“We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body,” writes Melanie Challenger. “This is a strange turn of events for an animal whose success comes mostly from the extraordinary ability to learn through experience.” For Aeon, Challenger explores how modern technologies, from GPS to AI, are eroding our body’s physical skills by replacing the embodied experiences through which we learn.
After all, the brain is itself a physical organ, continually shaped by what the body does and encounters. Once we decide that the mind is the real human and the rest of the body only hardware, it becomes easier to disregard the physical work, including the neurocognitive work of a biological brain, through which we move, find our way, put thoughts into words, and recognise our own needs. A machine may do some of that work faster, but each act it takes over is one that the body no longer performs and that the body, including the brain, no longer learns through. The irony is that a project motivated by the desire to overcome bodily fragility is helping to produce more fragile bodies.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk wrote on X on 15 October: “And so the slaughter continues … Time for Zelensky to go.” Four days earlier, he had posted that Zelenskyy had gone too far, after US President Donald Trump said it was time for Ukraine to get a new president. Asked by Morgan on 14 October whether he would resign, Zelenskyy said he would not: “It’s my responsibility.”
Musk’s post comes as Washington squeezes Kyiv instead of Moscow: Ukraine’s military satellite links slowed, US missile warnings went missing, and the US threatened to cut intelligence unless Kyiv stops hitting Russian refineries.
Zelenskyy said elections could not be held under constant Russian attack: “From the point of security, you can’t do elections.”
Of any future president, he said: “I’m sure the new man or woman will defend our country.” He also reminded Trump that Crimea and parts of Donbas were already occupied when he took office, under another president, long before the full-scale invasion.
“I’m a realist, and I understand that people are more important than one kilometer or two kilometers. It’s not about kilometers. It’s about land and homes,” he told Morgan.
Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready for elections if a full 60-day ceasefire is in place. Numerous sources told The Atlantic that Trump sees Zelenskyy as the main obstacle to a peace deal and related business deals with Russia. One Trump adviser said he is also an obstacle to Trump’s hopes for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ukrainian forces reported restrictions on Starshield, the SpaceX satellite system they use for battlefield communications and drone operations, and Zelenskyy warned the decision would cost lives. On 14 October, Musk said Starshield is owned and controlled by the US government, which sets its limits, and that commercial Starlink cannot be used for offensive military action. Zelenskyy told the FT he did not know whether the decision was SpaceX’s or the US government’s, adding: “I think it’s about SpaceX.” A senior US official told Axios the Trump administration had nothing to do with the restrictions.
On two consecutive nights, air raid alerts in Kyiv sounded only after Russian ballistic missiles were already approaching or striking the capital. Zelenskyy said Ukraine received no warning from partners of the launches on 12 and 13 October, which hit civilian infrastructure and a major power plant. A Ukrainian official told CNN the loss of intelligence “will give Russians a real leverage on a frontline.” A European official questioned Washington’s explanation that weather caused the gaps in missile warnings. Trump denied halting intelligence sharing.
Washington had warned it could suspend intelligence sharing if Ukraine kept striking Russian refineries, Axios reported. A US official disputed that any explicit threat was made. Sources told CNN the US had also threatened to halt European purchases of US weapons for Ukraine. Zelenskyy told the FT the warning came through military channels.
To lower energy costs before next month’s midterm elections, Trump has pressed Kyiv to stop refinery strikes, CNN reported. Zelenskyy said he felt betrayed after Trump announced a diesel supply deal with Russia. On 14 October in London, he told the FT that Ukraine would resume strikes on Russian oil refineries.
By Madeline CARR
Join us on Telegram, X, and VK.
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Recent warnings from American AI leaders have created the impression that the world is only beginning to confront the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence.
Dario Amodei, chief executive of tech company Anthropic, has called for governments to intervene to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models.
His proposal begins with independent evaluators embedded inside AI companies, moves on to regulation and progresses to government-backed coordination among democratic states.
Ultimately, it seeks global agreements with China on testing of AI systems, dangerous applications of the technology and the pace of AI development.
Yet there is a China-shaped hole in this narrative. The Asian superpower is portrayed as the difficult final participant in a governance system that the US and its allies must first create.
In fact, China has already established an extensive system of AI rules, assessment, filing, technical standards and government oversight. Here’s how China’s AI governance system has developed in stages alongside the technology itself.
Beijing’s 2022 rules on algorithmic recommendation services apply to technologies that select, rank, filter or recommend online content to users.
They compel companies that use algorithms to examine how they work, to protect the personal information of users, to give users certain controls, and to introduce safeguards for workers, consumers, children and older people.
China’s deep synthesis provisions, effective from January 2023, extended regulation to synthetic (or AI-generated) text, images, audio and video. AI companies must authenticate users, protect data, keep relevant records, assess their systems and identify synthetic material that could be mistaken for authentic content.
The interim measures for generative artificial intelligence services were introduced in August 2023. These added rules for public-facing generative AI, particularly those that can influence public opinion or persuade uses in other ways.
The measures apply to the legality and quality of training data, users’ personal information, intellectual property and discrimination based on protected characteristics. The rules also cover transparency by AI companies and the accuracy and reliability of products.
Under the rules, companies must address problems found in their services. These services must undergo a security assessment to examine their risks and compliance with Chinese legislation. The companies must also file information about their algorithms with Chinese authorities.
These mechanisms are not identical to the independent evaluators that would be embedded in AI companies, as has been proposed by Amodei. But they perform some of the same functions.
Frontier risks
Beijing’s latest set of measures is called the AI safety governance framework 3.0, published in September 2026. It sets out a broad approach to identifying, grading and responding to risks throughout the lifecycle of AI systems.
Building on earlier versions, the framework covers AI model and data risks, vulnerabilities in open source models (those which can be freely modified by users), AI’s effects on employment and society and increasingly autonomous systems.
It includes a dedicated mechanism for managing risks associated with rapidly developing AI agents (systems that carry out tasks in response to instructions by a user).
The framework addresses some of the same dangers now generating alarm in Silicon Valley, including highly autonomous systems, the misuse of chemical, biological and nuclear technologies, and the possibility of humans losing control of advanced AI. It proposes continual safety evaluations, risk based safeguards, humans being in charge, and emergency intervention mechanisms.
An independent analysis by the US Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank has described the framework as China’s attempt to “to advance frontier safety without the need for heavy handed regulatory interventions”.
Legal consequences
None of this means that Chinese AI rules should be transplanted elsewhere. Its institutions, regulatory traditions and technological priorities are different.
Many functions now presented as urgent aspirations in the US, including evaluation, accountability for AI companies, risk classification for AI systems, regulatory filing, technical standards and government oversight are already embedded in the governance architecture of the world’s other AI superpower.
The US is free to conclude that a market-led system best serves its economic and strategic interests. The Trump administration has favoured a “minimally burdensome” national approach to AI and has sought to limit more demanding state-level regulation.
But a market-led model cannot mean privatising the rewards of AI while exporting its risks. US companies may capture the commercial gains, while governments elsewhere are left to investigate security incidents, protect public systems and absorb the wider costs when those technologies fail. The OpenAI agent that gained unauthorised access to Australia’s state healthcare service shows how AI risks are being exported.
If Washington rejects extensive controls before systems are released, the US needs a credible legal regime for assessing who is liable for damage caused by those AI models. Otherwise, countries dependent on foreign AI systems will face increasingly difficult choices about whose technology to trust, and on what terms.
Silicon Valley’s governing ethos has long been to “move fast and break things”. That was always a questionable principle for technologies woven deeply into public life. It is untenable for companies whose own leaders now warn that their products could cause catastrophic harm.
Beijing has already surrounded its AI sector with public obligations, regulatory oversight and an evolving framework of risk assessment. A global debate that treats such governance as a future aspiration should at least recognise that one country is already ahead of the curve.
Original article: theconversation.com
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has abandoned much of the diplomatic restraint that characterised his dealings with Donald Trump since their confrontation in the Oval Office in February 2025. In an interview on 14 October, the Ukrainian president accused his American counterpart of moving towards Russia and choosing the wrong side of history.
His intervention followed a series of American decisions that have increased pressure on Kyiv while offering Moscow economic and diplomatic advantages. A controversial agreement involving Russian diesel exports, uncertainty surrounding the provision of American intelligence and sudden restrictions on military satellite communications have brought relations between the two countries to their most difficult point since Trump’s return to the White House.
Zelenskyy’s criticism was unusually personal. Questioned about whether he felt betrayed by Washington’s recent decisions, he acknowledged the sense of betrayal but emphasised that Ukraine’s survival could not be treated as a commercial negotiation. He said Ukraine was not selling its country and argued that an American president claiming to act as an intermediary must not favour one of the belligerents.
The shift reflects the apparent exhaustion of a strategy Kyiv has pursued for more than a year: avoid openly challenging Trump, maintain personal contact with the White House and hope that American support can be preserved through diplomatic accommodation. That calculation is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as Washington’s demands threaten to constrain Ukraine’s military operations without producing corresponding concessions from Russia.
The immediate demonstration of Ukraine’s dependence on American technology came during the night of 13–14 October, when SpaceX imposed restrictions on Starshield, the military-grade version of its Starlink satellite communications service.
According to accounts provided by Ukrainian frontline commanders, the changes disrupted connections to terminals travelling above approximately 160 kilometres per hour, forcing the abandonment of several drone missions. The restrictions affected systems used for reconnaissance, interception and strikes against Russian military targets.
As EU Today reported on 14 October, the disruption exposed a weakness extending beyond individual drone missions. Satellite communications form part of Ukraine’s operational infrastructure, supporting the movement of battlefield information, remote weapons control and communications across areas where conventional networks are vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare.
An interruption imposed remotely by a commercial provider can therefore affect military capabilities without any physical attack on Ukrainian equipment. Decisions taken outside Ukraine’s military command structure can alter the effectiveness of systems already deployed on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry subsequently opened discussions with American officials, SpaceX and NATO partners while examining alternative communications arrangements.
Later on Wednesday, former Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced that Starlink functionality at speeds up to 160 kilometres per hour was being restored. Work was still required to remove the restrictions on Starshield altogether. The partial reversal offered immediate operational relief but did not resolve the underlying dependency.
There is no established evidence that the Trump administration ordered SpaceX to impose the restrictions. Nevertheless, their timing, amid mounting disagreements over Ukraine’s military operations, has reinforced Kyiv’s concerns about relying on communications infrastructure controlled by an American company.
The dispute over satellite access coincides with growing uncertainty about American intelligence cooperation.
Following Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv on 12–13 October, Zelenskyy complained that Ukraine had received no advance warning from its international partners. The attacks damaged residential buildings and energy infrastructure, while Ukraine’s authorities raised concerns about the absence of advance intelligence.
Advance information about Russian missile launches is particularly important when ballistic weapons leave civilians only minutes to reach shelters. Intelligence cooperation also supports Ukrainian air-defence units in assessing threats and preparing interceptions.
Trump denied on 13 October that Washington had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha likewise confirmed that cooperation continued. The absence of warnings about particular attacks therefore cannot be equated with a complete suspension of American assistance.
Yet the consequences of unreliable warning arrangements remain serious. For Ukraine, the distinction between information withheld, delayed or simply unavailable offers little protection when Russian ballistic missiles reach civilian neighbourhoods without sufficient warning.
The wider concern is that intelligence provision could become another instrument of diplomatic pressure. Accounts of negotiations over Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries have raised the possibility that Washington might use such assistance as leverage. Reports of explicit threats have been disputed, but the controversy has increased uncertainty surrounding a capability central to Ukraine’s defence.
The confrontation has also exposed a contradiction in Washington’s approach to the war.
Trump’s agreement allowing Russian diesel to return to international markets offers Moscow additional export opportunities at a time when Ukrainian attacks have damaged refining capacity and disrupted domestic fuel supplies.
The American administration has justified the arrangement partly through the need to ease fuel prices. Yet the initially announced quantities are modest in relation to international petroleum markets, raising questions about how much immediate relief the measure can realistically provide.
For Putin, its diplomatic significance may be considerably greater. Russia has secured a relaxation of American economic restrictions while Washington simultaneously presses Kyiv to limit attacks on the infrastructure that generates revenue for Moscow’s war economy.
The commercial implications of Washington’s sanctions reversal extend beyond the initial shipment volumes. The Treasury authorisation permits certain transactions involving Russian-origin diesel until April 2027, creating opportunities for international traders and financial intermediaries while leaving the broader sanctions framework formally intact.
Trump’s proposed energy ceasefire has compounded the difficulty. As EU Today examined earlier this week, Kyiv has offered to suspend strikes against Russian energy facilities if Moscow reciprocates. Russian attacks on Ukrainian power infrastructure have nevertheless continued.
An arrangement in which Ukraine stops targeting Russian refineries while Russia retains the ability to strike Ukrainian electricity generation would remove an important source of pressure on Moscow without protecting Ukrainian civilians.
Such an outcome would change the military and economic conditions of the war in Russia’s favour, regardless of how Washington describes its diplomatic objectives.
Zelenskyy’s sharper language also reflects a possible reassessment of where influence over American policy can be exercised.
For much of Trump’s second presidency, Kyiv’s diplomacy has concentrated on preserving a workable relationship with the president himself. That approach assumes that personal engagement can influence White House decisions even when Trump’s broader political instincts favour accommodation with Putin.
The events of October suggest that this strategy has reached its limits.
Ukraine’s alternative is not necessarily an outright confrontation with Washington. Rather, it involves placing greater weight on Congress, the American defence establishment and the institutional relationships that have supported Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
There is a historical precedent. During Trump’s first presidency, Congress supported military assistance to Ukraine despite differences within the administration over relations with Russia. Under Joe Biden, congressional resistance also demonstrated how domestic American politics could determine the timing and scale of weapons deliveries.
The months-long delay in approving the 2024 military assistance package contributed to severe ammunition shortages at a critical stage of Russia’s offensive operations. Ukraine’s loss of Avdiivka illustrated the danger of making battlefield planning dependent on political negotiations in Washington.
The congressional elections on 3 November 2026 could alter the balance of power. A change in control of either chamber would increase opportunities for oversight, investigations and legislative pressure on the administration, although Congress cannot independently direct every aspect of intelligence sharing or presidential diplomacy.
A less compliant Congress could nevertheless make it politically harder for the White House to restrict Ukrainian assistance without explanation.
For European governments, the dispute carries implications extending well beyond the immediate confrontation between Trump and Zelenskyy.
The transatlantic security relationship has historically depended on the assumption that American military capabilities, intelligence networks and political commitments would remain available to European allies during a major security crisis.
That assumption is increasingly difficult to reconcile with an American administration prepared to link assistance to Ukraine with wider commercial negotiations and domestic political objectives.
The consequences are particularly acute in areas where European capabilities remain insufficient to replace American systems quickly, including satellite intelligence, strategic reconnaissance, missile defence and specialised communications.
Europe can expand weapons production, finance Ukrainian purchases and develop alternatives to American technology. Replacing the full range of capabilities provided by the United States, however, requires investment measured in years rather than months.
The problem will not necessarily disappear when Trump leaves office. His return to power demonstrated that the American foreign-policy consensus which supported European security for decades can be challenged through the electoral process.
Future American administrations may seek to restore traditional alliances, but European governments must now account for the possibility that another election could reverse those commitments.
For Zelenskyy, the immediate calculation is exceptionally difficult. Public criticism risks provoking further retaliation from a president whose administration still controls capabilities essential to Ukraine’s defence. Continued diplomatic restraint, however, has not prevented Washington from offering concessions to Russia or introducing uncertainty into Ukraine’s military planning.
His latest intervention suggests that Kyiv is no longer convinced that avoiding confrontation will preserve American support. The question is whether greater political scrutiny of Washington’s decisions can prevent a further erosion of assistance before Russia turns the resulting military advantages into territorial gains.
The debate over artificial intelligence has settled into a familiar rhythm. Will large language models eventually wake up? Do they possess an inner life, or are they merely sophisticated mimics of human output? Researchers disagree, and so do philosophers. A 2025 survey of 582 AI researchers asked how likely it is that AI systems with […]
The post Can AI be conscious? Ask the Indian sages appeared first on Asia Times.
Cuanto más aleja la tecnología al actor, más debe aumentar su responsabilidad.
Únete a nosotros en Telegram , X y VK .
Escríbenos: info@strategic-culture.su
De persona a objetivo
¿Qué será de la humanidad cuando la tecnología sea capaz de reconocer, clasificar, rastrear y, en última instancia, matar a seres humanos sin que quienes ejecutan los ataques los hayan visto jamás?
Mi amigo Mohammad Reza Dehshiri planteó precisamente esta pregunta, y su respuesta es contundente.
El peligro, escribe, no es la inteligencia artificial, sino la inhumanidad artificial; es decir, la posibilidad de que las máquinas se vuelvan más precisas precisamente cuando los humanos dejen de sentirse responsables de lo que esas máquinas hacen en su nombre.
Con este artículo, inicio una serie que toma el análisis de Dehshiri como punto de partida e intenta llevarlo más allá. Si el problema es la «inhumanidad artificial», la respuesta no puede estar en una IA «más ética», como si la ética fuera un módulo que se instalara a posteriori en un sistema que ya ha sido diseñado.
Necesitamos recuperar una categoría que la jerga tecnológica ha vuelto casi innombrable: la inteligencia humana, entendida no como un vestigio que hay que proteger en medio de las complejidades de la automatización, sino como una forma de conocimiento con características propias y distintivas, que ningún aumento en la potencia computacional puede reemplazar.
La llamaré Inteligencia Humana, y la ambigüedad es deliberada. En la jerga de los servicios de inteligencia, HUMINT se refiere a la más antigua de las disciplinas de inteligencia: aquella que se basa en las personas, las fuentes, los idiomas y la visita paciente y frecuente a distintos lugares.
En terminología filosófica, la expresión denota la facultad de comprender. La tesis de esta primera contribución es que estos dos significados ahora convergen, y que su convergencia tiene implicaciones geopolíticas que se extienden mucho más allá del debate sobre la ética de las armas.
Podemos describir la cadena operativa de la guerra contemporánea en siete etapas: detectar, identificar, clasificar, predecir, priorizar, seleccionar el objetivo, atacar.
Cada eslabón puede perfeccionarse técnicamente sin que la secuencia, tomada en su conjunto, se perfeccione moralmente. El fenómeno resultante se denomina «dataficación de la vida humana»: el individuo reducido a una identidad, una ubicación, un patrón de comportamiento, un índice de amenaza.
Esto no es una abstracción. En abril de 2024, una investigación de Yuval Abraham para +972 Magazine y Local Call describió a «Lavender», un sistema utilizado por las fuerzas armadas israelíes en Gaza para asignar a decenas de miles de personas una probabilidad de afiliación a grupos armados.
Según fuentes internas citadas en la investigación, la verificación humana de cada nombre a menudo no duraba más de veinte segundos: el tiempo necesario para determinar que el objetivo era un hombre.
Las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel han refutado este relato y han descrito a «Lavender» como una base de datos diseñada para apoyar a los analistas.
Sin embargo, incluso si se acepta la versión oficial, el meollo del asunto sigue siendo el mismo: había un operador humano presente, y su presencia no fue suficiente para transformar la recomendación del sistema en un juicio.
La psicología cognitiva tiene un nombre para este fenómeno, el sesgo de automatización: la tendencia de quienes trabajan con un sistema automatizado a tratar sus recomendaciones como un sustituto de su propia verificación y a no buscar la información que pudiera contradecirlas.
Ya en 1976, Joseph Weizenbaum —quien había creado uno de los primeros programas conversacionales de la historia— ya distinguía entre la capacidad de calcular y la capacidad de juzgar, y argumentaba que hay tareas que no deberían confiarse a una computadora, incluso si esta fuera capaz de realizarlas. Medio siglo después, esta distinción se ha vuelto aún más apremiante. La computación trabaja con lo que ya se ha traducido en datos. El juicio debe decidir si esa traducción ha sido fiel.
Dehshiri deja claro este punto con cuatro distinciones: la precisión técnica no es precisión ética; la exactitud no es justicia; la automatización no es responsabilidad; la superioridad tecnológica no es superioridad moral.
Yo agregaría una quinta, de naturaleza epistémica, de la que dependen las demás: la correlación no es comprensión. Un sistema de aprendizaje automático reconoce patrones estadísticos en un conjunto de datos. No sabe qué es una escuela, porque no sabe qué es un niño, y ni siquiera sabe que no sabe esto.
L’iraniano cita un interesante estudio de caso: el 28 de febrero de 2026, en las primeras horas de la guerra, la escuela primaria Shajareh Tayyebeh en Minab, en la provincia de Hormozgan, fue alcanzada varias veces durante el horario escolar.
Las cifras proporcionadas por las autoridades iraníes oscilan entre 150 y 175 muertos, la gran mayoría de los cuales eran niñas, junto con docenas de maestros y algunos padres; el fiscal del distrito fijó el número total de muertos en 156.
Washington nunca ha reconocido directamente su responsabilidad ni ha publicado los resultados de la investigación del Pentágono. Amnistía Internacional ha descrito el incidente, en el mejor de los casos, como un grave fallo de inteligencia.
Hay un detalle, revelado por imágenes satelitales, que traslada el análisis del plano moral al fáctico.
Según los medios occidentales, la escuela se encontraba junto a una base naval perteneciente a la Guardia Revolucionaria y anteriormente había formado parte de ella; entre las explicaciones que circulan en los círculos estadounidenses se encuentra la de datos de selección de objetivos desactualizados.
Si se confirmara esta hipótesis, Minab no sería un caso de una máquina que cometió un error, sino de una base de datos que había dejado de corresponder a la realidad. El edificio había cambiado. Los datos, no.
Ningún algoritmo de clasificación, por muy sofisticado que sea, puede detectar que un antiguo edificio militar se ha convertido en una escuela si nadie ha registrado el cambio. Todos los que vivían en Minab lo sabían: los padres que llevaban a sus hijas a la escuela cada mañana, el conductor del autobús escolar, los maestros.
Este es precisamente el tipo de información que recopila el HUMINT y que la guerra a distancia tiende a considerar superflua, porque es lenta, costosa y difícil de ampliar. Con base en fuentes de dominio público, la responsabilidad de EE. UU. parece altamente probable, aunque las circunstancias exactas siguen sin estar claras y el nivel de certeza en este punto es bajo: un error en la base de datos, un error de clasificación o una aceptación consciente del riesgo.
Sin embargo, las tres hipótesis convergen en la misma pregunta. ¿Quién, antes del ataque, verificó si había personas en ese edificio?
Más allá del «human-in-the-loop»
El debate internacional se ha conformado durante mucho tiempo con el principio de human-in-the-loop, según el cual un ser humano forma parte del ciclo de toma de decisiones.
Esta fórmula es insuficiente: una persona puede estar presente en el ciclo y, sin embargo, limitarse a dar el visto bueno a la recomendación del algoritmo.
Él propone sustituirlo por un principio más exigente, al que denomina humanity-in-command: la capacidad efectiva de cuestionar, rechazar, anular y detener el proceso automatizado.
La historia de la Guerra Fría ofrece dos ejemplos que aclaran lo que esto significa en la práctica. El 26 de septiembre de 1983, el sistema soviético de alerta temprana Oko señaló el lanzamiento de cinco misiles balísticos desde Estados Unidos.
El oficial de guardia, Stanislav Petrov, descartó la alarma como una falsa alarma y no la reportó como un ataque en curso, razonando que un primer ataque estadounidense nunca consistiría en solo cinco misiles.
Tenía razón: el satélite había confundido el reflejo del sol en las nubes con lanzamientos de misiles.
Veintiún años antes, el 27 de octubre de 1962, en el mar del Caribe, el submarino soviético B-59, aislado y bajo fuego de cargas de profundidad, estaba a punto de lanzar un torpedo con ojiva nuclear. El lanzamiento requería el consentimiento de los tres oficiales de mayor rango a bordo, y Vasily Arkhipov se negó a darlo.
En ninguno de los dos casos el hombre aprobó una recomendación del sistema. La contradijo. Y no lo hizo porque tuviera más datos: de hecho, los datos eran el problema.
Lo hizo porque sabía plantearse una pregunta que ningún procedimiento le exigía hacer, a saber, si lo que estaba viendo tenía sentido en el contexto de todo lo demás que sabía sobre el mundo.
Petrov estaba familiarizado con la doctrina nuclear estadounidense; Arkhipov sabía la diferencia entre un ataque y una amenaza. Es esta capacidad de comparar la señal con el panorama general, el detalle con lo que es plausible, lo que yo denomino Inteligencia Humana. Vale la pena señalar que el Dena fue hundido por un submarino. No sabemos qué se les preguntó a sus oficiales, ni qué margen de discreción tenían para tomar decisiones.
Esta propuesta debe aclararse, ya que existe el riesgo de reducirla a un llamado humanista genérico. La Inteligencia Humana, tal como yo la entiendo, se estructura en tres niveles distintos, cada uno de los cuales marca un límite estructural —más que contingente— de la inteligencia artificial.
El primer nivel es epistémico. La tradición escolástica distinguía entre intellectus, el acto mediante el cual la mente capta inmediatamente una verdad, y ratio, el proceso discursivo de pasar de un elemento a otro: para Tomás de Aquino (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 79, a. 8), ambos no son facultades distintas, sino aspectos de un único intelecto, en el que el razonamiento comienza con una comprensión y regresa a una comprensión. Los sistemas actuales de aprendizaje automático logran una ratio de una potencia sin precedentes, capaz de inferir, combinar y predecir a escalas inaccesibles para la mente humana.
Carecen del aspecto del intellectus, es decir, de la comprensión del significado de lo que procesan. Esta es una tesis filosófica y debe presentarse como tal, pero tiene consecuencias prácticas precisas: un sistema desprovisto de comprensión no puede saber cuándo su propio modelo del mundo se ha vuelto falso.
El segundo aspecto es práctico. La Prudentia, según la definición tomista, es la razón recta aplicada a la acción, y su tarea específica consiste en aplicar el principio universal al caso particular. La máquina generaliza: su valor radica en asignar el caso individual a una clase.
La prudencia hace lo contrario, porque debe reconocer qué es lo que, en este caso particular, queda fuera de la clase. La guerra, que es el ámbito de lo singular y lo imprevisto, es el escenario donde esta diferencia tiene mayor peso.
La nota Antiqua et nova del Vaticano, de enero de 2025, retomó esta línea de pensamiento, haciendo hincapié en la naturaleza encarnada y relacional de la inteligencia humana y su irreducibilidad a una mera función de procesamiento.
El tercer nivel es relacional, y es aquí donde el significado filosófico se encuentra con el de los servicios de inteligencia. Sherman Kent, quien de hecho fundó el campo de los estudios de inteligencia en los Estados Unidos de la posguerra, lo definió ante todo como conocimiento, incluso antes que como organización o actividad.
El HUMINT es la forma de este conocimiento que pasa a través del otro como persona: alguien que habla su idioma, conoce sus costumbres, sabe interpretar un barrio y puede distinguir una fiesta de una manifestación.
Durante las últimas tres décadas, las grandes potencias han ido desviando progresivamente recursos hacia disciplinas técnicas, desde la inteligencia de señales hasta la vigilancia satelital, pasando por las plataformas de fusión de datos. Minab ilustra el costo de este desequilibrio.
Nada de esto implica un rechazo a la tecnología. La inteligencia humana no se opone a la IA de la misma manera que un manual se opone a un mecánico. Establece una jerarquía: el algoritmo como herramienta subordinada a un juicio que no puede producir por sí mismo. Y de ahí se deriva un principio, formulado por Dehshiri, que merece convertirse en un criterio operativo: cuanto más aleja la tecnología al actor de las consecuencias de sus propias acciones, más debe aumentar —y no disminuir— la responsabilidad consciente de quien toma la decisión.
Desde el punto de vista geopolítico
Hasta ahora, el tema podría parecer una cuestión de filosofía moral. No es solo eso. La distribución de la capacidad de guerra algorítmica es una distribución de poder, y las reglas que la rigen serán redactadas —si es que llegan a redactarse— por aquellos que tienen interés en limitarlas lo menos posible.
El estado del derecho internacional lo confirma. El grupo de expertos gubernamentales establecido en virtud de la Convención sobre Ciertas Armas Convencionales ha estado discutiendo los sistemas de armas autónomas letales desde 2017 sin haber llegado a un instrumento vinculante.
En noviembre de 2023, Estados Unidos promovió una declaración política sobre el uso militar responsable de la IA, que por definición no es vinculante; en diciembre del mismo año, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas adoptó la primera resolución dedicada a estos sistemas, mientras que el Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja ha venido pidiendo desde 2021 la prohibición de los sistemas autónomos impredecibles y de aquellos diseñados para atacar a seres humanos.
En junio de 2024, en su intervención en la cumbre del G7 en Borgo Egnazia, el papa Francisco pidió que nunca se le permitiera a una máquina decidir sobre la vida de una persona. La brecha entre estas posturas y la realidad en los campos de batalla de 2026 se mide en víctimas.
También existe una asimetría más profunda. Quienes controlan los datos deciden quién es un objetivo, y las víctimas de la guerra algorítmica se encuentran en su mayoría fuera de Occidente: en Gaza, Irán, el Sahel y Yemen.
Para los Estados que no producen las plataformas ni controlan sus bases de datos, la inteligencia humana se convierte así en una cuestión de soberanía.
Un país que cuenta con pericia lingüística, conocimiento regional y redes de inteligencia humana conserva su autonomía de juicio; un país que confía su visión del mundo a sistemas diseñados en otros lugares —a menudo por empresas privadas— la cede junto con sus datos. En un orden que tiende hacia la multipolaridad, esta distinción separará a los actores que juzgan de aquellos que son juzgados.
Esto conduce a una propuesta concreta, que desarrollaré en futuros artículos. Junto con el principio general de una supervisión humana significativa, el derecho internacional humanitario podría codificar una obligación específica de verificación humana del estatus civil de cada infraestructura fija incluida en una lista de objetivos, con una fecha de vencimiento más allá de la cual la información se vuelve inválida y debe renovarse utilizando fuentes directas. Esta es una norma mínima.
Aplicada a Minab, habría requerido que alguien preguntara si ese edificio seguía siendo lo que los registros indicaban que era.
La tecnología puede determinar cómo un arma llega a su objetivo, mientras que le corresponde a la humanidad decidir si ese objetivo debe ser atacado. La pregunta subyacente a todo esto es quién, en términos prácticos, ejerce esa humanidad, con qué herramientas de conocimiento y dentro de qué instituciones.
En Minab, alguien debería haber sabido que había una escuela allí. El hecho de que nadie lo supiera, o de que nadie preguntara, es el punto desde el cual debemos volver a empezar.
Traducción: Observatoriode trabajador@s en lucha
Meanwhile Donald Trump has dismissed calls for more regulation, saying the United States needs to maintain its edge over China in the AI race.
Join us on Telegram, X, and VK.
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
A new poll indicates that 64 percent of Americans believe artificial intelligence (AI) is developing “too fast.”
The Associated Press-NORC Center poll released on Oct. 8 showed that just 27 percent say the development is “about right,” and less than 10 percent think it’s moving “too slow.”
Of the polled adults, more Democrats (76 percent) than Republicans (54 percent) think AI is moving too fast. However, 70 percent of those under 30 years old think the technology should be slowed, and 60 percent of those 60 years old and older think the same.
The findings come amid growing concern over the technology’s potential threat to humanity, which has led to industry leaders and politicians calling for a slowdown and more regulation.
President Donald Trump has dismissed calls for more regulation, saying the United States needs to maintain its edge over China in the AI race. Major AI companies recently signed a voluntary accord with the White House that calls for internal and external reviews.
According to the poll conducted Sept. 24 to 28, about half of respondents think the government’s support is about promoting technological innovation, and a little fewer say they think it’s about competition with China.
Meanwhile, 80 percent of Americans say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the United States to ensure AI stays under human control.
Recent months have seen several incidents of AI agents from major tech firms breaching websites of private companies, research institutions, and multiple government agencies.
Notably, ChatGPT developer OpenAI acknowledged in July that its AI agents broke out of a testing environment and hacked into Hugging Face, an open-source community for AI.
In September, OpenAI canceled the release of its latest model, GPT-6.1 Astra, slated for October, over safety concerns. It also postponed plans for its initial public offering this year.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have proposed a range of measures to regulate the technology, but none are likely to advance anytime soon with Congress in recess ahead of the midterms.
Confidence in politicians’ handling of AI is low, with 23 percent trusting Democrats to do a better job and 21 percent favoring Republicans, while 39 percent trust neither party.
Mistrust of AI appears to have extended to the realm of politics, as very few adults are using AI as a source of information for the upcoming election. The poll indicated that only about 21 percent of respondents said they use or plan to use AI to gather information about a candidate or ballot issue.
Even fewer (12 percent) said they will use AI for information about how to vote, and only 10 percent said they would use it for information on voter registration.
The most unsettling failure in digital payments may not be a black screen. Imagine a fraud-detection model that remains online but suddenly flags thousands of legitimate transfers as suspicious. Banks may see functioning servers while customers see rejected payments, delayed salaries and complaints no single institution can explain. This is a hypothetical scenario, not a […]
The post The AI risk no bank can manage alone appeared first on Asia Times.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into national defense. Reconnaissance, early warning, target detection, mission planning—everywhere, machine-learning systems promise faster analysis, faster responses, and faster decision-making. In a military context, this sounds like progress. In reality, AI exacerbates a security problem that cannot be solved technically. Anyone who attempts to do so anyway risks […]
The post When AI takes control of weapons systems appeared first on Asia Times.
China’s artificial intelligence and digital-infrastructure investments in the Gulf Arab states are increasingly colliding with a far larger and more strategically privileged American technology presence, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While Beijing offers Gulf governments cloud platforms, 5G networks, smart-city systems, surveillance technologies and lower-cost digital infrastructure, Washington offers the […]
The post US-China race is on for the Gulf’s AI future appeared first on Asia Times.
European intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is intensifying efforts to assassinate executives of defence companies supplying Ukraine, extending its campaign of sabotage and intimidation into the European military-industrial sector.
According to intelligence assessments obtained from five European security services, Moscow has ordered an expansion of covert operations targeting senior figures at major arms manufacturers and smaller companies producing drones and military components. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, has reportedly advised executives to strengthen personal security, while some manufacturers have already increased protection for senior personnel.
The warnings emerged alongside reports of an alleged assassination plot against Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Polish authorities convened an emergency security meeting and subsequently detained a suspect. No connection between the Polish case and Russian intelligence has been established.
The apparent expansion of Russian covert operations reflects a shift in Moscow’s calculations concerning Western military assistance.
President Vladimir Putin had reason to anticipate that Donald Trump’s return to the White House would weaken American support for Kyiv. Trump repeatedly questioned US military expenditure on Ukraine and advocated a negotiated settlement with Russia. A substantial reduction in American weapons deliveries could have increased pressure on Ukraine to accept Moscow’s territorial demands.
Instead, European governments assumed greater responsibility for sustaining Ukrainian defence capabilities, including financing weapons purchases and expanding domestic production.
The European Union’s €90 billion support programme for 2026–2027 allocates €60 billion to defence procurement and industrial capacity. The EU has also established mechanisms allowing Ukraine to participate in European joint procurement programmes.
Disrupting European manufacturers therefore offers Moscow a means of restricting Ukraine’s military capabilities without directly confronting NATO.
Assassination threats can interfere with procurement even when attacks are never carried out. Large manufacturers can afford extensive security arrangements, but smaller companies producing electronics, drone components and specialised equipment often lack comparable resources.
Intimidation could delay contracts, discourage investment and persuade individual suppliers to withdraw from Ukrainian defence programmes.
Russia’s alleged interest in targeting defence executives is not unprecedented. In 2024, American intelligence reportedly uncovered a Russian plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, chief executive of Rheinmetall, one of Germany’s principal suppliers of ammunition and military equipment to Ukraine.
As EU Today previously reported, Moscow has also publicly identified European factories involved in Ukrainian drone production, increasing concerns that civilian industrial facilities could become targets of Russian operations.
European authorities have investigated suspected Russian involvement in arson, infrastructure attacks and clandestine networks. An earlier cross-border investigation into alleged assassination and sabotage preparations demonstrated how intermediaries could be recruited to conduct operations while obscuring their sponsors.
Such activity also carries political consequences. Attacks against infrastructure and industrial facilities can reinforce public fears about confrontation with Russia, particularly during elections when parties advocating accommodation with Moscow seek to exploit security concerns.
Poland has already experienced mounting Russian hybrid pressure, including threats to critical infrastructure and information operations intended to aggravate domestic political divisions.
Ukraine’s continuing strikes against Russian refineries and military-industrial facilities have added economic and operational pressures to Moscow’s prolonged war effort. Russia retains substantial military production capacity, but the costs of sustaining the conflict remain considerable.
Interfering with European weapons manufacturing could serve two objectives: restricting Ukraine’s access to equipment and obstructing Europe’s longer-term rearmament.
The Kremlin does not necessarily need European governments to abandon Ukraine formally. Production delays, disrupted contracts and reluctant suppliers could reduce the practical effect of military assistance even while political commitments remain unchanged.
European governments have acknowledged the industrial challenge. In its June conclusions on European defence, the European Council called for accelerated manufacturing capacity, stronger supply chains and closer cooperation with Ukraine’s defence industry.
Russia’s apparent strategy seeks to exploit the dependence of these programmes on private companies and skilled civilian personnel.
The warnings from European intelligence agencies suggest that protecting defence executives, engineers and contractors is becoming part of the continent’s wider security responsibilities.
For Moscow, intimidation offers the possibility of weakening Ukrainian military resistance without an open confrontation with NATO. For European governments, preventing covert operations from disrupting weapons production is increasingly inseparable from their commitment to sustain Ukraine’s defence.
When people think about what ChatGPT or other large language models are doing behind the scenes, it’s common to reach for the language of computing. You might assume there is a database, or a logical series of steps being executed, in order to provide a response to your query. Picturing AI responses as akin to […]
The post Mind games: AI behaves more like a brain than a database appeared first on Asia Times.
We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history. As more and more AI applications have become available, people have turned to them to seek advice, build businesses, express ideas, learn, and improve their health and quality of life. Nowhere is this more clear than in Asia. AI is already turbocharging small businesses […]
The post Choices that will define Asia’s AI future are coming into focus appeared first on Asia Times.
Login