AI Weapons and Mass Surveillance — The Weekly

AI Weapons and Mass Surveillance — The Weekly

From Politicology by Politicology

April 18, 2026 · 1h 13m · Season 1 · Episode 571

About this episode

Hagar Chemali joins Ron Steslow to discuss the impact of AI on warfare, national security, and mass surveillance.

Hagar Chemali (Fmr. spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the UN) is back in studio with Host Ron Steslow for a conversation about how artificial intelligence is reshaping power, conflict, and accountability in real time. They discuss Ukraine’s first successful capture of a Russian position using only unmanned ground robotic systems and aerial drones and the rapid integration of AI into warfare and national security. They also examine the growing clash between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon after Anthropic refused to allow its AI tools to be used for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance, and the Trump administration responded by labeling the company a supply chain risk. Then, they dive into a new AI model that can discover and weaponize previously unknown software vulnerabilities and what that will mean for the government, banks and businesses. Finally, they debate the future of AI-powered mass surveillance and the looming reauthorization of FISA Section 702. In Politicology+ they dive into several big corruption stories: Viktor Orbán’s election loss, suspicious oil-futures trading, and the Trump family using World Liberty Coin as their personal ATM. POLITICOLOGY+ Not yet…

People in this episode

Host: Ron Steslow

Guest: Hagar Chemali

Topics covered

  • artificial intelligence
  • warfare
  • national security
  • mass surveillance
  • corruption
  • Silicon Valley
  • Pentagon

Keywords

  • AI weapons
  • mass surveillance
  • Ukraine
  • Pentagon
  • corruption
  • FISA
  • autonomous weapons

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Anthropic, U.S. Mission to the UN, Pentagon, FISA

Products: World Liberty Coin

Places: Ukraine, Russia

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