The Obtain: Monitoring the evolution of avenue medication, and the following wave of army AI

In 2021, the Maryland Division of Well being and the state police have been confronting a disaster: Deadly drug overdoses within the state have been at an all-time excessive, and authorities didn’t know why.

In search of solutions, Maryland officers turned to scientists on the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Expertise, the nationwide metrology institute for the USA, which defines and maintains requirements of measurement important to a variety of commercial sectors and well being and safety functions.

There, a analysis chemist named Ed Sisco and his workforce had developed strategies for detecting hint quantities of medication, explosives, and different harmful supplies—methods that would shield regulation enforcement officers and others who needed to gather these samples. And a pilot uncovered new, important info virtually instantly. Learn the total story.

—Adam Bluestein

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Section two of army AI has arrived

—James O’Donnell

Final week, I spoke with two US Marines who spent a lot of final 12 months deployed within the Pacific, conducting coaching workout routines from South Korea to the Philippines. Each have been chargeable for analyzing surveillance to warn their superiors about attainable threats to the unit. However this deployment was distinctive: For the primary time, they have been utilizing generative AI to scour intelligence, by way of a chatbot interface much like ChatGPT. 

As I wrote in my new story, this experiment is the newest proof of the Pentagon’s push to make use of generative AI—instruments that may interact in humanlike dialog—all through its ranks, for duties together with surveillance. This push raises alarms from some AI security specialists about whether or not massive language fashions are match to research delicate items of intelligence in conditions with excessive geopolitical stakes.