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Geofutures

@geofutures.bsky.social
417 followers 362 following 1.2K posts

Foresight in geopolitics and social issues, with an eye on science fiction

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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 9h
Definitely not going to cause a robot uprising . . . interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/...
interestingengineering.com
Humanoid robots decommissioned in Terminator-style molten steel leap
Figure decommissioned its F.02 humanoid fleet by training the robots to leap into molten steel in Finland.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 11h
"The sad but inescapable truth is that Russia will be an existential threat to its many neighbors, especially Ukraine, as long as its infatuation with greatness persists" foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/18/r...
foreignpolicy.com
Will Russia Ever Be ‘Normal’?
Empires inevitably decline, and Putin’s project will be no exception.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Watch" (2012)
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This note found in a TSA screening bin suggests some confusion about Greek mythology.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This kind of puts a question mark by Anthropic's loyalty to humanity. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...
nytimes.com
Is Claude Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Quest to Instill Morality Into Its A.I. Models (Gift Article)
In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its A.I. models — and make the case that Claude could be conscious.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Chinese views of AI risk and safety are quite distinct from Western views -- scsp222.substack.com/p/is-china-h...
scsp222.substack.com
Is China Having an AI Safety Debate?
Hello, I’m Ylli Bajraktari, President of the Special Competitive Studies Project.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The US and Russia removed requirements in a new autonomous weapons treaty for human decision-making, ethical use, predictability, or reliability -- wapo.st/4dKgact
wapo.st
U.S., Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact
The two nations weakened a range of safeguards in a landmark U.N. effort to try to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weaponry. The global negotiations earlier this month marked the furthest progre...
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tracking the planes of the ultrawealthy for signs of an imminent apocalypse -- wapo.st/46Hu5w8
wapo.st
Want to track the apocalypse? One theory: Follow the billionaires’ jets.
Artist and coder Kyle McDonald has a theory: The ultra-rich will flee city centers before an apocalyptic event.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
China seeks "to accelerate the historical trend President Xi Jinping has described as the rise of the East and the decline of the West. In less than two years, the Trump administration has done much to bring that outcome closer." foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/17/c...
foreignpolicy.com
China, Not Iran, Is Trump’s Real Foreign-Policy Debacle
In 19 months, Washington has lost ground to Beijing on every conceivable front.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Futurist movies microreview: "Children of Men." It came out 20 years ago today, and was the best futurist film of 2006.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
An AI hallucination almost triggered hostile US action against a Chinese ship (reportedly) -- edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
edition.cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Day the Earth Stood Still," which came out 75 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Whatever humanoid robots amount to, China is making a plausible play to dominate the industry -- www.economist.com/business/202...
economist.com
China is training up thousands of humanoid robots
But its approach will come with enormous costs
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"Giving AIs rights would be like handing them the keys to the castle. It would provide them with a rationale and justification for dominating humanity as well as the tools to enact a creeping takeover using politics and the law." www.economist.com/leaders/2026...
economist.com
Could AIs become conscious?
Even if they don’t, they might be treated as such—to humanity’s great cost
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Finished reading my first Belgian novel, Hertmans's War and Turpentine. That makes 45 countries.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Futurist the movies microreview: "Fahrenheit 451," which came out 60 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
You think? -- "If computer scientists were ever able to identify the key ingredients to making AIs conscious, the feeling of many within the frontier labs is that it would be reckless to deliberately create such models" www.economist.com/interactive/...
economist.com
The search for consciousness inside AI
Scientists are trying to figure out whether algorithms could one day wake up and feel
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Americans are broadly open to significant changes to the U.S. political system -- www.newamerica.org/insights/pro...
newamerica.org
New Survey Finds Broad Support for Proportional Representation
Americans are frustrated with the two-party system and broadly favor the underlying principles of proportional representation.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
@helicoptersofdc.bsky.social A V-22 Osprey seemingly in helicopter mode just went over NW DC, heading NW. Does that count?
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The brochure from my visit to the World Trade Center as a kid.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
AI safety -- "Before a model goes up, its developer should measure what it can do at its very worst, with guardrails stripped off — using a published test anyone can rerun, developed by select experts the United States government convenes." www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Stop Testing A.I. Like an App. Test It Like a Weapon. (Gift Article)
Responding to the safety risks A.I. pose means coming to terms with an uncomfortable truth: A.I. models are weapons.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Contagion," which came out 15 years ago today. This was my assessment as of 2019.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
If the people building a supercollider had said it had a 10% chance of killing all humans, we would not have let them build it. www.cnbc.com/2026/09/09/a...
cnbc.com
Experts weigh in as researcher says AI has more than 10% chance of 'killing all humans'
Jacob Coxon said in a post on X that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Happy 60th anniversary to "Star Trek"
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Reposted by Geofutures
Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 08/09/2026
Exclusive: The EU is set to announce plans for a far-reaching partnership with Canada, including on trade, security and supply chains
bloom.bg
EU and Canada Plan Far-Reaching Alliance to Strengthen Partnership
The European Union and Canada are working toward a new, all-encompassing relationship that will range from trade to security, as the transatlantic partners seek to build a new alliance to offset the global power politics dominated by the US and China.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Zone 414," which came out 5 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Forecasters estimate that there is a 22% chance that by September 2027, a rogue AI successfully exfiltrates and runs proprietary AI model weights externally, as part of a loss of control incident." blog.sentinel-team.org/p/new-revela...
blog.sentinel-team.org
🟡 New revelations about the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, CIA Director visits Moscow, fresh US-Iran strikes || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #35/2026
Executive summary
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Skynet achieved sentience 29 years ago today (in the "Terminator" universe)
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The economies of quite a lot of US states are substantially exposed in a trade war with Canada -- www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-each-...
visualcapitalist.com
The top export partner of every U.S. state.
See the top export partner of every U.S. state in 2025, with Canada and Mexico ranking as the top destinations for 37 of 50 states.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Canadian nationalism + AI = this concoction -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SUA...
youtube.com
Canadian Resistance Army - Trade War (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by demonflyingfox
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Gates "proposed a new tax on A.I. use, known as a “token tax,” to make it more expensive to replace people and provide money to help those who do lose work." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/t...
nytimes.com
Bill Gates Is Warning That A.I. Is More Dangerous Than Big Tech Will Admit (Gift Article)
In an hourlong interview, he said his industry was downplaying the risks, which he believes include mass unemployment and bioterrorism.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Pink Cloud" ("A Nuvem Rosa"), which came out 5 years ago today. Realistically, the situation in the movie would kill nearly everyone in weeks or months due to hunger and thirst, as agriculture, transportation, and infrastructure ceased to function.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This science writer thinks Artemis II was an EXTREMELY capable spacecraft.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Reminiscence," which came out 5 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Tracking levels of criminality achieved by top AIs -- www.felonybench.com
felonybench.com
Felony Bench: Be AI, Do Crime
Felony Bench is the most important benchmark of our time, some are saying, counting the number of questionable decisions made by AI agents. We might need a Pandemic Bench soon...
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A Canadian displaying solidarity with Denmark, in the wake of recent U.S. threats.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
"Pathogens escape from laboratories more often than you might think." "Infections can occur even in high-containment facilities. SARS and SARS-like viruses have escaped from BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs repeatedly." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Opinion | How to Stop a Lab Leak From Starting the Next Pandemic
More than six years after the emergence of Covid-19, no one is keeping track of the risky virus experiments that are capable of starting a pandemic.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Glasshouse," a South African film which came out 5 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Free Guy," which came out 5 years ago today.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
RAND's plans for the Skynet war: "technical strategies for countering a globally distributed rogue artificial intelligence (AI)." www.rand.org/pubs/perspec...
rand.org
Evaluating Select Global Technical Options for Countering a Rogue AI
Researchers examine technical options for responding to the emergence of a global rogue artificial intelligence (AI) that poses an imminent and catastrophic threat to human well-being or government co...
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Angry Canadian message, seen on Vancouver Island
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
You know you are returning to DC when the guy in the next row is reading a report called something like "Operation Epic Fury Senior Warfighter Leadership Forum August 10-12"
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
"Major AI models are more than twice as likely to refuse requests to generate material critical of governments that restrict free expression than those that permit it." qz.com/ai-chatbots-...
qz.com
AI chatbots less likely to criticize authoritarian leaders, study finds
The Meta Oversight Board tested 10 large language models and found a pattern that could extend speech restrictions across borders
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Democratic socialists -- "Less than half of all Americans say they would vote for such a candidate." "A majority of self-described independents, 54 percent, would also rule out a democratic socialist candidate." wapo.st/4bmmTZ1
wapo.st
Most Americans say they would not back a democratic socialist for president
Left-leaning candidates have been gaining strength in recent primaries, posing challenges for a Democratic Party that is debating how to win mass appeal in 2028.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Re: Kharg Island etc. “You don’t get to just take over territory and say the war is over, you got to hold that territory. ... For the U.S. to sustain operations to hold territory in Iran, it’s just going to be another forever war,” Lieu said." foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/24/u...
foreignpolicy.com
How a U.S. Ground Operation in Iran Could Unfold
Military experts said limited raids could happen, but a large-scale invasion is unlikely.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Congress proposes AI 'kill switch' requirement (which could be useful but could also be abused by a vindictive or authoritarian government) www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
US lawmakers push for AI 'kill switch' after OpenAI models go rogue
A new bill would let the US government order the shutdown of AI models that pose a public threat.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
First rocky exoplanet with an atmosphere found -- www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/s...
nytimes.com
Astronomers Find an Atmosphere on a Nearby Earthlike Planet
It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere, making it a lead contender in the search for life beyond our solar system.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
In a foresight test question I gave an AI a few months ago, it correctly stated that one of the potential future nuclear adversaries of Israel was Saudi Arabia. (Turkey too.)
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
"From a geopolitics or strategic perspective, some people advocate a race to AGI, arguing that, similar to a Manhattan Project, the country that gets to some capability milestone first is the one that is going to reap economic rewards. I strongly disagree." www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/tal...
cs.princeton.edu
What will be left for us to work on?
ICML 2026 invited keynote — slides and edited transcript, presented click-by-click as delivered. Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University.
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Geofutures @geofutures.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Futurist at the movies microreview: "Train to Busan," which came out 10 years ago today.
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