đ§ Cognitive warfare is real and itâs here already.
That is why the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is putting the topic on the agenda at the Munich Security Conference.
From now on, the focus will be on the following key issues: âą Cognitive warfare as a security policy reality âą Resilience instead of alarmism âą Strategic advantage through the ability to act âą Protection of democratic decision-making processes.
Cognitive warfare is changing the logic of modern conflicts. It does not target infrastructure or territory, but rather perception, trust and decision-making ability, thereby blurring the line between war and peace.
What if AI made your paycheck optional? Vinod Khosla, one of the worldâs greatest venture capitalists and an early backer of AI, believes the technology will take over 80% of labor, freeing humans to live on passion instead.
His track record backs up the boldness, as early bets on OpenAI, DoorDash, Instacart, and Square have made him one of the most consequential investors of our time.
In this episode of Titans, Khosla sits down with Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell to unpack his abundant vision for the AI future, what government policy should tackle for a more equitable 2040, and what the U.S. needs to do to win the global AI race.
Renewable energy is lowering electricity costs in some parts of the country, but those benefits arenât being seen by consumers everywhere because theyâre typically placed far away from demand centers. Better integrating electricity transmission networks across regions could significantly reduce generation costs, new research from the University of Michigan showsâat the expense of generation companiesâ profits. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Economist Catherine Hausman, associate professor at the Ford School of Public Policy, and colleagues found that improving interregional connectivity could have saved anywhere from $5.8 billion to $7.1 billion in electricity generation costs in 2022, and $3.4 billion to $5 billion in 2023.
At the same time, investing in regional connectivity could cost some power plants over $20 million in annual net revenueâgiving them financial incentives to block or delay transmission network improvements.
Microsoft is rolling out new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds that improve security and performance during batch file or CMD script execution.
As Microsoft explained today, IT administrators can now enable a more secure processing mode that prevents batch files from being modified while they run by adding the LockBatchFilesInUse registry value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor.
Policy authors can also enable this mode using the LockBatchFilesWhenInUse application manifest control.
Will artificial intelligence ever be able to reason, learn, and solve problems at levels comparable to humans? Experts at the University of California San Diego believe the answer is yesâand that such artificial general intelligence has already arrived. This debate is tackled by four faculty members spanning humanities, social sciences, and data science in a recently published Comment invited by Nature.
Computer scientist Alan Turing first posed this question in his landmark 1950 paper, though he didnât use the term artificial general intelligence (AGI). His âimitation game,â now known as the Turing Test, asked whether a machine could pass as human in text-based conversation with humans. Seventy-five years later, that future is here.
Over the past year, Associate Professor of Philosophy Eddy Keming Chen, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Computer Science Mikhail Belkin, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science Leon Bergen, and Professor of Data Science, Philosophy and Policy David Danks engaged in extensive dialogue on this question. These discussions happened as another set of researchers at UC San Diego found in March 2025 that the large language model GPT-4.5 was judged to be human 73% of the time in a Turing testâmuch more often than actual humans.
Google says that through 2025, it blocked more than 255,000 Android apps from obtaining excessive access to sensitive user data and rejected over 1.75 million apps from being published on Google Play due to policy violations.
The tech giantâs annual review of Android and Google Play security reveals how effective the implemented protection measures were in maintaining an ecosystem with honest developers and compliant apps.
âWeâre constantly improving our policies and protections to encourage safe, high-quality apps on Google Play and stop bad actors before they cause harm,â Google says.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing to the point where it may be able to write its own code, potentially leading to significant job displacement, societal problems, and concerns about unregulated use in areas like warfare.
## Questions to inspire discussion.
Career Adaptation.
đŻ Q: How should workers prepare for AIâs impact on employment? A: 20% of jobs including coders, medical, consulting, finance, and accounting roles will be affected in the next 5 years, requiring workers to actively learn and use large language models to enhance productivity or risk being left behind in the competitive landscape.
Economic Policy.
đ Q: What systemic response is needed for AI-driven job displacement? A: Government planning is essential to manage massive economic transitions and job losses as AIâs exponential growth reaches a tipping point, extending beyond manufacturing into white-collar professions across multiple sectors.
Greater access to legal cannabis is associated with a significant drop in daily opioid use, suggesting that cannabis availability may reduce reliance on opioids for pain or other use.
How can cannabis legalization influence opioid use? This is what a recent study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated behavior connections between cannabis use and opioid use. This study has the potential to help scientists, medical professionals, legislators, and the public better understand the benefits of cannabis, including how it can help the opioid epidemic.
For the study, the researchers analyzed survey data collected from 28,069 individuals designated as people who inject drugs (PWID) during 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2022 across 13 states. The goal of the study was to compare medical cannabis and medical plus recreational cannabis use to opioid use. The respondents were asked to report their past 30-day use for both cannabis and opioids. In the end, the researchers found that users who subscribed to both medical plus recreational cannabis use compared to just medical cannabis use experienced a 9â11 percent decline in opioid use.
The study notes in its conclusions, âCannabis legalization may shape daily opioid consumption among PWID, potentially reducing drug-related harms. Differences in cannabis use following legalization may reflect disparate impact by race, due to structural racism or other factors. Future research examining whether policy attributable changes in substance use manifest health benefits among PWID is critical to developing evidence-based cannabis reform.â
Humanoid robots with full-body autonomy are rapidly advancing and are expected to create a $50 trillion market, transforming industries, economy, and daily life ## ## Questions to inspire discussion.
Neural Network Architecture & Control.
đ€ Q: How does Figure 3âs neural network control differ from traditional robotics? A: Figure 3 uses end-to-end neural networks for full-body control, manipulation, and room-scale planning, replacing the previous C++-based control stack entirely, with System Zero being a fully learned reinforcement learning controller running with no code on the robot.
đŻ Q: What enables Figure 3âs high-frequency motor control for complex tasks? A: Palm cameras and onboard inference enable high-frequency torque control of 40+ motors for complex bimanual tasks, replanning, and error recovery in dynamic environments, representing a significant improvement over previous models.
đ Q: How does Figureâs data-driven approach create competitive advantage? A: Data accumulation and neural net retraining provides competitive advantage over traditional C++ code, allowing rapid iteration and improvement, with positive transfer observed as diverse knowledge enables emergent generalization with larger pre-training datasets.
đ§ Q: Where is the robotâs compute located and why? A: The brain-like compute unit is in the head for sensors and heat dissipation, while the torso contains the majority of onboard computation, with potential for latex or silicone face for human-like interaction.
