Reflectii

Rather than haphazardly using artificial intelligence for research, scientists and decisionmakers should take a deliberative approach.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the scientific enterprise. From our perch at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a tech policy research organization at Georgetown University, we are witnessing this change through two lenses simultaneously. As researchers, we study AI, including large language models (LLMs) like those that power ChatGPT, and scientific models like AlphaFold; we also monitor the science and tech landscape, including trends in AI’s development. Our ability to do this work relies in part on designing, testing, and implementing AI-enabled methods. AI is thus both our research subject and one of our research tools. Our work brings us face-to-face with the tensions that arise when figuring out what AI-enabled science can—and should—look like.

Just how and when the Cuban dictatorship will disappear is impossible to predict: a deal with Donald Trump to build hotels in Varader; the Marines welcomed by crowds on the Havana Malecón; popular protests overwhelming an army unwilling to fire on its people; a real, necessary and desirable peaceful transition to democratic rule and economic reform. Dozens of experts and pundits have lost their shirts betting on the regime’s demise since 1959. The convergence of new factors, however, suggests that Cuba has entered a new and probably terminal phase. Its economic collapse, the end of the Venezuelan subsidy, the Trump administration’s willingness and ability to squeeze it further, the growing discontent and protests of the island’s inhabitants, are all factors that were absent in prior decades.

The Vatican’s new AI warning is not about machines. It is about the oldest human temptation: building a tower, summoning a voice, and mistaking the vessel for the source.

The Vatican just did something historical and culturally important, regardless of your religious or secular beliefs.

The break in the contract between the Pentagon and Anthropic has become one of the biggest scandals around the ethics of the use of AI technology. The more rapidly the artificial intelligence market is developing, the more acute the question of ethical limitations of digital algorithms is. Most states have not been able to develop legislation governing AI technology, and their developers are resisting any attempt to impose restrictions on their work. While states fail, civil society takes care of this burden: we are talking about such tools as civil audit of AI technologies, the development of ethical codes and licenses, collective testing and pressure through the media.

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” Patton’s remark, while it had not advanced the study of war by any measure, stated what had been the objectives of military commanders of history: to defeat the enemy and preserve their own forces. Clausewitz, in order to elaborate the importance of attack and defense to the theory of war, said it longer and more philosophically: “as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me” [and one third of his first chapter of the first book of On War].[1]

Palantir’s “Technological Republic” would be technocracy, the depoliticized political structure, driven by AI, organized as the Benthamite panopticon, in which scientists and engineers act as philosophical guardians.

Palantir, already notorious as a megacorporation dedicated to data control and analysis, but also as the most properly and consciously “ideological” of the IT services companies, has recently launched a political manifesto that opens a revealing, though not very surprising, window into its vision of the future.

“[T]here are people who suffer genuine anti-Muslim hatred, bigotry, and discrimination based on their faith or perceived identity. This must always be challenged and addressed, as it undermines pluralism and social cohesion. On the other hand, Islamist organizations have deliberately weaponized the term Islamophobia to shut down scrutiny of their ideology and political activities. By labeling criticism of Islamist ideas or networks as ‘Islamophobic,’ they deliberately blur the line between protecting people and protecting an ideology. This is why Islamophobia is the wrong term—it places an ideology beyond criticism rather than safeguarding individuals from hatred.” — From “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Entryism Into the United States: A Systemic Analysis,” a report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, 2025.

An environmental knowledge commons could support evidence-based policymaking, but it will require long-term coordination across the many communities monitoring pollution and local conditions.

In the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, four communities are simultaneously navigating the past and future of energy. At oil refineries in Richmond and Martinez, it’s business as usual. Recently, Chevron Richmond and PBF Energy-owned Martinez Refining Company (MRC) have battled state regulators over stricter emissions rules. MRC has had a string of notable accidents and toxic dust releases that have worried and angered nearby residents, who have watchdogged the refineries for decades.