The U.S. Army’s artificial intelligence research is focused on developing a “general purpose thinking machine,” a term that is difficult for researchers and security officials alike to precisely define.

Col. Isaac J. Faber, director of the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Integration Center, said at a summit organized by tech giant NVIDIA in Washington this week that defense officials’ understanding of AI and its applications differs from the private sector’s perspective.

“How we think about this is that artificial intelligence isn’t a product, it’s not a chip, it’s not a set of models. Very simply stated, it’s an academic field of research,” Col. Faber said at the summit. “That’s what it is. It’s a field of research with researchers attempting to create a general purpose thinking machine.”

A “general purpose thinking machine” is the terminology that some AI practitioners use to explain artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Technologists describe AGI as the ultimate goal of their efforts to make AI models and tools perform tasks and demonstrate comprehension as successfully as humans. 

The race to achieve AGI is spreading worldwide. John Beieler, the U.S. intelligence community’s AI chief, told Threat Status earlier this year that no one was yet close to producing AGI. 

Col. Faber said AI researchers think individual AI tools may someday be yoked together into a general purpose thinking machine, but the Department of Defense already sees real-world value. 

The National Security Agency said Wednesday it has detected a shift in Russian cyber operations against Ukraine, from destructive digital attacks to espionage.

NSA Cybersecurity Director Dave Luber shared the code-breaking and code-making spy agency’s observations at a threat intelligence conference in Washington hosted by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Mr. Lovelace was at the event and reports on what officials describe as a change in tactics that could offer Moscow an edge over its adversary.

“Now the Russians [are] shifting back to more espionage: ‘How can I conduct espionage against Ukrainian systems so that [I] can have an advantage on the battlefield?’” Mr. Luber said at the conference. “A shift … with a potential objective to do attack operations to what we see more of today is the opportunity for gleaning intelligence that can give the Russians advantage on the battlefield.”

Mr. Luber said one of the most important lessons his agency learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine is the importance of sharing its insights with partners to better thwart Russia and other foreign adversaries around the world. 

Elon Musk’s X returned to Brazil this week, with the country’s telecommunications regulator ordering internet service providers to reopen access to the social media site.

Some Brazilian X users started posting again Wednesday after nearly six weeks without the service. The reopening of X is the latest twist in a legal saga, which hit new heights in August when Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the shutdown because of a dispute with Mr. Musk over X accounts allegedly linked to misinformation and hate speech.

While Mr. Musk disputed the charges and even personally criticized the Brazilian judge, X eventually agreed to pay the government $5 million in fines. 

But even that wasn’t without drama: X reportedly paid the $5 million levy to the wrong bank.

A federal regulator appointed by President Biden cheered on plans to use nuclear energy to power data centers, and he praised the expected reopening of Pennsylvania’s infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant as part of the broader push to help fuel the power-hungry tech sector.

Constellation Energy Corp. said last month it was working with Microsoft to restart a reactor at the site. That restored reactor is physically adjacent to another Three Mile Island reactor that partially melted down in 1979, a major accident that sparked global fears about the potential unintended consequences of nuclear power.

David Rosner, appointed by Mr. Biden to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year, said at an NVIDIA summit this week that he was thrilled to hear about the nuclear power plant restarting in support of Big Tech’s energy needs.

“I was just excited that hey, this unique thing, this power plant that had been shut down might actually come back on,” Mr. Rosner said at the summit in Washington. “And, again, at a high level, that’s exactly what we need. What we need is more supply on the system and these two parties, through a negotiation that they did together, found a way to do that.”

Mr. Rosner said he would not prejudge any matter that could come before the commission, but indicated that the Three Mile Island reopening likely won’t be the only nuclear power solution to the tech sector’s electricity demands in America.

Asked if more deals like the one at Three Mile Island will come, Mr. Rosner told the NVIDIA gathering: “I think so.”

A decades-old federal law is back in the spotlight this week, and it directly involves Mr. Musk, X and former President Donald Trump. Washington Times contributor and Fox News analyst Andrew P. Napolitano offers his take on the dispute between federal special counsel Jack Smith and Mr. Musk. As part of his Jan. 6 case against Mr. Trump, Mr. Smith two years ago got an order from a federal judge forcing X to turn over direct messages sent to and received from Mr. Trump, without informing the former president for 180 days.

X has spent the better part of two years fighting that order in court, arguing that the federal demands are unconstitutional. The case reached the Supreme Court, which this week rejected Mr. Musk’s argument. 

Mr. Napolitano says the law at the heart of the matter, the 1986 Stored Communications Act, “is unconstitutional on its face.”

“This is so because it defies the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees privacy by requiring a showing under oath of probable cause of crime as the absolute precondition of all government searches and seizures,” Mr. Napolitano writes. “Doesn’t the Constitution mean what it says? Of what value are constitutional guarantees if those in whose hands we repose them for safekeeping secretly and repeatedly decline to do so? How does this end?”

• Oct. 14 — Safeguarding Democracy in an Era of Geopolitical Competition, Lowy Institute

• Oct. 15 — Ukraine’s Energy Sector: Short-Term Threats and Long-Term Prospects, Wilson Center

• Nov. 8-10 — IISS Prague Defense Summit 2024, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• Nov. 21 — Competition Policy 2024: Urgent Questions Emerging within Digital Markets, Chatham House