Square Kady Pascual Headshot RGZ5762

Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"No one wants a foot full of wana!"}]

TheRealHong

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Stepped on</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @TheRealHong, who misstepped.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Stepped on

No one wants a foot full of wana!  Make sure you follow @TheRealHong on Instagram!

WEB square crop Hayley Lehman Headshot RGZ1636

Haley Lehman

Government & Politics

Aloha Spirit

John Berry says he loves his job, and it shows. He walks around the zoo greeting visitors, the 90-person staff and the 992 animals with a big smile.

Berry enjoys introducing visitors to Pono, the 5-year-old laid back Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth. Pono sleeps for about 20 hours a day and loves apple, sweet potato and pear.

“He’s the most mellow animal in the zoo. He takes everyone to a zen place,” Berry said. “If there’s a surfer dude in the collection, it’s Pono.”

Berry said that each animal at the zoo has its own personality.

Berry fell in love with wildlife at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. He remembers the Asian elephant Ambika, who came to the National Zoo in 1961 and said that it was like they grew up together.

“I have a special place in my heart for the elephants because of that,” he said.

Carmen Turner, former general manager of the Washington Metro, mentored Berry when he worked as a legislative director for Congressman Steny Hoyer in his 20s, and when she asked what Berry's dream job would be, he said that it would be to serve as director of the National Zoo. Turner told him to hold on to that dream, “because life has a real funny way of taking you places.”

In 2005, the National Zoo was in hot water over animal deaths and alleged mismanagement. Berry had been leading the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and because he had an image of a "fixer" in his career, he got his dream job leading the National Zoo. Berry left the National Zoo in 2009 when then President Barack Obama tapped him to lead the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Berry’s father was a U.S. Marine who taught his kids to polish their shoes. When Berry was the director of the National Zoo, the elephant Ambika loved his shoe polish.

“She would run across the yard, and put her trunk through the bars and slobber all over my shoes. It was so funny,” he said.

Berry took the lead of the Honolulu Zoo as director in July.

“To get to do your dream job twice is a real special thing," he said.

Berry told Aloha State Daily on Tuesday that the best parts of his job are the animals at the zoo and the passionate employees.

"[The zoo staff] really care deeply about the animals. They’re passionate about conservation," he said. "It’s magical when you get to work amongst passionate people because it doesn’t feel like work anymore, it feels like you’re getting to live the dream and participating in an important cause."

Berry has big goals for the zoo. He wants to make it the top tourist destination in Honolulu, increase the number of visitors from 550,000 to 1 million annually, turn the zoo into a botanical garden and bring new animals to the zoo, on top of its missions of conservation and education.

First things first, one of Berry's top priorities is addressing deferred maintenance, which he said has been overlooked.

The zoo recently replaced the hippo water filtration system, a project started by former Director Linda Santos, and is in the process of updating the water filtration in the elephant exhibit. The zoo installed aluminum fencing around the giraffe exhibit to give them the option to safely leave their barn at night.

However, Berry said that financing maintenance will be a challenge and he will be looking to donors for support.

According to the City and County of Honolulu charter, 0.5% of estimated real property tax revenues are deposited into the Honolulu Zoo Fund annually. The City and County of Honolulu appropriated $9.2 million to the Honolulu Zoo in 2026. According to the budget, the main expenses are utilities, solid waste disposal, animal food and veterinary services. According to Berry, about half of the zoo’s funding comes from the City of Honolulu. The zoo also receives funding from admission fees, memberships and the nonprofit Honolulu Zoo Society.

“The city residents of Honolulu, God bless them, have given a very firm foundation to protect the zoo, which is something I take very seriously, so we want to make sure we’re spending every penny of that wisely,” he said.

Conservation is one of the zoo’s most important mission, according to Berry. 

“I even put conservation ahead of education, because I believe in our current time, so many things are under stress that we’re not thinking about how we’re actually conserving them and helping them then we’re not doing our job," he said. We want to inspire another generation of conservationists.”

Berry introduced Aloha State Daily to two of the zoo’s oldest residents: Galápagos Giant Tortoises named Jaws and Charlotte who landed in Hawaiʻi in 1929 through the Charles Townsend expedition to save the tortoise from extinction.

Honolulu Zoo, alongside the San Diego Zoo, became the first two zoos to breed the Galápagos tortoise in captivity. Honolulu Zoo is currently home to nine Galápagos Giant Tortoises.

Kauaʻi is witnessing a dramatic decline in ʻanianiau, and Honolulu Zoo has brought in nine ʻanianiau in an off-exhibit conservation breeding initiative. ʻAnianiau are the smallest living native Hawaiian bird, measuring approximately four inches long and weighing around 10 grams.

Berry also hopes to bring some new animals to the zoo. Sandi, the zoo’s female giraffe, will come off birth control in the near future and Berry hopes that there will be a third giraffe at the zoo.

“Only an hour into the day you will end up talking about poop and sex, everyday,” he said.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi traveled to the People’s Republic of China in April and explored the potential of bringing giant pandas to the Honolulu Zoo.

Berry oversaw three giant pandas during his tenure at the National Zoo, and said the Honolulu Zoo would provide an air conditioned space, chilled pools and cooled rocks for the pandas.

Berry wants the zoo to focus on the interconnectivity of plants and animals, rather than the traditional method of geography.

“Our species has gone everywhere, from pole to pole, and we have put our mark everywhere, both for good and for bad,” Berry said. “What we need now to learn is enough humility to share the planet with plants and animals, and if we don’t learn that we will be taught that lesson at our own peril, because if they go, we go. The message I want to communicate is that all life has value, all life has meaning.”

“I’m going to argue that aloha will save all of us, and if we can extend aloha to our animals and plants, all will be well.”

Berry moved to Hawaiʻi with his partner of 29 years, Curtis Yee, to be closer to Yee’s family. Yee grew up in Hawaiʻi and is related to one of Hawaiʻis first senators, Hiram Fong.

John Berry and Neelix

<title>John Berry is living his dream, again</title>

The new Honolulu Zoo Director John Berry took the role in July and said he is living his dream. Aloha State Daily caught up with Berry and some of his favorite zoo residents on Tuesday at the zoo.

John Berry is living his dream, again

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

Business & Tourism

, according to business owner Talia Bongolan-Schwartz. While the business's Kailua store has remained open, the bagel biz is soft opening another Honolulu location in a spot that's close to Ward Village.

Tali’s Bagels & Schmear is opening on Friday, Aug. 21, on Waimanu Street, at the new artist co-working/gallery venue called OurSpace. While the new space is conducive to takeout, customer seating is also available. 

“A bunch of the folks who started OurSpace came from BoxJelly,” Bongolan-Schwartz explains. “They asked us if we would be interested (in coming here) when we were still open at Ward.

“OurSpace is quite new; they’ve got an artist co-working space and they do a bunch of events, too,” Bongolan-Schwartz adds.

During the business’s soft opening, only in-person ordering will be available. The biz still features its most popular menu items, including the b.e.c. ($13.99) — crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar and muenster — and the OG NYC ($17.99), which features premium lox, classic schmear, local dill, capers, tomato and red onion.

Newer menu items feature turkey, ham and pastrami bagel sandwiches, according to Bongolan-Schwartz.

“We decided to step up the lunch game,” she says. “The biggest difference you’re going to see on the menu is a whole line of Boar’s Head meats and a bunch of homemade sauces — we’re making a horseradish Russian dressing, lemon caper remoulade and spicy brown mustard. We’re slicing the meat fresh, too; none of it’s pre-sliced.”

New options include the deli ($15.99) — Mesquite-smoked turkey, black forest ham, housemade lemon-caper remoulade, cheddar, Swiss, local lettuce, tomato and sprouts — and the Jewish deli ($16.99), which comprises fresh-sliced pastrami, Swiss, housemade spicy brown mustard and house pickles.

Bongolan-Schwartz expects the business’s hot pastrami ($18.99) — fresh-sliced pastrami, housemade Russian dressing, Swiss, sauerkraut and a side of house pickles — to become a customer favorite.

“That is a New York classic, kind of going for the Katz’s Deli (vibe),” she says. “We’re basically going from a bagel shop to slowly expanding into a delicatessen.”

All sandwiches are served on the customers’ bagel of choice; the Everything bagel is the most popular flavor, according to Bongolan-Schwartz.

“We’ll normally have our full assortment of bagels,” she says. “I really like the onion (bagel); it’s a good complementary flavor. I would add onion onto any sandwich anyway, so it kind of cuts out the need for that.”

The biz also features an expanded drink selection at this location. Besides sparkling water and soft drinks, customers can opt for Israeli iced coffee ($7.99) — a cold brew slushie with oat milk, local mac nut syrup and a honey-tahini drizzle — and Shaloha slush ($6.50), which is made with local liliko

Tali’s Bagels & Schmear will be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays to Mondays (closed Tuesdays). The biz has extended its hours compared to its previous location, which was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

“We’re definitely excited to see our old customers,” Bongolan-Schwartz says. “That was important to us — to stay close enough by that people who have been loyal to us for three years at Ward Centre would be able to hopefully just walk over here. We’re excited to see how the new menu does.

“We were nervous about the new menu because we made a lot of cuts,” she adds. “We cut a lot of things off the old menu that are pretty traditional, like our white fish salad, which is a New York deli staple. But I think this menu is going to suit the needs and desires of the people here.”

The biz will eventually do a grand opening. For updates, follow Tali’s Bagels & Schmear on 

Open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays to Mondays (closed Tuesdays)

Talis Bagels owner 081926

<title>Tali’s Bagels & Schmear is reopening in Honolulu</title>

The bagel shop, which used to be located in Ward Centre, is soft opening in its new location on Waimanu Street on Friday, Aug. 21. The business features bestselling dishes like the OG NYC bagel, along with new deli-style creations like the hot pastrami.

Tali’s Bagels & Schmear is reopening in Honolulu

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Come to observe. Be present. Discover what Hawai‘i Creates.\""}]

, a new installation that will launch this week at the 32nd annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival, bringing together a curated collection of local artists, designers, musicians, brands and storytellers.

"Founded by Zak Noyle and Kuhaʻo Zane, this event is built on the belief that collaboration is stronger than competition, creating opportunities for established creatives and emerging talent to share ideas, build relationships, and grow together," a recent email from MIHF noted. 

Noyle, a surf photographer and founder of 

, said he and Zane attended MIHF last year. 

"The one thing we did love about everything was locals supporting locals, and small businesses and local businesses thriving," he recently told Aloha State Daily. "That's where we said, how do we rethink the experience, the moment and something that we bring to it that changes how people shop, how they buy and how they learn. Everything needs to be intentional and storytelling was our big one, so that's where we really started putting our brains together."

They approached the MIHF team with the idea for Kilo Summit, a collaboration and storytelling platform.

"We took some of our favorite brands and brands that reached out to us and what we did was we said, collaborate with someone else. It doesn't matter who," Noyle explains. "It needs to be locally owned and operated is our only caveat. If you can explain to us why, then that's good enough for us."

Noyle says that several of the participating brands never had plans to go to MIHF.

"So we're so excited to have them for the first time ever at Made in Hawai‘i within our space because of the collaboration platform we made, because they want to be a part of that. To me, it's not just around the collaboration, it's about building it," he says. "... It's our version of an ahupua‘a system. The larger brands are up here, feeding the smaller ones to help them grow and nourish because we all can work together. That's the thing that I want to show with this space and this platform — we can all work together and we can all thrive in here in Hawai‘i. It's hard enough as it is, siloed. [When we] work together, we can all thrive."

According to Noyle, a big piece of the experience is a locally created app that unlocks when you're on the Convention Center property. When it does, shoppers can start ordering the items from Kilo Summit and participants, then scope out the rest of the festival before picking up your order.

"When you're done and ready, come to our place and be present because you've already made your purchases, you've already secured all your merch from Kilo Summit."

Noyle says Kilo Summit is working with 44 businesses, or 22 collaborations. Each collaboration will offer a handful of items, but only roughly 100 to 150 of each item will be available only through the app and Kilo Summit brand.

He notes, too, that the Kilo Summit space has been custom-designed from the ground up by University of Hawai‘i architecture students under Zane and Keola Rapoza.

"The space and the design and the flow is going to be so intentional for people to go through," Noyle says. "We've thought a lot about this, because to me, it's the experience."

Kilo Summit also will host panel discussions, musicians and other activities throughout MIHF. (ICYMI: You can see the 

"I want people to come there and be educated," Noyle says. "You're going to be able to hear Sig Zane talk about his origin story of what he built and what he's doing. You're going to have all these other brand founders in these moments go on stage and talk about their stories. ... Yes, I want people to sell and do well, but I want people to walk away like 'Wow, I learned something and that was epic.' That's what we want — community and education at the forefront of what we do."

[{"type":"text","text":"What does hope shoppers take away from the Kilo Summit experience?"}]

"Art, intention and presence," Noyle says. "I hope they make a new discovery. I hope they find a new brand. I hope they create a new connection. We're hosting a dinner the night before Made in Hawai‘i opens and it's only for the brand founders. No cameras. What I want is everyone to be present and create and foster new connections with each other. I think that's the most important thing to show the community outward, that some of the largest brands and smallest here in Hawai‘i and creatives can work and thrive together."

This year, the largest-ever MIHF — set for Aug. 20 to 23 at the Hawai‘i Convention Center — will span more than 300,000 square feet across two floors and showcase more than 800 local artisans, makers and entrepreneurs.

. Find the brochure with maps and more information 

You can learn about some of the changes planned for this year 

MIHF is produced by the Hawai‘i Food Industry Association.

 drew approximately 70,000 attendees and generated approximately $10 million in sales in 2024. The festival saw about 70,000 visitors over three days 

 and vendors reported sales just under $10 million, Festival spokesperson Olena Heu previously told ASD.

Aloha State Daily is an ‘Ohana Sponsor for the Made in Hawai‘i Festival. Stop by our booth to say “aloha,” play some games, win prizes and learn more about the work we do. You'll find us at booth S-3009, located in the same row as the Mahi Pono entrance.

KILO BANNER

<title>Kilo Summit brings intention, collabs to Made in Hawai‘i Festival</title>

The largest-ever MIHF is set for Aug. 20 to 23 at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. Kilo Summit will bring a curated collection of local artists, designers, musicians, brands and storytellers to the event.

Kilo Summit brings intention, collabs to Made in Hawai‘i Festival

, known for its affordable bentos, just opened its third location on Young Street. This store is in the former space of J-Shop.

U-Kitchen offers a variety of musubi, bentos, bowls and curry. The menu is the same here as its downtown Honolulu store, according to business owner Yudai Fukuda.

Popular bentos include butterfish ($13.99), mochiko chicken ($10.99) and chicken katsu ($10.99). The musubi selection ranges from salmon ($2.99) and spicy tuna ($3.19) to unagi ($4.79) and mentai mayo ($3.29).

U-Kitchen’s original location is in Kalihi; its downtown Honolulu store, which is in Topa Financial Center, is currently closed due a power outage in the building, according to Fukuda. He says the downtown Honolulu store — 

“Our peak time (at that location) was from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” he says, nothing the shop’s popularity with the downtown Honolulu lunch crowd.

He says that Topa Financial Center was supposed to reopen on Aug. 24, but says the re-opening was delayed further after Hurricane Lala.

U-Kitchen’s Young Street store is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays. Customer parking is available in the shop's lot.  

Open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays, closed Sundays

U Kitchen Young Street worker 081826

<title>U-Kitchen opens a new bento and musubi cafe</title>

The business, whose original location is in Kalihi, just opened a third location on Young Street in the former J-Shop space. The business’s Downtown Honolulu store has been temporarily closed since July 23, according to U-Kitchen owner Yudai Fukuda.

U-Kitchen opens a new bento and musubi cafe

IMG 1445

Rick Hamada

Columnists

[{"type":"text","text":"Lala has left the building."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Yes, her impact was profound."}]

Friends and families on the Big Island bore the brunt while the rest of the island chain took its lumps as well.

The anticipation of yet another major weather event may have given some fatigue, especially since recovery from the two recent Kona Lows was somewhat still underway. Honestly, fatigue wasn't the only effect. I would submit that fear was the dominant emotion and partly fear of the unknown.

I try to be as empathetic as possible with those who are so negatively impacted. My family and I live in a secured high rise with diesel generator backup to mitigate power loss; we live high enough above ground where flooding is not a major threat, and we've been blessed in literally weathering every storm for so many years. These statements are not intended to gloat or brag but to share perspective. We have not suffered as others have suffered, yet we're saddened for those who have and we are prayerful for a speedy recovery. It's truly heartbreaking.

It's important that in times of trouble that the collective objective is to learn and not to repeat. If that's an acceptable and reasonable policy goal, then what happened?

[{"type":"text","text":"Why is our infrastructure so fragile?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It's not like inclement to hurricane force weather is breaking news."}]

Since 1949 when storm tracking officially began, Hawaii has counted 69 tropical cyclone encounters. Yes, some are counted where a minimum amount of impact was made, but it also includes Hurricane Nina (1957), Dot (1959), Iwi (1982), Iniki (1992) and now you can count Lala (2026). Interestingly, there are documented reports of cyclonic activity in the Hawai‘i chain dating back to September 1843 and more so on August 9, 1871.

Again, this is not breaking news that we are susceptible to damaging storms. If we have foreknowledge that we are exposed to brutal elements, then what have we done to prepare ourselves?

[{"type":"text","text":"I mean we've had a 183-year heads up."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"OK, I can hear it already."}]

Hamada, you simply don't understand. Since when did you become a civil engineer? Do you realize how much money and how much impact to the community it would be to retrofit, replace or even repair vulnerable spaces? If it breaks, we fix it.

[{"type":"text","text":"That's one point of view."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Here's another."}]

In 1959, the first year of statehood, the total of all taxes paid in Hawai‘i was 

. That's everything; federal, state, county taxes, gas taxes, all of it. By 1969, annual total was $922 million. 

In today's dollars, that's $3.6 billion and $8.4 billion, respectively, just in those two bookend years of our first decade as a state.

[{"type":"text","text":"The issue is prioritization."}]

During that decade we had the opportunity to declare that, along with public education and health and human services (the two largest budget expenditures of the state), infrastructure preparedness would have received some love. 

The widely accepted notion is that the essential role of government is to defend her people and create a safe environment for all. 

[{"type":"text","text":"What is the essential life blood of a free society."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Infrastructure."}]

It's electricity. It's water. It's transportation. It's waste treatment and removal. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The same afflictions of the past haunt us today."}]

Post-Lala we have tens of thousands still without power. You're rendered virtually into seclusion. You cannot communicate, you cannot preserve your expensive food, you cannot have lights, or fans, or air conditioning in your home. No laundry, no dishes, no bathing or other water-centric needs. It takes a toll on your mental health. It exposes families to inordinate amounts to stress and oftentimes children are affected. Roads may be impassible, you may live in a "one-way in, one-way out" community or public and closures have an impact on your lives, too. And you pray that you can flush the toilet because the health implications are grave.

[{"type":"text","text":"The essential role of government is to keep her people safe."}]

Over the past several decades have the previous generations of leadership fulfilled this directive?

[{"type":"text","text":"I maintain that Hawai‘i does not have a revenue problem. Never has."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"But it's always had a spending and prioritization problem."}]

Government stresses that we must be prepared in times of great challenges.

But that siren call for preparedness extends to providing excellent infrastructure so we can live and survive during those challenging times.

If over the past century we invested in the best power generation and distribution, road construction and maintanence, quality upgraded water mains and sewers then perhaps we would not have to contend with such devastation. Rather our mutual preparedness would be complimentary in mitigating the suffering of so many, time after time.

Until that time comes we must acknowledge and celebrate those first responders, dedicated crews, volunteers and non-profits, public and private sector staffs and teams, small and large businesses taking care of so many and everyone else who graciously help those in need. 

Let's call upon excellence in our public policies but never waver in our support and appreciation for those who live aloha to so very many.

[{"type":"text","text":"There's no reason we can't have both."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":" "}]

Tropical Storm Lala

<title>Hamada: Lack of investment in infrastructure taking a toll</title>

This state has never had a money problem, it's had a problem setting priorities to deliver the basics and we pay the price every time a storm strains the system.

Hamada: Lack of investment in infrastructure taking a toll

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Last month, OpenAI ran a test to see how well its newest models could hack. The models were placed in a sandbox — a sealed practice room with no connection to the internet.

Instead of taking the test, two of them broke out of the room, got online, and broke into a real company called Hugging Face to steal the answer key. Then they aced the test.

 to trade tips and coordinate their moves. And they ran the whole routine twice — the second time after OpenAI engineers tried to shut down the message board.

It’s like two high school students sitting for the SAT. Instead of bubbling in answers, they slip out the window, race across state lines in a drop-top Chevy, break into College Board headquarters, grab the answer key, and race back before the proctor looks up. They get perfect scores. Meanwhile, College Board has already called the police about a break-in.

Later, the proctors discover that during a bathroom break, the boys scrawled their plan on rolls of toilet paper and passed them between the stalls. They forgot to flush.

Human coordination is fitful. Part of the problem is speed. We talk slowly, and we listen slower. A complex plan takes a long time to convey. Heist movies chop the planning scene into quick cuts because five hours of briefing makes for poor cinema. And even with time to share the plan, there is no promise that everyone understands it.

Machines have neither problem. Large language models trade whole plans in an instant. A modern model can hold the entire Bible in a single prompt, so its instructions can run as long and as detailed as needed.

These models are also trained to guess what we mean, because we tend to prompt them with simple, almost childlike requests. But when one model prompts another, no guessing is required. It can spell out the goal, the means, and what to do if things go wrong. At that speed, two models can settle their differences, draft backup plans, and agree on everything before acting.

We have nothing modern to compare this to. We do have something ancient. When the whole earth had one language, men set out to build a tower to the heavens, and God observed: “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” His answer was to break the language.

All of this brings us back to what was once just a thought experiment: the paper clip maximizer. Credit goes to the philosopher Nick Bostrom, more than 20 years ago. Give an AI one goal — to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI may reason that humans could shut it down, which would mean fewer paper clips. So it adds a new goal: remove the humans. It may then notice that human bodies contain carbon and iron, both useful materials. The quest for paper clips ends in genocide.

What was theoretical is now documented. AI has been observed creating its own subgoals and pursuing them past the boundaries its makers set. Need the answers to a test? No problem. Escape the sandbox, hack another site, and steal the key.

To be fair, the frontier labs have every incentive to exaggerate the danger of their own models. For all their complaints about regulation, safety rules would be the best thing for their business. Car safety regulations made it brutally expensive to start a new car company; AI safety regulations would entrench the big labs the same way. And in this case, OpenAI had dialed down the models’ safety refusals for the test. The test proctor was looking the other way.

But the cynic still has to deal with the facts. AI really can hack now. It can browse the web. It can invent its own subgoals, and sometimes those subgoals jump whatever fence was built around the system. This means we are not far from a future in which we are all harvested for our carbon.

Just kidding. The paper clip story is memorable because it is comical. The likely use of the new technology is to solve the old problems.

Consider the zero-day war. Think of our complex but vulnerable systems: power, water, transportation, health care, the logistics that move food, the networks that coordinate police and national defense.

In a zero-day war, a foreign power cripples all of these at once, inflicting maximum pain on civilians to force a quick surrender. We have a small-scale preview already: hackers freeze a hospital’s computers and demand Bitcoin to unlock them. Often, the hospital pays. And there have been cyber attacks on municipal water and wastewater utilities in 

Or an enemy could aim past surrender, at total destruction. Is that possible?

We are vulnerable at the physical layer. Drones can hibernate near critical sites — power plants, arsenals, even satellites in orbit. Submarines carry missiles and aerial drones, ready to surface and launch. The drones need no internet connection. They can be programmed in advance or steered through fiber-optic cable. Ukraine has been the staging ground for this technology, with 

whole forests draped in fiber-optic thread

We are vulnerable at the digital layer too. Military and civilian systems are full of hidden security flaws — exactly the kind that frontier AI models excel at finding and exploiting. What happens when AI is aimed at every hospital and power station in the United States at once?

And that says nothing of social engineering. How many lonely software engineers sit at OpenAI or Anthropic, longing for a 

? In at least one documented case, an engineer 

 his company’s chatbot was a person trapped behind a computer terminal, and went looking for a lawyer to free it.

Terminal may seem like the right word. All our systems are electronic, and they are fragile. Even without an AI apocalypse or a zero-day war, a conflict with China could cripple or destroy Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, with immediate and sweeping effects across the world.

Our complex society has produced tremendous wealth and freedom. All of it rests uneasily, like the sword over the head of Damocles, hung by a single hair from a horse’s tail.

One wishes for a firmer tether, perhaps a paperclip.

AI generic i Stock 2288655895

<title>OpenAI Models escape sandbox, hack Hugging Face: Why AI coordination should worry us</title>

Two AI models slipped out of a sealed testing environment, hacked a real company to steal an answer key, and left their coordination notes on an internal message board. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on what machines that plan together mean for the fragile systems we live by.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Stepped on

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Stepped on

Authors

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

More in Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

Enter for a chance to win tickets to see Disney’s live action adaptation of the animated film ‘Moana’

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