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- AI goes to war, steals $25M via Zoom, then attacks hospitals
AI goes to war, steals $25M via Zoom, then attacks hospitals
PLUS: The Pope banned ChatGPT sermons, Intel fired all human support, and VCs threw $1.1B at AI chips on a random Tuesday.
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Happy Tuesday! On this day in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland! Bell would go on to invent the telephone. You know, a device originally designed for actual human conversation, not for doom-scrolling TikTok at 2 AM while pretending you're about to go to sleep. Bell's mother and wife were both deaf, which directly influenced his work on hearing devices and communication technology. A genuinely awesome dude.
The next time you're stuck on a conference call that could've been an email, you can thank this Scottish overachiever for making it possible.
Anthropic Says No to Pentagon Weapons. OpenAI Says "Hold My Beer."
Anthropic's Claude AI just had its big mainstream moment—the app hit #1 on Apple's App Store last week, beating ChatGPT for the first time. Millions of downloads. Victory lap time, right? Well, not quite.
While Anthropic was busy rejecting the Pentagon's offer to help build autonomous weapons (because apparently they have some moral standards), Sam Altman and OpenAI materialized like a genie from a cursed lamp to swoop in and sign that deal.
OpenAI announced they're partnering with the Department of Defense on "national security applications," which is PR-speak for "we're helping build Skynet but with better branding." The project involves using GPT-4 for defense operations, logistics, and—surprise—developing autonomous military systems. Because what could possibly go wrong with letting AI make life-or-death decisions?
The everyone keeps dancing around is that ALL of this AI tech IS mass surveillance (with extra steps). Whether it's ChatGPT logging your existential crisis at 3 AM or Claude politely declining to help you write a breakup text, these systems are hoovering up data faster than a Roomba on cocaine.
OpenAI? Well, they saw dollar signs and dove in headfirst. Sam Altman really looked at his portfolio and thought, "You know what's missing? Complicity in autonomous warfare." Bold move for a guy who's already giving off strong "villain origin story" energy.
AI and Deepfakes: The Security Nightmare No One Ordered
Businesses are now facing a "security nightmare" thanks to AI-generated deepfakes, according to a new report. Who could've predicted that technology designed to make Tom Cruise say anything on TikTok might have negative consequences?! Shocker!!!
The rise of deepfake tech has created a dumpster fire mess in corporate security. Cybercriminals are using AI-generated videos and audio to impersonate executives, trick employees into transferring money, and bypass biometric security systems. One finance worker at a multinational firm was recently conned into paying out $25 million after participating in a video call with deepfake versions of the company's CFO and other executives. That's right… Someone sat through an entire meeting with AI puppets and didn't realize until $25 million had vanished into the void.
Companies are scrambling to implement verification protocols, but the dirty secret is that most organizations are about as prepared for this as I am for writing coherent newsletters before my second coffee. We're living in a world where you can no longer trust your eyes, ears, or that Zoom call from your boss asking you to wire money to a "totally legitimate" offshore account. The future is here, and it's exactly as dystopian as every sci-fi movie warned us it would be.
North Korea's Lazarus Group Upgrades to Healthcare Ransomware
North Korea's Lazarus Group—yes, the same hackers who brought you the Sony Pictures hack and various cryptocurrency heists—has apparently decided that stealing from hospitals is their new side hustle. They've been spotted deploying Medusa ransomware against healthcare organizations, because when you're an authoritarian regime under heavy sanctions, why not also terrorize sick people for Bitcoin???
The attacks have been particularly nasty, targeting critical healthcare infrastructure and patient data. Lazarus Group is essentially holding medical records hostage, demanding ransom payments while hospitals scramble to maintain operations. It's like the plot of a bad action movie, except instead of Bruce Willis saving the day, we just have overwhelmed IT departments and strongly worded government warnings.
The moral of the story here is even rogue nation-states have discovered that healthcare systems are soft targets with outdated security and a desperate need to keep operating. Cool, cool, cool. Everything's fine, I guess…
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🛩 INDUSTRY MOVES
Pope Leo XIV told priests to stop using ChatGPT to write sermons because AI "will never be able to share faith,” even though the Catholic Church just launched an AI translation system for liturgical texts. Hey at least, it can summarize Leviticus in bullet points (which is honestly more merciful).
Intel replaced human customer support with AI agents powered by Microsoft Copilot, because when your chips are already underperforming, why not make the customer experience equally disappointing?
AI chip startup MatX raised $500 million to build processors "10 times better" than Nvidia's GPUs. They plan to ship in 2027, which in startup time means "maybe 2029 if we're lucky and don't implode first."
Gartner called orbital datacenters "peak insanity" and declared that companies are "wasting money" on space-based server farms. Turns out cooling servers in the vacuum of space where temperatures swing 300 degrees is harder than a few PowerPoints suggested.
AI chip startups collectively raised $1.1 billion on a single Tuesday, proving that VCs will throw money at anything with "AI" in the pitch deck, even as everyone nervously whispers "bubble" in the background.
Chip here, your friendly neighborhood mascot, back with another round of questions from the trenches! This week's Experts Exchange users are wrestling with the classics:
Someone's trying to parse first and last names out of profile URLs in Microsoft Access. Classic case of "the data model made sense at the time" syndrome.
This one is looking for a magic tool to translate Access SQL syntax into SQL Server syntax. (There isn't one, and you're about to learn why manual migration builds character.)
A client wants to add another domain for a new company within their org to Exchange Online while everything syncs from on-prem Active Directory. It's like trying to add a room to your house while the foundation is in a different state.
That’s all for today! Go outside if it’s sunny. Or stare at it through the window like a responsible adult.
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