Arizona
Arizona State University researcher warns against overtrusting AI in Iran strikes
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The U.S. military’s AI-powered battlefield intelligence system can compress targeting decisions that once took days into minutes or seconds. But in that push for speed, a preliminary inquiry by the Pentagon found the U.S. relied on outdated intelligence and struck an Iranian school, killing about 170 people, mostly children.
It turns out there’s a lot of research on what happens when humans deploy AI in battlefield settings and why things can go wrong.
“AI is not ready for prime time,” said Nancy Cooke, director of ASU’s Center for Human, AI, and Robot Teaming, on the latest episode of Generation AI. “It is unreliable. It can do unexpected things. And humans may have the tendency to overtrust it.”
Cooke has spent years studying what happens when humans team up with artificial intelligence in high-stakes scenarios. In her research on simulated drone pilot teams, she’s watched AI perform its assigned tasks flawlessly while simultaneously making the humans perform worse.
AI-powered tools like the Maven Smart System, the Pentagon’s battlefield intelligence platform that identifies and prioritizes targets, create a risk for over-reliance on AI recommendations, she said.
Large language models appear deceptively human-like, Cooke explained, but “they’re very much not like human intelligence, although people may think so and then overtrust them as a result.”
Three-person drone experiment
Cooke’s research team created simulated three-person drone teams, then substituted AI for one human pilot. The AI executed its core functions without error, controlling airspeed, heading and altitude.
But something unexpected happened.
“[The AI pilot] acted like there was no one else on the team,” Cooke said. “It did not anticipate the information needs of its fellow team members. And as a result, the coordination of the whole team broke down.”
The humans changed their behavior, too. Thinking they were working with a superior AI, the research subjects decided to follow the machine’s lead. “AI isn’t anticipating information needs. So, I’m going to stop doing that too,” seemed to be their subconscious logic.
The result: teams with AI got reconnaissance photos slower than all-human teams, despite AI’s superior individual performance.
“Even though AI may be fast, the combination of AI working with humans may be slow and bad,” Cooke said.
“It Shouldn’t Be Trusted”
Both over-reliance and under-trust of AI pose challenges on the battlefield, but Cooke is convinced one error is more serious.
“Definitely over-trusting is worse. Because it shouldn’t be trusted. It’s going to give you bad information a lot of the time. Not all of the time. And it’s going to be fast, but that’s not necessarily better,” she said.
The Maven Smart System represents exactly what worries her most. The Pentagon has praised the system for combining eight or nine different intelligence systems into one, condensing targeting decisions from days or hours into minutes.
“So many things can go wrong,” Cooke said. “You have all these different system components that haven’t been tested. They have no safeguards on them. We don’t know how they play off of each other and work together. It’s just a recipe for disaster.”
The Anthropic precedent
Some AI companies are drawing their own red lines. The Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March after the company refused to grant the military a license to use its products for “any lawful purpose,” without restrictions for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weaponry.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he objected, in part, because he did not believe the company’s models could reliably handle such grave tasks.
“Anthropic was spot on. They’re not ready,” Cooke said. “And I don’t know that they’re going to be ready in a very long time.”
Her position goes further than timing concerns. Some decisions, she argues, should remain exclusively human: “decisions to target something, decisions to shoot.”
Information overload
Cooke’s wildfire research reveals another dimension of the challenge of partnering humans with AI. Drones can collect vast amounts of reconnaissance data, but processing it remains “a complex cognitive task to go over reels and reels of video.”
Her research found that too much information creates its own problems, leading to decision paralysis and worse outcomes; the opposite of what AI integration promises to deliver.
The pattern holds across domains: AI excels at narrow technical tasks but struggles with the contextual awareness and anticipation that effective teamwork requires, she said.
“I think you have to make sure that people realize that this is not human intelligence and humans have a lot to offer,” Cooke said. “The best combination would be good human intelligence coupled with good technology.”
The escalation question
Critics argue that moral qualms about autonomous weapons put the U.S. at a disadvantage against adversaries like China or Russia, who might deploy fully autonomous systems.
They worry about next-generation weapons that can decide to fire on their own. In a world where milliseconds might be the difference between life and death, these critics argue human-in-the-loop weapons won’t be able to keep up.
Cooke sees it differently: she thinks autonomous systems run the risk of friendly fire and may be vulnerable to foreign hacking, turning advanced weapons into threats against their own operators.
More broadly, she views the AI arms race as inherently escalatory, potentially raising the risk of countries opting for a weapon of last resort: a nuclear bomb. “People are pushing to, you know, move fast and break things. And indeed, we will.”
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PHOENIX — 89-year-old Robert Young is battling Arizona State University in court over the Louis Emerson home, one of the oldest remaining houses in the Phoenix Churchill area.
At the corner of 4th and Pierce streets sits a home that pre-dates Arizona statehood, and now sits at the center of a legal battle between its owner and Arizona State University.
ASU wants the land where the Louis Emerson home stands. The university is planning a medical and technology school nearby and says it wants to exercise its right of possession over the property.
But Young, who has owned the home since 1975, is not backing down.
“It’s not gonna happen. That’s what I thought then and that’s what I think today. I will not let it happen,” Young said.
Marshall Shore, known as the Hip Historian, says the home is one of the oldest remaining houses in the Phoenix Churchill area, built before Arizona was even a state.
“This house was here before statehood, before Arizona even thought of becoming a state; this house was here, and so it deserves to tell that story and continue on,” Shore said.
Shore says the home’s history is rooted in everyday life.
“It was an everyday man’s house. He was a butcher,” Shore said.
Young says he and his wife lived in the home for 8 years before renting it out. He calls it an architectural and historic treasure that is irreplaceable. He says the legal battle is taking a toll on both of them.
“It’s stressful. You don’t know from day to day if you’re gonna find the house on the corner,” Young said.
Young says the university offered him between $290,000 and nearly $1 million for the property. Maricopa County Superior Court records show the Arizona Board of Regents sued Young for the home earlier this month.
According to the Arizona Republic, ASU gave a written statement explaining that they made several offers to Young on his home. Their final offer was based on an appraisal, and it was not accepted.
Shore says the home does not need to come down and has a vision for how it could coexist with the planned medical school.
“I mean there’s nothing more sustainable than keeping a house where it is. Create a pocket park around it, so that way people can come and enjoy that little pocket park and make it really a gem in the community,” Shore said.
Shore says an online petition in support of preserving the home has gathered more than 10,000 signatures.
Young wants ASU and the public to understand what is truly at stake.
“It’s the way it’s placed on the corner, and it’s the fact that this corner itself is historic,” Young said.
Young is expected to appear in court on Sept. 4 to explain why the home should not be torn down.
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A look at where the Arizona Cardinals rank in new NFL power rankings based on level of interest.
We are in the dead of the offseason in the NFL, when we are simply waiting for training camps to start. It is a good time for more lists and rankings.
AZCentral Sports’ Bob McManaman put together NFL power rankings for all 32 teams, but based on interest level.
Where do the Arizona Cardinals fall?
As you can probably imagine, it is near the bottom. They find themselves in the tier of “watch at your own risk,” which includes the five lowest-ranked teams. The Cardinals come in at No. 30.
Who’s going to emerge as the starting quarterback and will it even matter? At some point, rookie Carson Beck is going to get his shot and by then, the season might already be heading toward a disaster. Stay tuned to learn how rookie Jeremiyah Love and the running backs will split time, how the defense hopes to rediscover itself and how first-year coach Mike LaFleur plans to get things off the ground.
For fans, there is fantasy intrigue for their pass catchers in Trey McBride, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson, and we want to know how big a season Love can be, but Jacoby Brissett is the least interesting starting quarterback in the league. He is neither young, nor accomplished nor has a track record of winning.
They have no flash defensively.
To say they are more interesting than the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns, the two lowest-ranked teams, is a stretch, although none of these three teams are remotely interesting.
The NFC West, outside of the Cardinals, has interesting teams. There are the defending champion Seattle Seahawks, the loaded LA Rams and then a San Francisco 49ers team that keeps up, even without as loaded a roster.
Training camp is coming soon!
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — A missing and endangered child from Arizona was found at the homeless encampment known as “The Jungle” in Olympia, after investigators received information that the child may have been a victim of sex trafficking. U.S. marshals said.
The girl had been reported missing to the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department in May, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
On June 18, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified the agency that the child was potentially being sex trafficked in Washington state.
The encampment is in the greenbelt along Interstate 5 on both sides of the Sleater-Kinney Road exit in Olympia. (KOMO News)
A deputy U.S. marshal assigned to missing children investigations in the Western District of Washington developed a lead that brought authorities to the 3200 block of Martin Way East, a 20-acre homeless encampment known as “The Jungle.”
The agency described the area as having high rates of violence and community safety concerns. Back in 2023, a woman was found dead at the homeless encampment.
The city’s estimate of the number of people at the encampment generally ranges from about 100 to 250 people, with additional visitors sometimes coming to the site during the day. Overall, the number varies throughout the year, Olympia city officials said.
City staff visit the site several times each week, while service providers offer food, water, clothing, sanitation services, and other basic assistance.
On Thursday, U.S. marshals, assisted by the Washington State Department of Corrections, canvassed the encampment and found the missing child. The female juvenile was transferred to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families and the Olympia Police Department for treatment and victim assistance.
“Protecting our nation’s children is of the highest importance,” Acting U.S. Marshal Donrien Stephens said in a statement. He credited local, state, and community partners for helping safely recover a youth at elevated risk of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.
A photo of an Olympia homeless camp, where a man was arrested by police after allegedly throwing “softball-sized rocks” at firefighters who were responding to an active fire. (KOMO News)
The U.S. Marshals Service said the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 expanded its authority to help law enforcement recover endangered missing children, regardless of whether a fugitive or sex offender is involved, and led to the creation of its Missing Child Unit.
Since the law’s passage, the agency said it has contributed to locating or recovering 5,281 missing children.
The child’s exact age was not made public by U.S. marshals, just that she had been found safe.
The Marshals Service asked anyone with information about wanted fugitives to contact the nearest U.S. Marshals office or the agency’s Communications Center at 1-800-336-0102.
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