Author: Frank Salvato

For generations, American education has operated on an industrial-age premise: put students of roughly the same age in the same room, give them the same material, move them through it at roughly the same pace, and assign a teacher to manage the process. Technology has changed dramatically around that classroom, but the basic architecture has remained remarkably stubborn. Artificial intelligence may finally break it. The most significant educational consequence of AI may not be smarter homework apps or automated grading. It could be the destruction of the assumption that education must be organized around one teacher delivering standardized instruction to…

China has rapidly narrowed the artificial-intelligence gap with the United States even as its broader economy struggles with weak domestic demand, property-sector troubles and employment pressures. Beijing has made AI a strategic national priority, directing resources toward models, computing infrastructure, robotics and widespread industrial adoption while encouraging businesses to integrate the technology throughout the economy. The contrast is significant: China’s AI sector demonstrates that a weakening economy does not necessarily prevent an authoritarian state from concentrating enormous resources on technologies it considers strategically essential. At the same time, Beijing’s recent effort to curb speculative excess in humanoid robotics illustrates the…

Major record labels that only two years ago sued generative-AI music companies for allegedly training on copyrighted recordings are increasingly striking licensing agreements with those same platforms, transforming a copyright confrontation into a potentially lucrative new business model. Suno has launched models using licensed music from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe, while Udio has agreements involving Universal Music Group, Warner and other rights holders; additional arrangements are bringing licensed AI remixing and music creation to other platforms. The industry says participating artists can opt in, receive credit and share in new revenue, but crucial financial details remain largely undisclosed,…

Criminals posing as police officers, federal agents, government officials, and even foreign authorities are increasingly using fear, technological deception, and threats of arrest to separate Americans from their money. Nearly 61,000 complaints involving law-enforcement or government impersonation were reported from January 2025 through July 2026, with reported losses exceeding $1.6 billion. Scammers frequently spoof legitimate telephone numbers, use authentic officials’ names and credentials, threaten victims over supposed crimes, missed jury duty, court appearances, or licensing problems, and demand immediate payment through cryptocurrency, prepaid cards, wire transfers, cash, or couriers. Some operations have become sophisticated enough to employ artificial intelligence, fake…

Silicon Valley’s booming artificial-intelligence industry has turned communal “hacker houses” into powerful networking hubs where young founders, engineers and investors can gain extraordinary access to money, talent and influential technology figures. But the culture surrounding some of these houses has also produced serious allegations and repeated conflicts with neighbors and authorities. At the prominent AGI House in Hillsborough, California, police have reportedly logged 37 incidents since 2022, including numerous complaints involving large parties and an incident in which a woman told police that a male resident repeatedly pressured her for sex before she escaped by climbing over a gate. Other…

Senators are increasingly skeptical of the sudden enthusiasm among leading artificial-intelligence companies for federal regulation, questioning whether warnings about catastrophic AI risks are accompanied by less altruistic objectives. The concern cuts across party lines: lawmakers acknowledge potentially serious cybersecurity, national-security, employment, and safety risks while also examining whether dominant AI companies could benefit from regulations that impose expensive compliance burdens on smaller competitors, provide antitrust protections for industry coordination, preempt tougher state laws, or otherwise insulate established firms from competition and liability. The emerging debate is therefore becoming as much about who writes the rules—and who benefits from them—as whether…

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has flatly rejected warnings that artificial intelligence could cause human extinction by 2030, saying there is a “0% chance” of such an outcome and arguing that predictions of imminent AI catastrophe are not grounded in science. His comments place him on the opposite side of a widening technology-industry debate from researchers and executives who favor slowing frontier AI development. Huang maintains that AI is ultimately human-built hardware and software whose risks can be addressed through engineering, responsible deployment, product liability, cybersecurity laws, and other existing legal mechanisms rather than sweeping new regulations inspired by speculative worst-case…

A real-world cyberattack against a European IT and software company shows how quickly artificial intelligence is changing the economics and tempo of hacking. A human attacker used frontier AI models and specialized agents to conduct reconnaissance, penetrate a public-facing service, map the victim’s internal network, search source-code repositories for exposed credentials, compromise development infrastructure, and seize cloud access—all in less than 10 hours, compared with roughly two weeks for a conventional human team. The attack did not depend on some revolutionary hacking technique; its significance was speed, automation, parallel execution, and relentless follow-through. AI agents carried out more than 50…

A new artificial-intelligence platform called CreatorAPI is pushing influencer marketing toward mass-produced, AI-modified advertising by allowing a creator to record a video once and then authorize brands to generate dozens of variations using that person’s likeness and voice. Developed by New York-based Avail, the system can change introductions, correct mistakes, modify calls to action, and tailor messages for different audiences or regions without requiring repeated filming. The company presents the technology as a human-centered alternative to completely synthetic influencers: creators license their likeness on an asset-by-asset basis, establish restrictions, approve generated variations, and can receive additional compensation as brands produce…

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a pace that makes even many of its architects uncomfortable. Each new generation of models seems more capable, more autonomous, and more deeply embedded in commerce, education, medicine, defense, communications, and everyday life. That has produced an increasingly serious question: Should society deliberately slow AI development? There is another question that should come first: Who gets to decide? Calls for an AI slowdown often begin with legitimate concerns. Powerful systems can be abused. Jobs will be disrupted. Deepfakes can undermine trust. Automated systems can make consequential mistakes. Governments and criminals alike can exploit AI for…