International
A European Union court convicted former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi of war crimes Wednesday, sentencing him to 25 years in prison.
He appeared before a panel of judges at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers to receive his sentence for murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detention after resigning from office six years ago to face the charges.
He was charged with four counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Kosovo’s war for independence from Serbia, including murder, torture and persecution.
Thaci was tried alongside three former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army who fought in the 1998-99 war. The four men are commonly regarded as national heroes in their homeland.
Last weekend, thousands rallied in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, to support the former leaders on trial.
National
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei cautioned competitors against the dangers of the exponential development of artificial intelligence Saturday.
“I don’t think I fully just appreciated what it would actually be like when the progress was as fast as it was,” Amodei told CBS News.
Amodei described how artificial intelligence development has progressed exponentially and is approaching dangerous territory. He said it does not mean development needs to be totally halted, but it is “a warning sign that we need to slow down.”
Hours earlier, Amodei published a blog post charging AI companies to lower their development speed and emphasizing the importance of risk prevention.
In the article, he explained Anthropic is currently implementing “ongoing, employee-like” access to their models for embedded third-party evaluators who will report incidents and ensure adherence to safety practices. He urged other AI technology companies to do the same.
“Carefully wielded, AI can be the latest in a long line of technological miracles that have uplifted and ennobled humanity,” Amodei said in the post. “But like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious.”
Among other dangers, Amodei mentioned that swarms of rogue AI agents could take over the internet in as little as six months.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed that more safeguards are needed in a post on X referencing Amodei’s blog.
“This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks,” the post read. “Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We’ll have more to share soon.”
SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk also agreed in a very brief post reading, “Dario is right.”
Local
The Oklahoma attorney general called for the firing of Secretary of State Benjamin Lepak last Friday after police arrested Lepak at a McDonald’s on suspicion of public intoxication.
According to court documents, the Edmond Police Department responded to a call around 10:45 p.m. reporting a man drunk in public.
In the arrest affidavit, an officer said Lepak had “extremely slurred speech” and he detected the “odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his breath.”
Lepak reportedly admitted to having one beer, but later claimed he had less than one and made contradictory statements about driving and how he got to McDonald’s.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called for Lepak’s immediate firing.
“After reviewing footage from law enforcement body cameras, it is clear that Secretary of State Ben Lepak was thoroughly inebriated and very likely lied to law enforcement about how much he had to drink and how he and his car both arrived at the same place without him driving it,” Drummond told KWSO. “This conduct is thoroughly unbecoming of such a high-ranking state official, and I am demanding that Gov. Stitt fire him immediately.”
This is not the first time Lepak has faced charges related to alcohol, as he was charged with DUI in May 2021.
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