ICE Is Using Palantir's AI Tools to Sort Through Tips ICE has been using an AI-powered Palantir system to summarize tips sent to its tip line since last spring, according to a newly released Homeland Security document. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is leveraging Palantir's generative artificial intelligence tools to sort and summarize immigration enforcement tips from its public submission form, according to an inventory released Wednesday of all use cases the Department of Homeland Security had for AI in 2025. The AI Enhanced ICE Tip Processing service is intended to help ICE investigators "to more quickly identify and action tips" for urgent cases, as well as translate submissions not made in English, according to the inventory. It also provides a "BLUF," defined as a "high-level summary of the tip," produced using at least one large language model. BLUF, or "bottom line up front," is a military term that's also used internally by some Palantir employees.

Immigration agents have used Mobile Fortify to scan the faces of countless people in the US--including many citizens. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security published new details about Mobile Fortify, the face recognition app that federal immigration agents use to identify people in the field, undocumented immigrants and US citizens alike. The details, including the company behind the app, were published as part of DHS's 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, which federal agencies are required to release periodically. The inventory includes two entries for Mobile Fortify--one for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), another for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)--and says the app is in the "deployment" stage for both. CBP says that Mobile Fortify became "operational" at the beginning of May last year, while ICE got access to it on May 20, 2025.

The Doomsday Clock Is Now 85 Seconds to Midnight. Catastrophic risks are increasing, cooperation is declining, and swift action is needed from global leaders to correct course. The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than ever. The Doomsday Clock has just been set to 85 seconds to midnight. Nearly 80 years after its creation, this time represents the closest the clock has ever been to midnight.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Trump says US ready to attack Iran with'speed and violence'

The AI company shouting about AI's dangers can't quite bring itself to slow down. T hese are not the words you want to hear when it comes to human extinction, but I was hearing them: "Things are moving uncomfortably fast." I was sitting in a conference room with Sam Bowman, a safety researcher at Anthropic. Worth $183 billion at the latest estimate, the AI firm has every incentive to speed things up, ship more products, and develop more advanced chatbots to stay competitive with the likes of OpenAI, Google, and the industry's other giants. But Anthropic is at odds with itself--thinking deeply, even anxiously, about seemingly every decision. Anthropic has positioned itself as the AI industry's superego: the firm that speaks with the most authority about the big questions surrounding the technology, while rival companies develop advertisements and affiliate shopping links (a difference that Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, was eager to call out during an interview in Davos last week).

A viral new virtual assistant formerly known as Clawdbot is complex and brings security risks--but some early adopters say it feels like the future. Dan Peguine, a tech entrepreneur and marketing consultant based in Lisbon, lets a precocious, lobster-themed AI assistant called Moltbot run much of his life. Peguine, a self-professed early adopter and trendspotter, discovered Moltbot several weeks ago--back then it was Clawdbot--after discussing a vibe-coding side project with friends on WhatsApp. He installed it on his computer, connected it to numerous apps and online accounts, including Google Apps, and was astonished by how capable it was. "I tried it, got interested, then got really obsessed," Peguine says.

Microscopic robots breakthrough: Researchers create smallest fully programmable autonomous robots that can swim through human body using electrokinetics instead of moving parts.

The Trump administration does not "intend or expect" to again take military action in Venezuela, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio told the US Congress, but theoretical threats like an "Iranian drone factory" could change the government's thinking. Trump says US ready to attack Iran with'speed and violence'

Two important things happened on January 20, 2025. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. In Hangzhou, China, a little-known Chinese firm called DeepSeek released R1, an AI model that industry watchers called a "Sputnik moment" for the country's AI industry. "Whether we like it or not, we're suddenly engaged in a fast-paced competition to build and define this groundbreaking technology that will determine so much about the future of civilization," said Trump later that year, as he announced his administration's AI action plan, which was titled "Winning the Race." There are many interpretations of what AI companies and their governments are racing towards, says AI policy researcher Lennart Heim: to deploy AI systems in the economy, to build robots, to create human-like artificial general intelligence.

Users Civilians Are Using A.I. to Unmask ICE Agents. Websites like ICEList are attempting to hold federal agents accountable--but it's unclear whether they make the system safer or more dangerous. After federal immigration officers shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, social media users called for the unmasking of the agents responsible. On X, users shared photos of the agents involved. It didn't take long before A.I.-generated pictures made their appearance: One user posted a seemingly deepfaked picture of a masked ICE agent, writing, "This is one of the soulless lowlife ghouls who executed Alex Pretti in cold blood!