What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Arkansas Tech's New Era
Rex NelsonRex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called "Southern Fried."
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia's Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens' consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette's first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee's office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
'Warfare As A Service' Is The New Frontier In Defense Technology
The American military is "incredibly powerful," said Andy Yakulis, CEO and co-founder of Vector Defense Inc., but is it the strongest in the world?
"When it comes to unmanned systems, it is very hard to compete with Ukraine," he told the Deseret News. "They're incredibly smart at incorporating technology in a war-fighting tactical capacity," and they also have an edge when they're "forced to do that because their existence is at stake."
He believes that Israel is similar, he noted.
That's why American manufacturers, such as Vector — the defense technology company Yakulis co-founded in 2024 — are working to produce combat machinery domestically in the United States and used by the U.S. Military.
Tech integrator Tee Garner solders a wire for a drone wiring harness at Vector's office in Draper on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
Vector develops drones with names such as Dagger, Hammer and Mace. However, they don't see themselves as a drone company. Instead, they provide what Yakulis described as "warfare as a service," which includes integration, training and incorporating other technologies within a contract under them. The drone itself is only one component of what they offer.
With approximately 125 full-time employees, Vector maintains teams in locations such as Ukraine and Israel to stay updated on the latest tactics used in active conflicts.
"We maintain that sort of rotational presence, so that when an American military soldier gets a training from a Vector individual, he knows it's the latest and greatest tactics that have been seen in battle," he said, but, "You can't copy and paste what you see in Ukraine and then apply that to the American military. You still have to apply some American way of fighting. We're going to fight in the American military a little differently from the Ukrainians, but there's still a lot of lessons to be learned."
Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, right, speaks with Vector CEO Andy Yakulis during a tour of Vector's office in Draper on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
Since the company began, Yakulis said he's received tremendous support from Congress, specifically his district's representative, Congressman Mike Kennedy, who toured the Vector facility on Tuesday.
"What we're looking for is a bigger demand signal from the United States military," Yakulis said. Since President Donald Trump has taken office, he said there's been "some fantastic top-down leadership that we haven't seen in the past that is forcing the military to move out at a faster pace to incorporate unmanned systems."
Because, he said, warfare has changed.
A Vector "Hammer" drone flys during a demonstration for Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy near Vector's office in Draper on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
"The drone has changed warfare forever, and that's why we're pushing this initiative where we need to build large points of drones."
This is an initiative Yakulis said the current administration seems to understand, with Trump's executive order in June on "unleashing American drone dominance," followed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signing a drone memo on the front lawn of the Pentagon to modernize the U.S. Military's war-fighting capabilities.
Although progress is occurring at the federal level, lingering red tape continues to hinder advancements.
The appropriate amount of money necessary for drone training in the military is a passion-driven topic for Yakulis, who served as an army officer in the United States military. The army tasked soldiers with integrating drones into their training, but didn't allocate funds for the equipment, forcing soldiers to use their own money to purchase drones for training.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Hegseth's drone memo has helped with this issue, and dollars are starting to come, Yakulis said, but with a lag.
Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, left, inspects a drone during a tour of Vector's office from Vector CEO Andy Yakulis, right, in Draper on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
Last year, "I talked to one junior enlisted soldier who had spent about $5,000 of his own money. I talked to some who were spending up to $15,000 of their own money just to buy the drone materials so that they could train," he said. "I think this really added to our passion and conviction for this company when we started to see this and spent a lot more time with Congressman Kennedy and senior officials with the Pentagon to make sure that they understood this is unsatisfactory."
Kennedy told the Deseret News that Congress' role is to find "any opportunity to invest the appropriate amount of money to make sure that these industries are empowered to protect us in the future."
"The other thing is learning how it works, and how can we put various businesses together and share the technology where possible, and compete in the market so that the best rise to the top," he said. "Those are some things that, as a government official, I should be doing, and that's why I'm grateful to be here to learn about the technology and help to coordinate and try to find the collaborative opportunities."
Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, center, watches as Joaquin Ybanez flys a "Hammer" drone during a demonstration near Vector's office in Draper on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
How Tech Is Tackling The New Age-Verification Rules
Lawmakers want technology companies to limit young people's access to social media by verifying their age. It's no easy feat.
PREMIUM How Tech Is Tackling the New Age-Verification RulesU.S. Law already prohibits social media and other ad-supported platforms from serving content to children under 13 without parental permission. Now lawmakers and advocacy groups are taking it a step further, with a patchwork of new rules that also prohibit kids under 18 from engaging in certain online activities.
The U.K.'s Online Safety Act, which went into effect on July 25, requires platforms to verify users' ages before showing some content. In the U.S., several states have passed similar bills. New laws in Texas and Utah require parental permission before a child can download apps or make in-app purchases. This puts the enforcement burden on app-store providers, namely Apple and Google. Other states, like Mississippi, instead ask social-media companies to verify user age.
NetChoice, a trade association whose members include Meta, Google and Reddit, is continuing to challenge the Mississippi law, and has generally opposed government mandates.
"Our members have developed many tools to give parents more visibility and control, and they are continuing to innovate every day to build effective solutions," said Paul Taske, co-director of NetChoice Litigation Center. Google has even proposed alternative legislation.
Age-verification technology—much of it outsourced to third-party providers like Yoti, Incode and Persona to prevent excessive data collection—isn't always accurate. Legitimate users have complained about being locked out of their accounts. User error is a problem as well, with some failing to provide the proper identification.
Families sometimes willingly give underage kids access. And often, they just don't know what the kids are up to. Tech-savvy kids find workarounds, such as using VPN services that mask their location.
Here are the various technologies that the tech companies are using, and the pros and cons of how they work:
Photo IDsMany platforms rely on using a government-issued photo ID to verify who users are. People fudge these documents constantly, from pasting a different picture to uploading a high-quality fake ID—sometimes even generating one with AI—said Roman Karachinsky, chief product officer at Incode.
The other problem with photo IDs is it assumes that someone will have one and not all people do, said Karl Ricanek Jr., professor of computer science in the college of science and engineering at University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
Parent's permission"Some of these age-verification tools are no better than parents being in control of their own children," said Ari Waldman, professor of law at UC Irvine School of Law. Both are "poor guardrails," he added.
Yet platforms and app-store providers at times do rely on parents—and others over 18.
Apple and Google let parents create and monitor child accounts. In June, Apple announced a new developer API that allows a parent to share a child's age range with developers without giving them the child's birth date, so that apps can display age-appropriate content.
But it isn't always easy to tell that the so-called parents are being truthful. "You have no idea whether or not you have a true parent that's doing these validations," said Ricanek. "And kids are creative—most kids have multiple accounts."
The video selfieIn 2024, Meta's Instagram announced teen accounts, limiting what they can see and who they can connect with. Those under 16 are also required to receive a parent or guardian's permission to make any changes. If someone tries to change their age to over 18, they are required to validate with either an ID check or a video selfie that's sent to Yoti.
On TikTok, if banned users want to prove they are of age, they can provide a credit card for a temporary charge or send a photo of their government ID along with three selfies. TikTok works with Incode, which uses zero-knowledge proof tokens—essentially confirming age without disclosing personal information—to ensure privacy. Banned users can also ask their parent or guardian to confirm their age.
"We're minimizing data and not asking for too many things," said Ricardo Amper, chief executive of Incode.
The verifying process can be hard to get right. Users need to take a high-quality video selfie in a well-lit room, said Karachinsky. (The company guides users through the process and can also help them fix it live.)
And the rise of manipulated, deepfake video makes the job even harder, he added. "Even for comparatively lower-stakes use cases, you need technology that can catch the advanced attempts," he said.
In the U.K., Reddit works with Persona to request an uploaded selfie or a government ID. After Persona verifies the user's age, Reddit only receives and stores the user's birth date and verification status.
The AI guessIn mid-August, Google started to use AI to figure out a user's age based on signals they are sending to the platform: what they've searched, what YouTube videos they've watched. Indirect signals could be a good way to check without involving the user. Meta also says it uses technology to estimate age based on activity.
But it's hard enough just differentiating between users in the first place, said Ricanek. "We're assuming that everybody has their own personalized individualized account and that doesn't happen as well."
Safety vs. PrivacyGetting age verification right means nailing accuracy without collecting too much data.
The Kids Online Safety Act is legislation that sailed through the Senate but is stuck in the House. This would push big tech companies to address the host of risks posed to children on their platforms, from deceptive marketing to sexual exploitation. It might never become U.S. Law, but if it does, platforms will need to know exactly who the children are.
"If companies are going to be required to do age verification, they must do so in a rights-respecting way," said Aliya Bhatia, senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit organization.
Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at ann-marie.Alcantara@wsj.Com
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