• AI Should Be Better Understood and Managed – New Research Warns

    AI and algorithms are not just tools deployed by national security agencies to prevent malicious activity online, but can be contributors to polarization, radicalism and political violence - posing a threat to national security.

  • Biden Administration Executive Order Tackles AI Risks, but Lack of Privacy Laws Limits Rach

    By Anjana Susarla

    The comprehensive, even sweeping, set of guidelines for artificial intelligence that the White House unveiled in an executive order on Oct. 30, 2023, show that the U.S. government is attempting to address the risks posed by AI. The order is only a step, however, and it leaves unresolved the issue of comprehensive data privacy legislation.

  • Engineers Develop an Efficient Process to Make Fuel from Carbon Dioxide

    By David L. Chandler

    The approach directly converts the greenhouse gas into formate, a solid fuel that can be stored indefinitely and could be used to heat homes or power industries.

  • Semiconductor War: Assessing the Strategies and Impact of US Led Technology Decoupling

    By Rajneesh Singh

    The United States and its allies have taken significant policy measures including sweeping export control regulations to make it hard for China to obtain advanced chips and chip making equipment. China though continues to be an important player in the globalized supply chain. China is directing its efforts towards manufacturing cutting-edge processors as also attempting to become competitive in legacy chip manufacturing. India is also seeking to build a vibrant semiconductor and display design and innovation ecosystem.

  • Governing Artificial Intelligence: A Conversation with Rumman Chowdhury

    By Kat Duffy, Rumman Chowdhury, and Kyle Fendorf

    Artificial intelligence, and its risks and benefits, has rapidly entered the popular consciousness in the past year. Kat Duffy and Dr. Rumman Chowdhury discuss how society can mitigate problems and ensure AI is an asset.

  • Biden’s $8 Billion Quest to Solve America’s Groundwater Crisis

    By Jake Bittle

    A looming depletion of groundwater across the U.S. has drawn nationwide attention in recent years, as local officials in states from Kansas to Arizona struggle to manage dwindling water resources even as homes and farms get thirstier. With little fanfare, the administration is using infrastructure funding to revive dormant plans for pipelines and reservoirs in rural areas across the U.S. West.

  • AI Bots Are Helping 911 Dispatchers with Their Workload

    By Amanda Hernandez

    In the middle of a storm, 911 call centers often find themselves inundated with reports of fallen trees, flooded roads and panicked residents. Every call matters, but with multiple reports of the same incident pouring in, the pressure on emergency services can become overwhelming. Amid the chaos, a technological ally has emerged: artificial intelligence. AI is quietly revolutionizing non-emergency calls in 911 dispatch centers.

  • Securing Ports of Entry, One Scan (or Thousands) at a Time

    Every year, millions of cargo containers make their way to U.S. ports of entry via maritime, roadways, and railways. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), more than 100,000 commercial cargo trucks cross U.S. POEs daily. To combat the threat of human and drug trafficking, it is imperative that their methods for cargo screening and physical examination are as thorough as they are efficient.

  • Machine Learning and Gene Editing at the Helm of a Societal Evolution

    What are the key advancements at the intersection of ML and GE? What is the connectedness between policy and technology and what we learn from trends over time? What kind of policy considerations are needed to govern converging technologies bearing in mind international drivers of collaboration and competition?

  • “Surveillance: From Vision to Data” Explores History of Surveillance

    The term surveillance may suggest images of high-tech cameras or George Orwell’s ever-watching Big Brother, but surveillance involves more than watching and being watched. To understand surveillance and its consequences, look to data: who collects it, what information is compiled, how it is interpreted, and ultimately, why it matters.

  • Floridians Believe in Climate Change, Want Government Action

    By Joshua Glanzer

    The latest edition of the Florida Climate Resilience Survey found that 90 percent of Floridians believe climate change is happening, a higher figure than in the nation as a whole: a recent Yale University survey found that 74 percent of Americans as a whole think climate change is happening.

  • Navigating the Risks and Benefits of AI: Lessons from Nanotechnology on Ensuring Emerging Technologies Are Safe as Well as Successful

    By Andrew Maynard and Sean Dudley

    Twenty years ago, nanotechnology was the artificial intelligence of its time. The specific details of these technologies are, of course, a world apart. But the challenges of ensuring each technology’s responsible and beneficial development are surprisingly alike.

  • Happy 60th Birthday to Vela, Watchman for Nuclear Detonations

    By Rebecca Ullrich

    Sixty years ago last week, on Oct. 16, 1963, the United States launched a pair of satellites whose primary purpose was to determine the feasibility of using satellites to detect nuclear detonations in outer space. The satellites were part of the Vela program, initiated in 1959 to provide a nuclear detonation detection capability to verify compliance with nuclear treaties. On Sept. 27, 1984, the last of the Vela satellites were turned off.

  • Arizona Is Evicting a Saudi Alfalfa Farm, but the Thirsty Crop Isn’t Going Anywhere

    By Jake Bittle

    As Arizona struggles to adapt to a water shortage that has dried out farms and scuttled development plans, one company has emerged as a central villain. The agricultural company Fondomonte, which is owned by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, has attracted criticism over the past several years for sucking up the state’s groundwater to grow alfalfa and then exporting that alfalfa to feed cows overseas. Now Arizona has cancelled one of the company’s leases and says it will not renew the others, but the decision will do little to solve a water shortage largely driven by irrigated agriculture.

  • China, U.S. Escalate Trade-Restrictions War

    By Rob Garver

    The Chinese government announced Friday that it would tighten export controls on graphite, a material essential to the construction of batteries used in electric cars and other green energy systems and of which China is the world’s preeminent supplier. The move came days after the Biden administration announced that the United States would widen the list of semiconductors that it prevents from being exported to China.