See also: fascism/discrimination/bias/politics semble.so/profile/aiueo.ooo/collections… * I’m neither “pro-AI” nor “anti-AI.” I’ve been blocked for being perceived as both. —Actually, I’m honestly more anti-AI than pro-AI thus far, aside from specialized models and specific use cases, but I’m willing to consider information that’s new to me
How AI-powered policing is endangering the public’s trust in police
Growing concerns about police use of AI could erode the public’s perception of trust in the legal system.

Florida cops are quietly using Meta smart glasses
Privacy advocates warn the glasses could let cops record people without them noticing.

The Russian ‘counterterrorism’ unit behind Alexei Navalny’s poisoning tried to automate its search for domestic dissent using Meta’s Llama 2. After a year and a half, the project collapsed. — Meduza
The FSB’s Second Service is officially charged with protecting the constitutional order and combating terrorism. In practice, the unit works to stamp out dissent in Russia: it has plotted the assassinations of opposition politicians, works to restrict internet access, and monitors the news for signs of dissent. To automate that last job, the “Dvoyka” — as the Second Service is known — commissioned an AI-powered system for monitoring news outlets and social media in the spring of 2024. The developer was the Kazan-based company Mikord, which had also worked on components of Russia’s unified military registry and was hacked in December 2025. iStories examined material from that breach relating to the FSB’s news monitoring system. The system was called PAUK — Russian for “SPIDER.”
More than 60 groups tell Home Office to stop using racist and faulty AI facial age estimation tech on asylum-seeking children
This tech could see vulnerable children seeking asylum in the UK facing a serious threat to their safety at the hands of the UK government.

Home Office knew AI age checks for migrants were flawed – but rolled it out anyway
Exclusive: Government advisers describe the tool as ‘hideously flawed’ amid concern facial age estimation has ‘baked-in racial bias’ – and can wrongly identify a 14-year-old as an adult

The UK Will Scan Asylum-Seekers’ Faces for Age Checks—Despite Knowing the Tech Is Flawed
Internal Home Office tests of age-verification technology show the risks of life-altering errors. It’s moving forward anyway.

Asylum by Algorithm
The UK has turned to AI to determine the age of asylum seekers, and other countries are likely to follow suit. Our investigation finds the technology is deeply unreliable.

How We Analyzed AI Used to Guess Asylum Seekers’ Ages
Using a leaked report and NIST data to audit facial age estimation AI for efficacy and bias.

Facial age estimation: Using AI to support initial age decisions (A guide) (accessible)
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First-ever Home Office data reveals hundreds of child refugees wrongly treated as adults, despite expert warnings | Helen Bamber
After years of campaigning, the Home Office has for the first time published its own data confirming that hundreds of child refugees arriving in UK alone are being wrongly treated as adults, with devastating consequences. These children are routinely placed in adult accommodation, immigration detention and even adult prisons.
AI tool will lead to more child refugees being treated as adults, charity warns
‘Racist bias’ overestimating ages in Home Office’s facial-recognition software will lead to solo children being housed with adults, says Human Rights Network

From Democracies to Autocracies: How AI Systems Enable Authoritarianism by Design
AI-enabled authoritarianism is not confined to autocracies. In this paper, we provide greater transparency by investigating and mapping the lifecycles of six AI systems deployed in different political regimes, ranging from the US to China. By drawing on an extensive range of sources (academic publications, investigative research reports, third-party evaluations, media interviews, government procurement notices), we conduct a systematic, qualitative comparison across systems to identify the critical technical and operational features that enable authoritarianism within their respective political contexts. We find that enabling features include the centralization and co-optation of administrative data for law enforcement and political punishment, regulatory gaps that fail to deter misuse, weak user compliance that nullifies human oversight mechanisms, and the encoding of protected group traits that identify members of vulnerable populations. We find that these features are present across systems deployed in autocratic and democratic regimes, albeit in varying configurations. We also find that both centralized and fragmented AI systems can contribute to authoritarianism by exploiting governance gaps: centralized systems directed by executive authorities, particularly within security and military institutions, are often not subjected to formal oversight mechanisms, while fragmented systems diffuse accountability between stakeholders, paving the way for entrenchment. These findings reveal that AI-enabled authoritarianism is distributed, resulting from design and operational choices made by developers, administrators, and users alike. We conclude with recommendations for developers and policymakers to mitigate these risks.

Researchers Detail How AI Systems Can Enable Authoritarianism
A new preprint study of authoritarianism-enabling AI presents another set of evidence of the gaps in safeguards, writes Tim Bernard.

Are LLMs Stifling Political Speech? An Assessment of How AI Models Protect Free Expression | Oversight Board
The Oversight Board’s first evaluation of large language models (LLMs) shows that some of the world’s most-used models from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta
How the U.S. Military Learned to Embrace AI Warfare
A review of Katrina Manson, “Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare” (Norton, 2026).

CASP — Cambridge Programme on AI Science & Policy | University of Cambridge
The Cambridge Programme on AI Science & Policy (CASP) is an interdisciplinary research programme on frontier AI at the University of Cambridge.

How Terrorist Groups Are Using A.I. to Gain an Edge in Battle
A.I. chatbots are not just a propaganda tool for violent extremists but are aiding in bomb construction and attack planning, new research finds.

Derbyshire Police officer accused of using AI to 'create evidence'
Derbyshire Police say the officer has been removed from frontline duties while it investigates.

Man sues Florida cops over arrest spurred by "93% match" in facial recognition
Lawsuit: "Police let an error-prone AI system stand in for an investigation."
