In 2010--well before the rise of ChatGPT and Claude and all the other sprightly, conversational AI models--an army of bots briefly wiped out 1 trillion of value across the NASDAQ and other stock exchanges. Lengthy investigations were undertaken to figure out what had happened and why--and how to prevent it from happening again. The Securities and Exchange Commission's report on the matter blamed high-frequency-trading algorithms unexpectedly engaging in a mindless "hot potato" buying and selling of contracts back and forth to one another. A "flash crash," as the incident was called, may seem quaint relative to what lies ahead. That's because, even amid all the AI hype, a looming part of the AI revolution is under-examined: "agents." Agents are AIs that act independently on behalf of humans.

Kurt "The CyberGuy" Knutsson introduces Somatic's AI janitor robot that was created to help with cleaning restrooms. Oregon State University is warning students to "avoid all robots" and to "not open" any food delivery robots due to an ongoing bomb threat on the campus. On Tuesday afternoon, Oregon State University (OSU) issued an alert to students at the Corvallis, Oregon, university that there was a bomb threat related to the Starship food delivery robots. Oregon State University told students to avoid Starship food delivery robots due to a bomb threat. OSU advised people not open the robots and to avoid them "until further notice."

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Thursday that his agency will begin deploying an unmanned aerial device to aid deputies responding to arson scenes, suspected bombs and hostage situations, but he promised the device would not be used to surveil residents. The use or attempted use of drones by law enforcement elsewhere has come under fire from privacy and civil liberty advocates, and McDonnell and other agency officials avoided using the word "drone" during a 20-minute news conference unveiling the department's latest technological addition. Instead, the sheriff praised the $10,000 device as a useful tool that can give deputies a life-saving advantage in potentially deadly situations. "The dangers of law enforcement can never be eliminated," he said. "However, this technology can assist us in reducing the impact of risks on personnel."