The next era of war and deterrence will be defined by AI. The AI winner of this decade will be economically and militarily dominant for the next 50 years. The faster that we confront this reality, the faster we can act in ensuring America does not lose. China is currently outpacing the United States (for which there are numerous supporting facts). The United States, both the government and AI technologists, need to start acting. The AI War is at the core of the future of our world.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says its Science and Technology Directorate division has created a portable gunshot detection system with the help of a company called Shooter Detection Systems (SDS). The agency notes that whereas other systems only detect audio, SDS Outdoor can pinpoint flashes of gunshots as well. DHS claims this approach can reduce false positive rates. DHS has not disclosed details about the accuracy of the system. SDS, which is owned by Alarm.com, says its indoor gunshot detection system has a near-100 percent detection rate with fewer than one false alert per 5 million hours of use.

Polaris Market Research on Tuesday reported that the global security robots market size and share was valued at $27.32 billion in 2021 and the researchers expect it to surpass $116.44 billion by 2030 -- growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.65% during the forecast period. The researchers explained that security robots incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), streaming video, and other connected technologies to perform security duties that used to be done by humans. Leading applications of security robots include spying, explosive detection, dynamic mission planning, firefighting, de-mining, rescue operations, transportation, and patrolling. Industry researchers said that these robots will continue to play an important role in the security business throughout this decade. "The shortage of trained security personnel makes turning to automation -- specifically robots -- very attractive," said Bud Broomhead, chief executive officer at Viakoo.

ChatGPT, launched by OpenAI in late November 2022, is the new talk of the town. Everyone's raving about its user-friendliness and the mind blowing variety of its skills: it can both generate a fiction piece out of thin air and a functional Python script. We've seen people using it to write cover letters, school essays and political speeches. I even wrote a song called Crypto Winter. Two weeks ago, I subscribed to a Google Alert for ChatGPT and it's one of the longest notification emails I receive from the service every morning. Everyone, from writers to lawyers, developers and even politicians seems to be talking about ChatGPT.

The use of robots in the food service industry is on the rise, from robotic steak-flippers to robotic bartenders. Certainly, advancements in robot technology have played a substantial role in its widespread adoption. However, inflation and rising labor costs have also played important roles. Regardless of the impetus for the shift, the introduction of robotics into restaurants will alter the landscape of the food service sector. The field of restaurant robotics focuses on the automation formerly performed by human workers.

NFTs and cryptocurrency as a whole continue to be a hotly debated topic. The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the subsequent arrest of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried brought intense scrutiny to the industry. Bankman-Fried, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alamenda Research (a firm affiliated with FTX) were all charged with conspiracy to commit various forms of fraud. Wang and Ellison pleaded guilty; Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty. In September, the White House said that crypto asset creation could hamstring the country's commitment to the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to combat climate change.

The Los Angeles Police Department and its multibillion-dollar budget were under intense public scrutiny in the spring of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic had greatly reduced city revenue amid some of the largest and most destructive street protests in decades. The LAPD was being accused of exacerbating the unrest and bungling its response. Activists and politicians were calling for the department's funding to be slashed in favor of social services for the homeless, mentally ill and poor. Behind closed doors, the money from private donors kept coming. "I wanted to share that since May 28th, we have received more than $48,000 in online donations in support of the Department -- a record for our organization and unlike anything we've ever seen," Dana Katz, head of the private Los Angeles Police Foundation, wrote in a June 9, 2020, email to LAPD Chief Michel Moore. Katz wrote to Moore again a couple of weeks later, this time with a list of donors who would be taking part in an exclusive call with him that she had arranged. Katz told Moore it "would be great" if he would brief the philanthropists and corporate bigwigs on the recent protests, the department's plans for reform and the potential negative effects of "defunding" the police.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is proving to be as much a security tool as an economic one in the Indo-Pacific, with the US and China attempting to expand their influence in the region. Because of AI's increasing role in military applications, the Indo-Pacific, rather than Silicon Valley, is now fast emerging as the principal AI market in the world. A new report from "Research and Markets" predicts that the radar simulator market alone in the Indo-Pacific will boom from $326.2 million in 2022 to $470.5 million by 2028 for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%. "Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) developed by various enterprises have modern capabilities and have extended their reach and operating boundaries," the report states, adding, "There has been a surge in the development of laser-guided missiles with higher accuracy to hit the locked target. To combat this threat in the future, there would be a rise in the development of radars and radar simulators to train operators to combat the rising modern warfare systems."

To give you a brief overview, I was told by many experts that the already-stressed global chips supply chain will be challenged even more by geopolitics in 2023. Over much of 2022, the US started to take steps to freeze China out of the industry--even forming an alliance with the Netherlands and Japan to restrict chip exports to the country. The measures have pushed the once market-driven business to come up with contingency plans to survive the cold-war-like environment--like diversifying from the Chinese supply chain and building factories elsewhere. We may see more similar plans announced in the next year. And at the same time, the US government's punitive restrictions will start to be enforced and industrial subsidies for domestic chip makers will start to be doled out, meaning new companies may end up on top while others may get penalized for still selling to China.

Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world's first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers. That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven.