Wired

United States intelligence officials have been quietly issuing warnings to government agencies all summer about a rising threat of extremist violence tied to the 2024 presidential election, including plots to destroy bins full of paper ballots and promote “lone wolf” attacks against election facilities throughout the country.

In a series of reports between July and September, analysts at the Department of Homeland Security warned of a “heightened risk” of extremists carrying out attacks in response to the race. Copies of the reports, first reported by WIRED, describe efforts by violent groups to provoke attacks against election infrastructure and spread calls for the assassinations of lawmakers and law enforcement agents.

Google just added a new customization tool for the viral AI podcasts in its NotebookLM software. I got early access and tested it out using Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as the source material, spending a few hours generating podcasts about the seminal novella—some of them more unhinged than others.

Released by Google Labs in 2023 as an experimental, AI-focused writing tool, NotebookLM has been enjoying a resurgence in user interest since early September, when the developers added an option to generate podcast-like conversations between two AI voices—one male-sounding and one female-sounding—from uploaded documents. While these audio “deep dives” can be used for studying and productivity, many of the viral clips online focused on the entertainment factor of asking robot hosts to discuss bizarre or highly personal source documents, like a LinkedIn profile.

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On Wednesday, a WIRED exclusive revealed that one of JD Vance’s financial policy advisers has posted a lot on Reddit about illicit substances. Given Vance’s hard stance on drugs, WIRED’s Tim Marchman and Makena Kelly join Leah to discuss why it matters that a member of his staff seems to have been using them.

Ferrari’s hypercars have always moved the needle—and not just the ones in the instrument display. With Formula One and World Endurance Championship (WEC) racing cars doing the hard yards, the technology transfer from track to road is for real in Maranello. Enter the F80, the latest in a bloodline that spans 40 years and some of Ferrari’s most revered cars. Collectors are spending big on the 288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo, and the LaFerrari. A new arrival is a once-in-a-decade event.

When talking with a chatbot, you might inevitably give up your personal information—your name, for instance, and maybe details about where you live and work, or your interests. The more you share with a large language model, the greater the risk of it being abused if there’s a security flaw.

A group of security researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are now revealing a new attack that secretly commands an LLM to gather your personal information—including names, ID numbers, payment card details, email addresses, mailing addresses, and more—from chats and send it directly to a hacker.

Everybody wants to talk to their pet. Or to try to get them to listen, anyway. So it’s no wonder that some startups think the way to break through the communication barrier between you and your pooch is with a nice big helping of technology. Welcome to a world with AI-enabled dog and cat collars that try to interpret a pet’s needs and then share those wishes with their human. The only problem with these devices is that the pet won’t actually be a part of the conversation, as the collar is just guessing at what the pet is thinking—but still doing all the talking anyway. It’s less like the audio collar worn by the dog from the movie Up, and more like shouting at a chatbot strapped to your dog’s neck. Meanwhile, your dog or cat might just be trying to figure out where that new voice is coming from.

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One of JD Vance’s key financial advisers in the Senate, Aaron Kofsky, is behind a Reddit account with the name PsychoticMammal that posted about using a variety of drugs, including cocaine, kratom, “gas station heroin,” and many others. The account also calls Vance a “Trump boot licker” and provides instructions on how to get drugs through TSA while traveling.

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KitchenAid’s strategy is one that maybe we should all live by—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Remaining nearly unchanged since its introduction in 1914, KitchenAid’s stand mixer has become such a legendary kitchen staple that we called it an “everlasting” kitchen must-have and put it on our Buy It For Life guide. Right now (until October 31st - spooky!), you can get 15% off select items at KitchenAid—using the link above—by using the code FALL15.

From the ground, northeastern Norway might look like fjord country, peppered with neat red houses and dissected by snowmobile tours through the winter. But for pilots flying above, the region has become a danger zone for GPS jamming.

The jamming in the region of Finnmark is so constant, Norwegian authorities decided last month they would no longer log when and where it happens—accepting these disturbance signals as the new normal.

Marissa Mayer didn’t say AI is Death, destroyer of worlds or even AI needs ethical guardrails.

Instead, she said it’s the sun—life-giving, bright, shiny, endlessly giving. Thus, the former Google engineer and CEO of Yahoo, who has worked on artificial intelligence for 25 years, christened her startup Sunshine. It’s devoted to AI-empowering family and social life with photo sharing, contact managing, and event planning.

As I spoke with Mayer in Sunshine’s candy-colored digs in Palo Alto, I was so stunned by her boosterism that I ended up mirroring it. “By gum, you’re right!” I said, all but slapping my knee. Intelligent machines are our bosom buddies. Anthropic’s Claude had that very morning given me canny insight into a personal matter.