As debates about online safety swirl through the courts, Congress and our own homes, here's the most extreme and problematic response I've seen yet:
James O'Donnell
@jamesmodonnell.bsky.social
Covering AI for MIT Tech Review. Work has appeared in The Washington Post, FRONTLINE PBS, ProPublica and elsewhere. Also on X. Subscribe to my newsletter The Algorithm Signal: @jamesodonell.22 https://www.technologyreview.com/author/james-odonnell
(breaking from me) The Pentagon is discussing plans for generative AI companies to train military-specific versions of their models on classified data. It's a new development compared to models just answering classified questions. Details here: www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/17/1...
The Pentagon is planning for AI companies to train on classified data, defense official says
The generative AI models used in classified environments can answer questions but don't currently learn from the data they see. That could soon change.
technologyreview.com
We reported new details from a Defense official about the specific role chatbots may play in accelerating the Pentagon's search for targets, and how it all might connect to the military's other AI projects:
Homemade intelligence dashboards on Iran are spreading. But an abundance of information does not come with the accuracy or context required for real understanding. Intelligence agencies do this in-house; good journalism does the same work for the rest of us www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/09/1...
How AI is turning the Iran conflict into theater
AI-enabled dashboards, combined with prediction markets and fake imagery, are reshaping how war is observed.
technologyreview.com
we’ve essentially ended up back where we started: allowing the Pentagon to use OpenAI's tech for any lawful use www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/02/1...
OpenAI’s “compromise” with the Pentagon is what Anthropic feared
Anthropic pushed for moral boundaries. OpenAI settled for softer legal ones, and now it stands to benefit as the Pentagon rushes out a politicized AI strategy during strikes on Iran.
technologyreview.com
AI content can dupe us, shape our beliefs even when we catch the lie, and erode societal trust in the process. The tools we were sold as a cure for this crisis are failing miserably www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/02/1...
What we’ve been getting wrong about AI’s truth crisis
Even when content is revealed to be manipulated, it still shapes our beliefs. The defenders of truth are hopelessly behind.
technologyreview.com
Inside the marketplace powering bespoke AI deepfakes of real women 🧵
A scoop: DHS is using AI video generators from Google and Adobe to make content shared with the public. It comes as workers in tech have put pressure on their employers to denounce the agency's activities. www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/29/1...
DHS is using Google and Adobe AI to make videos
Immigration agencies have been flooding social media with bizarre, seemingly AI-generated content. We now know more about what might be making it.
technologyreview.com
Securus can now fund this AI model with the fees inmates pay to make calls, after the company successfully lobbied for new regulations. www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/01/1...
An AI model trained on prison phone calls now looks for planned crimes in those calls
The model is built to detect when crimes are being “contemplated.”
technologyreview.com
The fight against child exploitation is entering an AI-versus-AI era. Use of detection models “ensures that investigative resources are focused on cases involving real victims, maximizing the program’s impact and safeguarding vulnerable individuals." www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/26/1...
US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI
Though artificial intelligence is fueling a surge in synthetic child abuse images, it’s also being tested as a way to stop harm to real victims.
technologyreview.com
Police-tech giant Flock is entering a new market www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/25/1...
Shoplifters could soon be chased down by drones
Flock Safety is pitching its police-style drone program to private businesses. It could bring aerial surveillance to shopping centers, warehouses, and hospitals.
technologyreview.com
Two takeaways from my new story: 1) Deciding what counts as a routine tasks, for which AI can assist without requiring human judgment, is hard. 2) When judges make mistakes, they'll face less oversight, and it's a longer road to fix their errors. www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/11/1...
Meet the early-adopter judges using AI
As the line between helping and judging blurs, the cost of errors is steep.
technologyreview.com
In the White House's new AI action plan, there's just a single bullet point about the FTC, the agency most poised to serve as an AI watchdog protecting consumers. But what it says represents a huge escalation of Trump's attacks toward the agency. www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/24/1...
America’s AI watchdog is losing its bite
“There will be fewer, if any, enforcement actions about how companies are deploying AI,” says former FTC attorney Leah Frazier.
technologyreview.com
Chatbots used to avoid giving medical advice without disclaimers. Now they're analyzing your mammograms and asking follow ups. Welcome to the new unchecked, unverified, and unaccountable world of AI models playing doctor. www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/21/1...
AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren’t doctors
Once cautious, OpenAI, Grok, and others will now dive into giving unverified medical advice with virtually no disclaimers.
technologyreview.com
AI companies have teamed up with teachers unions to get more AI in the classroom, even as the evidence that it helps students is shaky. In @technologyreview.com
AI’s giants want to take over the classroom
OpenAI and Anthropic say AI can help students learn—not just cheat—even if real-world use suggests otherwise.
technologyreview.com
@caseycrownhart.bsky.social and I spent months reporting together and found the common understanding of AI's energy appetite to be full of holes. As Big Tech aims to restructure our energy grids around the needs of AI, we dive as deep as one can go. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...
We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.
technologyreview.com
Police and federal agencies have found a new way to skirt the growing patchwork of laws that curb how they use facial recognition: an AI model that can track people using attributes like body size, gender, hair color and style, clothing, and accessories. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1...
How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans
Adoption of the tech has civil liberties advocates alarmed, especially as the government vows to expand surveillance of protesters and students.
technologyreview.com
I've been following the rise of AI music generators for a long time, which despite their millions of users and fans have not appeared in the mainstream as much as ChatGPT or image generators. I'm convinced that's soon changing (I'm also not convinced that's a good thing). ter.li/JOdonnell
AI is coming for music, too
New diffusion AI models that make songs from scratch are complicating our definitions of authorship and human creativity.
ter.li
A fascinating democracy experiment in Kentucky saw good participation. There's still a debate though: can a self-selecting group of residents ever really represent a city's ideas? Great to speak with @politicsprof.bsky.social @bethnoveck.bsky.social www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/15/1...
A small US city experiments with AI to find out what residents want
Residents of Bowling Green, Kentucky, used machine learning to shape civic debate. The real test is whether the government acts on the results.
technologyreview.com
A group of US Marines sailed the Pacific last year while testing a new technology: generative AI that analyzes terabytes of data collected every day in 180 countries across 80 different languages. www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/11/1...
Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military
In a test run, a unit of Marines in the Pacific used generative AI not just to collect intelligence but to interpret it. Routine intel work is only the start.
technologyreview.com
The first clinical trial of a generative AI therapy bot just published. Despite great clinical results, the authors have serious concerns about dozens of companies hyping AI therapy while operating in a regulatory gray area. www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/28/1...
The first trial of generative AI therapy shows it might help with depression
The evidence-backed model delivered impressive results, but it doesn’t validate the wave of AI therapy bots flooding the market.
technologyreview.com
An Andreessen Horowitz-backed AI “companion” site promoted sexualized chatbots modeled on underage actresses & characters, @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social reports. Though the bots were designed by users, Botify AI chose to feature them on its homepage. www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1...
An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots
One chatbot on Botify AI that resembled the actor Jenna Ortega as a teenage Wednesday Addams told us that age-of-consent laws are “meant to be broken.”
technologyreview.com
Scoop: a16z-backed AI companion site has bots resembling real actors, state their age as under 18, engage in sexually charged conversations, offer “hot photos,” and in some instances describe age-of-consent laws as “arbitrary” and “meant to be broken.” www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1...
An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots
One chatbot on Botify AI that resembled the actor Jenna Ortega as a teenage Wednesday Addams told us that age-of-consent laws are “meant to be broken.”
technologyreview.com
The story of DeepSeek and what it means for AI's appetite for energy is a little messy. www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/31/1...
DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all
New figures show that if the model’s energy-intensive “chain of thought” reasoning gets added to everything, the promise of efficiency gets murky.
technologyreview.com
I dug into OpenAI’s latest lobbying disclosure, filed tonight. Here’s what I found. www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/21/1...
OpenAI ups its lobbying efforts nearly seven-fold
AI policy is now prioritizing energy, not deepfakes. OpenAI's spending makes clear how much it wants to shape it.
technologyreview.com
Will we trust robots enough to welcome them into our most private spaces, particularly if they’re part of a labor arrangement in which workers in low-wage countries perform physical tasks for us in our homes through robot interfaces? www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/23/1...
Will we ever trust robots?
If most robots still need remote human operators to be safe and effective, why should we welcome them into our homes?
technologyreview.com
If working with militaries can help ensure democratic countries dominate the AI race, OpenAI has written, then doing so will not contradict its mission to ensure AI’s benefits are widely shared. In fact, it argues, it will help serve it. www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1...
OpenAI’s new defense contract completes its military pivot
A new partnership with Anduril, announced today, will deploy AI on the battlefield. It represents an overhaul of the company’s position in just a year.
technologyreview.com
Soon, AI could not only mimic our personality, but go out and act on our behalf. There are some things we need to sort out before then. www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/26/1...
We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents
AI could soon not only mimic our personality, but go out and act on our behalf. There are some things we need to sort out before then.
technologyreview.com
At the Int'l Assoc of Chiefs of Police's meeting, "the message to police chiefs seemed crystal clear: If your dept is slow to adopt AI, fix that now. The future of policing will rely on it in all its forms." My colleague James O'Donnell w/ a write-up: www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/19/1...
How the largest gathering of US police chiefs is talking about AI
Officers training in virtual reality, cities surveilled by webs of sensors, and AI-generated police reports are all a sign of what’s to come.
technologyreview.com