This Showdown Between Humans and Chatbots Could Keep You Safe From Bad AI

Khari Johnson and Dhruv Mehrotra

Thousands of security experts, hackers, and college students competed to trick powerful text-generation systems into revealing their dark sides at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas.

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A New Idea for How to Assemble Life

Philip Ball

How would scientists even recognize biological signs of life beyond Earth? Assembly theory proposes a way to identify molecules made by living systems—even those using unfamiliar chemistries.

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The Space Force Is Launching Its Own Swarm of Tiny Satellites

Ramin Skibba

Defense satellites used to be big, costly, and “juicy” targets for attack. Now the Pentagon is aiming for a more resilient network of nearly 1,000 mini orbiters.

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Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data

Will Knight

The outcry over Zoom’s tweak to its data policy shows how the race to build more powerful AI models creates new pressure to source training data—including by juicing it from users.

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Why the Great AI Backlash Came for a Tiny Startup You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Kate Knibbs

A literary analytics project called Prosecraft has shuttered after backlash from the writing community. It’s a harbinger of a bigger cultural tide shift.

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A Clever Honeypot Tricked Hackers Into Revealing Their Secrets

Matt Burgess

Security researchers set up a remote machine and recorded every move cybercriminals made—including their login details.

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