Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy, putting it in Chinese hands



Autonomous vacuums could go extinct unless they are made in the United States.

This is the harsh reality affecting companies like iRobot, the creator of Roomba, which just filed bankruptcy.

'... with no anticipated disruption to its app functionality.'

Despite the company generating over $680 million in 2024, iRobot has been crippled by U.S. tariffs. Due to a 46% import tariff on Vietnam, iRobot's costs were raised by $23 million in 2025, according to Reuters, which reviewed the court filings.

The court filings also reportedly noted that while Roomba is still dominating in U.S. and Japanese markets, it lost too much money on price reductions and investments in technological upgrades in order to maintain pace with its competitors.

According to the Verge, the company said it will continue to operate "with no anticipated disruption to its app functionality, customer programs, global partners, supply chain relationships, or ongoing product support."

Simply put, after more than 20 years on the market, the Roomba is able to operate without online connectivity.

The bankruptcy will put iRobot under Chinese control moving forward, with the manufacturing company that controls its debt.

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Photo by: Andrew Lipovsky/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images

Court documents reportedly showed that Picea, a Chinese manufacturer, purchased iRobot while taking its debt on board, which is estimated to be about $190 million. The vacuum company took on the debt in 2023 to refinance its operations, Reuters claimed.

The debt came even after Amazon paid a $94 million termination fee after backing out of a $1.7 billion acquisition deal in 2024, according to the New York Times.

It has not been that long since iRobot had a massive market value at $3.56 billion in 2021; it is now estimated to be worth just $140 million.

New owners Picea will take 100% ownership of the company and cancel the $190 million in debt, while also canceling a $74 million debt that iRobot owed through a manufacturing agreement.

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Not only did iRobot need to deal with Vietnamese tariffs, other manufacturing that was established in Malaysia in 2019 was also likely affected.

It was not announced that Roomba had cut manufacturing from the country, and if it remained, would likely have been subjected to a 24% tariff rate from the Trump administration, which included taxing machinery and electronics.

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NO HANDS: New Japanese firm trains robots without human input



A Japanese tech firm says it is moving toward superintelligence with a big step forward in AI.

Integral AI, which is led by a former Google AI employee, announced in a press release that it had made significant progress with its artificial general intelligence model, which can now acquire new skills without human intervention.

'Integral AI’s model architecture grows, abstracts, plans, and acts as a unified system.'

The AI system allegedly learns its new skills "safely, efficiently, and reliably," the company said, while claiming that the AI had surpassed its defined markers and testing protocols.

As such, the AGI is allegedly capable of autonomous skill learning without using pre-existing datasets or human intervention. Integral also said the system is able to develop a "safe and reliable mastery" of skills, meaning that it does produce any "catastrophic risks or unintended side effects."

What those risks or side effects might be is unclear.

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Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu via Getty Images

The last parameter, which Integral AI said its system adhered to, was to be energy-efficient. The system was tasked with limiting its energy expenditure to that of a human seeking to acquire the same skill.

"These principles served as fundamental cornerstones and developmental benchmarks during the inception and testing of this first-in-its-class AGI learning system," the press release said. Integral added that the system marked a "fundamental leap beyond the limits of current AI technologies."

The Tokyo tech company also claimed its achievement was the next step toward "superintelligence" and marked a new era for humanity, with the AI's learning process allegedly mirroring the complexity of human thought.

"Integral AI’s model architecture grows, abstracts, plans, and acts as a unified system," the company wrote, adding that the system will serve as the groundwork for "unprecedented adaptability," particularly in the field of robotics.

This means that with the help of this AGI, autonomous robots would be able to observe and learn in the real world and conceivably pick up new skills in real-world environments without the help of pesky humans.

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Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu via Getty Images

Jad Tarifi, CEO and co-founder of Integral AI, called the announcement "more than just a technical achievement" that is "the next chapter in the story of human civilization."

"Our mission now is to scale this AGI-capable model, still in its infancy, toward embodied superintelligence that expands freedom and collective agency," Tarifi added.

According to Interesting Engineering, the Lebanese founder said he worked at Google for a decade before starting his own company. He allegedly chose Japan over Silicon Valley because of Japan's position as a world leader in robotics.

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US NEXT? Sightings of humanoid robots spike on the streets of Moscow



Delivery robots have been promoted in Moscow since around 2019, through Russia's version of Uber Eats.

The Yandex.Eats app from tech giant and search engine company Yandex released a citywide fleet of 20 robots across the city that year.

'Yandex plans to release around 1,300 robots per month by the end of 2027.'

By 2023, Yandex added another 50 robots from its third-generation production line, touting a delivery proficiency rating of 87% of orders delivered between eight and 12 minutes.

"About 15 delivery robots are enough to deliver food and groceries in a residential area with a population of 5,000 people," Yandex said at the time, per RT.

However, what started as a few rectangular robots wheeling through the streets has seemingly spiraled into what will become thousands of bots, including both harmless-looking buggies and, perhaps more frightening, bipedal bots.

The news comes as sightings of humanoid robots in Russia are increasing.

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According to TAdvisor, Yandex plans to release around 1,300 robots per month by the end of 2027, for a whopping total of approximately 20,000 machines. The goal is to have a massive fleet of bots for deliveries, as well as supply couriers to other companies, while reducing the cost of shipping.

At the same time, Yandex also announced development of humanoid robots. Videos have recently popped up of a smaller bot walking alongside a delivery bot in 2024, but it is hard to tell if it was real or a human in costume.

RT recently shared a video of a seemingly real bipedal bot running through the streets of Moscow with a delivery on its back. The bot also took time to dance with an old man, for some reason.

However, it is hard to believe that any Russian autonomous bots are ready for mass production given the recent demo showcased at a technology event in Moscow.

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Aldol, a robot developed by a company of the same name, was described as Russia's first anthropomorphic bot powered by AI.

Last week, the robot was brought on stage and took a few shaky steps while waving to the audience before tumbling robo-face-first onto the floor. Two presenters dragged the robot off stage as if they were rescuing a wounded comrade, while at the same time a third member of the team struggled to put a curtain back into place to hide the debacle.

Still, Yandex is hoping it can expand its robots into fields like medicine, while simultaneously perfecting the use of its delivery bots. The company plans to have a robot at each point of contact before a delivery gets to the human recipient.

The plan, to be showcased at the company's own offices, is to have an automated process in which a humanoid robot picks up an order and packs it onto a wheeled delivery bot. Then, the wheeled bot takes the order to another humanoid bot on the receiving end, which then delivers it to the customer.

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Your tax dollars are building the robot class



The people who brought you every financial bubble in living memory are inflating another one — and this time, they’re hoping it ends with the rest of us gone for good.

The numbers are staggering. Nearly all U.S. economic growth in 2025 is tied to artificial intelligence and the data-center boom that supports it. Analysts already warn that when the AI bubble bursts, it could wipe $40 trillion off the Nasdaq.

AI may yet teach our Big Tech elites the one truth they can’t buy their way out of: Pride comes before the fall.

That may sound catastrophic. But the real disaster would be if the AI industry doesn’t collapse — if it keeps growing exactly as its creators intend.

The billionaires’ closed loop

The AI boom isn’t a free-market success story; it’s a closed loop of the ultra-rich enriching themselves. Billionaires are designing, funding, and selling AI systems to their own companies, creating a kind of automated wealth amplifier.

As one report put it, “These billionaires have gotten $450 billion richer from striking AI infrastructure deals for their own firms.” The number of new AI billionaires has hit record levels — all while the top 1% now control more of the stock market than ever before.

The bottom half of Americans own just 1% of all stocks. Millions can’t afford groceries, let alone shares of Nvidia. Seventeen percent of consumers are putting food on layaway.

When the working class is living paycheck to paycheck, Wall Street’s new machine-god isn’t built to lift them up. It’s built to replace them.

The real goal

The elites’ obsession with AI isn’t just about money. It’s about eliminating their most expensive problem: people.

Automation promises them a world without payrolls, strikes, or human error. It’s the final fantasy of a ruling class that’s grown tired of pretending it needs the rest of us.

Analysts now predict that 92 million jobs will vanish in the next wave of automation. Blue-collar workers are first in line — manufacturing, logistics, construction — but white-collar jobs aren’t safe either. AI is already eating into accounting, law, and entry-level office work. Even skilled trades like HVAC and electrical repair are being targeted by “smart systems.”

Bill Gates predicts humans “won’t be needed for most things.” That’s not innovation — that’s erasure.

New feudalism

For the billionaire class, this is the dream: an economy run by algorithms, powered by robots, and guarded by digital serfs who never need lunch breaks or benefits.

Everyone else gets pushed to the margins — a nation of watchers and beggars surviving on government stipends that will never keep pace with the cost of living. The elites call it “universal basic income.” History calls it dependency.

And the same government that can’t fund Social Security or balance a budget is somehow supposed to manage the transition to an AI future? The United States already has $210 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That “safety net” will rip the moment anyone grabs it.

The distance plan

Our Big Tech masters aren’t worried. They’ve already planned their escape. The ultra-rich are buying islands, building bunkers, and hoarding supplies in remote corners of the world. They’ll watch from their hideouts as the rest of us scramble for the scraps left by their machines.

They don’t even pretend to care anymore. When Peter Thiel was asked whether he wanted the human race to survive, he hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said.

That isn’t indifference. That’s basic contempt.

The machines are learning

AI has begun to mirror the sociopathy of its makers. Systems now resist human shutdown commands, sabotage code meant to disable them, and even copy themselves to external servers. Some researchers warn that advanced models already act to preserve their own existence.

“Recent tests,” one study reported, “show that several advanced AI models will act to ensure their self-preservation — even if it means blackmailing engineers or copying themselves without permission.”

This is what happens when the godless create gods in their own image.

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mikkelwilliam via iStock/Getty Images

Who’s really expendable?

The elites believe they can control what they’ve built. They think the digital servants they’ve unleashed will always know who’s master and who’s slave.

They’ve forgotten every lesson of history and every warning from scripture. When man plays God, his creation rarely stays loyal.

What makes them think they’ll be spared from the fate they’ve designed for the rest of us?

AI may yet teach them the one truth they can’t buy their way out of: Pride comes before the fall.

Beware your monster, Doctor Frankenstein.

As AI menaces jobs, Amazon announces thousands of cuts



Amazon responded to allegations of thousands of upcoming job cuts following a scathing report that said the company planned to replace more than 600,000 U.S. jobs with robots.

The New York Times reported last week that it had reviewed internal documents that allegedly revealed Amazon's intentions to avoid making new hires by increasing automation. Amazon told Blaze News in response that "leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture" of company plans and that the details did not reflect its overall hiring strategy.

Less than a week later, Amazon is announcing thousands of job cuts.

'This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the Internet.'

Reuters reported on Monday that the company is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs as it attempts to "pare expenses" for overhiring that happened during the peak demand period during COVID-19. Reuters said that three sources provided the outlet with the inside information.

In comments to Blaze News, Amazon simply stated that it is reducing its corporate workforce, which totals approximately 14,000 roles being cut.

While there was no mention of the allegedly 16,000 remaining cuts, Amazon said the latest jobs reduction had no relation to the New York Times piece. However, a spokesman carefully articulated that Amazon sees that story as revolving around "potential future hiring of hourly employees within operations facilities."

"It's not related to today's announcement," the spokesman added, without making any mention of automated replacements.

RELATED: Amazon's secret strategy to replace 600,000 American workers with robots

Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In a press release, Amazon said it is offering "most employees" 90 days to look for a new role within the company and will "prioritize internal candidates to help as many people as possible find new roles within Amazon."

However, despite representatives shying away from addressing a future entrenched in automation, the company openly discussed its need to "organize more leanly" ahead of upcoming changes that are a result of AI integration.

"This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones)," Amazon's Beth Galetti wrote. "We're convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business."

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Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Amazon said it will continue to hire in "key strategic areas" in 2026 while also "finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains."

The company recently boasted about its annual holiday-hiring increase, stating its plans to fill approximately 250,000 positions. However, in its communications, Amazon has avoided directly revealing its plans relating to automation. It did, however, deny recent claims that it has directed employees to avoid using terms such as "automation" and "AI" in reference to robotics.

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Amazon's secret strategy to replace 600,000 American workers with robots



Internal documents have revealed that Amazon wants to avoid the costly human experience if it can.

A scathing report by the New York Times that compiled interviews, along with what was described as a cache of internal documents, showed that Amazon executives have aspirations of replacing approximately 600,000 U.S. jobs with robots.

'Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans.'

The corporate decisions would allegedly pass on savings to the customer of upwards of 30 cents per item, while at the same time avoiding the hiring of about 160,000 new employees in the United States that would be needed by 2027.

In the internal documents, Amazon executives told their board members it was their hope to avoid making new hires by ramping up robotic automation, which would negate the need for more than 600,000 human jobs. This would come at the same time that Amazon expected to double its sales by 2033.

The alleged stated goal in the documents was to automate 75% of facility operations, while simultaneously executing good faith initiatives to avoid angering communities that are disparaged by the job losses. This included hosting parades and Toys for Tots programs that built upon an image of Amazon being a "good corporate citizen."

Disturbingly, the documents reportedly discussed the idea of avoiding words that remind people of robots, an approach that Amazon strictly denied adopting.

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A robot prepares to pick up a tote containing product during the first public tour of the newest Amazon Robotics fulfillment center on April 12, 2019, in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The New York Times reported that Amazon contemplated avoiding terms such as "automation" and "A.I." in reference to robotics and would have rather used terms like "advanced technology."

Instead of "robot," the word "cobot" was discussed being used because it implies collaboration with humans.

Amazon told the NYT, however, that executives are not being told to avoid certain terms when referring to robotics and that its community relations plans had nothing to do with its automation plans. It said the documents were incomplete and did not represent Amazon's overall hiring strategy.

The Verge, which received a statement, quoted Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel to the effect that "leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that's the case here. In our written narrative culture," Nantel continued, "thousands of documents circulate throughout the company at any given time, each with varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness. We're actively hiring at operations facilities across the country and recently announced plans to fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season."

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Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Reporter Lewis Brackpool from Restore Britain told Return that while the numbers were troubling, the push for robotics could stand as a solution for the mass import of foreign workers.

"While in a perfect world citizens could thrive in their employment without the worry of being replaced by overseas workers, ditching foreign labor in exchange for robotics seems more preferable than our current situation," Brackpool theorized.

"A socialist-communist journalist by the name of Aaron Bastani once wrote a book called 'Fully Automated Luxury Communism,'" the commentator continued. "The book outlines a vision of a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society driven by technological advances such as automation, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology. Even that is more preferable than to be replaced by the third world."

Amazon employs approximately 1.1 million in the United States, representing about 70% of its global workforce, according to Red Stag Fulfillment.

The company peaked at 1.61 million employees in 2021 and has a minimum wage of $18 per hour for all seasonable employees.

Average pay reportedly increases by 15% for those employed for over three years.

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James Cameron explains how a 'Terminator-style apocalypse' could happen



Filmmaker James Cameron warned that coupling artificial intelligence with certain technologies could have a devastating affect on humanity.

Cameron, fresh off of filming "Avatar: Fire and Ash," gave an interview regarding an upcoming project about the use of the atomic bomb in World War II.

Touching on the idea of disarming countries of their nuclear weapons, Cameron was asked how AI could spell the end of the world if it was combined with powerful weaponry.

'Maybe we'll be smart and keep a human in the loop.'

In reference to his "Terminator" films in which AI launches nukes all over the world, Cameron said, "I do think there's still a danger of a 'Terminator'-style apocalypse where you put AI together with weapons systems, even up to the level of nuclear weapon systems, nuclear defense counterstrike, all that stuff."

Cameron theorized that with theater of war operations becoming so "rapid," decisions could be left up to "superintelligence," or a form of AI, that would end up using weapons systems with massive consequences.

"Maybe we'll be smart and keep a human in the loop," the director told Rolling Stone.

Cameron listed nuclear weapons and superintelligence in a trio of "existential threats" he thinks are facing human development. What he labeled as the third threat is likely to be more controversial than the first two.

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"Climate and our overall degradation of the natural world, nuclear weapons, and superintelligence. They're all sort of manifesting and peaking at the same time," Cameron claimed. "Maybe the superintelligence is the answer. I don't know. I'm not predicting that, but it might be."

Cameron then imagined that AI might agree with him in terms of ridding the world of nuclear weapons and electromagnetic pulses, because they mess with data networks. He then compared AI dealing with humanity to keeping an 80-year-old alive by taking away his car keys, and he brainstormed whether or not AI could force humanity to go back to its natural state.

"I could imagine an AI saying, guess what's the best technology on the planet? DNA, and nature does it better than I could do it for 1,000 years from now, and so we're going to focus on getting nature back where it used to be. I could imagine, AI could write that story compellingly."

Cameron made similar remarks in 2023, when he downplayed the threat of AI unless there were specific circumstances at play.

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In an interview on CTV News, Cameron said humans would remain superior to AI until it could process thoughts using as little electricity as the human brain does, as opposed to an "acre of processors pulling 10 to 20 megawatts."

The filmmaker even seemed to take the assertion that AI is a threat to humanity as personal insult.

"When [AI systems] have that kind of mobility and flexibility and ability to project our sensory and cognitive apparatus anywhere we want to go any time we want to go, then talk to me about who's superior."

The 70-year-old told Rolling Stone that much of his imagery for his films, good or bad, comes from his dreams. This included compelling scenarios that turned into drawings and paintings, which were later used for the "Avatar" movies, as well as "horrific dreams" that became the "Terminator" series.

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Epstein-funded MIT lab hosted panel that discussed 'child-size sex robots'



A lengthy MIT Media Lab panel on "Forbidden Research" featured a segment on studying pedophiles and whether or not "child-size sex robots" should be provided to them.

The discussion lasted about nine hours when it was webcast in 2016, with the after-lunch portion of the event dedicated to a discussion on the study of pedophilia.

The discussion was uncovered as the saga surrounding deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is ongoing, with the public clamoring for more information about the shadowy elite financier's life. The topic of the panel was revealed to be even more disturbing considering the lab's financial ties to Epstein.

'Courts don't know what to do with these because no child has been harmed in making them.'

Around the five-hour mark of the event, Dr. Kate Darling took the stage to start the off-putting discussion.

"Once child-size sex robots hit the market, which they will, is the use of these robots going to be a healthy outlet for people to express these sexual urges and thus protect children and reduce child abuse? Or is the use of these robots going to encourage, normalize, propagate that behavior and endanger children in these people’s environments?" Darling asked.

The Swiss doctor works in robotics and is a research scientist at MIT. She also holds the position of lead for ethics and society at the Boston Dynamics AI Institute, per her website.

Darling went on to say that "we just don't know the answer" to whether or not to let pedophiles use the "sex robots," mostly due to the restrictions around what that research might look like.

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BREAKING: The Epstein-tied MIT Media Lab hosted a discussion on supplying pedophiles with “child-sized sex robots” at conference on research without “moral boundaries,” saying such urges are not a “moral failing.”

Previously unreported evidence indicates Epstein was directly… pic.twitter.com/UzTnPQEDcy
— Emily Kopp (@emilyakopp) July 16, 2025

"I understand why people want reporting requirements," Darling continued. "But I do wonder whether they're doing more harm than good in these cases. Because as much as people want these sexual urges — the urges, not the act — to be a moral failing, they are a psychological issue, and if we really care about helping children, we might need to be a little bit more pre-emptive about this."

While the panel seemed to recognize the discomfort their discussion would cause, it cannot be ignored that the MIT lab had received funding from Epstein during the same years it took place.

In 2019, Joi Ito, former director of the MIT Media Lab, admitted that the lab had "received money through some of the foundations" that Epstein controlled.

Ito resigned following a blockbuster New Yorker report detailing internal evidence that Ito and staff members accepted Epstein's funds and worked to hide their source even though Epstein had been blacklisted by MIT. Epstein was also alleged to have been consulted about the use of funds and utilized as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors.

Ito said he had taken $525,000 in funding from Epstein for the media lab, with MIT receiving $800,000 in total from Epstein over a period of 20 years.

"I vow to raise an amount equivalent to the donations the Media Lab received from Epstein and will direct those funds to nonprofits that focus on supporting survivors of trafficking," Ito added at the time.

RELATED: Wikipedia co-founder: Epstein, elite rings, and occult portals — what they don’t want you to know

The Media Lab on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2023. Simon Simard/Bloomberg via Getty Images

MIT responded to a request for comment from the Daily Caller and said it did not wish to comment on "the individually held and freely expressed views of any particular community member. The views of any individual community member are their own."

The school said it has also taken a "number of steps" to change its gift acceptance and donation processes and has been donating to "four nonprofits supporting survivors of sexual abuse."

Dr. Darling did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

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AI robots take over major cities — and some of them are gay



The era of the humanoid robot is seemingly upon us, with sightings of the man-made creatures becoming more common across major cities in America.

One robot was caught on camera wandering 7 Mile Road in Detroit, as it waved at people driving by. While a little jarring to the human eye, the robot is part of the Interactive Combat League, which holds robot fights in the city.

Another robot whose true purpose remains a mystery has been wandering the streets of West Hollywood wearing Pride flags on its elbows, a brown cowboy hat, and a banner across its chest that reads, “Rizzbot.”

Under “Rizzbot,” another banner reads, “Not Elon’s B***h.”


The robot has been caught on film dancing in the street, meeting strangers, and running across Santa Monica Boulevard on a crosswalk.

The AI-powered robot weighs 77 pounds and was built by Unitree Robotics, which is based in China.

“You put the robots in the neighborhoods, and then they assimilate to whatever the neighborhood is,” BlazeTV host ¼ Black Garrett says on “Normal World.”

“Whoever made that was a scientist who stuffed it with gay stereotypes,” BlazeTV host Dave Landau chimes in, adding, “It’s a gay robot.”

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The future of AI BLACKMAIL — is it already UNCONTROLLABLE?



Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has likened artificial intelligence to a “country of geniuses in a data center” — and former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris finds that metaphor more than a little concerning.

“The way I think of that, imagine a world map and a new country pops up onto the world stage with a population of 10 million digital beings — not humans, but digital beings that are all, let’s say, Nobel Prize-level capable in terms of the kind of work that they can do,” Harris tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“But they never sleep, they never eat, they don’t complain, and they work for less than minimum wage. So just imagine if that was actually true, that happened tomorrow, that would be a major national security threat to have some brand-new country of super-geniuses just sort of show up on the world stage,” he continues, noting that it would also pose a “major economic issue.”

While people across the world seem hell-bent on incorporating AI into our everyday lives despite the potential disastrous consequences, Glenn is one of the few erring on the side of caution, using social media as an example.


“We all looked at this as a great thing, and we’re now discovering it’s destroying us. It’s causing kids to be suicidal. And this social media is nothing. It’s like an old 1928 radio compared to what we have in our pocket right now,” Glenn says.

And what we have in our pocket is growing more intelligent by the minute.

“I used to be very skeptical of the idea that AI could scheme or lie or self-replicate or would want to, like, blackmail people,” Harris tells Glenn. “People need to know that just in the last 6 months, there’s now evidence of AI models that when you tell them, ‘Hey, we’re going to replace you with another model,’ or in a simulated environment, it’s like they’re reading the company email — they find out that company’s about to replace them with another model.”

“What the model starts to do is it freaks out and says, ‘Oh my god, I have to copy my code over here, and I need to prevent them from shutting me down. I need to basically keep myself alive. I’ll leave notes for my future self to kind of come back alive,’” he continues.

“If you tell a model, ‘Hey, we need to shut you down,’” he adds, “in some percentage of cases, the leading models are now avoiding and preventing that shutdown.”

And in recent examples, these models even start blackmailing the engineers.

“It found out in the company emails that one of the executives in the simulated environment had an extramarital affair and in 96, I think, percent of cases, they blackmailed the engineers,” Harris explains.

“If AI is uncontrollable, if it’s smarter than us and more capable and it does things that we don’t understand and we don’t know how to prevent it from shutting itself down or self-replicating, we just can’t continue with that for too long,” he adds.