TechXGeopolitics #16: Julian Assange Reaches Plea Deal
Also featured: How Israeli tech start ups profit from genocide in Gaza, new reporting in Unlimited Hangout
Welcome to my newsletter, where I set out to highlight significant, yet un- or underreported recent news and trends at the intersection of geopolitics and tech.
Why the intersection of technology and geopolitics? The future of geopolitics will be shaped by today’s tech advances, yet the two topics are often isolated from one another in journalism and geopolitical analysis. This newsletter strives to bridge the gap while also spotlighting relevant work by emerging and veteran writers in independent media.
Feedback on this newsletter’s format and content is more than welcome — please feel free to comment on this page, or write to me at stavroula.pabst@proton.me. Thank you for reading!
“While Assange may be free, we cannot rightly say that justice has been done.”
Julian Assange freed!
After a years-long legal battle and about 14 years in some form of confinement, journalist and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the United States and has been released.
The catch? To walk free, Assange pleaded guilty to one charge of espionage. Because journalists frequently report on or leak national secrets like Assange has through Wikileaks, activists fear the guilty charge could criminalize journalism in the future, or at least set a dangerous precedent for reporters covering government abuses.
In this respect, Stella Assange, activist and Julian Assange’s wife, has told Reuters she will seek a full pardon for Assange:
“We will be seeking a pardon, obviously, but the fact that there is a guilty plea, under the Espionage Act, in relation to obtaining and disclosing national defence information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists.”
New Reporting in Unlimited Hangout: Worldcoin: Sam Altman’s Crypto Tool for Technocracy?
“Worldcoin is positioning itself as a one-stop identity, finance, and Universal Basic Income (UBI) infrastructure poised to subvert, if not undermine, traditional financial systems and governance structures internationally — all in response to problems Altman’s own OpenAI may create.”
In a new investigation for Unlimited Hangout, I explore OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s ambitious, albeit rather bizarre, crypto-for-biometrics side-project, Worldcoin, which proposes to share AI’s future productivity gains with everyone on earth through its financial infrastructure, perhaps eventually in the form of a universal basic income (UBI). Altman muses that as AI could displace or decimate employment, a kind of economic “transition,” perhaps eventually facilitated through Worldcoin-based UBI, is needed to assist people financially.
Worldcoin’s framing about materializing AI’s (perhaps overstated) productivity gains is peculiar within the context of Altman’s booming, albeit controversial and scandal-laden, OpenAI, one of the biggest names in the business of AI. As Forbes bluntly put matters, Worldcoin’s “Altman has played a central role in sparking the current AI gold rush [through OpenAI], which has significantly worsened the very problem Worldcoin proposes to solve.”
For now, Worldcoin is attempting to distribute about $50 worth of its cryptocurrency, also named Worldcoin (WLD), to everyone on earth for free. But there are a couple catches:
Want free crypto from Worldcoin? You’ll need to get your irises scanned at a Worldcoin “Orb.” (Okay, so the project’s laughably poor optics seem to have been an afterthought for Altman and Co.). Worldcoin is adamant it’s able to collect the scans without holding on to your personal data; it says it only wants to use them to ensure you’re human.
Successfully establishing Worldcoin as a major cryptocurrency, perhaps eventually slated to provide everyone on earth the future financial gains realized through AI, could advance Worldcoin infrastructure near or at the center of the economy, giving Altman and Co. tremendous political and economic power.
Weary of Worldcoin’s chaotic Orb roll-outs and audacious premise, a number of countries have suspended Worldcoin operations over data privacy fears and concerns about the overall principle of swapping biometrics for instant money. Indeed, many people in places like Kenya and Argentina went to the Orbs out of economic desperation.
Altogether, Worldcoin may ultimately amount to little more than a failed memecoin: it’s scanned less than 6 million peoples’ irises, falling far behind its initial hopes of obtaining over a billion iris scans by now.
Still, the project’s rollout and ambitious end-goals showcase how wealthy elites like Altman have become powerful enough to (at least try to) build their own financial infrastructures in ways that could override traditional financial structures, and therefore government structures, as we understand them.
Read the full article here.
Jessica Buxbaum: Devastation Into Dollars: Israeli Startups are Making a Killing in Gaza
“Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza couldn’t reach the degree it has without the advanced weaponry it’s creating. On the one hand, Israel’s economic dependence on defense technology stagnates peace efforts and damages its international relationships when its technologies aid Israel’s human rights abuses. Yet, on the other, Israel’s economy thrives on war and occupation.”
– Jessica Buxbaum, MintPress News
“This industry is in the business of killing…So what we find appalling, they find exciting.”
— Neve Gordon, human rights and international law professor at the Queen Mary University of London
As genocide in Gaza continues, Jessica Buxbaum at MintPress News elucidates how defense tech startups in Israel and beyond are cashing in while testing their (often AI-powered) technologies against Palestinians. Although Israel is increasingly viewed as a pariah state due to its actions in the Gaza strip, Jessica Buxbaum emphasizes that the genocide is a unique, albeit harrowing, opportunity for Israeli startups to show off their tech in hopes of securing other lucrative business deals and military contracts internationally.
A few startups, based in Israel and beyond, profiting from and testing technologies during the genocide include:
Xtend: US-based AI company and IDF contractor Xtend focuses on “AI Driven Human Supervised Robotics,” and has partnered with the United States Department of Defense, the European Union, and other Western governments.
Xtend illustrates how its AI-powered technologies are already being utilized in wartime conditions. As TechCruch previously reported: “With Xtend’s platform, operators can directly control drones and robots — optionally with a VR headset — or train AI models to be deployed on drones that identify objects and help navigate indoor/outdoor environments.”
Smartshooter: Israel-based Smartshooter’s products include an AI-powered gun installed in Hebron, West Bank, and a “Smash” system in Gaza, which “utilizes “smart sight” to precisely track moving targets.” As Smartshooter describes its AI-powered gun: “It’s not a standard rifle optic. It’s an automatic firing and targeting system for small arms.” (What could go wrong?)
InfiniDome: Israel and New York-based Infinidome creates GPS navigation systems for drones patrolling Israel’s border with Gaza. As the Infinidome website boasts on its site, the global military drone market has shot up over 180 percent from 2018-2023.
SpearUAV: SpearUAV is a Tel Aviv-based startup that develops suicide drones which can “locate, track, and attack targets by crashing into them and self-destructing.”
SpearUAV Viper drone “attack” demo
Corsight – “Facial Intelligence”: Corsight creates AI facial recognition technologies that surveil and collect information on Palestinians in Gaza. Frighteningly, Corsight emphasizes its services can also be applied to the private sector for crime prevention purposes, normalizing AI-powered facial recognition tech’s use in daily life.
Corsight promotes the use of AI-powered facial recognition services in the private sector, including in retail and hospital settings.
In fewer words, the Israeli tech industry, and arguably economy altogether, is built on the subjugation and apartheid, and now genocide, of Palestinians.
Read Jessica Buxbaum’s MintPress News reporting for the whole story.
Chris Wright: NATO’s Endgame Is Nuclear War
“Given that Russian use of nuclear warheads might well precipitate a nuclear response by the West, the fate of humanity hangs on the restraint and rationality of one man, Putin—a figure who is constantly portrayed by Western media and politicians as an irrational, bloodthirsty monster….Maybe the real madmen aren’t in the Kremlin, but in Washington, London, Brussels, and Warsaw.”
— Chris Wright, Assistant History Professor at Hunter College
For Compact, Dr. Chris Wright highlights that geopolitical tensions are at their highest since 1962 (the Cuban Missile Crisis) and yet, Western politicians aren’t deescalating, they’re escalating the crisis. Namely, a hostile NATO, now including Finland and Sweden, has functionally expanded to Russia’s borders, hundreds of thousands of NATO troops have been placed at “high readiness,” weapons are still being sent to an increasingly desperate Ukraine, and targets inside Russia have been attacked. If the public is unable to protest Western politicians’ recklessness en masse, Wright fears “the current crisis might not end as benignly as did the one in 1962.”
Further reading: Russia has blamed the United States for Ukraine’s recent attack on Russian-annexed Crimea, where a recent beach attack killed at least four and injured over 150 more people.
Frank Landymore: Top Secret Aquatic Drone Spotted on Google Maps
Frank Landymore at Futurism’s The Byte highlighted a bizarre Google Maps sighting of Manta Ray, a secretive uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman and set to “operate long-duration, long-range missions in ocean environments where humans can’t go.”
While Landymore says the military has been “tight-lipped” about the Manta Ray’s dimensions, it seems the Google Maps sighting may force more information about the mysterious UUV, and perhaps other emerging aquatic defense tech systems and vehicles, into the public eye.
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I enjoyed this potpourri of recent tech-related news. No doubt that Sam Altman is dodgy AF and the secretive Manta Ray is very interesting. Good work Pabst 😁