U.S. intelligence says new Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is providing opportunities for American spies collecting and analyzing open-source information, but also serious challenges given that those tools sometimes produce “hallucinations” — essentially inventing answers with demonstrably false information.

National Security Tech Reporter Ryan Lovelace has a deep-dive on the “Intelligence Community Open-Source Intelligence (IC-OCINT) Strategy for 2024-2026,” an unclassified version of which was made public this month by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns. The document says the intelligence community needs new tradecraft and training to prepare analysts and operatives to combat the dangers of GAI, including the production of false information that some warn could trigger bad decisions or a global disaster.

“OSINT tradecraft and training must be updated and refined to mitigate the potential risks of GAI, including inaccuracies and hallucinations,” the strategy document states. “The OSINT community should be at the forefront of the [intelligence community] in testing the use of GAI and developing and evolving the tradecraft for its use. This tradecraft will set the standards for the human-machine teaming that will be the foundation of OSINT in the future.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo spurred global attention this week by announcing during a business summit in Manila that the Biden administration wants to double the Philippines’ semiconductor facilities — the latest in the growing U.S.-China microchip war.

The development was a show of support for the government of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos II, who has reversed the pro-China tilt of predecessor Rodrigo Duterte and has increased security ties and expanded basing rights with Washington. It was also the latest mission statement from Washington as it seeks to dominate the central component of the “chips-with-everything” digital economy tied to the global semiconductor sector that is estimated to be worth $520 billion.

There are, however, major challenges. Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports the chip war may be enriching Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, all of which have close economic ties with China. But Southeast Asia is far from the most tech-intensive or capital-intensive sectors of the chip industry and it lags economically behind the Northeast Asian powerhouses South Korea and Japan. It’s a reality likely to find Southeast Asia as the “back end” supply chain, handling chip assembly, packaging and testing.

Iran, China and Russia are dangerously taking advantage of the Biden administration’s soft border control policies, according to Rep. Joe Wilson, a senior member of both the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees.

The South Carolina Republican sat down with Threat Status for an exclusive video interview. The discussion examines how national security and foreign policy are taking center stage in unprecedented ways in the 2024 election because President Biden and former President Donald Trump both have actual track records as commanders-in-chief managing — or mismanaging — America’s position in the world.

A nonpartisan watchdog group is pushing top Pentagon officials to turn over all information that led to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s public claim in Capitol Hill testimony on Feb. 29 that more than 25,000 Palestinians had been killed in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 — a figure based on data supplied by the Hamas militant group.

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang has an exclusive report on a letter sent to the Pentagon by the Center to Advance Security in America that questions whether publicly reciting those numbers — which the Pentagon later acknowledged came from Hamas data and couldn’t be independently confirmed by U.S. analysts — may have aided Hamas in pushing its narrative that Israel is indiscriminately killing scores of innocent civilians.

Questions about the accuracy of Hamas death toll figures have swirled for months. The uproar over Mr. Austin’s comments underscored the difficulty of getting accurate information out of Gaza while Israel faces growing international pressure to ease its military campaign in the enclave. With Hamas’ numbers unable to be independently confirmed, Mr. Wolfgang reports that the death and casualty counts could be even higher, although he cites specialists who stress that’s unlikely.

The U.S. government should approve the Japanese company’s proposed $18 billion investment in U.S. Steel, according to Peter Roff, who expresses discontent with Mr. Biden’s opposition to the deal.

“Steel has generally suffered since the 1970s, with much of what the United States uses now imported from China, South Korea and Japan,” writes Mr. Roff. He argues that while critics say the Nippon-U.S. Steel merger would give foreign competitors an unfair edge, the reality is it would bring an influx of cash and a reconstitution of the corporate culture that would breathe new life into a venerable American name.

“America’s industrial manufacturing plants didn’t relocate to Asia, Mexico and other parts of the world on a whim,” Mr. Roff writes. “They moved — and took their jobs with them — in no small part because government policies made operating offshore cheaper than continuing here at home.”