698
Google shuts down its Nobel-prize winning AlphaFold project as it focuses on Gemini
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
698 points (98.6% liked)
Technology
86743 readers
2447 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Mass surveillance, is of questionable value beyond just creating a database of footage. Police DON'T aim to "solve all crime and be good guys". They barely aim for investigating all crimes, and most crime they'd just need a time and date for to look at the footage only IF and WHEN a crime is reported. They're not going to spend police resources to have cops sift through footage the AI has guessed there's crime in every day. That would just cost time/money. At best it might be used for facial recognition at protests - but facial recognition systems predate AI, so it's superfluous.
war games, takes appropriate training data which is increadibly difficult to simulate and get the right answers from. There are already various war-gaming departments who have been trying to do this. The YouTube channel People Make Games has an episode on this - war just has so many variables that beyond the basics of troops numbers and geography it's kind of difficult. But even if this becomes a use, it's niche, it wouldn't require a large amount of compute, each country only has one military... And spending on research projects (eg. DARPA) isn't new. It's not enough to be a "big win" for 3 AI giants, it's more a step back to where they came from.
predictive policing (and population control) hang on, wasn't this your first example? Again, mis-matches and police time checking the AI are going to cost too much, and those programs would cost big money in lawsuits and time. It'd be the first program cut by most departments.
I see nothing realistic here.
More likely uses are jobs that burn through a lot of copy writers: spam/marketing, realestate ads, search engines and researching, little buddies and toys, publishing (sadly), video games, weather bureaus, text transcription and translation, scams and telemarketing. Things there's lots of data on, and close to zero risk with.
You're assuming that the police will actually sift through footage in a meaningful way instead of just trusting faulty, fascist trained ai algorithms. Like that one guy who got mistaken by an AI profiling systen at a casino for someone who was kicked out, and when handed his license to prove he was a different person, the cops LITERALLY just refused to believe the evidence of their eyes. They took him to jail because the almighty machine could never be wrong. The story is wild: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tells-cops-to-arrest-the-wrong-guy/.
An elderly lady misidentified by Flock, held for 6 months in jail: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-grandmother-jail-mistake
I'm sorry that apparently this fascist threat isn't enough for you to think it's a big deal, but it is.
Your examples are about AIs costing police departments money, which is what I'm saying. I'm saying it won't be a viable use long term, BECAUSE of the blow back in time, lawsuits, and money.
As I said earlier; "Again, mis-matches and police time checking the AI are going to cost too much, and those programs would cost big money in lawsuits and time. It'd be the first program cut by most departments."
More likely uses are jobs that burn through a lot of copy writers: spam/marketing, realestate ads, search engines and researching, little buddies and toys, publishing (sadly), video games, weather bureaus, text transcription and translation, scams and telemarketing. Things there's lots of data on, and close to zero risk with.
What about the billions ICE is spending on stockpiling weapons and vehicles, the increased military budget, rhe continued erosion of our rights, and the almost certainly rigged upcoming midterms suggests lawsuits and courts are going to be any impediment to the fascists eventually?
And no, I'm not saying we just roll over and give up. But I am being realistic with the way that most authoritarian regimes go, and how they consolidate all power. Trump campaigned on giving politice as much immunity as he could, and that includes the way that courts punish police oversight and brutality. He's actually delivered quite well on the things that benefit him and his cronies. And since police serve as the Pinkerton class of capital, I think once he gets enough power, he will fulfill that promise.
Give DHS as much immunity as they need, CiA and FBI clearance and permissions up the wazoo, and anything else they need to stay in power.
If they don't care about lawsuits, then why would they need an AI to tell them who to arrest? They'll just arrest whoever they want.