophe  (Michael J. D. Vermeer, Timothy M. Bonds, Emily Lathrop, and Gregory Smith, RAND)
In this paper, the authors assess the convergence of trends in robotics and frontier artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly the exacerbated national security risk that results from the potential for the proliferation of robotic embodiments of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Although the benefits of advanced robotic capabilities are likely to outweigh their associated risks in many contexts, the authors explore how the combination of AGI with robots that feature high mobility and dexterous manipulation could introduce significant systemic vulnerabilities. Policymakers face challenges in balancing the need for safety and security with economic competitiveness because there are no straightforward regulatory options that effectively limit risky combinations of capabilities without hindering innovation. To conclude, the authors stress the urgent need to proactively address this issue now rather than waiting until the technologies are fully deployed to ensure responsible governance and risk management in the evolving landscape of robotics and AI.

The Age of the Meme Shooter Is Here  (Aja Romano, Foreign Policy)
Online nihilism is spilling over into real-world violence.