military AI
AI & Automation
VENOM Takes Flight: Inside DARPA’s First AI-Controlled F-16 Combat Jet Test
DARPA and the US Air Force flew an F-16 under AI control at Eglin AFB in July 2026 โ a milestone toward autonomous combat aviation. Here's what happened.
Startups
Shield AI’s $2B Raise: The Combat-Proven AI Pilot Reshaping Defense
Shield AI's Hivemind autonomous pilot logged 130+ Ukraine sorties in GPS-jammed airspace. $12.7B valuation, $540M projected revenue, Aechelon acquisition.
Cybersecurity & Risk
Pentagon vs. Anthropic: When AI Safety Guardrails Collide with National Security
Defense Secretary Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, ending a $200M contract over AI safety guardrails on autonomous weapons and surveillance.
Policy & Regulation
OpenAI, Anthropic, and the Pentagon: AI Ethics Meets National Security
In early 2026, tensions escalated between AI company Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense over usage restrictions embedded in Anthropic's Claude models.
Policy & Regulation
The Regulation of Autonomous Weapons: Lethal AI, UN Negotiations
The Technology: What Autonomous Weapons Can Already Do Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) are weapons that can select and engage targets without direct human intervention. The technology exists along a spectrum of autonomy.
