Roundtables: The Deadly Failures of The Virtual Border Wall
Listen to the session or watch below
The US has spent billions building a “virtual wall” of surveillance towers along its southern border over the past 25 years, promising they will help detect and apprehend border crossers and save lives. But a groundbreaking investigation by MIT Technology Review has documented over a thousand people who moved through areas watched by these towers without being reached or apprehended, and who ultimately died there. Some were even under the watch of newly installed AI-powered towers designed to spot people automatically.
Our findings reveal a humanitarian crisis more visible than previously known, and repeated failures of the virtual wall’s basic security promise. Watch a conversation examining the failures of border surveillance technology and uncovering the stories of the people who die in the borderlands.
Speakers : Mat Honan , editor in chief, James O’Donnell , senior AI reporter, and Eileen Guo , senior features and investigations reporter
Recorded on September 28, 2026
Related Stories
The US spent billions on border surveillance. Why can’t it catch people before they die?
How we made the first comprehensive map of deaths along the US border’s “virtual wall”
4 ways to address the failures we found along the US border’s “virtual wall”
News is gathered automatically from public robotics & AI feeds on a schedule.
Related
Trump orders US government to call AI ‘Super Intelligence’
The US executive branch is no longer acknowledging the existence of "artificial intelligence." Going forward, official policy websites, policy documents, and press releases will refer only to "Super Intelligence," thanks to a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump. "The word super is t
The internet is convinced Elon Musk’s xAI trolled OpenAI’s ‘Dots’ launch
Before OpenAI launched its new AI agent, Dots, on Tuesday, Elon Musk's xAI had already acquired the domain name "dot.com," which now redirects to the Grok chatbot download page.
Protests against OpenAI get increasingly creative
New sculpture depicts AI leaders escaping a sinking ship.
Elon Musk’s AI-powered Grokipedia is updating again
Grokipedia, the AI-powered online encyclopedia from SpaceXAI, appears to be updating articles once again after a months-long pause. In August, Lawfare reported that articles on Grokipedia hadn't reviewed edits since April, but the platform's live updates site is now showing various recent changes to
AMD acquires World Labs AI startup, upping the ante against Nvidia
The deal, which is expected to close by year's end, is worth $8.2 billion.
OpenAI’s latest features take direct aim at the app store model
OpenAI is building out the pieces of an alternative to the traditional app store model, turning ChatGPT into a place where software can be discovered and used by people and AI agents alike.