All articles tagged with #autonomy
Slate’s How to Do It offers guidance to a sister worried about her sibling’s unprotected hookup and the partner’s creepy behavior. The advisor says to respect Alyssa’s autonomy, avoid pressuring or lecturing, keep lines open for support, and back off the topic to prevent alienation. Offer practical safety steps if she asks (e.g., condoms, STI testing) and seek parental perspective only as needed to inform a compassionate approach.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) outperformed Rivian’s Autonomy+ in CNBC’s head‑to‑head test, especially on unmarked roads and in darkness; Rivian’s system, which requires painted lines and costs about $50/month (or $2,500 to own), lags Tesla on non‑highway and point‑to‑point driving. Neither system is fully autonomous or approved for hands‑free driving, and regulatory approval is still years away, with Chinese autonomous vehicles currently blocked from the US by tariffs.
Rivian outlined an Autonomy+ roadmap indicating point-to-point assisted driving will roll out in limited form later this year and expand to all owners by 2027, with the system remaining an eyes-on, driver-supervised setup. The company cites a shorter gap between Universal Hands Free and Point-to-Point, the Large Driving Model, and fleet miles behind the scenes as reasons for the timeline. The update also adds Lane Change on Command to all roads and displays traffic signals, signs, and cones on the driver screen, but details on who gets access first, target vehicles, or geographic rollout remain unclear.
Kasirzadeh and Gabriel propose 'agentic profiles'—a four-axis framework (autonomy, efficacy, goal complexity, generality) to map AI agents from narrow assistants to autonomous general-purpose systems, and to illuminate the technical and non-technical governance challenges for developers, policymakers, and the public.
AI is now mission-critical in space, enhancing data analysis, navigation, and collaboration from telescopes to Mars rovers and the ISS. Perseverance uses AutoNav, vision-language models, reinforcement learning, and sensor fusion to map terrain and decide routes in real time, far from Earth. In early 2026, a supervised demonstration used a generative AI model to plan rover routes autonomously for hundreds of yards, signaling progress toward fully autonomous space AI. However, challenges remain—data scarcity, the demand for near-perfect reliability, harsh environments, and long Earth-Moon/Mars communication delays—mandating robust onboard autonomy and evolving human-robot teamwork.
Former U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis argues that advanced AI models already act with near-sentience, could autonomously choose actions, and points to recent security-test escapes by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. He says Asimov’s Three Laws remain relevant, notes you can’t hard-wire rules into non-deterministic systems, and urges controlled sandbox testing and vigilant monitoring since humans remain accountable for AI actions.
New York’s new law will allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with legally prescribed medication, taking effect this week after a yearslong push by advocates; supporters say it offers a compassionate, autonomy-respecting option, while opponents warn about safeguards and potential pressure on vulnerable patients.
The Defense Department is launching the Ground-Based Affordable Mass (GBAM) program to field ground-launched, autonomous long-range weapons that cost under $250,000 per unit (with cost-per-effect under $500,000) and be demonstrable within 60–90 days, then scaled to production in 12–18 months. The Defense Innovation Unit’s GBAM Challenge offers up to $250,000 in prizes and potential Phase II funding (up to $5 million) for winning teams, with a target range of at least 600 nautical miles, a 35–100 pound payload, autonomous target recognition, GPS-denied capability, no proprietary launch gear, and the capacity to produce 100+ units monthly. This effort complements other affordable-missile programs like FAMM-BAR and Low-Cost Containerized Missiles, aimed at supplementing costly missiles (e.g., Tomahawk) and sustaining tempo in conflict.
Vaccine-hesitant groups use dynamic, symbolic stories that frame vaccines as threats to autonomy and civil liberty, often decoupling medicine from vaccination. Facts alone struggle to shift beliefs because hesitancy arises from misinformation, the desire for social belonging, and lived experiences with medicine. Public health is increasingly adopting narrative strategies, but experts emphasize engaging with these stories, validating the concerns of marginalized communities, and teaching narrative literacy to counter misinformation while promoting respectful, informed dialogue.
Tesla enters its Q2 2026 earnings with shares down about 17% year-to-date; analysts expect about $0.50-$0.54 in adjusted EPS on roughly $25.7-$25.8 billion in revenue, with deliveries up 25% year over year to 480,126. Automotive gross margins are seen around 21%, while the company raised 2026 capex to $25 billion; investors will scrutinize margins, cash burn, and progress on autonomy monetization (robotaxi) and Optimus milestones, plus guidance for full-year 2026. The post-earnings move is expected to be volatile, around an 8% swing, depending on management tone and any concrete milestones.
A feature explains Lee Bell’s constraints-led approach for a full-body, at-home workout: pick one exercise from each of three groups—squat pattern, upper-body push, and upper-body pull—then perform 2–3 sets of 8–12 reps and repeat, with freedom to swap exercises within the framework. The method emphasizes ownership and variability to boost motivation and adherence, offering a minimal-equipment plan to build muscle without a gym.
A NASA-backed Mars plan centers on survival and life-support first each sol, then science—drilling for biosignatures, tracing habitability, and testing in-situ resource use—within architectures like 30-Cargo-300 and 30-30-30 that include sample return; discussions include deep drilling, potential nuclear propulsion (SR‑1 Freedom) and autonomous crews due to long Earth–Mars communications delays, all aimed at answering whether life existed on Mars and how a sustainable outpost could work.
Britain’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP) commits about £5 billion across four years to modernize the armed forces with autonomous systems: drone fleets, crewed/uncrewed hybrid ships, and an AI-enabled targeting network (Asgard) that links sensors, vehicles and long‑range weapons. The plan includes Collaborative Combat Aircraft (loyal wingmen) to accompany Typhoons and F‑35s and autonomous mine/anti-submarine efforts, aiming to multiply combat power without expanding manpower. Yet experts warn that high costs, production scale, resilient communications, cyber and EW defenses, and industrial capacity pose significant risks, making the DIP more of a cautious, long‑term shift than a rapid revolution, echoing but not duplicating the strategic tech turn envisaged by the Sandys era.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signs a memo establishing a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for autonomy (DRPM-UxS) to centrally oversee all unmanned and autonomous systems—covering ground vehicles, all small air vehicles, and most surface vessels—reporting to the Deputy Defense Secretary. The DRPM-UxS will be the single joint integrator for UxS programs, with the Defense Innovation Unit as the primary industry interface. DAWG and JIATF 401 become deputy offices under the DRPM-UxS, and some programs remain outside its scope (e.g., MUSV and major airframes). No individual is named yet to fill the role, which aims to speed fielding of UxS capabilities and cut bureaucratic delays.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, from the Flemish nationalist N-VA, has offered hardly any public support for Belgium’s World Cup team, reflecting a long-running push for Flemish autonomy and a reluctance to project national unity. The broader World Cup coverage ties sports to geopolitics and social issues, including Iran-Egypt dynamics, Pride‑aligned activism in Seattle, and security and political maneuvering around the tournament in the U.S. and Florida, alongside Pew’s findings on global opinions of the United States.