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As we discussed at OODAcon 2023, historically unprecedented technological disruption is now well underway on an exponentially accelerated timeline. The challenge now is activating positive outcomes while mitigating risk (ideally, with an eye towards proactive containment of unintended consequences by way of preventative strategies). Grand Challenges and Innovation Accelerators will be central to these global…
This post captures the gist of a discussion at OODAcon 2023 between Michael Gibson, author of Paper Belt on Fire and founder of the 1517 Fund, and OODA CEO Matt Devost.
Jake Sotiriadis, Ph.D. is the Director of The Center for Futures Intelligence at the National Intelligence University. Sotiriadis and his co-authors have penned an impressive article on the potential for the use of generative AI in scenario planning and foresight strategy – including a simulation run by the authors to inform the insights of the…
The revolution in Generative AI is one of many factors changing the cybersecurity equation. OODAcon 2023 examined this topic by bringing together leaders who have been making a difference in this domain for years.
After a full year of running the Unrestricted Intelligence application we have over 1100 registered users of the application. Over 20,000 questions have been asked of the system. Building the application Unrestricted Intelligence generated several lessons we provided in early 2033, including many shown here.
As allies and adversaries alike are actively making sizable investments in quantum systems, the U.S. will need to maintain momentum to secure a global leadership position in quantum science. Following is an ecosystem assessment and an update on USG legislative efforts for maintaining American strategic competitiveness through the National Quantum Initiative Act.
The November call was held on Friday, November 17, 2023. The OODA Network was joined at this month’s meeting by OODA Network Member and CEO of Vectara Dr. Amr Awadallah to lead a discussion designed to help us all better understand the state of AI today.
It appears that more countries are looking to replicate offensive cyber defense, drawing up their own strategies and policies, or else are already engaged in joint hunt forward operations. Examine this in detail here.
Download a summary of OODAcon including useful observations to inform your strategic planning, product roadmap and drive informed customer conversations. This summary, based on the dialog during and after the event, also invites your continued input on these many dynamic trends. Ten overarching themes for action emerged from the dialog at OODAcon, each examined in…
Since the release of ChatGPT in October of last year, the signal to noise ratio re: solid, credible business strategy resources has been daunting. The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) is a vetted, sophisticated, and thoughtful resource. And sometimes checklists are good, even if used only to initiate formative conversations and frame core issues for…
How would a recently proposed 25% cut in CISA’s budget impact CISA and national security? U.S. House Members and cybersecurity industry leaders have chimed weighed in heavily on the subject.
Large Language Models (LLMs) based on deep learning have been a part of the technological landscape since approximately 2018. Here we dive into real world comparisons based on an evaluation by an experienced mission focused practitioner.
The Secure Tomorrow Series is a strategic foresight capability focused on anticipating future risk drivers, critical uncertainties, and trends—such as aging infrastructure, global pandemics, and emerging technologies— to help enhanced organizational resiliency to be robust against future uncertainties. The second installment of the toolkit was made available this month.
The year 2023 felt incredibly disruptive and my annual reading list probably reflects that fact as I sought out books that focused not only on managing risk and chaos, but recognizing and fostering disruptive technology opportunties. Five years ago, I recommended Kevin Roberts’ excellent book “64 Shots” which talked about surviving in a VUCA (volatility,…
CISA’s recently launched Shields Ready campaign complements the Shields Up! campaign which we have featured many times here at OODA Loop – specifically on long holiday weekends, when cyber attacks are known to increase. Explore the CISA Shields Ready campaign here.
Chinese tech giants including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance placed at least $16B in orders for Nvidia’s H20 server chips used for AI in the first three months of 2025, ahead of a potential U.S. ban on the sale of the AI chip in China, The Information reported citing people familiar with the transactions. The orders…
At 40, Keith Krehbiel was a successful political scientist with a distinguished professorship, an award-winning book and a membership at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. But he also was experiencing a tremor and pain in his right hand that later spread to his arm. Two years later, a neurologist confirmed that Krehbiel had…
Israel has announced that it will establish a new security corridor across Gaza. The Israeli government has announced that it will establish a new security corridor accross the Gaza Strip. The government of Israel said the move is intended to pressue Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. The resumption of hostitilies has caused the United…
Protests turn violent as the residents of Port-au-Prince demand action be taken against gang violence. A protest in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, turned violent on Wednesday. Residents of the city have been demanding for years that the government take action to address gang violence. Gangs control roughly 85% of the nation’s capital and carry out attacks…
India’s lower house of parliament has passed a bill that changes how Muslim endowments are governed. India’s lower house of parliament has passed a bill that would chage how Muslim enodwments are governed. The bill would permit non-Muslims to serve on the board’s which administer the religous endowement boards. The bill was moved by the…
South Africa’s unity government faces threat of collapse after budget fight. South Africa’s unity government may collapse after a vote on the national budget. The unity government is composed of the ANC and DA which have major ideological differences but agreed to govern together in order to help stablize the country. The parties split over…
European authorties have taken action to shutdown a major online minor abuse platform. European authorties have taken action to shutdown a major online minor abuse platform. Authorities were also able to identify hundreds of users of the platform have taken action to begin arrests. 38 countries took part in the operation. Authorities have also said…
Google has expanded end-to-end ecryption services to enterprise Gmail accounts. Google has annouced that end-to-end encryption will be coming to enterprise Gmail accounts. The update is currently in a pilot program and will be rolled out to all customers soon. The program allows for end-to-end encrypted emails to be sent within organizations. Google has said…
Hackers were able to steal millions from a minor crypto exchange. A minor crypto exchange was the victim of a large scale theft. Hackers were able to infiltrate the exchange’s system and grant themselves administrator privileges. They used this access to tranfer millions of dollars to offsite accounts. The management team has said they are…
Poland’s governing party has been the victim of a cyber attack. Poland’s governing party has disclosed that they have been the victim of a cyberattack. The party said that the attack was likely carried out by foreign actors. Party officials have strongly implied that they believe that Russia was responsible for the attack. Read more:…
Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been a cornerstone of cybersecurity. From malware detection to network traffic analysis, predictive machine learning models and other narrow AI applications have been used in cybersecurity for decades. As we move closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI’s potential to automate defenses and fix vulnerabilities becomes even more powerful. But…
A study, “Enhanced Majorana stability in a three-site Kitaev chain,” published in Nature Nanotechnology demonstrates significantly enhanced stability of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in engineered quantum systems. This research, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and Quantum Machines, represents a major step towards fault-tolerant…
Wave energy technology company Eco Wave Power has announced it has been granted Revocable Permit 25-05 by the Port of Los Angeles for the construction and demonstration of its innovative wave energy technology at Berth 70 in San Pedro, California. The permit was approved and executed on behalf of the Executive Director, Eugene D. Seroka…
Figure AI has introduced natural walking to its Figure 02 humanoid robot. The company said its end-to-end neural network has been trained with reinforcement learning to bring the natural movement to the humanoid. Figure AI trained its reinforcement learning controller in “high-fidelity simulations, running thousands of virtual humanoids with varied parameters and scenarios,” allowing the…
Can AI effectively replace a human teammate? Researchers from Harvard, Wharton, Procter & Gamble and other institutions did an experiment to find out. They asked 776 professionals from P&G to come up with new product ideas and measured their performance. Half used artificial intelligence (AI) and the other half didn’t. The results? “AI significantly enhances…
Following DeepSeek’s release of its cutting-edge and free large language model early this year, Meta’s chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun corrected, opens new tab those who surmised China is surpassing the United States in the technology. A correct reading, he said, is “open source models are surpassing proprietary ones”. What’s less clear, though, is…
The frenzy to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT’s image-generation tool led to a record surge in users for OpenAI’s chatbot last week, straining its servers and temporarily limiting the feature’s usage. The viral trend saw users from across the globe flood social media with images based on the hand-drawn style of the famed Japanese…
The InterLock ransomware group has claimed responsibility for a March cyberattack on National Defense Corporation, a subsidiary of National Presto Industries. The company has not revealed what type of cyberattack it was victim to, but evidence suggested that ransomware was the likely perpetrator as systems were taken offline. InterLock says that it stole around 3…
Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, President Trump’s nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that U.S. Cyber Command has found Chinese malware planted in Latin American nations. The malware was found in hunt-forward operations, which involve cyber protection teams visiting foreign nations to look for malicious activity on their networks.…
Microsoft’s offensive security team is warning of a critical vulnerability in some Canon printer drivers. The vulnerability could allow for the execution of arbitrary code or for an attacker to prevent printing. These types of zero-days can be a serious risk to users and organizations, and threat actors often exploit vulnerable drivers in attacks. Canon…
The U.S. military has launched another series of air attacks on Yemen to target Houthi rebels, striking near the capital, Sanaa. Reports stated that 15 raids were launched in the area. The bombing campaign has killed dozens of people thus far, but no casualties have been reported yet from the most recent strikes. CENTCOM posted…
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. During the talks, the allies talked about changes in the war with Ukraine, as well as relations between both of their countries. Wang said that China and Russia are “friends forever, never enemies.” His three…
Due to malfunctions in its national power grid, Syria has suffered a nationwide power outage. Technical teams are working to address the issues which began on Tuesday night. There are no initial signs that an attack was behind the outage. Power will gradually return to Syria’s provinces. The country suffers from severe power outages, and…
China’s Xiaomi, a consumer electronics giant turned automaker, said it is cooperating with a police investigation into a fatal crash involving one of its electric vehicles while the driver was using the car’s autonomous driving features. A Xiaomi SU7 sedan drove into a concrete guardrail on an expressway in eastern China late on Saturday night…
Lightmatter, a startup valued at $4.4 billion, on Monday released two pieces of technology aimed at speeding up the connections between artificial intelligence chips. Instead of moving information between computer chips as electrical signals, Lightmatter’s technology uses optical connections and what are known as silicon photonics to move the information using light. Mountain View, California-based…
The U.S. Marine Corps has officially established the Marine Corps Attack Drone Team (MCADT), a new unit tasked with integrating armed first-person view (FPV) drones into frontline operations. The move reflects a growing recognition of FPV drones as an increasingly vital component of small-unit warfare. According to the Marine Corps, MCADT was formed on January…
You might be familiar with the qubit, the fundamental unit of quantum information. As its name suggests, a qubit in a quantum computer performs the same function as a bit in a classical computer, with a major difference: Qubits can be treated as a 0 or 1 simultaneously, allowing quantum systems to process information much…
Agility Robotics, an Oregon-based robotics company, is raising $400 million at a pre-investment valuation of $1.75 billion, The Information reported. The venture arm of private equity firm WP Global Partners is leading the fundraising, in which SoftBank is also slated to participate. This investment reflects growing interest in robotics due to advancements in AI. It…
Ever since China’s ‘Salt Typhoon’ hacking operations against US telecom networks was uncovered, there’s been a lot of discussion about “hacking back”. Now, what actually constitutes hacking back is somewhat of an enigma. Some believe that the US needs to do to China what they’re doing to us, whilst others think going further and launching…
Anthropic on Monday announced updates to the “responsible scaling” policy for its artificial intelligence technology, including defining which of its model safety levels are powerful enough to need additional protections. The company, backed by Amazon, published safety and security updates in a blog post. If the company is stress-testing an AI model and sees that…
Moldova has expelled three Russian diplomats from the country. The expulsion came after Moldova accused the Russian embassy of helping a pro-Russian lawmaker escape the country. Russia has promised retaliation in response to the orders. The lawmaker, Alexander Nesterovschii was soon to be imprisoned over illegal political funding charges, but escaped to the Russian-backed Transnistria…
On Tuesday, China launched military exercises around Taiwan in what China said was a warning to Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te. In the exercises, Beijing sent warships and fighter planes around the island, practicing the seizure of Taiwan. 71 military aircraft and 21 navy ships were involved in the drills. China made clear the reasoning behind…
U.S. President Trump has announced that his upcoming reciprocal tariffs will apply to all countries. The tariffs will take place starting on April 2, and it will start with “all countries,” in lieu of only targeting economies with the biggest trade imbalances. This contrasts with what White House economics advisor Kevin Hassett has suggested earlier…
On Monday, far-right French leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement by a Paris criminal court. She was subsequently barred from running for public office for five years. Le Pen was the front-runner for the country’s 2027 presidential election, and is now effectively barred from participating in it. The politician was infuriated by…
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning of an Ivanti vulnerability being exploited by threat actors. The malicious actors are using a file called “Resurge” in the attacks, which creates a Secure Shell (SSH) tunnel for command and control (C2). The malware can modify files and manipulate integrity checks, allowing it to harvest…
Chord Specialty Dental Partners has suffered a massive data breach, impacting over 170,000 people in the incident. The breach began with suspicious activity on an employee’s email account, which in turn revealed unauthorized access to several email accounts in 2024. Compromised email accounts contained sensitive personal information including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank…
The European Commission will allocate 1.3 billion euros to key technologies and their advancements through the 2025-2027 Digital Europe Programme work program. The program, nicknamed DIGITAL, is designed to make digital technology more prevalent. The move comes after the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, both of which highlighted European vulnerabilities. DIGITAL has a…
Last August, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the first three “post-quantum encryption standards” designed to withstand an attack from a quantum computer. For years, cryptography experts have worried that the advent of quantum computing could spell doom for traditional encryption methods. With the technology now firmly on the horizon, the new…
For the past few weeks, Chinese engineers have gathered in the factory of a luxury electric-vehicle brand to test a new technology the country’s leadership considers vital to its rivalry with the U.S. The engineers at a startup called UBTech are training humanlike robots to sort auto parts and move containers. The task looks mundane,…
Many Trump administration officials work on national security or artificial intelligence. Michael Kratsios is thinking about how they collide. Confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, he is taking charge at a pivotal moment in the AI race with China. The Chinese startup DeepSeek rattled lawmakers in…
AI startup Runway on Monday released what it claims is one of the highest-fidelity AI-powered video generators yet. Called Gen-4, the model is rolling out to the company’s individual and enterprise customers. Runway claims that it can generate consistent characters, locations, and objects across scenes, maintain “coherent world environments,” and regenerate elements from different perspectives…
Chinese robots are being used to move parts in electric-vehicle factories and to carry out search-and-rescue operations in disaster zones. They are delighting audiences by performing complex dance routines. And robot dogs with automatic rifles attached to their backs are even being tested by the People’s Liberation Army. These are all applications of humanoid and…
Over the last 12 months, Google’s efforts to use artificial intelligence to accelerate drug design have achieved breakthroughs in mimicking human biology and won its top scientists the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Now Isomorphic Labs, the division within the software giant meant to develop and commercialize the technology, is taking another big step: raising money…
Amazon on Monday unveiled Nova Act, a general-purpose AI agent that can take control of a web browser and independently perform some simple actions. Alongside the new agentic AI model, Amazon is releasing the Nova Act SDK, a toolkit that allows developers to build agent prototypes with Nova Act. Nova Act, developed by Amazon’s recently…
The Israeli military says it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, as the United States launches intense military operations in the country, primarily targeting sites held by Houthi rebels. The Houthis, who have not yet responded to the latest Israeli claim of the missile attack, said on Thursday that they had launched two missiles, including…
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ruled out direct negotiations with the administration of US President Donald Trump over the country’s nuclear programme but signalled a willingness for indirect talks. He stressed that while Iran is not against negotiations in principle, Washington must first rectify its past “misconduct” and rebuild trust. Trump has signalled willingness to…
President Trump threatened new economic penalties on Russia and said he was angered by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments, escalating his rhetoric as talks have resulted in little progress toward a real cease-fire in Ukraine. “If a deal isn’t made, and if I think it was Russia’s fault,” Trump said, “anybody buying oil from…
Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip has continued on the first day of the Muslim Eid holidays. Amid the violence, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate as Israel has halted the delivery of aid into Gaza since early March. Meanwhile, prospects for a breakthrough in ceasefire talks seem remote. On Sunday,…
Entities in Ukraine have been targeted as part of a phishing campaign designed to distribute a remote access trojan called Remcos RAT. The activity has been attributed with moderate confidence to a Russian hacking group known as Gamaredon. The threat actor, assessed to be affiliated with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), is known for its…
A threat actor has published approximately 270,000 customer records allegedly stolen from Samsung Germany’s ticketing system, cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock reports. The threat actors behind the leak gained access using the stolen credentials of a Spectos GmbH account, which were compromised in 2021. The login information was never rotated and, while dormant for four years,…
Mozilla says Firefox developers have determined that their browser is affected by a critical vulnerability that is similar to the Chrome zero-day disclosed a few days ago. The issue, described as an incorrect handle, can allow a compromised child process to cause the parent process to “return an unintentionally powerful handle, leading to a sandbox…
Blockchain developer platform Gelato is launching a new blockchain-as-a-service solution on Avalanche to meet the growing demand for sovereign blockchain infrastructure during a crucial “tipping point” for institutional adoption. Gelato, which previously developed blockchain solutions for companies such as Kraken and Animoca Brands, unveiled the new upgrade that aims to let developers deploy fully sovereign…
The U.S. has blacklisted approximately 80 foreign entities, citing heightened national security concerns. The majority are Chinese companies suspected of procuring American hardware to aid the development of military technologies. Eleven entities based in China and one in Taiwan now face trade restrictions for “engaging in the development of advanced AI, supercomputers, and high-performance AI…
Nothing is certain in the quantum realm. A particle, for example, can exist in multiple quantum states simultaneously. The same goes for a quantum bit, or qubit — the basic unit of information used in quantum computing. The act of measurement causes these objects to collapse into a single state, and usually the best you…
Imagine if a doctor could remotely do a non-invasive, highly precise medical procedure on her patients using a tiny robot, or microrobot. With a device researchers from SMU and George Washington University created, that is one step closer to reality. “Using what we call a magnetic tweezer system, an operator will be able to precisely…
China and the United States accounted for 75 per cent of all venture capital investment in the robotics space over the past six years, allowing them to build a formidable lead in a crucial emerging industry, according to a study by the analytics firm GlobalData. The scale of investment into US and Chinese robotics start-ups…
The other day, my daughter was pondering a medical question. Naturally, like many young people do nowadays, she turned to AI for answers. The chatbot’s response? A mix of useful information, some questionable recommendations, and a completely made-up fact about vitamin C. We had a good laugh, but it was also an important reminder. Just…
Alibaba Cloud launched Thursday its latest artificial intelligence model in its “Qwen series,” as large language model competition in China continues to heat up following the “DeepSeek moment.” The new “Qwen2.5-Omni-7B” is a multimodal model, which means it can process inputs, including text, images, audio and videos, while generating real-time text and natural speech responses,…
Israel’s parliament has approved parts of a proposed judicial overhaul. Israel’s parliament has approved a bill which changes how individuals are appointed to the Supreme Court. The bill shifts the balance of power on the judicial selection committee towards political appointees. Critics say the law will undermine the indepedence of the judicial branch and weaken…
South Sudan’s opposition has said that the peace agreement with the government has collapsed. South Sudan’s opposition has said that the peace agreement with the government has collapsed due to the arrest of their leader. Clashes between government forces and various groups have increased in the past few days. The UN has warned that a…
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