AI agents don’t go rogue. That’s something only humans do. Nevertheless, a New York Times article – representative of much news coverage of AI – described an OpenAI hacking as “A.I. bots going rogue and independently spearheading a cyberattack.” Name-brand artificial intelligence agents have been on a hacking spree in 2026. OpenAI’s software agents hacked […]
How seriously should we take the latest AI doom warnings from the technocrats? It's unclear, says Matt Ridley – but it's hard to give much credence to those who have ignored the very real threat from man-made viruses.
Just weeks before its scheduled November IPO, Anthropic is facing growing attention over the potential dangers of its technology. The resignation of former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon on September 8, who wrote on X that AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade,” preceded the company’s threat report on September 10. According […]
Google has asked the European Union’s General Court to suspend an order requiring it to make search data available to competing search engines and artificial-intelligence services while its wider legal challenge proceeds.
The application for interim measures follows Google’s challenge to a European Commission decision adopted in July under the Digital Markets Act. The company argues that implementation before the court rules on the main case could cause serious harm to the privacy of European users.
The Commission maintains that its requirements already contain safeguards for privacy, security and personal data.
At the centre of the dispute is Article 6(11) of the Digital Markets Act, which requires Google to give eligible rival search services access to anonymised ranking, query, click and viewing data on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
The rules explicitly allow AI chatbots offering search functions to qualify for access.
Brussels argues that Google has accumulated a quantity of search information which competitors cannot readily reproduce. User queries and interactions can improve search algorithms, reinforcing the position of an established provider and creating a substantial entry barrier for newcomers.
The final July decision turned those proposals into binding requirements.
The inclusion of AI services gives the case wider significance. Generative AI products increasingly answer questions directly rather than sending users through a conventional list of search results. That is putting AI developers and traditional search engines into increasingly direct competition.
The Commission’s data-access framework is intended to reduce the advantage obtained from data accumulated by designated gatekeepers and make it easier for competing services to enter the market.
Access will not be unrestricted.
Applicants must operate a genuine online search service in the EU and satisfy eligibility requirements. Established applicants generally need at least 50,000 average monthly EU users during the previous year, while newer companies can qualify under investment criteria.
They must also comply with security and data-protection requirements and undergo independent auditing. The Commission can exclude applicants presenting public-security risks, while the data must be processed within the European Economic Area or under arrangements providing equivalent protection.
Google argues that these safeguards do not remove the underlying privacy risk.
The company has therefore asked the General Court for an interim suspension while judges consider the legality of the Commission’s decision.
The case adds another front to an increasingly difficult relationship between Google and Brussels.
In July, the Commission imposed two Digital Markets Act fines on Google totalling €890 million. As EU Today reported following the penalties, one case concerned Google’s treatment of its own services in search results while another dealt with restrictions preventing app developers from directing users towards alternative offers.
The dispute subsequently developed into a wider transatlantic issue when President Donald Trump threatened a Section 301 trade investigation in response to the EU penalties, a development examined by EU Today.
Google has meanwhile begun altering some of its European services in response to regulatory pressure. Earlier this month it changed the presentation of European search results, while warning that the new format could make searches less useful.
The present case is different because it deals with access to the underlying information generated by searches rather than only the way results are displayed.
The Commission wants qualifying competitors to obtain data that could help them improve their own services. Google says opening those datasets creates privacy and security risks which cannot simply be reversed if it eventually wins the court case.
That is why the interim application is important.
Google is not asking the court merely to overturn the Commission decision at the end of the litigation. It wants implementation halted before the full case is resolved.
Unless judges intervene, the Commission timetable continues.
The wider dispute will determine how far Brussels can require a dominant digital platform to share data accumulated through its own users in order to encourage competition — an issue that is becoming increasingly important as search and generative AI converge.
The Pentagon has announced plans for a new functional combatant command, very broadly akin to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) or U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM), but for operational activities involving autonomous and robotic capabilities. Secretary Pete Hegseth has also announced new initiatives to help further accelerate the fielding of uncrewed systems in the air, at sea, and on land, as well as to explore future warfighting challenges. All of this builds on previous and long-overdue efforts to prioritize the fielding of various tiers of drones, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, across domains, but there are questions about how these new efforts will translate into tangible developments.
Secretary Hegseth unveiled plans for what is tentatively dubbed Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM), as well as the aforementioned initiatives, called Project Agincourt and Project Meridian, during a speech to service members today at the U.S. Marine Corps’ base in Quantico, Virginia. Hegseth called this a State of the Force address, and said he planned to make it an annual event.
.@SECWAR “Today, at my direction—we are announcing the creation of Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom:
A new 4-star combatant command—with service-like authorities—built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the Joint Force in the fastest peacetime shift in… pic.twitter.com/kYWBxy6Dij
“At my direction, we are announcing the creation of Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, a new four-star combatant command with service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history,” Hegseth declared. “Drone warfare supercharged by SI-enabled targeting is the biggest battlefield revolution in generations. You already know that. Yet when I was sworn in to the Department of Defense, there was scant urgency in this domain.”
Hegseth called attention to the Drone Dominance initiative he unveiled last year, as well as the establishment of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), as examples of steps the Department has already taken in this regard. JIATF-401 is notably focused on counter-drone capabilities, as you read more about here.
“It’s a good start, but it’s certainly not enough. The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it. Cheap compute, super intelligence, and advanced commercial manufacturing have enabled the proliferation of low-cost, high-precision strikes,” Hegseth continued. “For 40 years, the United States relied … primarily on expensive weapons that placed quality over quantity. Now, that approach gave us a lot of enormous advantages, and we need to preserve those capabilities. But today we need both quality and quantity. The term you know is high-low mix. An analogy is a thunderstorm. We need bolts of lightning high, our existing high-end kill chains capable of striking unexpectedly and decisively. We also need steady wind and rain, mass drones and other autonomous attritable systems that flip the cost exchange and impose unrelenting pressure on an adversary on the battlefield.”
Hegseth highlighted lessons learned from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as underscoring these points.
.@SECWAR "Ukraine’s lesson is not that one type of drone wins wars but rather the need for a purpose-built system that maximizes the ability to adapt.
We will fuse procurement with operations at scale – and allow our warfighters, engineers, and entrepreneurs to learn, adapt, and… pic.twitter.com/x7iNMAbU0t
“So today, with Autonomous War Command, AUTOWARCOM, we institutionalize and we supercharge the era of SI, robotics, and autonomous systems, all in order to win,” he added.
A memo the Pentagon has now released makes clear that the establishment of this command is contingent on Congressional approval, and the current goal is for it to be established by October 1, 2027.
“Autonomous Warfare Command will define joint needs and integrate Service-provided forces in support of geographic combatant commanders,” the memo also notes. “It will test equipment and force designs with realistic opposition in demanding exercises and rugged environments, modify rapidly, and field what works. We must build a wartime arsenal whose main product is adaptation at the edge.”
Many questions remain to be answered about how these activities will work with what’s already being done within the individual services, and how all of that will translate into operational activities. Part of Project Agincourt’s role will be working to help answer the questions above. The name here is a reference to the battle in 1415 in which British forces prevailed over their French opponents, famously in part through the application of a particular military technology, the longbow.
The two main tasks outlined in a memo today on Project Agincourt, one of which is laying the groundwork for AUTOWARCOM. US Military
The office of the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems (DRPM-UxS) will lead this initiative. Owen West, head of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and U.S. Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser are set to serve as the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of the DRPM-UxS, respectively.
Project Agincourt will also “prototype a new construct called warfighting acquisition, not just acquisition that happens at the Pentagon,” according to Hegseth. “This model fuses operators with entrepreneurs in rapid adaptation cycles while distributing decisions and dollars closer to frontline units, to combatant commands. Realistic training exercises, and when possible, the crucible of combat, will be used to compress innovation timelines and scale what works.”
“Also today, we are phasing in new MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] frameworks within each military department to support our shift to autonomy,” the Secretary also noted during his speech in the context of Project Agincourt and the plan for AUTOWARCOM. “We need institutional knowledge and career paths for a new generation of autonomous warfighters.”
Project Meridian sits adjacent to these efforts and has a broader mandate to explore ways to ensure the U.S. military maintains its technological edge on future battlefields.
“Project Meridian, the future of warfare, is not about developing new strategies or new policies. We already do that. Rather, its purpose is to creatively look to the future, and identify the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master,” Hegseth said. “We need to be looking forward into the future to achieve technological and military dominance on the battlefield for decades to come. It is futuristic on purpose. Their work will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon.”
.@SECWAR “Today, at my direction—I am announcing Project Meridian, an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.
“Project Meridian will study the battlefields of the future, identify which weapons and technologies warfighters will need to harness to dominate in these environments, and propose actionable solutions to start developing, testing and fielding these capabilities such that America will have overmatch for the 21st century and beyond,” according to a separate memo the Pentagon put out today. “The Joint Staff and all services should be prepared to connect their future warfare efforts and research to Project Meridian.”
The full text of the Project Meridian memo put out today. US Military
Furthermore, “Project Meridian will leverage critical perspectives from outside the Pentagon, drawing upon a group of top technologists, innovators, business leaders, policy makers, and national security experts,” according to the memo. “Project Meridian’s primary function will be to map the trajectory of future warfare, identify critical capability gaps, and propose actionable solutions in furtherance of the identified goals in the 2026 National Security Science and Technology Strategy.”
This is also very much a near-term initiative, with Hegseth demanding a final report no later than 120 days from now, or January 28, 2027. The Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael, has been directed to set up this project. Today, Hegseth also named Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich as key members.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, which dominates the commercial space launch and services market globally, as well as the host of other companies, has had an on-again-off-again relationship with the Trump Administration. Palmer Luckey is another entrepreneur now best known for founding Anduril, which has increasingly been a major player in the U.S. defense industry. Newt Gingrich, a highly influential member of Trump’s Republican Party and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has more recently become an outspoken advocate of advancing AI technology in the United States.
A screen capture from today’s livestream of Secretary Hegseth’s speech. From left to right, Palmer Luckey, Newt Gingrich, and Elon Musk. US Military capture
The inclusion of Musk and Luckey does raise ethical questions, as they both lead companies with major U.S. government contracts already, and which could be in line to see more opportunities based on Project Meridian’s findings. What guardrails might be put in place to prevent conflicts of interest is unclear.
To reiterate, it remains to be seen how all of these efforts will progress and how, or if, they will ultimately translate to more tangible developments. The U.S. military has a long history now of launching high-profile initiatives that still struggle to demonstrate real progress, despite widespread support for accelerating the fielding of uncrewed systems, AI, and other advanced technologies. The Pentagon has certainly produced tangible results through other organizational shifts in recent years, including the aforementioned Drone Dominance initiative and JIATF-401, as well as the Replicator initiative under President Joe Biden.
At the same time, there are real potential hurdles to these new plans. The Pentagon has itself already acknowledged that support from Congress will be key to the AUTOWARCOM vision. Annual budgeting, and the uncertainty that often surrounds that will also be a factor. There is also the matter of efforts to expand the U.S. defense industrial base. The limitations of existing U.S. industrial capacity and supply chains have already become a matter of national debate in light of concerns about dwindling stockpiles of critical munitions as a result of the ongoing conflict with Iran, as well as a succession of other global crises in recent years.
During his speech, Hegseth called attention to efforts to broaden the defense industrial base with new, smaller firms, as well as agreements with large established contractors to expand on their existing capacity. He also highlighted the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion defense spending plan for Fiscal Year 2027 and issued a new call on Congress to pass an additional $350 billion reconciliation package.
With today’s announcements, the Pentagon has certainly reinforced its commitment to expanding the fielding of uncrewed and other high-tech capabilities across all branches of the U.S. military, but there is clearly work still to be done to turn those visions into realities.
When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Washington last week, artificial intelligence was among the issues dividing their countries. Days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had agreed to establish a formal AI dialogue, including an incident line, though its protocols had yet to be worked out. The summit produced no […]
They’ve been shown to raise electricity bills, pollute drinking water, do little to boost local employment while threatening millions of jobs in a variety of industries, and top executives have warned that the technology they support could wipe out all of humanity by the end of the decade. But rather than take widespread public opposition to artificial intelligence data centers at face value, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he had […]
Beijing may let its technology giants buy more Nvidia high-end chips, giving the US chip designer a fresh foothold in China and keeping Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) developers tied to its software after months of stalled trade. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has asked major domestic companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, […]
The Trump-Xi summit did not mark a US-China rapprochement, but it demonstrates that sustained diplomacy and strategic guardrails are essential to prevent intensifying competition from becoming direct conflict. The recent summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Washington has demonstrated a significant paradox in contemporary international politics: the two superpowers […]
One of my fundamental beliefs about the world is that Ramez Naam ought to blog more. Ramez is one of the world’s greatest futurists — he predicted the solar and battery revolutions long before these were widely understood. If you were reading Ramez in 2011, you were able to understand the future of both energy technology and climate change, […]
After struggling for hours with an electronic check-in at an Arizona motel, Guy de la Bédoyère is convinced that if any evil genius thinks he can take over the world with computers he is going to be bitterly disappointed.
When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Washington on September 24, AI and Taiwan shared the agenda. Xi said AI should remain “under human control” and called for continued US-China dialogue on its risks and benefits. On Taiwan, he urged Washington to “oppose Taiwan independence” and handle the issue “with caution.” Trump, for his […]
Beijing has agreed to work with Washington to improve governance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and to enhance cooperation as Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States President Donald Trump met face-to-face at the White House on Thursday. Xi made the pledge in his speech at a morning welcoming ceremony, before the two leaders held […]
King Charles III on Thursday urged several senior tech leaders to make sure that artificial intelligence remains under control and in the service of people and the planet.
King Charles III on Thursday urged several senior tech leaders to make sure that artificial intelligence remains under control and in the service of people and the planet.
OpenAI said on Wednesday it saw six reports of unexpected, concerning or unauthorized AI model behavior, and it would begin regularly publishing reports of these incidents.
OpenAI said on Wednesday it saw six reports of unexpected, concerning or unauthorized AI model behavior, and it would begin regularly publishing reports of these incidents.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (pictured), says AI has the “potential to benefit humanity”.
Her comments came on Wednesday in her landmark “state of the union” address to MEPs.
A speech touched on numerous areas and they included AI which has rocketed up the political agenda in recent times.
In her address to Euro members at their monthly plenary in Strasbourg, she referred to AI as a “tipping point of our times.”
The commission president declared, “AI is fast becoming a foundational layer for our economy and security. Europe's stance is clear. We want to make the most of AI to improve our society, our quality of life and our productivity.
“I am an optimist that AI has the potential to benefit humanity – if we get it right. But, as with any powerful new technology, AI comes with a balance of possibilities and risks. Without addressing these risks, we will never be able to unlock AI's possibilities.”
The former German defence minister noted, “As the frontier models become more capable, these risks have come more sharply into focus.
“Models being developed will allow hacking on a level we never thought possible. And they will soon be in the hands of adversaries who see the world very differently from us.”
She told deputies, “At the same time, the dangers of self-improving models are becoming ever more apparent.
“Incidents of AI agents escaping their environment or inserting malicious code are a mere glimpse. After the HuggingFace incident, developers are ringing the alarm. And CEOs of the most advanced companies tell us that it is time to slow down on the self-recursive models. To pace the frontier.”
Von der Leyen added, “If the people developing the technology are clear, then we should be too. The AI Act is of course a crucial piece to putting guardrails in place.
"And it puts Europe in the position to shape global efforts on how to tackle this.”
In her comments on AI she said, “So, we will step up together with our like-minded partners like Canada, the United Kingdom and others. We want to team up on model evaluation, verification, early warning, AI security and much more.
“And I will invite the main frontier labs for a discussion on how we can support ongoing industry efforts to pace the frontier,” she said.
Login
