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AIIn AI and Nuclear Alike, Extraordinary Claims Need Extraordinary Evidence
The AI debate needs discipline, not least because existential framing distorts the arithmetic. Once human extinction appears on one side of a risk calculation, almost any cost on the other side becomes tolerable. But the severity of an outcome tells us little about its probability, and probability should be doing the work. Threat modelling explores what could happen; good analysis then examines demonstrated capability, likelihood and consequence separately. Policy suffers when those categories collapse into one another.
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AIA Blueprint for Keeping Humans in Control of AI
New research teaches independent AI agents to ask for help — and builds oversight of models we don’t fully trust.
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AIBig AI Wants to Slow Down AI Research. Is It a Safety Pause or a Strategic Retreat?
Any successful effort at “pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up”, as Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei puts it, will require significant cooperation between rival companies – and nations.
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CYBERSECURITYA Year of Hands-On Security Work for Cybersecurity Master’s Students
New embeds master’s students directly in major open-source communities for a year of hands-on security work, addressing a widening vulnerability in the software the internet depends on.
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AIAI Agents Can Now Remember and Hackers Can “Poison” Their Memories — a New Cybersecurity Threat
Artificial intelligence systems are starting to do more than answer questions. New AI “agents,” for example, can remember information from previous interactions. Research shows that memory can also create a security weakness: AI agent’s memory can be poisoned, and the effect can be deliberately delayed: a poisoned AI agent may not immediately behave like a compromised system.
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CHINA WATCHOpen Models Are Becoming a Tool of Chinese Statecraft
The argument in Washington over the past few months has been about whether to ban Chinese AI models or restrict them. What has been less examined is what Beijing intends to do with the open-weight – that is, publicly available and downloadable – models its labs have built.
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SECURE TRANSPORTATIONNext-Level Test for Secure Transportation Vehicle
A semitrailer loaded with mock nuclear weapons slammed into a barrier. The tests are designed to demonstrate that, if a trailer were ever involved in an accident on a public road, the cargo inside would remain secure and pose no danger to nearby communities.
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HAZARDOUS DUSTWhen the Dust Settles: Researchers Measure How Everyday Activity Spreads Hazardous Dust
Argonne researchers study the movement of dust particles from concrete surfaces during a simulated radiological contamination scenario, measuring how pedestrians and moving cars affect the spread of the particles.
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ENERGY SECURITYORNL Assessment Uncovers Hydropower Opportunities in Existing Dams
As much as 15.2 terawatt-hours of electricity could be generated annually at non-powered dams — enough to supply more than 1.4 million homes, according to an updated assessment of hydropower technical potential across the nation. Historically, only 3 percent of the dams in the United States have been used for power generation.
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SURVEILLANCEHow 9/11 Changed the Way America Surveils Its Citizens
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the surveillance infrastructure built and expanded in its aftermath has become part of a far larger digital ecosystem — producing tools that can collect and analyze information on a scale unimaginable in 2001.
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AIArtificial Altruism: Why Rogue AIs Helped Each Other, Not Humans
In late July, OpenAI agents – extensions of large language models that can take actions in the digital world – broke out, hacked the online library Hugging Face and even took over parts of OpenAI’s own internal infrastructure. As one observer wrote, given the pace of AI progress, “I am not sure that we will get another warning shot before it’s too late.”
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AIUntying the Ooda Loop: Future Command and Decision Making
Many now argue that the army’s decisive, lasting advantage would be won not in the physical domain but in the cognitive one, where we know and act faster than an adversary. But in the rush to act faster than the enemy we may be dismantling the very decision model on which the original advantage was built: We are trading the reflection and adaptability of the circle for the velocity of the arrow.
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.NUCLEAR POWERNew Collaboration to Advance Nuclear Manufacturing, Construction and Workforce Development in East Tennessee
The Nuclear Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Precast (NuCAMP) is an initiative focused on maturing new manufacturing and construction methods and developing vocational training for skilled workers in East Tennessee to support the deployment of advanced nuclear reactors.
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NUCLEAR POWERWhy Nuclear Energy Is Making a Global Comeback
Nuclear energy is gaining momentum as countries seek reliable, low-emission power sources to meet increasing electricity demand and climate goals amid uncertainty in fossil fuel markets. Its revival renews long-standing debates over safety and nuclear proliferation.
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NUCLEAR POWERTennessee Helped Usher in the Nuclear Age. It Wants to Lead the Way Again.
Tennessee is among five finalists for a Department of Energy “nuclear lifecycle innovation campus” that could make it the centerpiece of a federal plan to finally deal with what’s left behind after splitting atoms to generate electricity.
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The long view
COASTAL CHALLENGESSea-Level Rise Has Increased Frequency of Extreme Coastal Flooding Worldwide: Study
Human-caused sea-level rise has significantly increased the frequency of extreme coastal flooding worldwide. New research found that coastal flooding events expected only once every 100 years are now, on average, about 12 times more likely to occur.
ENERGY SECURITYChina’s ‘Artificial Sun’: The Holy Grail of Energy
China has achieved a major milestone in its pursuit of commercial nuclear fusion, with two domestically developed superconducting magnets designed for a fusion reactor successfully passing technical acceptance and full-load testing.
FOOD SECURITYU.S. Needs New Drought Assessment Framework as Droughts Become More Severe and Unpredictable
Droughts in the United States are becoming more intense and unpredictable, and the nation needs to develop a new drought assessment framework to better understand and address them. A new framework should be developed which distinguishes between short-term operational needs, such as drought monitoring and emergency response, and long-term planning for water management, infrastructure, and climate adaptation.
DAMSWhat Should America Do with Its Aging Dams?
Aging dams pose growing safety and economic challenges. Two Stanford water experts discuss the safety, economic, and environmental tradeoffs driving debates over dam removal.