Pentagon’s draft AI ethics guidelines fight bias and rogue machines

Tech companies might have trouble establishing groundwork for the ethical use of AI, but the Defense Department appears to be moving forward. The Defense Innovation Board just published draft guidelines for AI ethics at the Defense Department that a...

The Trump Administration just revived the Cold War-era Space Command

Today, President Trump and Vice President Pence announced the return of the US Space Command -- a Cold War-era division of the Air Force that's been on a 17-year hiatus. The revival of the US Space Command is meant to "ensure the protection of Americ...

The Pentagon has a laser that identifies people by their heartbeat

Biometric identification has become part of everyday life. We've got facial recognition in airports, cars that can be unlocked just by looking at them, technology that detects a person's unique way of walking, and of course the ubiquitous fingerprint...

Microsoft and Amazon will fight for the Pentagon’s $10B cloud contract

Amazon and Microsoft are the two final companies in the running for the Defense Department's $10 billion cloud computing contract. The Pentagon's migration to the cloud, known as the JEDI project, was announced in 2017, with some of the biggest compa...

Palmer Luckey’s firm wins Pentagon drone AI contract

Google may have backed out of the US military's Project Maven, but that doesn't mean other tech companies are unwilling to participate. The Intercept has learned that Oculus Rift co-founder Palmer Luckey's defense company, Anduril, won a contract to...

Pentagon preps cyberattack in case Russia interferes with elections

There may not be any immediate evidence of Russia directly meddling with the US midterm elections, but the Department of Defense is apparently ready to strike back if it happens. Anonymous officials talking to the Center for Public Integrity and the...

After Math: Every robot was parkour fighting

What a week it's been! Between Google's Pixel 3 event, the lucky landing by the Soyuz crew, and Facebook's latest data breach, it feels like we almost didn't have time to talk about Waymo's self-driving cars, Amazon's new line of picker bots and Bost...