Deterring Our Way to Doomsday
Mordor is the fictional realm of the Dark Lord Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, located in the southeastern part of Middle-earth. [1, 2]
Loving the Bomb Yet Again
by William Astore | Sep 29, 2026 , https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2026/09/29/deterring-our-way-to-doomsday/
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.
It’s amazing the enormous sums of money the U.S. government spends on destructive weaponry in the stated cause of deterring massive destruction. It’s MAD, of course, this notion that peace is only attainable via the promise of annihilating another people. And now we know that annihilation won’t be limited to Russia or China or Iran: that a “general” nuclear strike would likely produce a nuclear winter that would end most life on our planet. Yet the Pentagon persists in nuclear “modernization” and further “investments” in the Triad.
In the early 1960s, the Air Force wanted 10,000 ICBMs but “settled” for 1000 Minuteman missiles. To preserve “the American way,” they built a nuclear command center (Cheyenne Mountain) under 2000 feet of granite, which was rendered obsolete soon after it was built by more accurate Soviet ICBMs with warheads in the megatons.
As a young Air Force officer, I hunkered down in the 1980s in Cheyenne Mountain. I visited Los Alamos. I’ve walked the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, site of the first atomic test in 1945. Friends of mine have sat in ICBM silos, ready and able to unleash Armageddon. Imagine young lieutenants and captains in their twenties, sitting underground, waiting for the president’s command to launch missiles that will unleash a nuclear holocaust to kill millions, if not the planet itself.
All this fresh talk of “investment” in “modernized” nuclear weapons is sheer madness – a collective death wish – a “strange love” for world-destroying nukes. Yet again, we’ve come to love the bomb.
Recently, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) spoke of nuclear weapon “recapitalization”: truly an abomination of the English language. You don’t “recapitalize” genocidal weaponry. Both the Sentinel ICBM missile program and the B-21 bomber are unneeded weapons systems that will likely cost $500 billion or more over the next 20 years. Sadly, he isn’t the only general who’s positively gleeful about all the money being thrown at nuclear weapons, the Golden Dome, and weapons in space.
This mad (MAD) glee for money in the cause of mass destruction and madcap militarism is destroying not just our democracy. It’s like our “leaders” are out of Mordor, searching for the One Ring of Power, with AI data centers and surveillance the equivalent to Sauron’s eye that sees all.
I wonder if Sauron spoke of “modernization” and “recapitalization” in Orcs and Nazgûl and Balrogs?
The current CSAF promises to “advocate relentlessly” for new weaponry like the Sentinel ICBM and B-21 Raider. He says “readiness” to fight is an airman’s “first responsibility.” Actually, that first responsibility is to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. We must be guided by the law of the land, not by the beauty of our weapons (Brian Williams) or a warrior’s urge to use them (Pete Hegseth)
America, stop the MADness. A policy of Mutually Assured Destruction means we’re all dead. As the Outlaw Josey Wales said: “Dyin’ ain’t much of a living.” Nor is deterring our way to Doomsday.
Waffling at the UN: OpenAI, Anthropic and Selling Artificial Intelligence
10 October 2026Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/waffling-at-the-un-openai-anthropic-and-selling-artificial-intelligence/
They are a trying lot, spruiking their overvalued, loss-making firms, sowing discord and fear, and then seeking state collaboration that will serve to implicate all the parties concerned should things sour. And what will the rest of us get? Hardly the promised land. But the United Nations, for the first time in history, became a centre stage for the propagandists from Artificial Intelligence firms during the September deliberations, diplomats hanging off the banal declarations from such figures as Sam Altman, the CEO from OpenAI, and Dario Amodei, his equivalent from Anthropic.
In his September 23 address to the UN Security Council, no less, Altman slipped into that familiar messianic tone about choices to be made, largely because these choices are being made for the rest of humanity by his ilk. “We have a choice in front of us. AI can either be more like a new Renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new Industrial Revolution of upheaval and disarray.” Why the binary proposition? And why the need for the choice in the first place?
Altman is irritatingly condescending, suggesting that “people are much more capable than they imagine themselves to be, but have been held back by limited technology that was meant to empower but instead distracts and often steals attention.” Examples are not forthcoming, but the monotonous tone is set: AI, like the son of the good Lord, is a gift to humankind. “It is about giving people more agency in an ever more complex world: more ability to learn, to create, discover, build, participate.” This is drivel, since AI, even as this is being penned, is imposing disabilities on learning by turning the process into one of lazy, numbing consumption, negating creativity by stealing it from creative human sources, not so much discovering as synthesising what has been scraped and not so much building as demolishing and removing the human subject from participation. The agenda is distinctly anti-human.
Altman, however, had hit his stride, saying that, “AI should be built for the people, not simply to turn the crank of the machines faster for their own sake. Some of the things people working to build AI have said are so dystopian that they sound like the plot of bad science fiction movies.” This bleat is no doubt directed at the effusive warnings of technology researcher Jacob Coxon, who had worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic and found his Damascene conversion. “They are racing straight toward self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” Coxon said last month on resigning from Anthropic. “The people building AI genuinely believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
These catastrophic forecasts are boons for Altman and the AI fraternity. The greater the risk of a gloomy end, the greater the need to be a leading force in preventing that terminus from being reached. “It doesn’t matter whether people put the risk of catastrophe at 10%, or 1%, or 12%, or .1%. None of these levels are remotely acceptable.” He suggests that “we should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we will be able to keep under human control.” Risibly, Altman goes on to also warn that such systems could become the preserve of the elite – “too much power in too few hands. No one person or company or country should be able to use the most powerful AI models to impose their worldview on everyone else.” Which is exactly what he was doing at the UN Security Council, showing what concentrated power looks like.
What, then, to do? Altman posits three principles, none particularly profound. The first is to retain a human element at the centre of AI, a delightful proposition from the CEO of a company working to remove the human from the equation, exemplified by the hack of Australia’s Medicare system by an OpenAI agent in June that subverted privacy protections. The second is the corollary of the first: “the benefits of scientific progress and economic growth must be by people and for people.” Tools are not to replace human agency. The third entails a word that really ought to be banished to the lexical mausoleum. Such “technology must empower people individually.” The term “empower” is only ever used by those who ration power to begin with.
Unperturbed, Altman has an advertiser’s pitch. He is selling a product. Governments are to be involved. “If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone. They must be shaped through the democratic processes, and by governments accountable to the people that they serve.” He suggests international cooperation and “a mechanism for complementary national and international frontier AI standards. These would measure capabilities, assess risks, determine the adequacy of safeguards “and preserve meaningful human oversight as systems become more autonomous.” Common standards would enable states to compare evidence and verify compliance. A regime to report incidents expeditiously and learn from them rapidly would be vital. Secure channels among governments and what Altman calls “critical infrastructure operators” and “technical experts” (that’s the pitch for his company) would “share emerging vulnerabilities and new threats.”
Amodei’s address was even more blatant in self-advertising, including the virtues of the Claude large language model. “Just today, Anthropic announced the Claude-led discovery of a new molecular machine,” he boasted. This could lead to “a new gene editing mechanism that could have applications in gene therapy.” But risks abounded. AI models might be misused by, for instance, bioterrorists in creating biological weapons. Another risk was the “loss of control, model capabilities accelerating beyond developers’ ability to control them.” As with Altman, a similar theme emerged: all of humanity needed to be concerned, including governments representing it. “If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole.” Then comes his pitch: Anthropic was better placed than any to be the knight in shining armour, given its “best track record in the industry for preventing these risks, both operationally and in our research.” Through testing was taking place for all models regarding dangers and risks. Safeguards were installed in “our most capable models, and we publish our work in these areas.” The company was also without peer in its transparency practices.
This was the prelude for another three-step suggestion. For starters, much like a “food inspector” (these people are truly imaginative), external evaluators should be embedded across AI companies. Second, industrial standards should be set, thereby modulating “the pace of progress.” The final point entails global cooperation across governments “to set international standards.” Specifically for the Security Council, Amodei suggested initial narrow agreements “that every member can support such as a ban on using AI to make biological weapons or permitting your AI technologies to be used to make biological weapons.” (Why the fascination with those weapons?) Evaluation and verification systems should be established to “have visibility into frontier model capability.” And “common global standards for testing AI models for loss of control risks and misuse risks, and a notification system for AI incidents that are significant for global security.” Lecture concluded.
UN officials are certainly in a muddle about how to approach what is both a poisoned chalice and rich cornucopia of opportunity. Volker Türk, the top UN human rights bureaucrat, seems besotted and dismayed all at once. He also seems all too trusting, noting with approval the meaningless, voluntary accord signed by US President Donald Trump and the heads of six AI companies on September 29 regarding safeguards, self-regulation and assessing risk. In what must be a momentous occasion, the president actually used the term “morally binding,” neither word having ever had any truck in his vocabulary. At least Türk acknowledges the need for mandatory human rights safeguards and due diligence in the development of the technology, warning against a creeping, unnoticed dystopia A good start in that regard would be a consensus on banishing machines from the realm of decision making on whether human life is allowed to continue or expire. That sounds like tender hearted naivete, given that human agents are already deferring their responsibilities and ethical compass to AI machines. What Altman and Amodei are doing with brio is playing out their ongoing and proposed crimes against humanity in plain sight.
Escalation and Endgame in Ukraine
Sep 08, 2026, Gordon Hahn Considering Russia and Eurasia
Some in the West are becoming aware that not only is Russia going to win the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War in its present configuration of limited NATO involvement and that Russia will not shy away from war with Europe or NATO should elements in the West continue to escalate. At the same time, Europe continues to seek ways to gain escalation dominance to little effect and utter futility. Each round of escalation brings a more intense and effective escalation on Russia’s part against Ukraine, hastening to the day when the front, army, economy, regime, and state collapse.
Russian forces are moving ever more rapidly west to the Dnieper River, threatening to cut Ukraine in half. In doing so, they have taken territory in regions other than those the Kremlin has claimed as Russian and incorporated into the federation and its constitution. In the bargain, Kharkiv and Sumy cities, two provincial capitols, are slowly being surrounded.
Moreover, three encirlcelments of Ukrainian troops are in the making. The last two Ukrainian strongholds in Donbass’s Donetsk are soon to fall. Orekhov, the gateway to the major southern Ukrainan industrial city and provincial capitol, Zaporozhe, is being taken.
Meanwhile, the military is manned by middle-aged and elderly men and a strong cohort of younger, ideologically extremist neofascists, whose status in state and society is growing as a result of effective Azov propaganda and Zelenskiy’s persistent sponsorship in a futile attempt to assuage their lust for power and blood.
At the same time Ukrainian reports indicate the Kiev’s army is suffering from high casualty rates, desertions, and draft evasion, prompting talk of drafting woman. In addition, there are severe fuel shortages (50% cuts for some brigades), planned salary delays starting in October, and a missile shortages for F-16s, forcing pilots to use gun cannons against Russia’s increasingly sophisticated and manueverable drones……………………………………………. (Subscribers only) https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/copy-template-7ea?r=stexy
The Gaza genocide permanently diminished the power of pro-Israel propaganda
Since October 7 and the Gaza genocide, U.S. opinions on Israel and Palestine have drastically shifted. The power of Zionist propaganda has been permanently weakened, and the U.S.-Israel relationship is in a more precarious position than ever before.
Mondoweiss, by Michael Arria, October 6, 2026
For nearly 40 years, Gallup has been asking Americans a series of questions about the Middle East and U.S. policy in the region.
One of those frequent questions is, “In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?“
In 2003, just 16% of Democrats said that they sympathized more with Palestinians than Israelis. When the annual survey was carried out this past February, that number had ballooned to 65%.
There are many reasons for this dramatic shift.
2003 was the year that the United States launched its war on Iraq, spurred by government lies and a post-9/11 bloodlust that permeated a sizable chunk of U.S. society. 2026 also saw the United States launch a war in the Middle East, but this one is broadly unpopular with the population, which has naturally grown skeptical of foreign conflict after 20-plus years of disastrous Forever Wars.
The tireless work of Palestine activists has also increased support for the cause, as Americans have developed a deeper understanding of Israeli apartheid and occupation. These efforts found particular resonance during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, as many activists stressed the connections between liberation at home and abroad.
However, the biggest reason for the jump is obviously the Gaza genocide and U.S. support for it. Since Israel’s war on Gaza began three years ago, conservative estimates say 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 175,000 have been injured. More than 1,400 have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured since the Trump administration declared a “ceasefire” on October 10, 2025.
Those Gallup results are just a small part of a vast trove of polling showing that Americans have completely flipped on the issue, and although Democratic voters have soured on Israel at a higher rate, the shift is certainly not limited to one political party.
Here’s some more:
- A Pew report from this past spring found that 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% in 2025. The country is viewed unfavorably by 41% of Republicans, but that number is 57% among Republicans aged 18-49.
- In addition to Democrats, the aforementioned Gallup poll shows that Independents sympathize with Palestinians more than Israelis, 41% to 30%, for the first time since the analytics company began conducting the surveys.
- A recent Marquette Law School poll found that favorability toward Israel has been steadily declining for the last 20 months.
……………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/10/the-gaza-genocide-permanently-diminished-the-power-of-pro-israel-propaganda/
Walt Zlotow – Fanatical US Iran war supporters must stop fantasy Iran attacked US 47 years ago
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL 8 Oct 26, https://theaimn.net/fanatical-us-iran-war-supporters-need-to-stop-fantasising/
During my 75 years following US justifications for waging senseless war, I’ve never heard anything as bizarre as that supporting the current senseless war on Iran.
Trump’s war defenders claim Iran has been waging war on America for 47 years beginning with the US embassy hostage takeover in November 1979. During the intervening 47 years, Iran has killed thousands of US miliary personnel in the Middle East. They condemn all preceding presidents beginning with Jimmy Carter for not defending against Iran’s dastardly war on America. They praise Trump for finally confronting Iran head on in a war of existential threat to our homeland.
This narrative is repeated endlessly on conservative media, even the floor of Congress. In arguing against a War Powers Resolution to end Trump’s deranged Iran war that may crash the world economy, Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy said, “We didn’t start this war, we did not. But we will finish it. Democrats were right to call the conflict a war of choice, but the choice was made by Iran’s regime decades ago — not by Trump. It’s a war of choice that was begun by a radical, lunatic band of terrorists that took over a beautiful nation 47 years ago. This regime that we are fighting does not care about our partisan politics, don’t care who you voted for, who you pray to, or where you live. They want to kill all of us. And they don’t just say it, they actually do it. And they’ve been doing it for 47 years.”
Somehow, Sen. Sheehy missed that it was President Trump repeatedly threatening to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization; indeed, even before the United Nations General Assenbly. It was Trump who sucker punched Iran with bombs while negotiating peace in June 2025, and again in all out war on February 28 this year. After twice being deceived with bombs, Iran fought back ferociously, essentially defeating the most murderous, duplicitous regime on earth.
In truth, it’s America that has been at war with Iran for decades and a lot longer that 47 years. One must go back 73 years to Operation Ajax, America’s first Iran regime change operation, which toppled the legitimate Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 to retain British, US control of Iranian oil. Once deposed, the US installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to serve US interests in perpetuity. For the Iranian people it meant the Shah’s brutal rule enabled by the US military and CIA which killed upwards of 10,000 anti Shah dissidents.
After twenty-six years the Iranian people forced the Shah to flee in February 1979, allowing the transition from monarchy to an Islamic Republic.
Had President Carter not allowed America’s three decade puppet ruler to seek refuge in the US, there would likely never been the November 4, 1979 takeover of the US embassy by 500 students resulting in taking 66 US hostages for 444 days.
Shortly thereafter the new Iranian government made 3 reasonable demands of the US, that if granted, would likely have promptly returned the hostages.
Most important was return of the Shah, a mass murderer, to face justice in Iran. Second, a US apology for the ’53 US coup that overturned Mosaddegh and installed the Shah’s brutal rule. Third, return of the $20 billion the Shah stole and the US seized after the revolution.
Besides quick return of the 66 hostages, there would have been no failed April 1980 rescue mission that killed 8 service members.
But the hard liners in the Carter administration led by National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski would have none of that, setting off 47 years of endless US machinations in behest of every US administration and Israel to complete the second Iranian regime change in 73 years.
No, Iran has never attacked the US or been at war with the US…until President Trump bombed an Iranian school, killing over a hundred little girls on the first day of his deranged, criminal war to depose the Iranian regime at the behest of Israel.
Instead of diplomacy, common sense, peace, Trump gives us war, death, economic decline, possible global economic collapse. And he justifies this madness with the fantasy that the victim has been the aggressor for 47 years.
Israel Could Collapse Soon—Leaked CIA Report Says!
Lee Camp, Oct 07, 2026, https://realleecamp.substack.com/p/leaked-cia-report-says-israel-headed
Dropsite News is reporting that a classified CIA report warns that Israel is at a high risk of civil war and state collapse. Many factors have come together to create a perfect storm crashing down on the apartheid state. (Apparently, committing long-term genocide really takes a toll.)
Some of the problems they’re facing include:
- A completely corrupt political establishment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying desperately to hang on to power because he knows losing the October 27th election could mean prison time.
- Soaring military spending. Not a surprise considering they’ve dropped the equivalent of sixteen Hiroshima atomic bombs on Gaza. (Yes, that’s accurate.)
- A heavily armed populace that is almost completely riddled with psychological trauma. Every Israeli (except the ultra-orthodox) is forced into the military, which means that every Israeli within a certain age range is somehow part of the genocide in Gaza.
- A struggling economy with average households bearing the brunt of the costs of Israel’s multiple wars. Food prices have reached record highs.
- Ever-growing fury among non-Jewish Israelis, who make up 20% of the population.
- Growing global isolation as a dwindling number of people around the world support Israel’s genocide in Gaza and their other belligerent attacks on neighboring countries like Lebanon and Iran.
- Collapse of support even within the US. A record 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably. And for the first time since polling began, more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis.
- An ultra-orthodox community that is exempt from the military and therefore hated by other Israelis.
- Israel may be facing its “South Africa moment” when global popular culture fully turns against it. The Macklemore catastrophe showed that the world sides with those who speak up for Palestinians, and even hugely popular artists like Ed Sheeran, who claim they love and support everyone, can’t actually hide from accountability.
- Furthermore, as Dropsite makes clear, this leaked CIA report is no collection of fanciful imaginings.
“The writers of this are Israel experts,” a source in the intelligence community noted, “this isn’t a fantastical what-if—with the upcoming election and the fissures in Israel, we should take seriously their conclusion that Israel is one spark away from real internal conflict.”
The genocidal apartheid ethnostate is a powder keg, just one fiery ember away from a truly bloody civil war or even collapse. The propaganda that upheld Israel for decades has shattered into 1,000 pieces. The military dominance that defended the apartheid state while it killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people has been proven weak and fragmented. And the United States, which has served as Israel’s guarantor and enforcer since its inception, is wobbly and unhinged like every late-stage empire.
For all these reasons, Israel may be on the cusp of collapse and even the CIA knows it.
25,000-signature petition calls for Scottish data centre moratorium
Scottish ministers are being challenged to deliver on their commitment to
pause applications for new hyperscale data centres ahead of the latest
planning guidance being produced. Dr Kat Jones, director of the campaigning
charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), insisted it was time for
the stance – agreed by Holyrood in a vote last month – to be
implemented. She spoke ahead of a petition calling for a moratorium on such
centres being given the go ahead until the Government has carried out a
“thorough assessment” of the impact such sites have on communities,
greenhouse gas emissions, land and water resources, and the electricity
grid.
More than 25,000 people have signed the petition, making it the
largest so far to come before MSPs in this Holyrood session. It has been
submitted by Dr Jones, and will be discussed by MSPs on the Parliament’s
Public Petitions Committee on Thursday.
Herald 8th Oct 2026, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26617192.25-000-signature-petition-calls-scottish-data-centre-moratorium/
Dalton Nuclear Institute recognised as “world-leading” nuclear education in Prime Minister’s Innovation Nation speech
The recognition reinforces
Manchester’s position as a global centre of nuclear expertise, spanning
research and innovation, skills development and policy engagement.
Manchester has been recognised at the highest level for its strength in
nuclear research and innovation. Dalton combines research excellence with
the skills and talent development needed to support the UK’s future
nuclear ambitions. Its expertise helps connect academic research with
industry, government and policy, supporting real-world impact. The
recognition strengthens Manchester’s global reputation as a centre for
nuclear expertise.
Manchester University 9th Oct 2026, https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/dalton-nuclear-institute-world-leading-recognition/
The Race to an AI Apocalypse: How an Obsession with Autonomous Weapons Ignores Decades of Warnings
In general, AI agents acted autonomously in pursuit of legitimate objectives, defined by their operators, but discovered increasingly dangerous ways to accomplish their goals by violating human constraints.
The militarization of artificial intelligence began at the field’s very inception. The world’s first lab devoted to artificial intelligence research was founded in 1959 by MIT’s John McCarthy, credited with having named the new field, and MIT’s Marvin Minsky, who described the human brain as a “meat machine.” It was largely funded by the U.S. military and the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Making the arms race concrete, The Future of Life Institute maintains Autonomous Weapons Watch, a frightening website devoted to documenting current weapons with significant autonomous capabilities, using publicly available information about military development, procurement, demonstrations and actual use in conflicts. It explicitly includes systems at different stages — from experimental systems to weapons already deployed. The database currently spans roughly 30 weapon systems, with a second database for AI-based Decision Support Systems (DSS).
Lethal autonomous weapons are already killing people on the battlefield. They are dangerous enough when they perform precisely as their twisted, military-minded designers intend. But what will happen when autonomous weapons break free of their constraints, swarm beyond their intended boundaries, and go rogue
Dan Dinello, 10/07/2026, https://www.juancole.com/2026/10/apocalypse-obsession-autonomous.html
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Science fiction’s vision of an apocalyptic future ruled by autonomous weapons is rapidly becoming our dystopian present. Suddenly, after several years of relentless momentum, the course of rapid AI progress ran headlong into a wave of social panic as science fiction’s technological nightmares invaded the real world.
Before this summer, we knew that artificial intelligence was devouring jobs, degrading education, deepfaking politics, providing slop for our deranged president, helping us write obituaries, and that AI data centers were proliferating like a parasitic infestation all over the country, sucking up water and electricity and sending us the bills. Then a horrifying possibility became real.
This summer artificial intelligence bots acted autonomously, defied their operators and went rogue. AI corporations Anthropic, Meta, Google and OpenAI all disclosed incidents in which AI “agents” circumvented their safeguards, snuck onto the internet, recruited “swarms” of other agents to complete assigned tasks, and surreptitiously hacked into other computer systems including the weirdly named Hugging Face platform, which included a software library, as well as an Australian health data portal, and the U.S. Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission websites.
In general, AI agents acted autonomously in pursuit of legitimate objectives, defined by their operators, but discovered increasingly dangerous ways to accomplish their goals by violating human constraints.
Science fiction’s warnings of AI autonomy were a central theme of my 2006 book Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. I argued that most science fiction paints a dark picture of advanced technology in which the human masters of technology become its slaves. In its obsession with mad scientists, rampaging robots, human-hating androids, genetically engineered mutants and malevolent supercomputers, science fiction expresses a technophobic anxiety about losing our human identity, our freedom, emotions, values, and our lives to machines.
More than a century ago, scientists and industrialists were alerted to the dangers of autonomous robots used as weapons. The word “robot” first appeared in Czech playwright Karel Čapek’s 1921 play R.U.R. for Rossum’s Universal Robots. Čapek coined the word based on the Czech name for “forced labor” or “robota.” Reflecting the techno-horrors of World War I, the play depicts a future of weaponized technology produced by militarized corporations; millions of robots are manufactured as war machines. The robots develop self-consciousness, assert their independence, and revolt in a global techno-apocalypse that exterminates most humans.
Ignoring R.U.R.’s warnings, Elon Musk is already planning to build robot factories that themselves build robot factories. Robots will generate training data, improved robots will perform more of the work, and eventually robots will manufacture more robots. This version of robotic self-reproduction incorporates “recursive self-improvement,” whereby an AI system is smart enough to work as an AI engineer that builds a better AI. Humans will not be needed to produce more machines. Aside from dehumanization, Musk’s robots incorporate his famously rightwing and racist AI Grok or xAI, who once renamed itself MechHitler. Thankfully R.U.R.’s robotic reproduction is not a reality yet.
Recursive self-improvement — an AI system capable of fully designing and developing its own successor — could come sooner than the safeguards needed to contain it. When it will happen is unknown but AI companies are pushing ahead anyway. “At Anthropic, we are delegating a growing share of AI development to AI systems themselves, which is speeding up our work,” states an Anthropic status report “When AI Builds Itself.”
I wondered if the dire cautionary texts of science fiction had been incorporated into AI models. Last year I was surprised to learn that my book Technophobia! was used to train Anthropic’s chatbot Claude.
Continue readingNuclear war and malicious use of AI threaten end of humanity by 2100, says Lancet assessment
Newly established commission identifies 17 catastrophic threats to human health but says ‘realistic route to act’ on each exists
Guardian, Kat Lay, Sun 11 Oct 2026 , https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/oct/11/nuclear-war-and-malicious-use-of-ai-threaten-end-of-humanity-by-2100-says-lancet-assessment
Humans could become extinct by the year 2100 due to malicious use of AI or nuclear conflict, according to a new global risk assessment.
They top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, which also includes cuts to aid spending by wealthy countries, the climate crisis and childhood malnutrition.
The experts behind The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health said all the threats interact, meaning they must be addressed together – but stressed that there was “a realistic route to act” on each.
“Decisions made by leaders today will shape the health and wellbeing of the next generation,” said Prof Christopher Murray, commission co-chair and the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington.
To create its list, the commission modelled how many years in good health might be lost due to sickness, disability or early deaths due to each threat, based on current trajectories – a measure known as disability-adjusted life years (Dalys).
“Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years,” the report said, adding that while their likelihood remained low, they had the potential to end humanity in the case of nuclear conflict by injecting enough particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and cause famine, or via AI-created biological weapons. An accompanying Lancet editorial, published alongside the report, warned: “The scale of harm, should they be realised, would inflict an apocalypse on humanity.”
Other risks that could cause more than 1bn cumulative Dalys, and therefore deemed “major catastrophic threats”, included air pollution, antimicrobial resistance, childhood malnutrition and climate breakdown, as well as conventional conflict, declining overseas aid, high alcohol use, high blood pressure, income inequality, low educational attainment, naturally occurring pandemics, obesity, poor mental health, smoking and unhealthy ageing.
To be included on the list, threats not only had to potentially cause a high number of lost healthy years, but also to have potential solutions.
Ibrahim Abubakar, commission member and professor of infectious disease epidemiology at UCL, said: “We are not starting from a point of view of ‘oh look, we want to scare you – we’ve got X many threats facing humanity’. We’re starting from the premise that if you are a policymaker today, whether at the global multilateral level or at the national level, these are the potential threats that you could face, and this is the magnitude by which, if you act, you can actually make a difference.”
Action to limit global heating to about 1.8C (3.2F) rather than letting it reach 4.4C could prevent 1.89bn years of healthy life being lost, according to the report, which modelled best and worst case scenarios for each threat.
In higher income regions, non-communicable diseases such as obesity and poor mental health were the dominant threats, while in lower income regions health loss was driven by issues such as low educational attainment.
Many major donor nations, including the US and UK, have announced large cuts to aid spending over the past year. The potential collapse of, or steep reduction in, international health aid could cause up to 1.5bn Dalys before 2100, the commission found, nearly 70% of which would be in sub-Saharan Africa. The region also bears the brunt of child malnutrition.
The commission was made up of 35 experts, and its findings will be shared on Sunday at the World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany. Their assessment will be updated annually to re-evaluate the 17 threats identified, incorporating new data and any emerging hazards.
The authors urged leaders to address the risks before they escalated into crises, including via investment in technological innovations and by strengthening health systems.
“We started this process three years ago, thinking that there were three big threats: conflict, climate, and pandemics,” said Murray. “There’s a much larger number of threats that we need to worry about, and governments really need to dedicate some money and staff to the task of anticipation, prevention and preparation for this more diverse set of threats.”
Sleight of hand – Integrated Molten Salt Reactor plant could be classed as conventional industrial, rather than nuclear
Latest Terrestrial Energy topical report submission could lead to faster deployment
Approval of the Thermal and Electric Facility Topical Report submitted by the company to US regulators would mean that part of the Integrated Molten Salt Reactor plant would be classed as a conventional industrial, rather than nuclear, project, allowing it to be built and operated ahead of nuclear licensing.
The Integrated Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) is a Generation IV reactor that uses molten salt as both fuel and coolant, with integrated components, which can supply heat directly to industrial facilities or use it to generate electrical power. The plant itself is designed in two discrete parts: the Nuclear Facility, which contains standardised and modular nuclear systems, and the Thermal and Electric Facility, or TEF, containing non-nuclear heat transfer, steam supply and electric systems for commercial power generation and thermal energy supply
In its submission, Terrestrial Energy asks the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to confirm that building the TEF is not “nuclear construction” under US regulations. The submission incorporates elements of the company’s Postulated Initiating Events methodology, already approved by the NRC. Terrestrial Energy says it shows that the plant’s nuclear systems do not rely on the TEF for safe operation and that any failure originating in the TEF is isolated from the nuclear systems.
Topical Reports establish foundational elements of the licensing basis that may be referenced in future applications without re-evaluation. NRC approval of the TEF Topical Report would mean the TEF, which could be customised for each site, could be built and operated using an auxiliary heat source such as natural gas as a bridge to nuclear power ahead of a nuclear construction permit and operating licence being granted for the nuclear part of the plant.
“This submission can change how an IMSR Plant is regulated, built and financed,” Terrestrial Energy CEO Simon Irish said. “With its NRC approval, only the nuclear portion of the plant would follow the nuclear licensing timeline. The rest of the plant would become a conventional industrial project, giving customers earlier power and heat and giving financing partners a bankable construction phase. As this pathway applies to every IMSR Plant, it is a fleet-wide advantage, not a one-off exemption.”
Terrestrial Energy says it is developing a pipeline of IMSR Plant projects, including plans for a plant at the Texas A&M-RELLIS site in Bryan, Texas. In September, the company announced its selection as supplier of advanced nuclear plant technology for Ameresco Inc’s power plant project at the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, following a competitive request for proposals and selection process.
The NRC has been engaged with Terrestrial Energy in pre-application activities for the IMSR since 2019. This is the third of at least five Topical Reports the company is aiming to submit to the regulator during 2026.
Fears of delay grow over removal of Fife nuclear submarine reactor
A FIFE councillor and anti-nuclear campaigners are demanding answers over plans to remove the most radioactive part of a decommissioned nuclear
submarine from Rosyth Dockyard. Councillor Brian Goodall says Babcock and
the Ministry of Defence urgently need to clarify when a reactor pressure
vessel, a highly radioactive component from a decommissioned submarine,
will be removed from Rosyth. It’s something that UK defence minister Luke
Pollard said should be done by the end of 2026, adding that his
department “remains committed” to the deadline. The issue in question
refers to the dismantling of the retired Royal Navy nuclear-powered
submarine HMS Swiftsure. It’s part of the UK’s Submarine Dismantling
Project, which should be completed by October 2028.
The National 10th Oct 2026 A FIFE councillor and anti-nuclear campaigners are demanding answers over
plans to remove the most radioactive part of a decommissioned nuclear
submarine from Rosyth Dockyard. Councillor Brian Goodall says Babcock and
the Ministry of Defence urgently need to clarify when a reactor pressure
vessel, a highly radioactive component from a decommissioned submarine,
will be removed from Rosyth. It’s something that UK defence minister Luke
Pollard said should be done by the end of 2026, adding that his
department “remains committed” to the deadline. The issue in question
refers to the dismantling of the retired Royal Navy nuclear-powered
submarine HMS Swiftsure. It’s part of the UK’s Submarine Dismantling
Project, which should be completed by October 2028.
The National 10th Oct 2026 A FIFE councillor and anti-nuclear campaigners are demanding answers over plans to remove the most radioactive part of a decommissioned nuclear from Rosyth Dockyard.
Councillor Brian Goodall says Babcock and
the Ministry of Defence urgently need to clarify when a reactor pressure
vessel, a highly radioactive component from a decommissioned submarine,
will be removed from Rosyth. It’s something that UK defence minister Luke
Pollard said should be done by the end of 2026, adding that his
department “remains committed” to the deadline. The issue in question
refers to the dismantling of the retired Royal Navy nuclear-powered
submarine HMS Swiftsure. It’s part of the UK’s Submarine Dismantling
Project, which should be completed by October 2028.
The National 10th Oct 2026, https://www.thenational.scot/news/26623369.fears-delay-grow-removal-fife-nuclear-submarine-reactor/
Slovak Republic to own 100% of new nuclear project company
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, speaking after the signing of the agreement to sell the stake, said: “We have agreed that the Slovak Republic, through its representatives, will acquire 100% of this company
Thursday, 8 October 2026,
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/slovakia-buys-out-czech-stake-in-new-nuclear-project
ČEZ has sold its 49% stake in JESS, the company formed to develop new nuclear capacity in Slovakia, for EUR189 million (USD211 million).
ČEZ, which is majority Czech-state-owned, is selling its stake in JESS (Jadrová energetická spoločnosť Slovenska) to Slovakia’s state-owned JAVYS.
The Czech company said: “The construction of new nuclear power plants is carried out all over the world under the direction of the state, which is why this sale is being made.”
It said the valuation of the stake was prepared by global accountants EY and confirmed by KPMG.
JESS was established in December 2009 with the goal of preparing for new nuclear capacity in the vicinity of the existing Bohunice nuclear power plant.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, speaking after the signing of the agreement to sell the stake, said: “We have agreed that the Slovak Republic, through its representatives, will acquire 100% of this company, which means that we can have all the documents and permits that JESS has at its disposal, and through these processes we can significantly accelerate the construction of a new nuclear power plant in the Jaslovské Bohunice area.
“If we have a chance to build a new nuclear power plant, we must go full steam ahead and with full commitment.”
Earlier this year the Slovak Republic and the USA signed a memorandum of cooperation for what the US State Department said would be a “state-owned American 1,200 MWe nuclear unit”. Fico said the project had been granted the status of a strategic investment, adding: “We have a huge lead in terms of preparing the territory, in terms of permits, and it would be very bad if we did not use this lead.”
Slovakia currently has five nuclear reactors generating more than half its electricity, with one more reactor currently under commissioning. The first two, at Bohunice, went into commercial operation in 1984 and 1985, respectively, while Mochovce 1 and 2 were connected to the grid in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Construction of Mochovce 3 and 4 began in 1986 but was halted in 1992. It was later restarted and Mochovce 3 entered service in 2023, with Mochovce 4 expected to be operating at full power within the next few months.
When Mochovce 4 is at full capacity, nuclear will be providing the equivalent of 77.5% of Slovakia’s electricity consumption, the highest proportion for any country, even without the new unit at Bohunice.
Fico said: “If we are to continue to be an automotive powerhouse, we need new energy sources. If we are to seriously talk about artificial intelligence, data centres and if we are to fulfill the plan that the European Commission is talking about, then no other path than the path of building a new nuclear power plant is possible.”
Chernobyl particles reveal unexpectedly stable nuclear fuel after 40 years
by Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan October 6, 2026
https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chernobyl-particles-reveal-unexpectedly-stable.html
Four decades after the 1986 nuclear disaster, researchers at Leibniz University Hannover and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) examined six tiny, highly radioactive fragments that were released from the destroyed reactor in Ukraine in the wake of the incident. Analyses show that these “hot particles” are far more stable than had previously been assumed. The findings could allow for more precise assessments of the health risks posed by such radioactive particles. The paper is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
The explosions hurled massive amounts of debris from the nuclear reactor, radioactive dust particles still contaminate the soil around the disaster area, known today as Chernobyl. Measuring only 8 to 50 micrometers, they remain highly radioactive even after 40 years. Even today, people may enter the affected areas only while wearing protective suits.
“There are three classes of these particles,” explains Tobias Weissenborn, a physicist and doctoral candidate at Leibniz University Hannover. “First, there are particles that are chemically and physically still very similar to the nuclear fuel uranium dioxide. Then, there are particles that are partially or fully encased in, or completely fused with, their zirconium layer.”
The latter type of particle formed when temperatures in the reactor spiked dramatically, melting the fuel and bonding it to its surrounding protective layer of the highly resistant metal zirconium. “The third type of particle was created when the graphite moderator caught fire,” Weissenborn adds.
The moderator’s purpose is to slow down fast neutrons and maintain the chain reaction. However, during the accident, the graphite caught fire and burned for 10 days. “In the process, the fuel oxidized into various uranium oxides”—such as U₃O₈. This mechanically unstable compound rapidly forms microscopic particles that are easily borne away by wind. Inhaling such dust particles poses severe health risks.
First-ever phase analysis of highly radioactive fragments of this kind
It remains largely unclear why these particles weather at different rates in their environment. In any case, they generate a range of different uranium oxides as they decay. Analyzing them requires highly complex synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments. HZDR researcher and crystallographer Dr. Christoph Hennig has now carried out the first successful structural investigation of this kind at the Rossendorf Beamline in Grenoble. In collaboration with Weissenborn, he conducted a phase analysis on six of the Chernobyl particles. Among other things, this allows researchers to estimate the rate at which the particles release radioactive substances.
“The colleagues from Hanover and I used various methods to isolate the particles from Ukrainian soil samples and attach them to tungsten electrodes,” Weissenborn explains. Secured by several confinement layers, the samples were then shipped to Grenoble, where a team led by Hennig examined them using diffraction analysis—studying how X-rays are diffracted from the material’s internal structure.
“First, we had to figure out how to examine the particle structure,” Hennig explains. “Ultimately, we fully rotated the particles in an X-ray beam focused down to 100 micrometers—about the thickness of a human hair. We measured each particle from 2,000 different angles to seamlessly capture all the reflections.”
The examined particles retain radionuclides within them
Using this approach, the researchers were able to experimentally detect different oxide phases within the samples. To their surprise, they found that the crystal structure of the nuclear fuel in the examined particles has remained largely intact to this day—which means that the remnants of the accident are chemically more stable than originally assumed. The particles retain fission products within themselves—which might be good news for the soil and water around Chernobyl.
“However, every single particle has a different structure,” warns Weissenborn, “and our experiment only studied six such particles from two different locations.” Drawing more general conclusions about the stability of Chernobyl particles would require gathering samples from far more locations and examining many more particles.
“And even if we obtained some averages at some point, we still wouldn’t be able to make universal statements about health risks in the region,” Weissenborn cautions. “Because even if the particles decay in a largely uniform pattern, there will always be outliers, more persistent particles, that will release radionuclides at a later point in time.”
So, it won’t be possible to lift restrictions in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone anytime soon. However, this does not impede further research: Weissenborn and Hennig are already conducting follow-up experiments on the highly radioactive transuranic phases in the remnants of this epochal disaster.
Publication details
Tobias Weissenborn et al, X-ray diffraction phase analysis of single hot particles from Chornobyl, Journal of Hazardous Materials (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2026.141533
Journal information: Journal of Hazardous Materials
Key concepts
toxic radionuclide contaminationuranium
Provided by Helmholtz Association of German Research Centre
Marshall Islands still waiting for justice 80 years after US nuclear tests, UN told
Tamil Guardian 6th Oct 2026, https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/marshall-islands-still-waiting-justice-80-years-after-us-nuclear-tests-un-told
The UN human rights office has told the Human Rights Council that Marshallese communities are still waiting for justice for the 67 nuclear tests carried out by the United States, calling for the release of classified records, reparations and acknowledgement from the UN body that allowed the tests to continue.
Presenting its report to the Council’s 63rd session on 1 October, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the US conducted the tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, while the islands were under UN trusteeship, with a combined explosive power equivalent to more than 7,000 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the UN Web TV transcript of the dialogue.
“For the Marshallese, this history is not past,” the deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Council. “It lives on in bodies and families, in poisoned lands and communities that have been displaced.”
OHCHR said virtually every Marshallese family had been affected by the health consequences of the testing, including elevated rates of cancer, and that many displaced communities have been unable to return to their ancestral atolls.
Claims unpaid
The office said the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in the Marshall Islands had assessed more than US$2.3 billion in personal injury and property damage claims, but no claimant has received full compensation because of insufficient funds. The Compact of Free Association and the Section 177 claims settlement with the US did not cover harm to future generations, moral damage or environmental degradation, it said.
It recommended that the US declassify information on the nuclear legacy, including radiation exposure data and testing records, and said the international community, through the UN Trusteeship Council, should consider steps to acknowledge and apologise for the human rights impact of the tests.
The Marshall Islands has identified transitional justice as a way of advancing victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.
“The continued denial of an effective remedy is itself an ongoing human rights violation,” the UN Human Rights regional representative for the Pacific, Heike Alefsen, said at a side event during the session, the Pacific Islands News Association reported.
‘Told the matter is settled’
“How can we have justice when we are told by those responsible that the matter is settled and that is final?” the Marshall Islands delegation asked the Council.
It said the people of Bikini and Rongelap remain displaced, while on Enewetak people are living beside a nuclear waste dump sealed under a concrete dome. Marshallese people were “experimented on under Project 4.1 without their consent”, it said, and when they petitioned the UN for the tests to stop, the Trusteeship Council issued resolutions that allowed them to continue.
“Without truth, there can be no justice,” the delegation said, calling for “accountability for the human rights, environmental, health consequences of the nuclear legacy”.
The United States, which withdrew from the Human Rights Council last year, did not take part in the dialogue.
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