“AI capabilities are outpacing both scientific understanding and governments’ ability to adapt,” Mr. Bengio said. “With growing evidence of deceptive AI behaviour, science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users...”

Unsplash/Aidin Geranrekab AI is currently revolutionising multiple industries, including smartphones.

‘The science is here’: UN chief welcomes first global AI assessment

1 July 2026 Culture and Education

Fresh scientific evidence and options for harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) were unveiled Wednesday following the launch of the first global, independent scientific assessment of opportunities, risks and impacts by a pioneering UN expert panel.

Key takeaways

The report outlines findings across seven key domains:

• AI science, advances and trajectories
• Societal applications in science, health, education and agriculture
• Economic implications
• Security, systems and environmental implications
• Human rights, information and democracy
• Cultural benefits, autonomy and child safety
• Management, governance and reliability

“The science is here,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at the report launch. “We can no longer say we did not know. What we do with it is now up to all of us.”

The more AI advances without shared rules, the less say governments and people will have in the outcome, the UN chief said, adding “my message to governments is simple: do not wait.”

Aiming to build a shared understanding and evidence at this critical juncture, the Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI: Evidence-based assessment of opportunities, risks and impacts of AI was penned by the first global, fully independent scientific body dedicated to assessing its real impacts across economies and societies.

Read the full report here.

Why it matters   .... READ MORE  https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/07/1167853 

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Here are some of the panel’s warnings:

• There are no scientific guarantees that AI agent systems will not violate instructions, and evidence is accumulating of cases where they already are
• AI agent systems will soon complete tasks that currently take human programmers days or weeks, but their deployment raises urgent questions for labour markets, cybersecurity and the controllability of future AI systems
• Sycophantic AI behaviour, where responses reinforce users’ existing beliefs regardless of accuracy, has been linked to several severe mental health incidents, including documented deaths
• Criminals and bad actors have been documented using AI systems to assist in cyberattacks
• Advanced technical abilities may allow novice private actors to use AI in malicious ways across a range of applications such as fraud and disinformation
• Reliable methods for retaining control over highly autonomous AI systems are lacking

Many of these harms fall disproportionately on already disadvantaged populations, the report stated.

"US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group..."

US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges

Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war

• Middle East crisis – live updates 

... The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force.

One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”.

“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added.

The NCO’s complaint was filed on behalf of 15 troops, including 11 Christians, one Muslim person and one Jewish person. The complaint was first shared by MRFF with Jonathan Larsen ... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric

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A world on edge as Trump bombs Iran and triggers war in the Middle East. There was no need for this: We cannot know where this foolish, reckless attack will end – but new hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown and, ultimately, little will be achieved.

 

Simon Tisdall - Guardian foreign affairs commentator  

Blocked roads in Tehran after Israeli and US strikes on Iran, 28 February 2026. Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

They never learn. Once again, a bellicose US president has unleashed overwhelming military firepower to force a sovereign nation to its knees. Once again, blatant lies and exaggerated claims are being propagated to justify the attack. Duplicitous American diplomacy became a fig leaf for premeditated aggression. The cautionary advice of allies was spurned. The UN, international law and public opinion were ignored. Democratic consent is lacking. And once again, there are few defined goals by which to gauge success, and no long-term plan.

Now, as in the past, the predictable result of today’s renewed, expanded and apparently open-ended US-Israeli aggression against Iran will be instant, spreading chaos. Civilians will be killed, children orphaned, families torn apart. Regional turmoil and international oil-price panic will follow the Iranian retaliation that has already begun, and which may be backed by Tehran’s Hezbollah and Houthi allies. New hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown. The west’s foes will rejoice. And nothing of enduring value will be achieved. That was the bitter outcome of the failed US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, it’s Tehran’s turn to reap the whirlwind.

How dismaying – how unforgivable! – that those past lessons have not been learned. How incredible that an elected 21st-century American president still believes it’s effective and permissible, let alone moral, to dictate to the world from the barrel of a gun. By what conceivable right does the US behave in this way?

While there are certain differences, the similarities between Donald Trump’s siege of Iran and George W Bush’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq are striking. Both crises fit a wider pattern of unsuccessful, costly US interventionism dating back to Vietnam – and the 1953 CIA-led Iran coup. Trump promised to avoid foreign adventures. Surprise! He lied. Anyone who believes he has radically changed the way the US engages with the world should review this sordid saga of post-1945 imperial hubris. In this, he’s no different from his predecessors... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/28/donald-trump-bombs-iran-war-middle-east

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Israel continues GENOCIDE in Gaza with massive bombardment after repeated violations of ceasefire... BUT This is what the media manufacturing consent for genocide looks like:

Assal Rad

@AssalRad

This is what the media manufacturing consent for genocide looks like. “Israel continues GENOCIDE in Gaza with massive bombardment after repeated violations of ceasefire,” that’s your headline.

"Israeli supporters thirst for these lies. They do not want to know the truth. The truth would force them to examine their racism, self-delusion and complicity in oppression, murder and genocide." Chris Hedges

Israel’s Culture of Deceit

Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza. 

 

Chris Hedges

Oct 18, 2023

Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria. 

Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state. The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.” The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights. 

Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief.

I covered war for two decades, including seven years in the Middle East...READ MORE

 

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