Obama on AI:

Currently, partners at law firms rely on a bunch of junior associates. They charge a lot of money for the time of those junior associates.

There’s a pyramid. The promise to the associates is they work their way up, and at some point they’ll be at the top of the pyramid and they can make some bank.

If you are investing in AI at a law firm — and they’re pretty expensive — the reason you’re making that investment is because it will allow you to do things without those associates.

And that’s at a fairly high-skilled, highly-trained job. So, the economic disruptions that will come at this speed, I think, are going to be profound as well.

Obama on AI:

If we are thinking about AI just in terms of how do we cure cancer or get better energy, you can do that without having agentic AI and having it just roaming free in the internet.

The reason you are doing that is because you have to market a product that people will pay money for. That’s a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing — not because necessarily they’re trying to do bad things, but because, you know, they’ve got to justify these valuations.

So, that’s one more reason why it is really important for us to have a competent government and a serious, bipartisan conversation around this issue, and we have to do it fast.

Obama on AI:

There’s the big science-fiction risk — these models get smarter than us, and they decide humans are fine, but not necessary. They start setting their own goals and the killer robots, you know, kill us, or we bow down to them.

I do not want to exaggerate that particular risk, but I will say there is a non-zero chance of that happening.

And the reason that’s a risk is not because the computer models are conscious necessarily. It doesn’t mean that they necessarily feel malice towards humans.

It’s just that if they start setting their own agendas, you may get a misalignment between what they want to do and what we want them to do. And that gap can be dangerous.

Obama on AI:

Government has to be regulating this.

I heard one of Trump’s main advisors on this make the argument that "the market’ll take care of it, these companies will solve the safety issues because they have every incentive to do so.

If it turns out to be dangerous, people will just sue them and, you know, they’re worried about financial liability."

That’s not how we treat airlines, or drug companies, or food companies. We now have 150 years of experience just letting the market do whatever it wants when it comes to things that deeply affect our health and our safety.

And so there’s no replacement for an effective government regulatory structure.

Obama:

The thing that strikes you when you travel around the country is that we are not as divided as our politics or our media would suggest.

When you’re on the ground, what’s striking is that people work together. And they extend grace towards each other in ways that you do not see in your doomscrolling.

Obama:

Even our adversaries often expect us to solve big problems that cross national boundaries.

And that’s something we should be proud of, but it’s also something we should feel some responsibility for. Because when we don’t get things right, when we’re not our best selves, the whole world gets a little dimmer.

And when we stand up for values like human rights or freedom of speech, or express concern and are proactive around issues like climate change, then not everybody goes along 100%, but the world leans into a better direction.

Obama:

What is striking when you watch it is just how contingent this whole experiment was. And it started, truthfully, with a bunch of rich guys not wanting to pay their taxes.

Democracy was not the beginning. It wasn’t the core animating principle at the start of the American Revolution.

There was frustration with the empire, and the colonists feeling as if they were being imposed upon. And it was a fairly narrow agenda.

And over time, what happened is that these actions, behind the initial actions like the Boston Tea Party, you start getting an articulation of this broader idea.

Obama:

I would argue that wealthy people in this country do not pay enough in taxes.

And the very ultra-wealthy oftentimes pay no taxes and have figured out how to game the system.

...But when I hear billionaires say they are moving to Florida, not because they love Florida — nothing against Florida, nice weather — but because they’re trying to avoid a state tax, which is a rounding error in their wealth.

There is a certain mentality there that says, "I should not have to give up anything."

Obama:

We have conquest, and we had slavery, and Native Americans were removed from their land, and we did a bunch of terrible things.

But at our best, what came out of that American Revolution was this different idea.

And that’s the kind of leadership we not only believe we can develop, but I would argue has to be developed at this time, at this moment in our history.

Obama:

Part of why culture wars seem to accelerate and people feel so threatened is because it used to be that folks in San Francisco and folks in Lubbock, Texas didn’t necessarily know how the other was living, and now it’s in their faces, and they feel threatened by that.

And if we can’t develop a capacity to see each other and recognize our common humanity, the kinds of old-style leadership with the destructive weapons we have and the means of propaganda that we currently have, that will be a recipe for tragedy.

And we’ve got a better option. It’s more fun not hating each other and trying to get along and working together.

BIG: Ukraine announced the first combat use of Fire Point's FP-7 Pelican— a domestically developed short-range ballistic missile pitched as a cheap ATACMS analog (~200 km range, 150 kg warhead, Mach 4.4, ~14m CEP).

Zelensky named it among weapons used in overnight Moscow-region strikes that hit the Kapotnya refinery.

However, Moscow is far beyond its public 200 km range from Ukrainian lines, so the Pelican likely struck closer targets while long-range drones hit the refinery.

The longer-range FP-9 (~855 km) remains in testing.

Obama on AI:

I’ve been tracking AI for a long time. I actually, in 2015, ’16, in the last couple of years of my presidency, I actually was focused on this.

Pulled together a commission of the best minds in this area to talk about not just the technology, but also the political, social, economic, ethical concerns around this. Produced a terrific report.

Apparently, it got put in the same bin as my pandemic proposal. It wasn’t picked up by the administration that followed me.

Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto:

There must be a reason why TikTok is banned in China even though it is Chinese.

And there must be a reason why the messages shown on Chinese TikTok are completely different from those shown on Western TikTok.

Because if you look at Chinese TikTok, there is no stupid dancing, no idiotic picture, nothing that could attract my 13-year-old daughter — who is banned from using it for as long as I can manage — and make her think that the way to approach life is a stupid one.

Instead, it presents a completely different life, where children go to school, tidy things up, come home, study, play sports and help out. The messages are completely different.

Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto:

There is a less visible war, which is hybrid war, and it develops through cyberattacks every day. We have seen it in recent days.

A cyberattack does not leave a crater in the ground and does not physically kill people, but it can leave extremely deep holes in a society.

Imagine a cyberattack that destroyed the archives of a bank or the INPS. You would not need a military attack.

It would be enough for someone not to receive their pension for a month. You would not need foreign armies — you would have revolutions inside the country.

Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto:

On these new technologies, China is ahead of everyone, especially in medical technologies and those involving the study of human beings. And here, too, it is helped by the fact that it is not a democracy and does not have privacy.

If you are an autocratic state and there is no privacy, you can simply go in and obtain the health data of one billion people.

In the U.S. and Italy, the state rightly cannot simply obtain the health data of any of us. But if you have the health data of one billion people and put them into quantum computers, with artificial intelligence you can process them and extract things faster and obtain more results than a West that instead has its own rules.

Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto:

Since our Navy is capable of guaranteeing passage through Bab el-Mandeb, and our intelligence services are capable of providing information and sharing it with the armed forces, we will probably take action so that Italian ships can pass and begin passing without waiting for European bureaucracy to add to our own and delay everything.

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

Trump greatly underestimated Iran.

Today, nobody considers America’s war with Iran to be a rational or logical war. Everyone describes it as a stupid war, and I want to add another word to that: ignorant.

America’s military, economic and political actions were not based on any precise assessment or accurate calculations. They were carried out entirely at the instigation of Israel and Netanyahu personally.

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

Netanyahu dragged Trump into a swamp, while he himself is now sitting in a corner. Because of this, disagreements have emerged between the two.

And just as Trump started a stupid war, he will now fail to get out of it because of stupidity.

It was in America’s interest — and it remains in America’s interest — to accept Iran’s conditions and get out of the war, because the longer America remains and flounders, the worse its situation will become.

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

If war begins again, U.S. ships — unless they leave the Indian Ocean — will be attacked wherever they are inside the Indian Ocean. We have developed these capabilities.

We increased the speed of our hypersonic missiles from Mach 6 to Mach 10.

We have also developed our electronic warfare systems, improved our air defenses, and we have other measures that we will use at the appropriate time.

Therefore, we are fully prepared. If America starts the war, we will confront America with greater force and with more numerous and more painful strikes.

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

If the Americans are serious, let their soldiers come and enter Iran. Why do they not come in?

Ground forces are always the ones that have the final word in wars.

Why do the airborne divisions not come? Why do the U.S. ground forces not enter Iran? Why do they only bomb from the sky and then leave?

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

I say to all Arab countries and all neighboring countries: if the Americans try to obstruct our commercial and financial relations, we will do two things.

First, we will definitely attack American companies — such as the American drilling companies that operate extensively around us, American commercial companies and American businesses.

We will target them and say: an attack on the American economy in response to America’s attack on the Iranian economy — attack for attack.

On the other hand, we also tell the neighboring countries: do not cooperate with America, because we will respond in kind. If a neighboring country cooperates with the Americans in imposing an economic blockade on Iran — for example, in financial matters and activities related to us — we will punish its ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

We will impose restrictions on their movement and passage and on some of their activities, or we will respond in kind regarding economic cooperation.