Everything We Know About the Army’s Uncanny Chatbots
Sgt. Star is the U.S. Army’s dedicated marketing and recruitment chatbot, and he isn’t going to turn whistleblower any time soon. There’s no use threatening him for answers either—he’s programmed to report that kind of hostility to the Army Criminal Investigation Division. Last year, EFF began to look at how the government deploys chatbots to…
How a Simple Design Error Could Have Toppled a NYC Skyscraper
When it was built in 1977, Citicorp Center (later renamed Citigroup Center, now called 601 Lexington) was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world. You can pick it out of the New York City skyline by its 45-degree angled top. (Credit: Wally Gobitz) But it’s the base of the building that really makes…
When A Sleepy California Town Was At The Center of War in the Pacific
The newsmen ignored the Japanese bombs shaking seventy-five feet of rock above their heads. It was June 1940, and a team of Chinese and Western broadcasters continued their reports from a tunnel beneath Chongqing, China’s wartime capital, the “world’s most bombed city.” Seven thousand miles away, in Ventura, a dentist woke early to listen to…