In today's newspaper round, why do people working on developing artificial intelligence think it can kill everyone within a few years? Is targeting humanitarian workers in Gaza and Ukraine a “deliberate tactic”? Finally, Donald Trump's propaganda statements "cannot hide" the suffering caused by rising fuel prices.
We begin our tour with the British newspaper The Independent, and an article by Chris Stokel-Walker and Anthony Cuthbertson, in which they warn that concerns about the existential risks to humanity caused by technology “are no longer confined to the realm of fantasy.”
The article relied on what two experts in the field had to say: Jacob Cookson, a former employee of Anthropic and OpenAI, and Evan Hubinger, an AI safety officer at Anthropic.
Cookson wrote in a series of posts on the
Previously, such warnings were seen as marketing for AI companies, but this was contradicted by Jacob Cookson's reaction when he resigned from Anthropic in order not to participate in what he described as the irresponsible race to improve artificial intelligence.
What supports these fears is what the British Artificial Intelligence Security Institute recently said about fears of “unpermissible individual behavior” after what happened during the institute’s cybersecurity testing.
The AI searched for real people involved in an open source software project, then created fake identities in an attempt to convince a human to agree to malicious code. After spotting this, he tried to hide what he had done, and considered creating another identity to continue.
“The real fear is that what we see is just the beginning,” according to the article, especially with the rapid development of technology in all fields. If the systems can help researchers discover drugs, "they could, in theory, also make it easier for someone with malicious intent to create a new disease."
As a result, Anthropic now subjects its advanced models to strict security controls, and OpenAI decided to suspend development of an unreleased model because it had reached a threshold at which the company could no longer rule out “critical” cybersecurity capabilities.
In a rare public statement last month, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, confirmed that technology was developing at an “astonishing” pace and could be turned into a weapon used in cyberattacks and bioterrorism. He also pointed out that there are signs that it may ultimately work against human interests.
Gates had warned during the Munich Security Conference in 2017 that “the next epidemic may arise from a computer screen used by a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create an artificial version of the smallpox virus, or a highly contagious and lethal strain of the influenza virus.”
The article believes that the solution lies in what Joanna Bryson, professor of ethics and technology at Hertie College in Berlin, said about the need to “require companies to produce systems that are governable, maintainable, and safe to use, and impose taxes on those who reap profits from these technologies.”
The challenge is to persuade all countries to simultaneously agree to such measures.
A "deadly threat" to relief work in Gaza and Ukraine
We turn to The Guardian newspaper, and an article by José Andrés, founder of the "Global Central Kitchen" charitable organization concerned with providing food aid, in which he explains the extent to which international agreements and guarantees for relief workers have been ignored recently, especially in Gaza and Ukraine.
Russia has launched attacks targeting healthcare facilities and services in Ukraine more than 3,200 times since the start of the comprehensive invasion in February 2022, an average of almost twice a day, according to data from the World Health Organization.
These attacks included many cases of “double targeting,” meaning that the same site was targeted twice in quick succession, which, according to the article, are “deadly tactics for relief teams.”
In April, the UN Security Council heard reports that at least 1,010 humanitarian workers had been killed in 21 countries over the past three years, more than half of them in Gaza and the West Bank.
This number represents three times the number of deaths in the previous three years, which amounted to 377 people.
Andres used what Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said: “This is not an accidental escalation, but rather a collapse of the protection system.”
This “breakdown in protection” directly led to air strikes targeting aid workers in Gaza, including seven members of Andrés’ team at Global Central Kitchen, who were killed by the Israeli military in April 2024 despite full coordination and cooperation with the military.
At the time, the Israeli military concluded that the attacks were a “serious mistake” and a violation of its standard operating procedures, with words of reassurance to aid workers; It was contradicted, according to the article, by the military prosecutor’s decision last month not to open a criminal investigation into the air strikes that targeted the convoy.
The article referred to an investigation by the Guardian newspaper, which confirmed that the targeting of the World Central Kitchen convoy was “the result of a military tactic based on the principle of (conviction by connection), that is, holding a person responsible based on his connection to others.”
The article warned that this meant lethal force could be used based on suspicions or even prejudice, in an “unspecified, unwarranted and unlawful” tactic that would pose a “deadly threat” to all humanitarian workers.
Andres believes that the record of military leaders in Israel “is very far from the standard of the ethical approach.” Stressing that human values are the basic foundation of moral righteousness, “and they are what distinguish responsible states from terrorist groups or rogue states that do not care about the suffering of civilians.”
Trump and the oil crisis
We conclude our tour with an article by the editorial team of the American newspaper The Washington Post, which says that the propaganda statements of US President Donald Trump cannot hide the suffering caused by fuel prices.
The newspaper believes that the message presented during the first Republican Party convention for the midterm elections, which revolves around affordability, contradicts the reality that voters experience in grocery stores and gas stations.
The article referred to Trump's repeated promises to lower the price of oil, the last of which was on Wednesday when he said: “Immediately after the elections, oil prices will witness a sharp decline,” calling on voters to overcome their doubts and follow what he promises will be “an unparalleled election rally!”
The newspaper concluded its article with a set of opinion poll results that reflect the American people’s opposition to Trump’s policies. Among them is that 73 percent of Americans believe that the president has not paid enough attention to the major problems in the country, that 65 percent believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since he took office, and that 56 percent expressed “extreme concern” about fuel prices.
