To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.

×
      LATEST NEWSOPINIONCLIMATEECONOMY POLITICS RIGHTS & JUSTICEWAR & PEACE
      LATEST NEWS
      OPINION

      drones

      A B-52 drops bombs.

      The Bombs of August: Remembering Neak Luong, 1973

      There was no intention to attack friendly soldiers and their families; however, this erroneous air strike was occurring in a context in which U.S. bombers had been striking Cambodia secretly and illegally for five years.

      Carolyn Eisenberg
      Sep 15, 2023

      As Americans flock to Oppenheimer, one salutary result is a reawakened public awareness of the perils of nuclear weapons, and revived attention to the U.S. decision to bomb Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Less apparent is the extraordinary suffering of Japanese civilians and the appalling failure of the Truman administration to consider policy alternatives.

      This inattention mirrors the public’s perception at the time, a pattern which has persisted over decades, as the U.S. government strikes countries from the air.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      war & peace
      Afghans gather around a car incinerated by a U.S. drone strike

      No End in Sight for This Dehumanizing Drone Warfare

      Imagine, for a moment, what Americans might do if their family members were regularly being killed by drones because another government claimed “near certainty” that they were terrorists?

      Maha Hilal
      Sep 05, 2023

      “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”

      That’s what a young Pakistani boy named Zubair told members of Congress at a hearing on drones in October 2013. That hearing was during the Obama years at a time when the government had barely even acknowledged that an American drone warfare program existed.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      Drones
      Ai-Da Robot at UN Global Summit on AI for Good

      Will Humanity Be the Collateral Damage When the AI Machines Go to War?

      “Autonomous weapons,” warns one expert, “could lead to accidental death and destruction at catastrophic scales in an instant.”

      Michael T. Klare
      Jul 11, 2023

      A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes. But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of super-intelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process.

      The notion that super-intelligent computers might run amok and slaughter humans has, of course, long been a staple of popular culture. In the prophetic 1983 film “WarGames,” a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response and, not surprisingly, pronounced “whopper”) nearly provokes a catastrophic nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union before being disabled by a teenage hacker (played by Matthew Broderick). The “Terminator” movie franchise, beginning with the original 1984 film, similarly envisioned a self-aware supercomputer called “Skynet” that, like WOPR, was designed to control U.S. nuclear weapons but chooses instead to wipe out humanity, viewing us as a threat to its existence.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      Artificial Intelligence
      SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
      Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.
      Follow Us
      Most Popular

      'Top Tier Trolling': Fetterman Gifts House GOP Case of Bud Light Over Biden Impeachment Hearing

      Senate Dems Want to Cancel All Student Lunch Debt—A 'Term So Absurd That It Shouldn't Even Exist'

      Supreme Court Could Trigger Hundreds of Billions in Corporate Tax Cuts 'With the Stroke of Pen'

      'Doesn't Make a Damn Bit of Difference': Trump Belittles UAW Strike in Speech at Nonunion Plant

      We Should Organize for a 20-Hour Work Week

      'Unbelievably Cruel': GOP Pushes Astronomical Cuts to Education, Housing, and Food Aid

      Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dies at 90

      Citing 14th Amendment, Michigan Voters File Suit to Bar Trump From 2024 Ballot

      FCC Chair Confirms Plan to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules Eviscerated Under Trump

      These Supreme Court Justices Have Personal Investments in Companies That Could Reap Billions in Upcoming Ruling

      Independent, nonprofit journalism needs your help.
      Please Pitch In
      Today!