GoKawiil
Tech News
OpenAI has asked Washington to take the lead in establishing global standards for AI safety, positioning the U.S. as the guiding force in international regulation. President Trump responded by saying he would avoid stifling industry growth, while noting the Justice Department could step in to “rein in things” if problems arose.
The FAA is rolling out SMART, an AI tool that analyzes airline schedules, weather, and runway capacity to flag potential conflicts in advance, with an initial deployment in Washington DC's airspace beginning Monday. The project carries a price tag exceeding $875 million, part of a broader Trump administration push to modernize air traffic control following several high-profile aviation incidents.
The FAA plans to launch its SMART AI tool as early as September 21 to advise air traffic controllers managing the three major Washington, DC-area airports. The system analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, and airspace conditions to forecast traffic flows and flag potential conflicts, serving as a limited first phase before a planned nationwide rollout across all US airspace.
A political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis found that just 13% of Gen Z respondents believe most people can be trusted, while 74% agreed that 'you can't be too careful' when dealing with others. Researchers attribute this low trust to formative experiences shaping the youngest members of today's workforce.
Washington State University researcher Cameron Peace, while analyzing DNA samples sent by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association from trees on abandoned farms, found that one sample matched a long-predicted but never-located ancestor in his North American apple pedigree database. The discovery means a living tree in Maine has been quietly passing traits like flavor, hardiness and disease resistance to hundreds of modern apple varieties for centuries.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist, and Senator Bernie Sanders have publicly aligned on an unlikely issue: both warn that unchecked artificial intelligence development could pose catastrophic dangers to society. Despite their sharply opposing politics, the two are calling on Washington to move quickly to impose regulatory limits on AI systems.
A journalist bought a quadruped robot from Chinese manufacturer Unitree and used it to commute nearly four miles round-trip in Washington, DC, drawing crowds and curious questions along the way. On the uphill afternoon walk home in 87°F heat, the robot's battery dropped to 5% and its internal temperature hit 84°C before it collapsed onto its back just steps from the front door.
A study found Seattle hosts roughly nine times more coyotes per area than nearby wild lands in Washington state. Researchers attribute the surge to the abundance of easy food sources in urban environments, which reduces the need for coyotes to hunt as extensively as their rural counterparts.
U.S. security agencies have publicly accused six Chinese artificial intelligence companies of systematically using American AI models to train their own systems through a technique known as distillation. The practice allows a smaller model to learn from the outputs of a larger, more advanced one, effectively transferring capabilities without the original research investment.
A DuckDuckGo survey found that a third of AI users have confided secrets to chatbots they wouldn't tell trusted people in their lives. Washington Post reporting shows these conversations aren't as private as users assume, having surfaced in at least a dozen court cases over the past two years and potentially being accessible to employers, law enforcement, or exposed through company data breaches like Anthropic's Claude leak in July.
A Washington Post-Elon University poll found that more than a quarter of Americans use AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini for emotional or personal support, with many saying they consider these tools friends or a way to feel less alone. Apple executives Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak previously said Siri AI is deliberately built to avoid this kind of engagement-driven, sycophantic behavior seen in rival chatbots.
The FTC and a bipartisan coalition of 22 states have sued Amazon, claiming it secretly manipulated its advertising auctions to charge advertisers more than they should have paid under the stated 'second price' bidding rules. The complaint alleges Amazon pocketed roughly $20 billion since 2019 by making Sponsored Products advertisers pay their full winning bid nearly 80% of the time instead of one cent above the next-highest bid. Amazon has called the lawsuit 'misguided' and denies misleading advertisers or consumers.