The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates running for the House of Representatives and endorsed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani are all but guaranteed to win their general elections this November, but that does not mean the midterm drama is over in New York. In the state's 17th congressional district, which includes the lower Hudson Valley, Democratic challenger Cait Conley, a combat veteran who served on the Biden administration's National Security Council, could unseat incumbent Republican congressman Mike Lawler in one of the most consequential races of the midterms. 

The highly contested purple district voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election while reelecting Lawler for his second term. Now, Lawler is attempting to win a third term as support for President Donald Trump wanes ahead of the midterms. As of Friday, The Cook Political Report lists the race, which could determine control of the House, as a toss-up. 

If elected, Conley would have far more in common with the "Badass Women" coalition of security state and military veterans than with DSA types (think more Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan than Darializa Avila Chevalier). As Judge Street Journal's Timmy Facciola notes, "Conley's candidacy is testing the viability of a tactful centrism that rebukes left-wing positions like abolishing ICE or restricting weapon shipments to Israel." Lawler is also vying for moderates, pitching himself as "one of the most bipartisan members of Congress" and emphasizing his willingness to break with Trump occasionally while still welcoming Trump's support. 

While Lawler and Conley certainly are not pure MAGA acolytes or DSA members, both have leaned into a tech-critical position, much like that of more radical populists like Lina Khan or Steve Bannon, revealing how pervasive anti-tech sentiment has become in mainstream politics. 

This tech skepticism was on full display during an October 14 debate, when each candidate made the case for why they were the most equipped to regulate AI, insisting that the industry needs guardrails. 

Conley said members of Congress do not want to regulate AI because "they want to look out for their billionaire and trillionaire backers like Elon Musk, who is pouring over $260 million into this midterm election." She then added that Musk backed Lawler in his 2024 race. 

Lawler then accused Conley, who previously consulted for Primer AI, of being "the AI candidate for the AI industry."

While Lawler and Conley disagree on specific data center regulations (Conley supports Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's data center moratorium while Lawler supports local zoning control over data centers), neither wants to pitch themselves as an explicitly pro-data center candidate. During the debate, Conley claimed that, "On Mike Lawler's watch there have been five data centers built in Rockland County." Lawler has said that he had no say in the decision to build the data centers, and during the debate, he pointed out that the facilities were built for financial services. Lawler also attempted to attack Conley over data centers, slamming her in an ad for saying "we need data centers." Regardless of the candidates' specific policies on data centers, their attacks on one another demonstrate that cheerleading hyperscale data center development is a political liability. In their district, data center has presumably become a dirty term. 

The candidates' tech-skeptical rhetoric did not end with unchecked data center development. After the debate, Reason asked both candidates about their positions on age-verification laws for social media and AI, since such regulations raise significant privacy and censorship concerns by age-gating the internet. Unsurprisingly, both Lawler, who voted for the controversial KIDS Act, and Conley, who has proposed stricter age verification for AI tools, parroted platitudes about why such online safety regulations are necessary to protect children. 

"We have watched how social media is literally hurting the mental health of children," Conley told Reason. "And when you talk about the power of AI and what that power could do, we have to regulate this." 

Lawler gave a similar response, telling Reason that he respects free speech but that protecting children "is paramount." 

This bipartisan consensus over social media regulation has long been brewing in Congress. The mainstream political conversations about AI and data centers, however, are relatively new this midterm election cycle. And it appears both Lawler and Conley have figured out which way Americans' sentiment toward AI is leaning, and they have waged their campaigns accordingly. 

The post Nobody Wants To Be the Pro-Tech Candidate in This New York Race That Could Flip the House appeared first on Reason Magazine.

TSMC expects overseas manufacturing to reduce its consolidated gross margin by nearly two percentage points in 2026, with the impact widening to three to four points later in its expansion program. The company plans to spend $60 billion to $64 billion on capital expenditure this year. Its latest outlook calls for fourth-quarter revenue of up […]

The post TSMC’s global buildout faces crucial capital efficiency test appeared first on Asia Times.

The Australian government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms. If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s […]

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“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.

America’s coming revolution in warfare may not mean fighting fewer wars but fighting more of them without putting Americans on the battlefield. Taking Americans out of the fight When US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched Project Meridian on September 30, he presented it as an exercise in imagining warfare decades into the future. Led by […]

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.

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the global economy faces serious risks from Big Tech firms taking on massive debt to fund the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers worldwide. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report outlines a number of risks to economic growth in the coming years, including a reliance on AI […]

The post IMF warns of debt-fueled AI spending as bubble fears grow appeared first on Asia Times.

For most of the past thirty years, the semiconductor industry ran on a remarkably clean division of labor. Everybody knew their place. The caricature was almost this simple: TSMC printed. Memory makers crammed capacitors. Designers drew. And the money followed the drawing. TSMC took designs from Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Broadcom and others and reproduced them […]

The post The Frontier Express: when Samsung gets money appeared first on Asia Times.

The European Union has adopted an unprecedented package of sanctions against Russia’s military-industrial complex, blacklisting 1,569 companies and individuals involved in supplying weapons for Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The Council measures announced on 12 October target 826 companies and 743 executives. Unlike earlier sanctions targeting political figures, the latest listings reach deeper into the industrial supply chains needed to manufacture missiles, drones, aircraft and ammunition.

Ballistic missile supply chains

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said more than half the new listings concerned ballistic missile production. The Council identified electronics manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers, radar specialists, navigation equipment firms and producers of explosives.

These businesses occupy positions in production networks that enable Russia to sustain the manufacture of weapons despite restrictions on its access to Western technologies. The Council announcement estimates their combined annual turnover at at least €20 billion and employment at more than 250,000.

The move follows intensive Russian missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian cities and energy installations. European governments increasingly seek to undermine Moscow’s operational capacity by identifying businesses that procure or manufacture components for its armed forces.

Enforcement beyond EU borders

Listed firms face asset freezes, while EU businesses and citizens cannot make funds or economic resources available to them. The named executives also face travel restrictions. Suppliers and financial institutions will need to check commercial transactions for links to sanctioned entities.

The actual impact on Russian output remains uncertain. Businesses with few assets in Europe may experience limited immediate disruption. Moscow has developed alternative procurement channels through third countries, some involving intermediaries that acquire electronics or equipment originally manufactured elsewhere.

Sanctions effectiveness therefore depends on customs intelligence, financial due diligence, international cooperation and the willingness of commercial partners to stop dealing with listed companies. Targeting managers individually is also intended to raise the personal costs of directing Russia’s military production.

A test for Europe’s economic pressure

Precision navigation systems, sophisticated electronics and specialised manufacturing technology remain difficult to substitute rapidly. Nevertheless, listing a supplier cannot by itself prevent components from moving through indirect trading routes.

The sanctions coincide with renewed discussion of a possible halt to attacks on energy infrastructure. Brussels is signalling that negotiations about the war’s conduct need not entail relief from restrictions on Russia’s defence economy.

Whether the measures reduce missile production will depend on changes in procurement and output over the coming months. Their immediate significance is the EU’s decision to extend restrictions beyond the most visible weapons producers into the broader industrial networks sustaining Russia’s war.

Scientists have used CRISPR gene-editing technology to create the first dogs lacking a key protein that triggers allergic reactions in humans, the Associated Press reported two months ago. The study, published in *The CRISPR Journal*, describes how specialists from the US company Kindred Companion Sciences created two female Beagles—Bailey and Alfie. They “switched off” the […]

The creation of “Project Meridian” is not a path to US military superiority but an admission of its own weakness, rooted in a financialized system rather than a technology gap. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced the creation of the 120 day task force, “Project Meridian.” On the US Department of Defense’s website […]

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.

A Samsung memory chip worker earning about $60,000 a year could receive roughly $560,000 in bonuses before tax, according to the company’s largest union. Its estimate includes both Samsung’s existing profit-sharing bonus and a new special payment. Samsung hasn’t confirmed the amount. On October 7, the company outlined how that special bonus would work: 10.5% […]

The post Samsung dangles $560,000 bonuses to keep engineers from China appeared first on Asia Times.

An interactive event in Warsaw explored how artificial intelligence, platform algorithms and commercial interests influence young people’s digital experiences — and why their voices should matter in decisions about technology. MEDIA-SOCIETY.COM // WARSAW, 9 October 2026 — What does a teenager actually encounter when opening a social media app? And how much of that experience […]

Whisky will be sent into space for the first time as part of an experiment to measure how the spirit ages in an environment beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Engineers in Scotland and Japan plan to launch Scotch on a rocket in 2028, sending a satellite containing samples of whisky and its key ingredients on a five-year […]

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.

A discussion paper from the Principal Scientific Adviser proposes a middle path for AI data flows: keep strategic data in India, while allowing other data to cross borders under safeguards tailored to its sensitivity and identifiability.

There are more than 800 surveillance towers located along U.S. borders, a number that is expected to triple in the next decade. These towers, according to a government accountability report, “detect items of interest, such as people.” But interest can be fickle. As part of “Dying on Camera,” a sprawling package of features co-published by the MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego, Lillian Perlmutter reports on the death of Graciela Gómez Hernández, one among hundreds of migrants whose final moments seem as though they should have been witnessed. “The proximity of so many deaths to high-resolution cameras leaves two distinct possibilities,” Perlmutter writes. “Either the system didn’t detect these people in distress, or it did detect them—and officials offered no response. “

Surveillance towers have proliferated in recent years, as contractors added newer camera systems that use artificial intelligence to distinguish border-crossers from other people and animals, and track their movements, at an overall cost of more than a billion dollars. Yet as the cameras scan the terrain, migrants continue to die in plain sight. 

Paul Krugman is the greatest econ writer in the world, and also a legendary economist. But I sometimes feel that he has a blind spot when it comes to the value of new technologies. In 1998 he famously wrote: The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that […]

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