Author: Frank Salvato

A New Mexico defense attorney has been fined $5,000 and held in contempt after filing a murder appeal containing fabricated witnesses and police testimony generated by ChatGPT. Attorney Stephen Aarons used the AI system to summarize trial materials in the appeal of Oscar Renee Sandoval, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, but failed to verify the resulting claims before submitting them to the New Mexico Supreme Court. The court found that the brief contained false testimony attributed to entirely fictional witnesses, including invented descriptions of the alleged shooter. Aarons said he believed ChatGPT would produce a…

An Iran-linked threat actor used the American-developed Claude artificial-intelligence model to gather and analyze publicly available information about U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, according to a newly released threat-intelligence report. The operation reportedly transformed open-source information—including ship and aircraft transponder identifiers, commercial satellite-imagery resources, public military photographs, personnel information, and websites tracking naval movements—into targeting recommendations and intelligence handbooks. The actor also tasked the AI with researching known vulnerabilities in maritime satellite terminals, communications equipment, and industrial-control systems. The account was subsequently banned, new detection measures were developed, and intelligence was shared with U.S. authorities. The case demonstrates…

Artificial intelligence is usually discussed as something workers and unions must confront. Automation threatens jobs, algorithms measure productivity, and increasingly sophisticated machines can perform tasks once reserved for human beings. But another possibility deserves attention: What happens when AI stops being merely the subject of collective bargaining and becomes an active participant in it? AI-powered collective bargaining could fundamentally change negotiations between unions and employers. Both sides could employ sophisticated systems capable of analyzing decades of contracts, corporate financial statements, wage data, inflation, productivity, healthcare costs, pension obligations, labor shortages, competitor compensation and thousands of previous arbitration decisions. Instead of…

A revised Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act would subject crypto trading protocols that call themselves decentralized—but remain materially controlled by individuals or coordinated groups—to federal oversight, potentially including CFTC registration, securities and commodities rules, and Bank Secrecy Act requirements. The 630-page revision attempts to distinguish autonomous software from businesses retaining meaningful control over users, transactions, or protocol rules, while protecting software and distributed-ledger systems from registration merely because they provide underlying technology. The changes arrive ahead of a September 15 Senate procedural vote requiring 60 votes, with unresolved disagreements over ethics provisions, anti-money-laundering safeguards, stablecoin rewards, and the potential effect…

A China-based defense researcher with reported links to institutions including the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences used Claude to develop an electronic-warfare and air-defense suppression system that ultimately modeled 12 military targets in Taiwan. The AI-assisted suite reportedly analyzed radar networks, missile batteries, command facilities and communications nodes, calculated vulnerabilities and jamming effectiveness, and prioritized targets for suppression. The case offers a stark warning that America’s most advanced commercial AI capabilities can potentially be repurposed by strategic adversaries for military planning, weapons development and intelligence operations. Key Takeaways In-Depth A case shows how quickly frontier artificial intelligence can…

A 22-year-old Singaporean national has pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge for leading an international cybercrime organization responsible for stealing and laundering more than $245 million in cryptocurrency. Malone Lam admitted organizing a network that targeted wealthy cryptocurrency holders through sophisticated social-engineering attacks, impersonation schemes and, in some cases, home break-ins. The operation, active from at least October 2023 through May 2025, recruited participants through online gaming communities and stretched across several U.S. states and foreign locations. Prosecutors say Lam identified victims and coordinated conspirators who manipulated targets into surrendering information needed to access their cryptocurrency. The stolen…

The United Arab Emirates is reportedly overhauling its planned 5-gigawatt artificial-intelligence data-center complex after Iranian drone and missile attacks demonstrated that the Gulf’s rapidly expanding digital infrastructure can become a direct military target. The project, originally envisioned as a massive, roughly 10-square-mile centralized campus in Abu Dhabi, is now expected to be dispersed among multiple locations across the country, with officials considering underground facilities, blast-resistant construction, electronic jamming, air defenses, redundant power and cooling, and even mountain-based installations for especially sensitive data. The reassessment follows March attacks that physically damaged two cloud facilities in the UAE and infrastructure in Bahrain,…

Canada’s Cohere and France’s Mistral are positioning themselves at the center of a growing Western effort to reduce dependence on Silicon Valley and China for advanced artificial intelligence. Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez has left open the possibility of a future partnership with Mistral, although he says no talks are currently underway. The broader strategy centers on “sovereign AI”: giving nations, governments and businesses greater control over the models, infrastructure and sensitive data increasingly embedded in critical industries. Cohere has already strengthened its European position through its combination with Germany’s Aleph Alpha, while Mistral has raised €3 billion at a valuation…

Huawei Technologies is facing a landmark federal racketeering trial in Brooklyn, where prosecutors allege the Chinese telecommunications giant spent years stealing American trade secrets, deceiving financial institutions, circumventing U.S. sanctions and assisting Iran with surveillance capabilities. The government portrays the alleged conduct as a coordinated corporate strategy rather than isolated wrongdoing, while Huawei denies the accusations and argues that prosecutors have stitched together unrelated events to criminalize legitimate global competition. The case, years in the making, arrives amid intensifying U.S.-China competition over telecommunications, semiconductors and artificial intelligence, giving the verdict significance well beyond the courtroom. Key Takeaways In-Depth The federal…

The Pentagon is considering an approximately $5 billion loan to AI cloud-computing company Fluidstack, potentially making the federal government a major financier of America’s rapidly expanding artificial-intelligence infrastructure. The financing would come through the Office of Strategic Capital, established to channel capital toward technologies and supply chains considered essential to national security. If finalized, the transaction would be the office’s largest loan by a wide margin and would support Fluidstack’s role in building domestic AI infrastructure and strengthening U.S.-based data-center supply chains. Fluidstack has expanded rapidly through relationships with major technology companies and infrastructure developers, while the broader AI industry…