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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    “The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI Can Simulate But Not Instantiate Consciousness.”

    That’s the title of a paper that 404 Media reports was recently published by Alexander Lerchner, a Senior Staff Scientist at Google DeepMind. Regardless of grand pronouncements from folks, including DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, about AGI’s potential, the paper states that “phenomenal consciousness” is a physical state, and “not a software artifact that can be accidentally or deliberately created.”

    After 404 reached out for comment, the DeepMind letterhead was removed, and a disclaimer about it representing the author’s “personal views” was moved to the top.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    PocketOS maker says an AI agent “deleted our production database in 9 seconds.”

    The details of what happened should be taken with a grain of salt since some of its self-reported by the chatbot, which can be tricky. But according to Jer Crane, a Cursor coding agent running Claude Opus 4.6 found a credential mismatch that it fixed by deleting a Railway volume that contained production data and the recent backups, using a token it found that they hadn’t realized would allow that kind of access via Railway’s API for AI agents.

    It was eventually recovered, and everyone is vibe coding once again.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Meta’s latest energy deal is for 24/7 orbit-to-grid solar power.

    Meta announced a new deal this morning with Overview Energy, a space-based solar company with plans to demo beaming “energy wirelessly from space to a solar farm on Earth” in 2028, ahead of commercial delivery in 2030.

    Its satellites sit in geosynchronous orbit roughly 22,000 miles above Earth’s equator, where sunlight is constant, collecting energy in space and beaming it to Earth-based solar facilities on the ground as low-intensity, near-infrared light. This means solar farms that currently sit idle at night can keep producing electricity around the clock, maximizing their output and creating more energy for the grid.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The feds join Elon Musk’s attempt to stop new AI regulations in Colorado.

    A report by Bloomberg points out that the DOJ has joined an xAI lawsuit against the Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence law that is set to take effect in Colorado on June 30th. In their filing, the government’s lawyers claim that by requiring developers to take “reasonable care to protect consumers” from algorithmic discrimination, the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    A soldier “directly involved” in Maduro’s capture has been arrested over Polymarket bets.

    As first reported by ABC News and now confirmed by the DOJ, federal investigators believe special forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke put down $33k on prediction market bets about Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro being removed from office, just before Trump announced his capture in January, profiting over $400,000.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The Curiosity rover’s latest Mars discovery.

    A rock NASA’s Curiosity rover drilled in 2020 contained “the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet,” including seven never previously detected on Mars. The finding published today in Nature was made using its onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory.

    Annotated close-up of three holes NASA’s Curiosity drilled into Martian rock at a location nicknamed “Mary Anning” in October 2020.
    Annotated close-up of three holes NASA’s Curiosity drilled into Martian rock at a location nicknamed “Mary Anning” in October 2020.
    Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
    Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro launch eventFramework’s Laptop 13 Pro launch event
    Richard Lawler and Sean Hollister