WHO WHAT WHY > Welcome to Saturday Hashtag, a Weekly Place for Broader Context.

Must Reads For March 22, 2025 Saturday Hashtag  By  SEAN OGDEN  In the past few weeks, the world has witnessed a series of developments that are both astonishing and deeply disconcerting. The promises of a better future are being made at an alarming rate in the age of the Anthropocene, but what’s the cost of this relentless, unchecked pursuit of innovation? Let’s take a closer look at the complex reality of these recent advancements. China’s Quantum Giant Zuchongzhi-3 (March 4, 2025) The AI arms Race Starting Gun:  China’s unveiling of Zuchongzhi-3, a million times faster than Google’s supercomputer, marks a colossal leap in computational power. But this technological triumph sets the stage for a dangerous global arms race in quantum supremacy. With nations and corporations scrambling to secure their foothold in this new frontier, there’s little attention being paid to the consequences of falling into a digital warfare reality. What happens when such powerful technology is exploited by authoritarian regimes or rogue actors? Manus (March 10, 2025) 50+Automated Tasks a Dystopian Diversity:  This showcased the techs ability to automate over 50 tasks, blurring the line between labor and automation. The implication? A future where human workers are replaced by AI agents, leaving millions jobless and socially marginalized. Automation isn’t just a convenience — it’s a threat to livelihoods. And for all the talk of efficiency, the long-term human cost is rarely discussed. Manus AI (March 8, 2025) China’s DeepSeek Moment or a New Digital Overlord:  Hailed as China’s answer to DeepSeek, Manus AI goes beyond its predecessor by handling complex transactions and research in unprecedented ways. But as this AI grows in sophistication, we must grapple with the question of whether we’re willing to hand over decision-making power — both trivial and life-altering — to machines that lack empathy, morality, and the nuanced understanding of human consequences. Are we sacrificing our autonomy for efficiency? Unitree Robotics (March 13, 2025) The Open-Source Trojan Horse:  The open-sourcing of Unitree’s algorithms and hardware designs promises to accelerate innovation. However, this seemingly benign move hides a far darker implication: the potential militarization of robotics. By allowing anyone with the resources to build advanced robotic systems, we risk unleashing a new wave of weaponized robots. What’s presented as freedom and progress may soon lead to a chaotic free-for-all, where the boundaries between innovation and destruction blur dangerously. Luma AI’s Ray2 Flash (March 11, 2025) The Creation of Deep Fake Reality:  This promises to revolutionize video creation, making it three times faster and more affordable. But this breakthrough accelerates the already perilous blurring of fact and fiction. The rise of hyper-realistic AI-generated content fuels misinformation, enabling the creation of deepfakes that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. In the wrong hands, this could destabilize political landscapes, manipulate public opinion, and destroy reputations — without any recourse for victims. Mistral OCR (March 6, 2025) A Soundless Privacy Invasion:  This tool provides powerful text extraction from images and PDFs, but at what cost to personal privacy? This new technology doesn’t just improve efficiency; it enables the silent, unchecked extraction of personal data. As AI becomes better at scanning and understanding documents, the line between legitimate data usage and invasive surveillance becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish. Privacy is eroding, leaving individuals vulnerable in an age of ubiquitous data collection. Alibaba’s QwQ-32B (March 6, 2025) A Silent Weapon in AI Warfare:  This AI model may have only 32 billion parameters, but it easily outperforms other leading models in critical areas, serving as a reminder that AI is being increasingly tailored for military and economic dominance. This is a chilling precursor to a world where artificial intelligence decides the outcomes of global power struggles. As AI systems grow in sophistication, we risk creating autonomous systems capable of determining who wins and loses in geopolitical conflicts — without human oversight or accountability. AI-Generated Ads (March 14, 2025) Efficiency at the Expense of Authenticity:  AI-generated advertising campaigns are quickly replacing human creativity in marketing, promising cost savings and increased efficiency. But this innovation strips away the humanity of advertising, reducing art, culture, and creativity to mere data-driven outputs. As algorithms take over the creative industries, we must ask: Are we sacrificing the authenticity of human expression in favor of cold, calculated efficiency? Anduril’s Barracuda-500 (March 4, 2025) The Next Evolution in Autonomous Warfare:  This represents the latest leap in autonomous military technology, equipped with precision targeting and autonomous flight. While touted as the future of defense, we are now facing the horrifying prospect of machines making life-and-death decisions without human intervention. Autonomous weapons systems that can act based on data and algorithms, devoid of human empathy or understanding, could lead to devastating consequences in warfare — where accountability becomes a distant, abstract notion. PNDbotics’s Adam Robot (March 8, 2025) The Perils of Perfect Imitation: This robot has captured public imagination with its lifelike, human-like movements. But as robots get ever closer to mimicking human behavior, we must confront a troubling question: When does technology stop being a tool and start becoming a threat to human identity? The near-perfect imitation of human movement may soon blur the lines between humans and machines, threatening the very essence of what makes us human? As technological innovation accelerates daily, AI data center spending will exceed $1.4 trillion by 2027. How much of our future are we willing to entrust to this advancing technology? While innovation promises progress and convenience, we must ask: Who truly controls it — and for what purpose? It’s not always driven by profit alone. The more we rely on these innovations, the greater the risk of losing control. While many celebrate these advancements, we must confront the ethical compromises, potential dangers, and national security risks they pose. Centralizing critical systems and data into the hands of a few powerful entities creates vulnerabilities, making us more susceptible to cyberattacks, surveillance, and manipulation. This isn’t progress; it’s a perilous gamble with our autonomy and security. It’s time to demand accountability from innovators, regulators, and even ourselves. Speed shouldn’t be the priority — responsibility must lead the way. We must ask tough questions and ensure we remain both in control and secure. Are we too far down this path, or can we still course-correct before it’s too late? The Rise of AI-Generated Deepfake Attacks Will Escalate in 2025 and Will Continue to Target High-Profile Individuals The author writes, “AI-powered tools like deepfakes may shift cybersecurity challenges in 2025, exploiting human vulnerabilities over technical flaws. Proactive measures will be crucial to counter emotional manipulation tactics.” The Edge of AI: Predictions for 2025 From Forbes: “2024 was an AI whirlwind, with the proliferation of GenAI dominating headlines. While churning out synthetic text and imagery with GenAI has garnered all the recent attention, machine learning at the edge has been relevant for years. For example, computer vision throughout factory floors isn’t just theoretical, it’s operational today. As 2025 ushers in a new era of virtualization and containerization for edge AI workloads, here are the top five trends I predict will define the evolution of edge AI.” Attacking Artificial Intelligence: AI’s Security Vulnerability and What Policymakers Can Do About It The author writes, “The methods underpinning the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence systems are systematically vulnerable to a new type of cybersecurity attack called an ‘artificial intelligence attack.’ Using this attack, adversaries can manipulate these systems in order to alter their behavior to serve a malicious end goal. As artificial intelligence systems are further integrated into critical components of society, these artificial intelligence attacks represent an emerging and systematic vulnerability with the potential to have significant effects on the security of the country.” 2025 Forecast: AI to Supercharge Attacks, Quantum Threats Grow, SaaS Security Woes From SC Media: “Artificial intelligence will super-charge familiar 2024 threats in 2025, putting new wrinkles on old security challenges such as phishing, insider threats and ransomware. … What follows is SC Media’s annual roundup of security expert forecasts and predictions for the year ahead. And if and when any of these forecasts should become a reality SC Media will be here to help sort out who, what and why — including why it matters and how to best mitigate those attacks.” Sam Altman Predicts Singularity in 2025 The author writes, “The technology singularity is defined as the point in time where we’re no longer the smartest species on the planet. The idea is that computers will outperform our capacity to reason due to dwarfing us on intelligence. Once they do, humans will no longer control the earth or decide what to build, computers will! 20 years ago it seemed like a dream for most, so nobody really cared. Today it seems like a highly likely future, the only question becomes when. Yesterday Sam Altman tweeted that he believes we’ll enter the Singularity in 2025, which for obvious reasons is a very big deal. So let’s try to explain the unexplainable, as in what exactly is the singularity?” The Economics of AI Apocalypse The author writes, “I just ran across a new academic paper that serves as a good reminder: Despite all the calm, cautious talk from AI worriers about ‘pauses,’ ‘safety,’ ‘governance,’ and ‘guardrails,’ some of these worriers are serious pessimists who would like to end further AI development. Full stop. Shut it down. Move on.” AI: 99% of You Are NOT Ready for What’s Coming in 2027 The author writes, “Imagine waking up one day to find AI has revolutionized the world overnight. Sound far-fetched? It’s closer than you think.” As Many as 41% of Employers Plan to Use AI to Replace Roles — But It’s Not a ‘Jobs Apocalypse,’ Experts Say The author writes, “The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report found that as many as 41% of employers were planning on downsizing their workforce due to AI. That number is even higher in the United States, where 48% of respondents said they were planning on adopting the strategy. But while that statistic may be concerning, it does not necessarily mean that there is an impending employment crisis, according to Till Leopold, a lead author of the study and the Head of Work, Wages, and Job Creation at the World Economic Forum.” ‘Godfather of AI’ Shortens Odds of the Technology Wiping Out Humanity Over Next 30 Years The author writes, “The British-Canadian computer scientist often touted as a ‘godfather’ of artificial intelligence has shortened the odds of AI wiping out humanity over the next three decades, warning the pace of change in the technology is ‘much faster’ than expected. Prof Geoffrey Hinton, who this year was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work in AI, said there was a ‘10% to 20%’ chance that AI would lead to human extinction within the next three decades.” AGI Could Now Arrive as Early as 2026 — But Not All Scientists Agree The author writes, “Predictions on the dawn of the AI singularity vary wildly but scientists generally say it will come before 2040, according to new analysis, slashing 20 years off previous predictions.” The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Organizational Cyber Security: An Outcome of a Systematic Literature Review From ScienceDirect: “As digital transformation continues to advance, organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits that modern technologies offer. However, with greater technology adoption comes a higher risk of cyber security threats and attacks. Therefore, there is a need for more advanced measures to protect against constantly evolving threats.” 2025 Outlook: Turning Threats into Opportunities in a New Era of Innovation From Cyber Defense Magazine: “We’re excited to share what’s top of mind for us as we head into a new year, based on conversations with our customers, technology leaders and cybersecurity innovators. As we step into 2025, the cybersecurity landscape is at a pivotal juncture. The challenges of AI-driven threats, evolving data privacy standards, relentless breaches, and the looming quantum computing era demand vigilance and innovation.” Donate Today to