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Sam Altman, the man who has done more than almost anyone to accelerate artificial intelligence, is now calling on the industry to slow down. On a recent episode of Equity, TechCrunch unpacked why Altman is urging peers to pace the rate of AI development — a striking shift that puts the deceleration debate squarely back at the center of the industry's biggest conversations.
Meanwhile, a story out of Long Island is raising serious civil liberties questions. A report from the outlet eleven nine seven one examines how Flock Safety's automated license plate reader network has quietly blanketed the region, creating what critics are calling an emerging open-air surveillance state — one camera, one database, one small erosion of anonymity at a time.
And on the military technology front, Russia has patented a carrier drone capable of deploying up to six smaller tethered reconnaissance copters simultaneously. Each mini UAV receives power and commands through a physical cable connection to the mothership, turning a single airborne platform into a mobile, multi-eyed surveillance hub — a design that signals where drone warfare doctrine may be heading next.
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