MAROKO133 Update ai: US nuclear missile-carrying 10,200-ton submarine could dock in Austra

📌 MAROKO133 Breaking ai: US nuclear missile-carrying 10,200-ton submarine could do

US nuclear-powered submarines that may carry nuclear weapons could dock at Australian ports without the knowledge of the Australian public or even its government, defense officials told a Senate hearing, reigniting debate over the country’s obligations under nuclear nonproliferation treaties and the long-term risks of the AUKUS security pact.

The comments were made during Senate estimates hearings as lawmakers questioned officials about plans for US Virginia-class submarines to begin rotating through Australian ports from 2027 under the first pillar of the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

The Guardian first reported this development.

Australian law prohibits nuclear weapons

Australian law prohibits nuclear weapons on its territory. Yet Defense Department officials told senators there was “no impediment” to US submarines that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons visiting Australian ports, because Washington maintains a long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its platforms.

That policy of “strategic ambiguity” already applies to US B-52 bombers that periodically land at RAAF Base Tindal in northern Australia, which is being upgraded to host more US aircraft.

“We respect the United States’ position of neither confirming nor denying,” Defense Secretary Greg Moriarty told the hearing.

Anti-nuclear campaigners and some lawmakers said the testimony undermines Australia’s nonproliferation commitments and risks turning the country into what they called “a launchpad for nuclear war.”

They also said the position contradicts earlier assurances from Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who said in a 2023 speech that only conventionally armed submarines would visit Australia.

“The U.S. has confirmed that the nuclear-powered submarines visiting Australia on rotation will be conventionally armed,” Wong said at the time.

Under AUKUS, US Virginia-class submarines will begin rotating through Australian ports from 2027, while Australia prepares to buy and eventually build its own fleet of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines.

Complicating the issue is the US development of a new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile known as the SLCM-N. 

The US Congress approved funding for the weapon in 2024, the first new American nuclear weapon since the Cold War, and it is expected to become operational within a decade. Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe has told Congress the missile is being designed for integration into Virginia-class submarines.

US nuclear-capable submarines

Defense officials told Australian senators that nuclear-capable missiles for the submarines are still in development and described the scenario as “hypothetical.”

Australia is a signatory to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, which bans the stationing of nuclear weapons in Australia and across much of the Pacific. 

However, defense officials argued that the treaty does not prohibit visits by foreign platforms that may be carrying nuclear weapons.

“The United States does not station nuclear weapons in Australia,” said Bernard Philip, an assistant secretary in the Defense Department. 

“There is no impediment under the Treaty of Rarotonga and the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons to the visit of dual-capable foreign platforms to Australia’s territory.”

Dual-capable platforms can carry either conventional or nuclear weapons. Gem Romuld, Australian director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said Wong’s assurances were now “dead in the water.”

“It’s taken just two years for expectations of an AUKUS partner to shift, so what will come next?” she said. “If AUKUS is ‘not about nuclear weapons,’ then Australia’s assurances must be backed up with legal commitments.”

Romuld urged Australia to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The ruling Labor Party has pledged to do so while in government, but has not yet acted. Seventy-four nations have adopted the treaty, but none of the nine nuclear-armed states have joined.

Greens Sen. David Shoebridge pressed officials over whether Australia would ask US commanders if visiting submarines were nuclear-armed.

“Is it still ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’?” he asked. Moriarty replied: “We respect the United States’ position of neither confirming nor denying.”

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 MAROKO133 Update ai: OpenAI Is Suddenly in Major Trouble Edisi Jam 18:17

The alarm bells are going off at OpenAI.

What was once a healthy lead over its competition thanks to its blockbuster AI chatbot ChatGPT has turned into a razor-thin edge, motivating OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to declare a “code red.”

The financial stakes are almost comical in their magnitude: The company is lighting billions of dollars on fire, with no end in sight; it’s committed to spending well over $1 trillion over the next several years while simultaneously losing a staggering sum each quarter.

And revenues are lagging far behind, with the vast majority of ChatGPT users balking at the idea of paying for a subscription.

Meanwhile, Google has made major strides, quickly catching up with OpenAI’s claimed 800 million or so weekly active ChatGPT users as of September. Worse yet, Google is far better positioned to turn generative AI into a viable business — all while minting a comfortable $30 billion in profit each quarter, as the Washington Post points out.

The question on many investors’ minds: if the AI bubble were to collapse, would OpenAI even survive?

“We’re going to see a situation where ChatGPT was the early winner,” Porter and Co. equity analyst Ross Hendricks told WaPo. “They’re going to end up just like MySpace did with the inability to truly monetize and break away from the pack.”

In a Thursday note, Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid estimated staggering losses for OpenAI amounting to $140 billion between 2024 and 2029.

“OpenAI may continue to attract significant funding and could ultimately develop products that generate substantial profits and revolutionize the world,” he wrote, as quoted by WaPo. “But at present, no start-up in history has operated with expected losses on anything approaching this scale.”

“We are firmly in uncharted territory,” Reid added.

To even just cover the interest on all the money OpenAI is borrowing, the company’s revenues will have to grow immensely. But according to recent Sensor Tower data reviewed by WaPo, ChatGPT’s monthly active users grew by a mere five percent between July and November. Google’s Gemini AI app soared by a far healthier 30 percent over the same period.

Recent data also suggests ChatGPT user growth is stalling out in Europe, highlighting a slowdown that couldn’t come at a worse time for OpenAI.

Google’s latest Gemini 3, in particular, impressed when it was announced released last month, with benchmarks exceeding OpenAI’s most powerful AI models. Its Nano Banana Pro AI image model has also pushed the envelope, while OpenAI’s Sora video-generating app has received comparatively little media attention after a storm of controversy surrounding its rollout.

It’s not just Google, either. OpenAI is also facing steep competition from open-source AI models in China, like the startup DeepSeek, whose extremely energy-efficient R1 model threw Silicon Valley into chaos earlier this year.

In short, by many indications, OpenAI appears to be in deep water, and analysts are growing wary of the company burning through astronomical amounts of money at an unprecedented pace.

Even the so-called “Godfather of AI” and former Google AI lead, Geoffrey Hinton, isn’t optimistic about OpenAI’s future.

“I think it’s actually more surprising than it’s taken this long for Google to overtake OpenAI,” he told Business Insider this week.

“I think that right now they’re beginning to overtake it,” he added. “Google has a lot of very good researchers and obviously a lot of data and a lot of data centers.”

“My guess is Google will win,” Hinton concluded.

More on OpenAI: OpenAI Is Suddenly in Trouble

The post OpenAI Is Suddenly in Major Trouble appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com