All posts tagged: autonomy

France, Germany Expand Defence Partnership as Europe Seeks More Military Autonomy

France, Germany Expand Defence Partnership as Europe Seeks More Military Autonomy

Published by Sam Flores

By Andreas Rinke and Florence Loeve BRUEHL, Germany, July 17 (Reuters) – The leaders ⁠of ⁠Germany and France pledged on Friday to ⁠deepen defence cooperation and counter intense economic competition from China, which they said was exerting ​drastic pressure on Europe through overcapacity and an undervalued currency. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron met as part of a ‌regular series of joint cabinet meetings, looking ‌to get past tensions over the collapse of a joint fighter jet project earlier this year. “We are doing what is necessary to ⁠safeguard our freedom, ⁠our security and our collective defence,” Merz told a joint press conference at which ​the two outlined a list of objectives including missile defence and long-range strike systems. Both leaders took aim at China, which they said was not respecting the rules of international trade by offering at least eight times the level of state support to its industry seen in other countries ​in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  “I am not prepared to accept that things can remain …

Enterprise AI is entering an evaluation gap: Agents are gaining autonomy faster than companies can verify them

Enterprise AI is entering an evaluation gap: Agents are gaining autonomy faster than companies can verify them

Published by skeptic

Enterprise AI teams are giving agents more freedom at the same moment their confidence in automated testing is collapsing. Half of enterprises have deployed an AI agent or LLM feature that passed internal evaluations and yet still caused a customer-facing failure — one in four more than once — according to the June 2026 VB Pulse survey of 157 qualified enterprise respondents at companies with 100 or more employees. The sample is self-selected rather than a probability sample, so the findings should be read as directional, not precise. But enterprises are not responding by slowing automation: 66% of respondents already permit some production deployment without human review or are building systems intended to do so within the next 12 months. Only 5% say they fully trust the automated evaluations that would make those release decisions. That mismatch is the evaluation gap: the autonomy ceiling is rising faster than the assurance beneath it.  It also fits a broader thesis that will be explored at VB Transform 2026: enterprises ship agents first, while the control layers around …

Work Autonomy: July 4th Reminds Us of the Value of Freedom

Work Autonomy: July 4th Reminds Us of the Value of Freedom

Published by Jenni Sidey

Independence Day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, when the 13 American colonies declared themselves independent from British rule. July 4 celebrates not only the nation’s founding but also the ideals expressed in the Declaration: liberty, equality, and the right of people to govern themselves. It’s a celebration of freedom! No matter our political differences, freedom is an ideal that all Americans can rally around. We all want autonomy and the ability to control our own lives. The Importance of Autonomy A large body of research identifies autonomy as a basic psychological need. In fact, Self-Determination Theory suggests that people thrive when they feel they have choice in their actions (autonomy), confidence in their skills and abilities, and meaningful social connections with others (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Autonomy is about freedom; it’s about having choice and control in our lives. In the workplace, autonomy doesn’t necessarily mean having complete independence or working entirely alone but rather having a say in the matter. Employees having some choice over how, when, …

Scout finally gives Microsoft’s AI agents the autonomy they’ve been missing

Scout finally gives Microsoft’s AI agents the autonomy they’ve been missing

Published by skeptic

Summary Microsoft has announced Scout, an always-on autonomous personal agent built on OpenClaw. Scout acts in the background to schedule meetings, prep materials, block time, and flag delays proactively. Scout availability is very limited for now — only Frontier organizations and select customers can access the tool. At its annual Build conference on June 2, Microsoft announced Scout, an “always-on personal agent.” Scout is designed to operate autonomously in the background and take actions proactively to help you get stuff done. Related I finally found a use for the Copilot key on my laptop That irritating key you accidentally press can be turned into something useful. Introducing Microsoft Scout A new era for Microsoft AI agents Microsoft has been on a tear this year with AI agents. First, we had Copilot Tasks, announced in February. Then, just a few weeks later, we had Copilot Cowork. Now, we have Scout. However, Scout is unique in a few key ways. First, unlike the others, Scout is built on top of OpenClaw, the powerful, viral agentic AI tool. …

Elon promises FSD, but Einride has L4 autonomy for trucks TODAY

Elon promises FSD, but Einride has L4 autonomy for trucks TODAY

Published by skeptic

It’s a question of who is actually delivering product and who is just delivering promises on today’s delivery-heavy episode of Quick Charge! Is the tenth time a charm for Elon’s FSD, or will Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli steal his self-driving thunder? We’ve also got some concerning news about Tesla’s Actually Smart Summon app getting faster, a sneak peek at some upcoming affordable EVs from BMW, Stellantis, and Volvo, and a full interview discussing Amazon’s multimillion dollar middle mile deal with Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli. Today’s episode is sponsored by GM Energy. If you want to experience more resilience and control over your home energy, the GM Energy Home System adds stationary battery power for always-ready backup energy for your home, and the GM Energy PowerBank takes in energy from the grid and stores it for when you need it most. Learn more here. Source Links Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Advertisement – scroll for more content New episodes of Quick Charge are …

Tesla reaches 10 billion FSD miles — is there’s a magical milestone for autonomy

Tesla reaches 10 billion FSD miles — is there’s a magical milestone for autonomy

Published by skeptic

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) fleet has crossed the 10 billion mile mark, according to the automaker’s updated safety page. It’s the threshold that CEO Elon Musk himself set earlier this year as the data milestone needed for “safe unsupervised” driving. The achievement represents a massive acceleration in data collection — the fleet was logging roughly 29 million miles per day by late April, up from 14 million miles per day at the start of the year. But hitting a round number doesn’t mean Tesla is about to flip a switch on Level 4 autonomy. A goalpost Musk set himself In January 2026, after Tesla failed to deliver unsupervised FSD by the end of 2025 as promised, Musk stated that the company needed approximately 10 billion miles of real-world driving data to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. That figure itself was a moved goalpost — he had previously indicated 6 billion miles would be sufficient. Tesla’s safety page now reports one major collision per 5.3 million miles under FSD (Supervised), compared to one per 660,000 miles for …

Mali’s tale of two insurgencies: ‘Jihadists seek caliphate while Tuareg rebels pursue autonomy’ – Spotlight

Mali’s tale of two insurgencies: ‘Jihadists seek caliphate while Tuareg rebels pursue autonomy’ – Spotlight

Published by Sam Flores

FRANCE 24’s François Picard is pleased to welcome Ulf Laessing, Director of the Regional Sahel Programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. According to Laessing, we are witnessing in Mali the complete unraveling of a broader geopolitical experiment. Russia stepped into a vacuum left by France, promising stability through force. Instead, its reliance on mercenary brutality, coupled with a shallow understanding of local dynamics, has accelerated the demise of an already fraught collaboration. The fall of Kidal and the coordinated surprise offensives reveal a dramatic shift in the balance of power. Jihadist groups and Tuareg rebels, which were historical adversaries, are now tactically aligned against a common enemy. Popular dissatisfaction with the junta coexists with a deeper fear of Islamist governance, creating a tense equilibrium that sustains the current regime, Laessing tells us. Meanwhile, regional institutions such as ECOWAS find themselves constrained, powerless to exert any meaningful influence as the Sahel region plunges deeper into conflict, isolation and instability. Source link

AI-RAN is redefining enterprise edge intelligence and autonomy

AI-RAN is redefining enterprise edge intelligence and autonomy

Published by skeptic

Presented by Booz Allen AI-RAN, or artificial intelligence radio area networks, is a reimagining of what wireless infrastructure can do. Rather than treating the network as a passive conduit for data, AI-RAN turns it into an active computational layer. It’s a sensor, a compute fabric, and a control plane for physical operations, all rolled into one. That shift has huge implications for industries from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare and smart infrastructure. VentureBeat spoke with two leaders at the center of this transformation: Chris Christou, senior vice president at Booz Allen, and Shervin Gerami, managing director at Cerberus Operations Supply Chain Fund. “AI-RAN can bring the promise of extending 5G and eventually 6G networks into the enterprise,” Christou said. “Proving that a platform can host inference at the edge to enable new types of AI — in particular, physical AI and autonomy-type use cases for things like smart manufacturing and smart warehousing — can make operations more efficient and effective.” “AI-RAN lets enterprises move from digitizing processes to autonomously operating them,” Gerami added. “The enterprise …

These top 30 AI agents deliver a mix of functions and autonomy

These top 30 AI agents deliver a mix of functions and autonomy

Published by skeptic

Olena Malik/Moment via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways MIT released a list of top AI agents and their functionalities.  The largest portion focuses on enterprise workflows. Research and information synthesis is the top use case.  Which autonomous or semi-autonomous agents are making the greatest impact on the world — and potentially your job — these days? Certain agents are hogging all the headlines lately, but there are a number of function-specific agents available to developers and users.  MIT’s CSAIL — the university lab dedicated to AI research — set out to identify and document the background and capabilities of these agents, with its findings detailed in its latest AI Agent Index. The researchers conducted an ecosystem-wide analysis of state-of-the-art AI agents across 1,350 data points. Also: AI agents are fast, loose, and out of control, MIT study finds  What is the functionality and origin of leading agents? The researchers found that interfaces are the most abundant, followed closely by enterprise workflow platforms. They also uncovered risks shared across …

Kurdish autonomy: A shattered dream? – Reporters

Kurdish autonomy: A shattered dream? – Reporters

Published by Sam Flores

For the Kurdish people, history seems to repeat itself. Kurdish forces are an asset for the West when allies are needed in the region, but left aside when political choices need to be made. The agreement signed at the end of January between Damascus and the Syrian Kurds dealt a blow to the dream of a greater Kurdistan. Our team reports from Syria and Iraq. On January 30, after several weeks of fighting, Syrian Kurds and the Syrian central government signed a ceasefire deal. Both sides agreed to the progressive integration of the military forces and administration of Rojava – the Kurdish autonomous territory – into the Syrian state. It was a setback for Syrian Kurds, who signed to avoid a bloodbath. Today, what are the hopes of the Kurdish peoples, spread out between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran? Is the long-lasting dream of a greater Kurdistan still possible? FRANCE 24’s Pauline Godart, Amar Al-Hameedawi and Dida Faridoon report. Source link