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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new military command, the Autonomous Warfare Command, tasked with building and deploying autonomous and robotic systems across the U.S. military. Speaking at Quantico during a 'State of the Force' address, Hegseth said the command will be led by a four-star officer and cited cheap computing power and advanced manufacturing as drivers of low-cost precision weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, during a September 30 address at Quantico, Virginia. The new command, to be led by a four-star officer, would join the military's 11 existing combatant commands and oversee drones, AI, and command-and-control systems, with a target establishment date of October 1, 2027 pending congressional authorization.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has selected Newt Gingrich, Palmer Luckey and Elon Musk to contribute to a report examining the future of warfare. The exact scope, timeline and format of their involvement were not detailed.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Project Meridian, a 120-day Pentagon initiative to identify future warfare capabilities and technologies. Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich will serve as co-leads under Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael, drawing on experts from government, industry, academia and policy circles. Hegseth said the project aims to determine which military domains and capabilities the U.S. must master, not to set new strategy or policy.
Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel with over 620,000 X followers, worked as a civilian government employee under the Pentagon's undersecretary for personnel and readiness, part of a task force targeting 'woke' content at military war colleges. WIRED reviewed years of his social media posts containing extremist and anti-democratic rhetoric, including a 2021 call for authoritarian crackdowns on liberals, which had not previously been reported alongside his Pentagon role.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Trump administration acted within its authority under the Supply Chain Security Act when it barred federal agencies and defense contractors from using Anthropic's products. The panel found the government could blacklist Anthropic for refusing to enable certain AI capabilities even absent malicious intent, denying Anthropic's petition for review. Anthropic said it disagrees with the ruling and may seek en banc review or petition the Supreme Court.
A Pentagon budget document requests $30 million to develop 'Polygraph+,' an AI-enhanced deception-detection program to be run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. The system would be used for vetting job applicants and detecting insider threats, though the specific technologies involved have not been disclosed. The request follows a period of increased polygraph use under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including tests given to roughly 50 Joint Staff officers after leaks about weapons stockpiles.
CNN reports a Pentagon analyst used an AI chatbot to assess a Chinese vessel's cargo, and the tool falsely concluded it carried nuclear weapons components by blending open-source data with classified signals intelligence. The false finding nearly led US forces to seize the ship before officials realized the assessment was fabricated by the AI.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered testosterone deficiency screening for all service members aged 30 and older, but implementation of the program has reportedly gotten off to a slow and troubled start. Details on specific logistical or administrative obstacles causing the delay were not fully specified.
The Pentagon issued a clinical guidance document on September 2 implementing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's mandatory testosterone screening policy, then removed it the following day along with a related statement from spokesperson Sean Parnell. Officials told Ars Technica the document was temporarily rescinded to allow for updates, with an interim policy remaining active and a finalized version expected soon. The rescinded plan would have screened men 30 and older via questionnaire, potentially triggering blood tests and hormone therapy, while women faced similar screening for hormonal imbalances.
A dark web marketplace called Nexus was offering digital scans of over 153 million driver's licenses from the US and Canada, along with 10 million ID cards, 3 million travel documents and half a million medical cards, affecting roughly 170 million people. Journalist Brian Krebs traced the data to a Louisiana-based ID verification firm and found the license of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among the leaked files. The FBI has opened an inquiry, and the Nexus service disappeared from the dark web the same day Krebs published his findings.
A federal judge sided with Anthropic in its lawsuit against the Pentagon, finding that officials wrongly labeled the AI firm a supply chain risk after it criticized the Department of Defense's stance on military AI use. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the designation was punitive rather than based on legitimate security concerns, following a dispute that began in February when Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of threatening national security.