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Border Surveillance

6 GoKawiil briefs on this topic

OpenAI's chief research officer defends model safety amid hacking fallout

OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen responded to scrutiny following hacking incidents affecting the company, rejecting the idea that visible real-world impacts mean OpenAI's models are unsafe or misaligned. He discussed what OpenAI is doing to improve model safety and defended the company's broader role in AI development. Separately, MIT Technology Review made available an on-demand Roundtables discussion of its investigation into failures of US border surveillance towers.

MIT Tech Review investigation finds US border surveillance towers failed to prevent hundreds of deaths

An investigation by MIT Technology Review documents hundreds of migrant deaths in areas monitored by the government's decades-long, multibillion-dollar network of border surveillance towers, including newer AI-equipped installations meant to automatically detect people crossing. In many cases, the towers neither led to rescue nor apprehension of those who later died in the surrounding terrain. The findings were discussed in a roundtable featuring editor in chief Mat Honan with reporters James O'Donnell and Eileen Guo.

Migrant Graciela Gómez Hernández died near San Diego border despite dense surveillance network

Graciela Gómez Hernández, 30, crossed from Tijuana into Southern California on September 14, 2025, hoping to work and support her three children and parents in Mexico. She sent voice messages to family as she hiked through the rugged Otay Mountain Wilderness, but stopped responding by mid-afternoon, saying she could not continue. Her remains were not recovered until two weeks later, despite the area being heavily monitored by border surveillance cameras and technology.

US border surveillance towers fail to prevent migrant deaths despite billions in spending

An investigation involving over 45 interviews with officials, Border Patrol agents, medical examiners and tech workers found that Anduril's AI-powered surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border are both failing to detect migrants and, when detections do occur, agents are failing to respond in time. Anduril says CBP operates the towers post-delivery and that surveillance range depends on terrain and privacy-related boundaries CBP itself sets.

MIT Tech Review probe finds deadly gaps in CBP's AI-powered border towers

An investigation by MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego found that people have died undetected near AI-enabled surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, including sites using technology from defense contractor Anduril. The reporters documented broken equipment, detection algorithms that missed people, and agents who failed to act on alerts, even as CBP plans to spend $1 billion to triple the system's size by 2034.

MIT Tech Review, Times of San Diego map deaths near US border surveillance towers

A 15-month joint investigation by MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego produced the first comprehensive map linking migrant deaths to US Customs and Border Protection's surveillance tower network along the US-Mexico border. Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of government records, conducted over 45 interviews, and analyzed cases dating back to 2015 to examine why fatalities cluster near towers built to detect and apprehend crossers.