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Isaac Asimoc, a writer well-known for his works of science fiction, penned the “Three Laws of Robotics” in 1972.

Asimov wrote these “laws” while thinking about androids, and he imagined a world where human-like robots would have human masters and need a set of programming rules to prevent them from causing harm.

But51 years after the laws were first published, technology has advanced significantly and humans now have a different understanding of what robots and artificial intelligence (AI) can look like and how people interact with them.(h/t to Survivopedia.com) The three laws of robotics

While a robot takeover is still more fiction than fact, as a prepper it’s worth reviewing Asimov’s laws to prepare for when SHTF. First law “A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.” Second law “A robot must obey orders given by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.” Third law “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first and the second law.”

While the laws are fiction, Asimov’s thought process is something preppers should mimic.

Asimov wasn’t a prepper, but he realized that AI-powered computers, or androids and robots, as he put it, could be dangerous despite their many benefits because they couldthink for themselves. He also realized the difficulty in programming them to ensure that they would not betray their human masters.

The dichotomy here lies in allowing computers to become sentient, or feeling and thinking for themselves, while still keeping some level of control over them as their masters. This two-pronged goalmaybe impossible, especially since humans are still in the infant stages of AI and there have already been problems in creating the necessary fail-safes to ensure the safety of users.

Astechnology continues to advance, AI computer systems are now teaching themselves much faster than any thought being put into creating the necessary controls to keep them safe.

In one of the earliest AI experiments where two computers with AI systems installed communicated with each other, it only took minutes for the two programs to develop their own language and communicate. This meant their human operatorswere unable to understand the two AI systems.

Chatbots are computer programs that mimic human conversations through text.

But back in 2017, when the experiment was conducted, chatbots weren’t yet capable of more sophisticated functions beyond simple tasks like answering customer questions or ordering food. To address this, Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence Research Group (FAIR) tried to find out if these programs could be taught to negotiate.

The researchers developed two chatbots named Alice and Bob.Using a game where the two chatbots and human players bartered virtual items like balls and hats, Alice and Bob showed that they could make deals with varying degrees of success.

Facebook researchers observed the language when the chatbots were negotiating among themselves. They noticed that becausethey didn’t instruct the bots to stick to the rules of English, Alice and Bob started using their own language: a “derived shorthand” they invented to communicate faster.

While the researchers stopped the experiment because of the potential danger, further research into AI continued through the years. There is no policingof potential tasks for advanced AI systems

The AI systems available to modern consumers surpass those used in the Facebook experiment.There is a wider array of AI systems available to use, some of which can be hired through websites, to accomplish different tasks.

However, there is no way to monitorwhat those tasks might be to guarantee that they are not abused by those who want to use these tools for crimes or to harm others. (Related: Digital prepping: How to protect yourself against cyberattacks.)

The first question for preppers is, can these systems turn against their human masters?

According to an Air Force colonel, that has already happened during an experimental drone test. The colonel eventually tried to deny what he said, but there have been reports about the incident.

During the test, a drone was assigned to find and eliminate targets, but it needed the permission of a human controller before firing.

After some time, the drone realized that the controller was responsible for the “points” it lost when it denied the permission it needed to take out certain targets. To solve the problem, the drone “killed” the controller.

No real person was harmed during the test, but it’s easy to see how the scenario could have turned ugly if the drone was assigned to protect an area with real people.

The drone test also illustrates the potential challenges of programming AI. The tests show that it can be impossible to program a sentient AI to prevent it from doing what it wants to do because it’s clever enough to find a way to disobey direct orders.

Rogue drones controlled by AI may harm humans, but how can you prevent this from happening?

Many ethical questions are being raised about AI, but experts still haven’t been able to present real-world answers. Unfortunately, they might not start working on this problem unless atragedy occurs.

By then, it might be too late to discuss the ethics associated with AI.And the U.S. isn’t the only country working onAI technology.

Other countries, along with some that aren’t on friendly terms with the U.S., are also developing their AI systems, both for military and civilian applications.

AI is already being used for one dangerous application: The creation of deep fake videos.

Stealing an actors “copyright” to their likeness isn’t harmful, but it is still consideredcriminal activity. When that same level of artificial intelligence is applied to identity theft, even preppers and non-preppers alike won’t be safe. How can you prepare yourself before the rise of AI?

Even nowAI exists on the internet and is already being used to create various content.This means you can’t always trust that the content you see or read was created by humans.

As of writing, at least19.2 percent of articles on the internet have some AI-generated content. At least 7.7percent of these articles have 75 percent or more of their content generated by AI.

Experts warn that by 2026, at least 90percent of internet content will be AI-generated.

How is this relevant to you as a prepper?

AI-generated content can be problematic because this meansmore content will be politicized.

Data suggests that Russia and other countries are alreadytrolling U.S. websites, potentially making posts and uploading articles thatare inflammatory to add to the political division in the country.These countries can continue to use AI to increase their effectiveness by targeting their articles more specifically.

With the potential dangers of AI steadily increasing as time goes by, you must be more careful about what you see and read online. Do not believe everything your see or hear,especially content with political overtones.

Learn how to be anindependent fact-checker and do your research to find out if what you are reading and hearing is true.

Be wary ofmainstream media that may be spinning news stories to support their own political agenda. Check reliable news sources for updates on what the Russian, Chinese and other countries’ intelligence services are doing.

This also means being careful about what you post online. Never post personal information online or anything that hackers could use to try and figure out anything about you.

Do not use systems like Alexa and Google Assistant, which often allow computers to eavesdrop on user conversations. Even though the companies that make these products claim they arent spying on users, various reports about them prove otherwise.

Don’t “computerize” your life bystorin your data online. This service may seem convenient because you can access your data anywhere, but there’s alsoa chance that others could access all your data in the cloud.

Are you willing to risk a data breach just for convenience? Most of the time, companies offering these services havethings buried in the fine print of their contracts, which allows them to listen in on your computer microphones and look at images from your phone or laptop cameras.

To trulyprotect yourself from the potential dangers of AI, you must reevaluate your usage of the internet and computers.Technology is convenient, but you must be responsible and make sure your information can’t be used against you by those who might do you harm.

Don’t store yourdata online and unplug things like microphones and cameras when not in use.

Sacrifice convenience to protect yourself and your family from the potential dangers of AI technology.

Visit Computing.newsto learn more about the growing dangers of AI systems.

Watch the video below to find out how AI technology threatens to take over thousands of jobs.

This video is from theNewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories:

Google is using AI to dig through Gmail accounts to find exactly what youre looking for and perhaps MORE.

Peeping through the windows: Microsoft to incorporate MANDATORY AI systems in Windows 11 to SPY on all your computing activities.

Dallas school district installs AI spying, surveillance systems to keep an eye on students.

Sources include:

Survivopedia.com

USAToday.com

TheConversation.com

TheGuardian.com

Brighteon.com
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Moving in the shadows: Why tanker seized by US off Venezuela was ‘spoofing’ its location

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Moving in the shadows: Why tanker seized by US off Venezuela was 'spoofing' its location

An oil tanker seized by the US off the Venezuelan coast on Wednesday spent years trying to sail the seas unnoticed.

Changing names, switching flags, and vanishing from tracking systems.

That all came to an end this week, when American coast guard teams descending from helicopters with guns drawn stormed the ship, named Skipper.

A US official said the helicopters that took the teams to the tanker came from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford.

The USS Gerald R Ford (in grey) off the US Virgin Islands on 4 December. Source: Copernicus
Image:
The USS Gerald R Ford (in grey) off the US Virgin Islands on 4 December. Source: Copernicus

The sanctioned tanker

Over the past two years, Skipper has been tracked to countries under US sanctions including Iran.

TankerTrackers.com, which monitors crude oil shipments, estimates Skipper has transported nearly 13 million barrels of Iranian and Venezuelan oil since 2021.

More on Nicolas Maduro

And in 2022, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed Skipper, then known as Adisa, on its sanctions list.

But that did not stop the ship’s activities.

Skipper pictured from the Venezuelan shore. Source: TankerTrackers.com
Image:
Skipper pictured from the Venezuelan shore. Source: TankerTrackers.com

In mid-November 2025, it was pictured at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela, where it was loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil.

Skipper (R) loads up with crude oil at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela. Source: Planet
Image:
Skipper (R) loads up with crude oil at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela. Source: Planet

It left Jose Oil Export Terminal between 4 and 5 December, according to TankerTrackers.com.

And on 6 or 7 December, Skipper did a ship-to-ship transfer with another tanker in the Caribbean, the Neptune 6.

Ship-to-ship transfers allow sanctioned vessels to obscure where oil shipments have come from.

The transfer with Neptune 6 took place while Skipper’s tracking system, known as AIS, was turned off.

Read more:
Everything we know about dramatic ship seizure
Is this what the beginning of a war looks like?

Skipper (R) and Neptune 6 in the Caribbean Sea during an AIS gap. Source: European Union Copernicus Sentinel and Kpler
Image:
Skipper (R) and Neptune 6 in the Caribbean Sea during an AIS gap. Source: European Union Copernicus Sentinel and Kpler

Dimitris Ampatzidis, senior risk and compliance manager at Kpler, told Sky News: “Vessels, when they are trying to hide the origin of the cargo or a port call or any operation that they are taking, they can just switch off the AIS.”

Matt Smith, head analyst US at Kpler, said they believe the ship’s destination was Cuba.

Around five days after leaving the Venezuelan port, it was seized around 70 miles off the coast.

Moving in the shadows

Skipper has tried to go unnoticed by using a method called ‘spoofing’.

This is where a ship transmits a false location to hide its real movements.

“When we’re talking about spoofing, we’re talking about when the vessel manipulates the AIS data in order to present that she’s in a specific region,” Mr Ampatzidis explained.

“So you declare false AIS data and everyone else in the region, they are not aware about your real location, they are only aware of the false location that you are transmitted.”

When it was intercepted by the US, it was sharing a different location more than 400 miles away from its actual position.

The distance between Skipper's spoofed position on AIS (towards the bottom right hand corner) and its real position when seized by the US. Source: MarineTraffic
Image:
The distance between Skipper’s spoofed position on AIS (towards the bottom right hand corner) and its real position when seized by the US. Source: MarineTraffic

Skipper was manipulating its tracking signals to falsely place itself in Guyanese waters and fraudulently flying the flag of Guyana.

“We have really real concerns about the spoofing events,” Mr Ampatzidis told Sky News.

“It’s about the safety on the seas. As a shipping industry, we have inserted the AIS data, the AIS technology, this GPS tracking technology, more than a decade back, in order to ensure that vessels and crew on board on these vessels are safe when they’re travelling.”

Dozens of sanctioned tankers ‘operating off Venezuela’

Skipper is not the only sanctioned ship off the coast of Venezuela.

According to analysis by Windward, 30 sanctioned tankers were operating in Venezuelan ports and waters as of 11 December.

About 30 sanctioned tankers are currently operating in Venezuelan waters. Source: Windward Maritime AI Platform
Image:
About 30 sanctioned tankers are currently operating in Venezuelan waters. Source: Windward Maritime AI Platform

The tanker seizure is a highly unusual move from the US government and is part of the Trump administration’s increasing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

In recent months, the largest US military presence in the region in decades has built up, and a series of deadly strikes has been launched on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

In the past, Mr Ampatzidis explained, actions like sanctions have had a limited effect on illegally operating tankers.

But the seizure of Skipper will send a signal to other dark fleet ships.

“From today, they will know that if they are doing spoofing, if they are doing dark activities in closer regions of the US, they will be in the spotlight and they will be the key targets from the US Navy.”

The Data X Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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The real reason for Donald Trump’s Venezuela exploits

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The real reason for Donald Trump's Venezuela exploits

Donald Trump wants you to know that there is one leading reason why he is bearing down militarily on Venezuela: drugs.

It is, he has said repeatedly, that country’s part in the production and smuggling of illegal narcotics into America that lies behind the ratcheting up of forces in the Caribbean in recent weeks. But what if there’s something else going on here too? What if this is really all about oil?

In one respect this is clearly preposterous. After all, the United States is, by a country mile, the world’s biggest oil producer. Venezuela is a comparative minnow these days, the 21st biggest producer in the world, its output having been depressed under the Chavez and then Maduro regimes. Why should America care about Venezuelan oil?

Money latest: Urgent warning over tumble dryers

For the answer, one needs to spend a moment – strange as this will sound – contemplating the chemistry of oil. Crude oil is, as the name suggests, quite crude. It’s an organic compound, the product of ancient organisms that have been compressed and heated up under the earth’s surface for hundreds of millions of years. And as such, crude oil is subtly different depending on the conditions under which those organisms were compressed.

In some parts of the world, crude oil comes out of the ground as clear, flowing liquid. Sometimes it is green. Sometimes it is heavy, thick gloopy stuff. Oil producers have a word for these differing varieties: light, medium and heavy.

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Venezuela accuses US of ‘piracy’

US imports
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US imports

And here’s the first thing you need to know. Most of America’s refineries are set up to process the heavy stuff. In other words, if America is going to keep its cars fed with gasoline, it needs heavy, gloopy crude. And since it costs many, many billions of dollars to overhaul refineries, no-one particularly wants to do that anytime soon.

Read more:
Why did the US seize tanker off Venezuela?

But the second thing you need to know is the vast majority of that oil produced in America, thanks to the shale revolution, is light crude. In other words, America’s refineries are not compatible with most of the oil America produces.

US oil map
Image:
US oil map

The upshot is that for all that America theoretically pumps more crude oil than it would ever need out of its own territories, it is still totally dependent on trade to meet its demands for heavy oil. Most American crude is exported overseas. And America imports well over 6,000 barrels of oil a day to feed its refineries in Texas and Louisiana with the heavy stuff they can digest.

All of which brings us to Venezuela, because it is, alongside Canada and Russia, sitting on the world’s biggest reserves of heavy oil. Right now, most American oil comes from Canada but were Donald Trump keen to wean himself off Canadian crude, he is well aware there is a vast resource of it sitting on the other side of the Caribbean for all those Texas and Louisiana refineries.

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‘Venezuela has already been invaded’ says Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado when asked about Trump intervention

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'Venezuela has already been invaded' says Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado when asked about Trump intervention

Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winning opposition leader has said her country has “has already been invaded”, when asked whether she would support a US invasion.

Speaking at a news conference in Oslo after being awarded the famous prize, Maria Corina Machado replied: “Look, some people talk about invasion in Venezuela and the threat of an invasion in Venezuela and I answered Venezuela has been already invaded.

“We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents. We have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime.

“We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations and not only involved in drug trafficking, but in human trafficking in networks of prostitution. This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas.”

The 58-year-old engineer continued: “Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking, and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.”

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Maria Machado speaks in Oslo

Read more:
Peace prize winner makes appearance
Venezuela’s opposition leader greets crowd

It comes after news of the US seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in the latest push by the Trump administration to increase the pressure on the government in Caracas.

More on Nicolas Maduro

America has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on boats it claims were drug-smuggling in the Caribbean.

Ms Machado made her return to the public eye in the early hours of Wednesday morning from the balcony of the Norwegian capital’s Grand Hotel, after covertly travelling to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

She didn’t make it to Oslo in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person, after an extraordinary day shrouded in uncertainty over her whereabouts.

It was accepted on her behalf by her daughter Ana Corina Sosa.

The opposition leader has dedicated her prize in part to US President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

Ms Machado has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.

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