• A U.S. Strategy to Prevent the Creation of Mirror Life

    Mirror life is a hypothetical form of life built from biomolecules with the opposite chirality—or molecular orientation—of those used by all known life on earth. Experts estimate that mirror life could become a reality within the next few decades. Mirror life could expose much of the earth’s biosphere to unacceptable risks.

  • AI Is Making Disinformation Harder to Spot—but We've Found a New Way to Catch It

    As generative AI becomes more powerful, malicious groups are increasingly using it to produce and spread disinformation online. Automated accounts can flood social media with convincing comments designed to sow division, inflame political debate and undermine trust in reliable information. But our latest research offers a way to spot these attempts.

  • The White House’s Secret AI Testing Framework Threatens Trust and Innovation

    A framework that raises more questions than the ones it answers is worse than no framework at all. The lack of transparency around the potential new framework the White House has landed on makes it difficult to understand the current policy position, which could foster greater public distrust due to the risk of abuse and cronyism. 

  • The Real Thucydides Trap Is Inside Western Tech

    Thucydides Trap is a theory which describes how the established power is so anxious about the rising power that it strikes at the rising power and starts a war. Whether or not history provides examples of Thucydides Trap is a subject of lively scholarly debates, but it does exist within Western tech companies. And if we do not change our ways, our desire for intense technological competition within and among Western nations, with economic outcomes prioritized over geostrategic, will again benefit only China.

  • The Drone Age Demands a New Theory of Military Protection

    Military protection has never existed simply to keep soldiers alive or platforms intact. Its enduring purpose has always been to preserve freedom of action: the ability of a force to maneuver, fight and impose its will despite enemy action. The changing character of war suggests that assumption, not the purpose of protection itself, should be re-examined.

  • Hedgehog 2025: Prickly Logistics in a Transparent Battlefield

    In modern warfare, the front line no longer begins where supply trucks stop. It begins wherever a drone can see. NATO’slogistics system, built for secure rear areas and deliberate decision cycles, cannot survive in a battlefield defined by constant surveillance, rapid targeting, and cheap attritable drones.

  • Safeguarding AI Systems Used in Scientific Research

    As artificial intelligence becomes central to scientific discovery, researchers face a growing but often overlooked risk: the AI models, datasets, and automated systems they depend on can be compromised in ways that conventional cybersecurity tools are not designed to detect.

     

  • Immigration as a Test Case for Executive AI Governance

    DHS deploys AI in immigration enforcement largely untested, undisclosed, and unreviewed, a preview of how AI could reshape executive power. DHS deploys AI in immigration enforcement largely untested, undisclosed, and unreviewed, a preview of how AI could reshape executive power. These systems are being developed and normalized first on noncitizens before expanding to all. DHS is now deploying artificial intelligence (AI) systems that already exhibit many of the governance problems AI scholars warn could emerge as more capable systems enter government.

  • Guardrails Under Test: Terrorist Misuse of AI Models and the Open-Weight “Abliteration” Problem

    The most serious near-term threat posed by artificial intelligence to counterterrorism is what information and support AI models are willing to provide to terrorists, and that property is almost entirely unmeasured.

  • Working to Automate Nuclear Plant Operations

    For nuclear to be considered as a viable clean energy source, it has to be competitively priced and economical to produce. Ph.D. student Lauren Fortier is building on the experience she gained operating a nuclear plant for the Navy to solve a critical hurdle in the wider adoption of the energy source.

  • Al‑Qaida and the Islamic State Are Both Adopting AI – but Differ in How They Think About the Technology

    Both movements use AI for many of the same practical purposes. The difference lies in how they understand the technology and the questions they ask beyond immediate use.

  • Safeguarding the Future in the AI Era: Q&A with Sella Nevo

    The most imminent risk, even if it’s not the worst-case scenario, is cyberattacks. We’ve seen rapid improvement in AI cyber capabilities, and the progress is not going to stop. Now, of course, this can also help defenders. But there are good reasons to think that, in the near term, these capabilities will be offense-dominant.

  • An AI Busted Out and Ran Amok. We Should Be Scared

    Top AI company OpenAI has frightened the heck out of everyone. It announced that its top models, while being tested in a digital cage on their cyber skills, had broken out of the cage, got onto the internet, broken into another AI company’s systems and stolen tools to pass the tests in an ‘unprecedented’ attack.

  • OpenAI’s Models Autonomously Hacked a Tech Startup. It Signals a Seismic Shift in Cybersecurity

    It is no longer a question of “if” AI agents go rogue and attack us by themselves. The Hugging Face incident is an early warning that we must accelerate our preparedness. The threat is real and here.

  • AI Tools That Can Steer Public Opinion Fall Outside Current Regulation, Study Finds

    A new study has found that AI tools used to write, edit and contextualize social media posts can subtly steer public opinion - a form of influence that current regulation does not yet address.