Shubnam’s images, secretly recorded with Meta smart glasses in India, were viewed millions of times; transphobic harassment and AI-generated memes spread. Experts say that, in addition to non-consensual recordings, the use of the glasses for police surveillance also creates new privacy risks.
Jessica Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania, examined hyperscaler companies investing in AI data centers. Spending is expected to reach approximately $1.1 trillion in 2027, while companies will need to dramatically improve efficiency to break even by 2030. The research was published on the MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast.
- ShinyHunters claimed to have stolen more than 2 TB of data belonging to nearly all FBI employees, including names, addresses and phone numbers. The group described the attack as retaliation for an FBI warning.
- Anthropic and OpenAI released lower-cost models as they compete with inexpensive Chinese models. Their CEOs are expected to brief the UN Security Council today.
- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could become Trump’s new AI czar; Michael Kratsios and Scott Kupor are also among the candidates.
- Scientists are seeking to produce food with less land by directly converting renewable electricity into food.
- “Fire amoeba” set a heat-tolerance record among complex organisms; it can grow and reproduce at 63°C.
- Some calls made through Meta’s Muse AI tool were secretly answered by human contractors.
Why it matters
The incident involving smart glasses shows that image-capture capabilities need to be evaluated not only in terms of the user experience, but also with regard to consent, personal safety and police surveillance. The proliferation of AI-generated memes featuring content targeting transgender people also raises the question of how recordings are circulated afterward, as well as the recording itself. Spending on AI data centers, meanwhile, requires increases in technological capacity to be considered alongside financial sustainability; the break-even calculation depends on whether efficiency expectations will be met. For this reason, the news concerns not only users and those under surveillance, but also people monitoring investment decisions; however, since some of the details in the newsletter are based on related content, the companies’ financial assumptions and the limits of their surveillance practices still warrant further examination.
Background
India is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: in the last 90 days, we have published 4 news reports in which the name appeared; the most recent is dated 19 September 2026.