Politicians don't change their minds in public. So when Rep. Sam Liccardo asked to talk to me again just weeks after our first conversation, it was notable.

In February, Liccardo argued America couldn't afford to slow AI down — that guardrails would hand the future to China. Then the Pentagon demanded unguardrailed AI for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Anthropic refused. The government blacklisted them. OpenAI signed the contract. And the U.S. attacked Iran using the very AI it had just banned.

This conversation covers what is clearly shifting in Liccardo's thinking, why he now supports mandating at least some human control over every weapon system, and what Block's 4,000 layoffs mean for a lawmaker whose district includes Google, Apple, and Stanford.

Watch both conversations — the February version and this week's — and you'll see something you almost never see: a lawmaker's position evolving in real time, on the record. That's how fast this stuff is moving.Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.com

For decades, Israel has deployed new weapons systems in Gaza, collected data on what works, refined them, and sold the results internationally as “battle-tested” technology. That pipeline is now running on AI. A system called Lavender assigned kill ratings to 37,000 Palestinians. Operators approved strikes in around 20 seconds. The accepted error rate was 10 percent. Before AI targeting, Israeli analysts produced around 50 verified targets per year. After: up to 250 strikes per day. Gaza was the beta test. This week’s strikes on Iran are the product launch.

In this video, I’m coining a term for this dynamic — lethal beta — and tracing the full pipeline: from the AI systems deployed in Gaza, to the arms companies now filing for IPOs on the back of 241% revenue growth, to the Pentagon official who called Ukraine “an extraordinary laboratory” for military AI, to the ways the same logic is now normalizing autonomous warfare at a scale none of the original systems were designed for. As always, this isn’t just a story about technology. It’s a story about who makes decisions, who profits, and who pays.

Paid subscribers can read the full written analysis here:

Further Reading:

1. “’Lavender’: The AI Machine Directing Israel’s Bombing Spree in Gaza” — +972 Magazine, April 3, 2024: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

2. “Dirty Secret of Israel’s Weapons Exports: They’re Tested on Palestinians” — Al Jazeera, November 17, 2023: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/17/israels-weapons-industry-is-the-gaza-war-its-latest-test-lab

3. The Palestine Laboratory — Antony Loewenstein, Verso Books, 2023: https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Laboratory-Exports-Technology-Occupation/dp/1839762217

4. “The Palestine Laboratory” (Documentary) — Al Jazeera English, January–February 2025: https://network.aljazeera.net/en/press-releases/%E2%80%98-palestine-laboratory%E2%80%99-exposes-israel%E2%80%99s-export-unique-systems-control-and

5. “Gaza: Israel’s AI Human Laboratory” — The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, June 12, 2025: https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/gaza-israels-ai-human-laboratory/

6. “When AI Decides Who Lives and Dies” — Foreign Policy, May 2, 2024: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/02/israel-military-artificial-intelligence-targeting-hamas-gaza-deaths-lavender/

7. “The Cruel Experiments of Israel’s Arms Industry” — Pulitzer Center: https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/cruel-experiments-israels-arms-industry

8. “The Genocide Will Be Automated — Israel, AI and the Future of War” — MERIP, October 2024: https://www.merip.org/2024/10/the-genocide-will-be-automated-israel-ai-and-the-future-of-war/

9. “War Rewrote the Rules: The World Studies Israel’s AI-Driven Battlefield Playbook” — Ynet News, February 2026: https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/bjfoec900wl

10. “Artificial Intelligence on the Battlefield in 2025” — The Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-861611

11. “Ukraine Is an ‘Extraordinary Laboratory’ for Military AI” — DefenseScoop, August 1, 2023: https://defensescoop.com/2023/08/01/ukraine-is-extraordinary-laboratory-for-military-ai-senior-dod-official-says/

12. “The Horrifying, AI-Enhanced Future of War Is Here” — The New Republic, November 2025: https://newrepublic.com/article/202753/ukraine-drones-ai-enhanced-future-war

13. “Governing AI Under Fire in Ukraine” — The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, June 15, 2025: https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/governing-ai-under-fire-in-ukraine/

14. “Battlefield Drones and the Accelerating Autonomous Arms Race in Ukraine” — Modern War Institute, West Point, January 10, 2025: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/battlefield-drones-and-the-accelerating-autonomous-arms-race/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon this week and demanded an AI with no safety guardrails — threatening to declare Anthropic a "supply chain risk" if it refused. So I decided to look into what exactly the Pentagon might want to do with that technology.

What I found is a set of AI capabilities that go far beyond chatbots and image generators. We're talking about WiFi routers that reconstruct human bodies through solid walls, Pentagon lasers that identify you by your heartbeat from 200 meters, Chinese gait-recognition systems that ID you with your back turned and face covered, and autonomous drone swarms that run a full kill chain — find, fix, finish — with no human individually controlling each step. Every item in this video is documented, sourced, and in many cases already deployed.

This is the landscape Anthropic seems to understand it's operating in. And it's the landscape the Pentagon wants full access to. The full written analysis with all sources is available to paid subscribers at The Rip Current.

Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.com

Dario Amodei is the rare tech CEO who actually tried to set limits on what his AI could be used for. He published an 80-page constitution telling the world what Claude is supposed to value. He wrote a 20,000-word essay warning about what happens when AI companies accumulate too much power. Then the Pentagon summoned him and delivered an ultimatum: drop your restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, or lose the contract.The detail that isn't getting enough attention: Anthropic's AI was used in the operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The company found out after the fact. The safeguards didn't stop the deployment — they just created friction. That's the gap between the ethics document and the reality of doing business with the most powerful military on earth.This is a story about what principles actually cost when the economics get serious — and whether Amodei's public commitments will survive contact with a $200 million contract, a $380 billion valuation, and a defense secretary who thinks ideology is an insult.Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.com

Last week I watched what may be the Big Tobacco moment for social media unfold in real time.

The trial against Meta in Los Angeles is the first of an estimated 1,600 cases making a specific argument: that Section 230 doesn't protect a platform that deliberately engineered addictive behavior. Internal company documents — showing what these companies knew about harm and when — are entering the court record. And then Mark Zuckerberg got served with legal papers walking into court. We don't know what lawsuit yet. But the image says everything.

On Friday I got into a public debate with Taylor Lorenz about whether the social media threat to young people is a moral panic or something genuinely new. We disagree. I think the internal documents coming out of these companies make the moral panic framing harder to sustain — when a company's own researchers document harm and management keeps optimizing for engagement, that's not cultural overreaction, that's a paper trail.

Then this morning the Anthropic story broke. The Pentagon summoned CEO Dario Amodei and told him to drop his internal ethics restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, or lose the contract. Amodei published an 80-page AI constitution last month and a 20,000-word warning essay this year. He named the trap he was worried about. Now he's in it.

The full analysis is at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.com

In the grand tradition of presidential addresses, I stand here — well, no, I’m sitting, actually —to tell you exactly how things are going. Unlike those addresses, I do not tell you things are going great. I borrowed the format — the gallery anecdote, the foreign policy chest-beating, the optimistic entrepreneurship section, the infrastructure close — and used it to describe the world as I’m seeing it right now. Consider this your State of the Union from someone with no speechwriters, no approval rating to protect, and nothing to sell you except the truth as best I can see it.Tonight’s address covers a seemingly random mishmash, but I promise I pull it all together: a soccer riot in India that is actually about all of us, a race with China that may be less about values than about who profits from the panic, a Pentagon deadline handed to the one AI CEO who tried to hold an ethical line, a concentration of power that makes “the market” sound quaint, the loneliness that comes with a billion-dollar company of one, and a set of courtroom reckonings that are a preview of where AI is headed next. The State of the Union is anxious. I remain hopeful. God bless America.

Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.com

For the first time in his life, Mark Zuckerberg will answer questions under oath — not to a Senate subcommittee where politicians perform for their clips, but to a jury of regular people whose only job is to decide whether he's telling the truth. This is a genuinely different situation, and here's how to watch it.

The real danger for Zuckerberg isn't his testimony — it's the internal documents already in evidence that will be put in front of him. A 2018 Meta strategy document saying "if we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens." Emails from Meta's own tech chief reporting back to Zuckerberg about plastic surgery filters, with Zuckerberg's response being that he needed "more data" before acting on known harm. Internal communications in which Meta employees referred to themselves as "basically pushers." These don't sound like a company run by a thoughtful parent.

The third thing to watch is Section 230 — the 1996 law that gives platforms blanket immunity for what users post. The plaintiffs' argument, which the judge has already allowed the jury to consider, is that this trial isn't about content. It's about design. Infinite scroll. Autoplay. The Like button. If design liability succeeds here, it blows a hole in the legal shield that has protected every major platform for decades. The question at the heart of this trial — who makes these decisions, who profits, and who ends up paying — is one I've been covering for years. Wednesday gives us a jury's answer.

Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.substack.com

A 20-year-old woman started using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine. She's now suing both companies, and her case has just become the most important tech trial since the DOJ went after Microsoft in 1998. Here's what's actually at stake — and why it matters whether you're a parent or not.

The trial isn't just about one person's mental health. It's a bellwether case for more than 1,500 similar lawsuits waiting in the pipeline, and the first time CEOs of major social media platforms — including Mark Zuckerberg, who testifies this week — have had to answer questions in front of a jury rather than a Senate subcommittee. The internal documents already in evidence are extraordinary: YouTube memos describing "viewer addiction" as a goal, Meta's Project Myst finding that traumatized kids were especially vulnerable to the platform and that parental controls made almost no difference, and a strategy document laying out a pipeline designed to bring kids in as tweens and keep them as teens.

The central legal question is whether Section 230 — the 1996 law that has shielded every major platform from liability for nearly 30 years — protects design decisions like infinite scroll, autoplay, and the Like button. The judge has already ruled that the jury can consider design liability. If that argument wins, it changes the legal landscape for every platform that has ever made an engineering choice optimized for engagement. Nobody voted on infinite scroll. No regulator approved autoplay. A small group of engineers and executives made those decisions, and billions of people — including six-year-olds — inherited the results. A Los Angeles jury is now being asked to weigh in on that.

Originally published at The Rip Current. Paid subscribers get early access + full transcripts: https://theripcurrent.substack.com

Opening arguments began this morning in two trials that could change social media forever—and they're not about what kids see online. They're about who decided to make these platforms addictive in the first place.Today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Meta (Instagram/Facebook) and YouTube are defending against claims that their platforms' design features—infinite scroll, auto-play, algorithmic recommendations—deliberately addict children and cause mental health harm. A 19-year-old plaintiff says these features caused her anxiety, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts starting at age 10.Simultaneously, New Mexico's attorney general is suing Meta for failing to protect children from sexual exploitation.THE STAKES:Bellwether trials affecting 1,500+ similar lawsuitsHundreds of school district claimsCases from 40+ state attorneys generalMeta warned damages could reach "high tens of billions of dollars"Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri (Instagram), and Neal Mohan (YouTube) expected to testifyTHE KEY DIFFERENCE:These lawsuits sidestep Section 230 (which protects platforms from liability for user content) by attacking the design of the platforms themselves—not the content posted on them. They argue companies used "behavioral and neurobiological techniques borrowed from slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry."WHY THIS MATTERS:This isn't about censoring social media or protecting kids from "bad content." It's about whether companies can knowingly build products designed to addict children, even when internal research shows the harm being caused.FROM MY ANALYSIS:How adolescent brain development makes kids vulnerable to designed addiction (10-12 years old: all gas pedal, no brakes)What internal documents already show companies knewWhy Section 230 won't protect them this timeThe shift from "physical harm" to "behavioral harm" in American regulationWhat happens if plaintiffs winThis could be social media's Big Tobacco moment. Watch to understand what's really happening in that courtroom today.SOURCES:NPR: https://www.npr.org/2026/01/27/nx-s1-5684196/social-media-kids-addiction-mental-health-trialCNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/meta-big-week-in-court-opening-arguments-in-new-mexico-la-trials.htmlABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/arguments-begin-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial-set-129983976Read the full analysis at TheRipCurrent.com#SocialMedia #Meta #YouTube #BigTech #Regulation

Ever wonder why ICE agents cover their faces during raids? They know exactly what surveillance technology can do when your face is captured in public. And they should know—they’re operating the most sophisticated surveillance apparatus ever deployed on American soil.

With a $75 billion budget from last year’s reconciliation process, ICE has gone on a shopping spree that would make China’s “Safe Cities” program jealous. Iris scanners from BI2 Technologies. Facial recognition from Clearview AI. License-plate tracking systems from Thomson Reuters that can establish your daily travel patterns. Cell phone location tracking purchased from commercial data brokers. A $30 million enforcement platform from Palantir that draws on everything from Medicaid records to IRS data.

The technology doesn’t stop at identifying immigrants. Body cam footage shows agents using ChatGPT to write reports. “Stingray” devices impersonate cell towers to grab a protester’s unique phone identifier—often without warrants. And ICE, like other agencies, sidesteps the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision by simply buying from commercial data brokers what they can’t legally obtain with a warrant.

And here’s the kicker: DHS is now using at least 200 AI systems—a 37% increase since July 2025—with virtually no oversight because agencies self-report whether AI is their “primary” decision-making tool.

Watch the full breakdown to understand what this means for everyone’s civil liberties, both Americans and those hoping to be.