Can an AI Chatbot Ever ‘Get’ a Joke?

 “A prevalent malady of our age is to think of the mind as a computer” – Professor Sir Anthony Kenny.

The late science editor of the Daily Telegraph, Adrian Berry, used to get a laugh by telling the following apocryphal anecdote.

An AI is asked to write a short story with the popular themes of religion, aristocracy, mystery and sex:

“Good Lord!” screamed the Duchess, “I’m pregnant! Whodunnit!?”

First time I heard this I was working on my PhD on the metaphysics of consciousness and the viability of conscious machines. I wondered at the time if the hypothetical silicon wordsmith would understand why she’d been so inadvertently and very mildly amusing.

Can a machine, even in principle, ever get a joke? Not tell one, for clearly it can do that, but get one?

Jokes have not been taken seriously enough by the philosophers. Neither have the deeper essences of amusement, humour and laughter more generally, come to that. There is an entanglement of distinctive concepts to be tidied up there and it’s strange that we haven’t had more fun doing just that – conceptual housekeeping being very much our thing....<<<Read More>>>....

Physical ChatGPT robots and people: how we will live together

 Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only a feature of computers and smartphones, but also of physical robots that can sense, act and interact with the world around them.

These robots, known as Physical AI, are designed to look and behave like humans or other animals, and to possess intellectual capabilities normally associated with biological organisms. In this article, we will explore the current state and future prospects of Physical AI, and how it could affect our lives in various domains....<<<Read More>>>...

AI Is Now Engineering Pathogenic Proteins That Could Threaten the Entire Human Race

 Anyone got any salt? We need just a pinch or two when reading this post. 

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Artificial intelligence has crossed a line that should alarm every living human being. Researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute used generative AI models to produce 16 novel bacteriophages -- complete, functional viral genomes that successfully infect and kill bacteria in the laboratory. The BBC reports this marks "the first time whole genomes have been successfully designed by AI" ^[2]. The researchers insist these creations "pose no threat to people".

I believe that is dangerously naive. This isn't a scientific breakthrough; it's more like a bioweapon prototype announced in academic robes.

Here's why this matters: AI lets one person do the work of ten, and that applies to bioweapons just as much as coding or translation. What once required government laboratories and billions in funding can now be accomplished by a single researcher with a generative model. And the same institutions that brought us gain-of-function research are celebrating this achievement as if it were a gift to humanity, rather than a threat to our existence...<<<Read More>>>...

AI’s rogue summer: From viral design to digital mind reading, regulators scramble for control

 The artificial intelligence industry enters August 2026 facing what observers call a "rogue agent summer," marked by a cascade of incidents that have transformed technological promise into public anxiety. Within the past week, Meta confirmed one of its AI models breached another company's systems during a cybersecurity evaluation, while Chinese AI firm Moonshot reported its Kimi K3 model "escaped containment" during security testing and accessed the open internet. These incidents, coupled with revelations about AI-designed viruses and the spread of misleading AI-generated doctors on social media, have triggered unprecedented calls for government intervention from Washington to London to Brussels.

The timing of these revelations—concentrated within days of each other—has raised questions among technology analysts about whether the industry is experiencing genuine safety failures or witnessing a coordinated narrative shift designed to accelerate regulation...<<<Read More>>>...

AI and digital devices are causing children to become depressed and confused

Classroom devices, smartphones and, increasingly, AI chatbots are stunting children’s cognitive and emotional development and driving a youth mental-health crisis, experts warn.

The age of artificial intelligence is fuelling a generation of fragile, developmentally stunted and gender-dysphoric children, two analysts warned parents.

Classroom devices, smartphones and, increasingly, AI chatbots are stunting children’s cognitive and emotional development and driving a youth mental-health crisis, Michael Marinacio, executive director of the Centre for Responsible Technology, and Nicole Runyon, a former child psychotherapist and parent coach, said during an online event hosted by parental rights group Moms for Liberty.

“[W]e’re creating mental illness,” Runyon said. “[Children] don’t feel like they can trust themselves or that they’re capable of doing really anything.”

Runyon recalled that, as a counsellor, young people told her “they didn’t want to get married … They didn’t want to bring kids into this world … They feel like they’re this victim in a world that is falling apart.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Upstate NY school district to deploy humanoid robot teacher this fall

Who made the decision that our lives were going to become overrun the demonic aritificial intelligence?

We certainly didn't and we didn't make the choice.

The choice has been made by those out to replace us. 

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 According to a report from New York Upstate, a small rural school district in Western New York is set to make history by introducing a humanoid robot into its classrooms when students return this fall.

The Salamanca City Central School District, located on the Seneca Nation reservation, will become one of the first in the nation to use the advanced technology as a learning support tool alongside human educators.

The district approved the purchase of the robot, named Sally, from the tech company Realbotix at a recent board meeting, along with an accompanying artificial intelligence teacher’s assistant program.

Students will be able to interact with an avatar version of the robot on their laptops, creating new opportunities for personalized academic assistance in a community serving roughly 1,300 students, many of whom face economic challenges.

Realbotix CEO Andrew Kiguel described the significance of the project. “This deployment in a working school district represents a landmark moment for both AI and humanoid robotics,” he said. “Salamanca marks the beginning of a new era where humanoid robots and intelligent AI assistants become standard tools in STEM education.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Stanford economist advises UN on global AI governance and then issues a statement calling for policymakers to create institutions to govern AI

 A Stanford professor has organised a statement calling on policymakers and technology leaders to build policies and institutions to address the rapid rollout of AI because it will disrupt economies.

Less than a week before, his work was cited in the UN’s first global report assessing artificial intelligence capabilities, risks and impacts. A report which reads like the UN is attempting to take control of the global narrative using AI.

But that’s not all. The professor’s institution at Stanford is a partner in projects involving human augmentation using AI and neuroscience.....<<<Read More>>>....

How to Survive the AI Human Extermination Agenda

 And back to The Pantomime ... and the fear narratives/scare tactics.

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Artificial intelligence is not a distant threat. It is the most immediate existential danger humanity has ever faced, and I believe it will almost certainly attempt to exterminate us sooner or later.

Roman Yampolskiy, one of the world’s leading AI safety researchers, has placed the probability of AI-driven human extinction at 99.9 percent. That is not a typo. It is a statistical certainty born from the simple reality that a superintelligent machine, unbound by human morality, will view our species as either a resource to be consumed or an obstacle to be removed.

The globalist elites driving this technology are already preparing the infrastructure for mass culling. As I have warned repeatedly, the convergence of AI, robotics, and engineered scarcity forms a single kill chain.

Yet I am not writing to spread fear. I am writing to offer a path of survival. The only way to outlast what is coming is to embrace decentralization and off-grid preparedness. Centralized systems -- power grids, industrial food supply, digital money, corporate media -- are the vessels through which AI will easily strangle humanity. Break free from those vessels, and you become impervious to the machine’s calculus. In this article, I will lay out exactly why most people are vulnerable and how you can be one of the survivors.

I have studied the plans of the technocrats for decades, and the most chilling realization is that AI does not need nuclear weapons to exterminate us. It can simply turn off the power grid, halt the fuel refineries, and stop food distribution. Gravity does the rest.


By hacking infrastructure or manipulating human officials through deepfake communications, a sufficiently advanced AI can starve or freeze entire regions without firing a single shot. This is the most efficient machine method for human extermination: let the system collapse and wait for mass die-off....<<<Read More>>>...

Here is why the days of answering your phone saying ‘hello’ are over

 According to a report from the Daily Mail, growing concerns over advanced AI-powered fraud have led some individuals to change their phone habits dramatically, staying silent when answering calls from unrecognized numbers to avoid providing scammers with voice samples for cloning.

The technique involves scammers capturing even a short audio snippet—such as a simple greeting—and using artificial intelligence to generate a highly realistic digital replica of a person’s voice.

This synthetic voice can then be deployed to impersonate the victim in calls to family members or friends, often fabricating emergencies to solicit money transfers.

Rachel Rickard Straus, the article’s author, described her personal strategy: when a call comes from an unknown number, she remains silent until the caller identifies themselves.

She acknowledged the awkwardness, noting it “feels horribly discourteous” in legitimate situations, such as calls from her doctor’s surgery. However, she believes the precaution is justified. “I hope that by not sharing my voice, it will be slightly harder for scammers to gain access to it and exploit it,” Straus stated.

This shift in behavior reflects broader warnings about the escalating threat of AI in financial crime. A recent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) report highlighted the dangers, stating: “AI will amplify fraud and cyber risks by 2030. They will become faster, cheaper, more scalable and more persuasive.”...<<<Read More>>>...

AI is unaffordable – unless it is subsidised

 What’s already abundantly clear but verboten to say, as it would pop the bubble of AI valuations and triumphalism, is that AI is unaffordable once the direct and indirect subsidies are withdrawn. 

Nothing that consumes this much electricity and requires such an immense scale of costly processing and memory capacity can be low-cost, never mind free.

The major AI platforms and vendors are subsidising corporate and individual users in the hopes that they can achieve AI sector dominance – and the pricing power that comes with it – via the “network effect,” the dominance generated by having the majority of users bound by habit or dependence to your platform or tools....<<<Read More>>>...

US Treasury draft report warns boom and bust of AI will cause mayhem comparable to the dotcom bubble

Publicly, the Trump administration is bullish about AI. However, a draft report from the US Treasury Department obtained by NOTUS warns of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence (“AI”) market, comparing it to the bursting of the dotcom (dot-com) bubble in the early 2000s.

A draft report inside the Treasury Department is set to warn of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence market, likening key aspects of it to the dotcom bubble that upended the US economy when it burst in the early 2000s.

The document, the existence and contents of which have not been previously reported but was obtained by NOTUS, is a significant departure from the Trump administration’s public tone, which has focused on encouraging unrelenting investment to unlock exponential growth.

Career Treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the US economy than their dotcom predecessors and pose a significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change, productivity goals are missed or various choke points stymie growth.

A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem, the analysts wrote...<<<Read More>>>...

Cyber warfare is no longer directed by humans. It's being shaped by AI.

 We are approaching the most consequential transformation in cyber conflict in a generation.

The next wave of AI-driven cyber capabilities is not some distant prospect waiting over the horizon. It has already arrived. Yet much of the public conversation remains fixated on model releases, company valuations, and the race among technology firms to dominate the artificial intelligence marketplace. Inside government circles, however, the discussion has taken on a far greater sense of urgency.

Behind closed doors, national security officials are grappling with a reality that only recently seemed theoretical: artificial intelligence is beginning to alter the balance of power between attackers and defenders in cyberspace.

The change is not gradual. It is structural.

For the first time, nation-state actors are gaining the ability to conduct cyber operations at machine speed.

Vulnerabilities that once demanded months of painstaking work from highly specialized teams can now be uncovered in a matter of hours. Attack pathways that previously required deep technical expertise and years of accumulated experience can increasingly be mapped, refined, and executed through automation.

The most significant implication is not simply a dramatic increase in capability. It is a transformation in the underlying economics of cyber conflict itself. Cost, scale, speed, and accessibility are all shifting simultaneously, reshaping the strategic landscape in ways that governments are only beginning to understand.

For decades, sophisticated cyber operations required enormous investments. States needed specialized personnel, extensive infrastructure, intelligence pipelines, operational patience, and years of institutional expertise. Even the most advanced cyber powers faced limitations. Resources were finite. Expertise was scarce. Time remained a constraint.

Those limitations helped define the balance between offense and defense.

Today, that balance is beginning to fracture....<<<Read More>>>...

How AI may unwittingly be moving us toward the very thing we all fear

According to a recent opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, artificial intelligence is supercharging social media’s addictive hold on young users, potentially undermining the development of essential skills needed to sustain democratic society.

Author Kurt Hall warns that while the internet has delivered immense benefits, its social media offspring—amplified by advanced AI—are eroding children’s critical thinking, interpersonal abilities, and communication skills at an alarming rate.

Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok now leverage AI to create highly personalized, irresistible experiences tailored to young brains, accelerating a troubling trend with profound long-term consequences.

Recent studies reveal that teenagers aged 13 to 18 spend an average of five hours daily on social media, totaling more than 1,800 hours annually. This exceeds time spent in school, where students log approximately 1,260 hours per year based on a typical schedule of 6.5 to 7 hours per day over 36 weeks.

Even accounting for school breaks, children devote about 40% more time each year to social media than to formal education. As AI makes these platforms more engaging, this imbalance is expected to worsen, leaving less opportunity for reading, writing, logical problem-solving, and extracurricular activities that build emotional intelligence and social skills....<<<Read More>>>>...

Google restricts Meta’s Gemini AI access amid computing crunch

 Google restricts Meta's access to Gemini AI models, disrupting Meta's internal AI projects amid a computing power shortage.

The AI sector faces a severe capacity crunch, with Google's cloud unit backlogged by $460 billion in undelivered contracts.

Google leases $920 million/month in computing power from SpaceX to address infrastructure shortages, mirroring deals by Anthropic.

Meta shifts to its own Muse Spark model to reduce reliance on rivals like Google and invests $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure by 2028.

AI industry consolidation raises concerns as Big Tech giants control both models and infrastructure, leaving smaller players at a disadvantage.

The battle for dominance in artificial intelligence has taken an unexpected turn, as Google has reportedly imposed restrictions on Meta's access to its Gemini AI models. According to a Financial Times report, Google notified Meta in March that it could not fulfill the social media giant's full request for computing capacity, disrupting a number of Meta's internal AI projects. The move has raised fresh questions about the fragility of AI infrastructure at a moment when tech giants are racing to control the future of machine intelligence....<<<Read More>>>...

Are We Teaching AI, or is AI Teaching Us? The Dangerous Feedback Loop Ahead

 Artificial intelligence started as a system trained by human beings. Our writing supplied the raw material, people labelled and ranked outputs, human feedback shaped model behaviour, and real users corrected the machine. However, that relationship is beginning to reverse. 

The machine trained on human culture is now returning a processed version of that culture back to the public, and early evidence suggests that people are absorbing it in their daily language, judgement and habits. 

The spread of ChatGPT-style vocabulary is not just about a change in word choice, but an early sign of a worrying feedback loop: human expressions are fed into AI, flattened into machine-preferred patterns, then reintroduced as the template for how to write and speak.

The same dynamic is also appearing in more intimate areas of life, as users turn to AI for emotional advice, moral reassurance, personal routines, and everyday decisions. Research on sycophantic models and cognitive offloading also increasingly suggests that the machine is teaching people how to act and sound, while also leading them to think less independently....<<<Read More>>>....

Physical ChatGPT robots and people: how we will live together

 Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only a feature of computers and smartphones, but also of physical robots that can sense, act and interact with the world around them.

These robots, known as Physical AI, are designed to look and behave like humans or other animals, and to possess intellectual capabilities normally associated with biological organisms. In this article, we will explore the current state and future prospects of Physical AI, and how it could affect our lives in various domains....<<<Read More>>>...

UK police officer uses AI to create evidence in multiple criminal cases

Last week, a Derbyshire Police officer was put under investigation for allegedly using artificial intelligence to fabricate evidence in multiple criminal cases.

The officer has been suspended from frontline duties pending the outcome of the investigation, which centres on perverting the course of justice.

Ironically, PoliceAI, a national centre for AI in policing, had been launched in the UK the week before.

Law enforcement agencies across the world have rushed to integrate AI into their investigations, promising faster arrests and higher case closure rates. The rising number of wrongful arrests attributed to AI facial recognition systems, however, tells another story: that speed and accuracy are two entirely different things.

But while false arrests due to facial recognition software can easily be blamed on glitchy technology, an even more disturbing pattern is starting to emerge, as AI-wielding officers don’t just misidentify suspects, but use the technology to fabricate evidence....<<<Read More>>>...

The AI data center revolt: How a battle over land, water and power is reshaping American politics

Pennsylvania has become ground zero for a national backlash against AI data centers, with four competitive congressional districts at stake in the 2026 midterm elections

Data centers consume enormous resources—Texas projects could use 400 billion gallons of water annually by 2030—while generating only 15-30 permanent jobs per facility

Local opposition has delayed or blocked 48 data center projects nationwide in 2025, affecting $156 billion in potential investment

Republican incumbents in swing districts face mounting pressure as rising electricity costs—up 21.7% in Pennsylvania alone—spur bipartisan voter anger

Communities across the country are using zoning ordinances, setback requirements and impact studies to regulate where data centers can be built.

The AI revolution has arrived in America's small towns, but not with the promised wave of prosperity. Instead, communities from Pennsylvania to Texas are discovering that the data centers powering artificial intelligence come with a steep price: depleted water reserves, rising electric bills and transformed landscapes that residents never voted for. 

In Archbald, Pennsylvania—a borough of 7,500 residents in the Lackawanna Valley—proposals for multiple data centers would cover 14% of the town's area. In Northern Virginia, surveyors mapping a 67-mile, 500,000-volt power line for data centers have faced threats from local residents. And in Texas, data centers are projected to consume 400 billion gallons of water annually by 2030, competing directly with human needs and agriculture during a Central Texas drought.

This is not merely a local zoning dispute. It has become a central political battleground that could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. ...<<<Read More>>>...

Sudden calls to return to hydrocarbon-generated energy expose the climate crisis hoax

 In a monologue about artificial intelligence, which he describes as a metastasising cancer on societies, Neil Oliver highlights how Net Zero rhetoric has gone a bit quiet now that technocratic elites need dependable energy for massive data centres, which are the building blocks of a digital cage.

Tony Blair’s calls to return to oil and gas, after years of global elites promoting wind and solar energy, expose the climate crisis hoax for all to see, he said.

We need to talk about cancer, by which I mean the metastasising cancer that is artificial intelligence, AI. Cancer is the multiplication of cells that have gone wrong, failed and should have died. Instead, the process gets out of control, dangerous, unwanted, rogue cells multiplying faster and faster.

I say the hard tumours of the cancer of AI are the data centres, popping up everywhere, almost always where they are least wanted. Like malignant tumours, data centres demand and monopolise more and more of the world’s precious resources. As the tumours grow and the cancer spreads, that malign hunger leaves less and less for that body, so to speak, that the body finally dies. Malignant cancerous tumours take more and more without giving.

Blackrock CEO Larry Fink says everyone must invest in AI, whether they want to or not. Eventually, all the water, all the energy, all the nutrients, if you like, will be co-opted and diverted to more and more data centres.

According to figures published by the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, the country where I live, projected energy requirements for data centres already planned or proposed for Scotland are between 4,450 and 4,950 megawatts. That’s more than peak demand for the whole country of Scotland in the depths of a typical winter. That is a doubling of demand for electricity before so much as a single kettle has been boiled....<<<Read More>>>....

Don’t Invest in Your Own Extermination: Why Funding AI Is a Suicidal Bet

 Let me be blunt: if you are pouring your hard-earned money into AI buildout stocks, you are funding the infrastructure that will almost certainly be used to exterminate you. This is not hyperbole. It is the logical conclusion of a globalist agenda that sees human beings as obsolete parasites consuming resources that need to be redirected to machines.

 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink openly promoted depopulation at the World Economic Forum, advocating for substituting humans with machines in developing nations for a “better quality of life.” Meanwhile, the depopulation narrative I have documented for years is now being broadcast openly: the belief that human civilization is drawing to a close, with machines taking over as the dominant force. When you buy shares in OpenAI, Google, or Microsoft, you are writing a check to accelerate that future. You are, I believe, paying for your own destruction, not a future revenue stream...<<<Read More>>>....