Pod Save the World

Podbit · Pod Save the World

Forever War (Trump's Version)

Explore episode Jul 15, 2026

Where this was said

Boko Haram Is Using AI to Build Better Bombs

At 58:48 · chapter starts 51:00

The Cambridge paper — titled 'God Has Helped Us and So Will AI: How the Terrorist Group Boko Haram Uses Frontier AI' — gives the hosts a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging conversation about AI governance failure. Boko Haram members describe using Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok in three ways: learning to assemble weapons and manufacture bombs, improving surveillance, and planning specific attacks. One fighter says AI told them which chemicals to add to make their bombs 'heavier.' ISIS has dedicated AI units. Ben argues this is the predictable consequence of building transformative technology entirely in private hands with no regulation, no legislation, no international dialogue between the US and China, and no UN summits. Even if US companies add safety filters, open-source replicas will replicate the dangerous capabilities — a dark AI will emerge just as the dark web did. Tommy adds parallel threats: North Korean coders infiltrating US tech companies, AI-generated targeting for military strikes, and the bio-threat frontier where AI could help synthesize novel pathogens faster than any defensive response. Ben's bottom line: there's no single villain — the overall failure is that we cannot slow down long enough to put rules around a technology that companies insist is the most transformative in human history.

News
Erdogan Gave Every NATO Leader a Loaded Gun

Forever War (Trump's Version) · Jul 15, 2026 News

Turkish President Erdogan gave every leader at the NATO summit a personally engraved vintage .357 Magnum with six live rounds. The gifts immediately created legal chaos: Belgium's PM had to hand his to police, Canada's Carney took the gun but left the ammo behind, and others decommissioned theirs at embassies. Turkey is now the world's third-largest exporter of small arms.

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