Washington’s growing alarm over artificial intelligence is beginning to echo Y2K, experts say, when dire warnings of technological catastrophe prompted a massive scramble to avert failures that ultimately proved far less severe than feared.

«You could draw all sorts of scary scenarios with Y2K as well. The financial system was just going to collapse because people had not written their programs for the year 2000. I had been writing programs in the 1980s for the government, so I’m well aware of the program,» Junk Science publisher and founder Steven Milloy told Digital.

«But of course, the tech industry knew about the problem, and to the extent that was a real problem, took action to fix it. The same can happen with AI,» Milloy added.

RESEARCHER WHO DEPARTED AI ROLE OVER FEARS OF RACING INTO EXTINCTION SAYS PEOPLE ARE ‘BEGGING’ FOR REGULATION

Y2K was a computer bug that raised fears systems could fail when the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. The U.S. spent an estimated $100 billion, $200 billion adjusted for today’s inflation, in preparing for the problem, according to a 2000 Senate report.

When the new millennium arrived, there were few major disruptions.

President Donald Trump has made rapid AI development and the data centers needed to power it a priority, while the administration promotes the technology’s potential economic benefits and Democrats cry foul before midterm elections.

DEMOCRATS EMBRACED AI’S GROWTH BEFORE TRUMP CAME ALONG — NOW THEY WANT TO SLOW IT DOWN

«Democrats are capitalizing on the fears of Americans that angst over AI,» Heritage Foundation technology analyst Annie Chestnut Tutor told Digital.

Democrats are increasingly calling for government guardrails on AI, citing potential threats ranging from job losses and inequality to risks to democracy and humanity. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, wrote in April that AI «kills jobs, equality, connection, democracy and maybe the human race.»

But the apocalyptic warnings are not coming only from Washington.

Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit the company over concerns about the race toward self-improving AI, warning that its developers are «gambling with our lives» and that such systems could potentially «kill us all by the end of the decade.»

SEVEN-FIGURE BLITZ AS GOP EMBRACES PUSH TO COMPETE WITH CHINA IN BOOMING NEW TECH SPACE

Y2K sparked similar fears, as warnings spread of potential power-grid failures, disruptions to air travel and air-traffic control, and even predictions that planes could fall from the sky.

The Trump administration has backed targeted safeguards, including AI-powered cyber defenses for critical infrastructure, criminal enforcement against AI-enabled hacking and proposed measures to limit AI-driven child exploitation.

Tutor offered a nuanced Y2K comparison, arguing that the episode showed how technological risks can be addressed before they become potentially catastrophic.

«The reason now, like, we all laugh about Y2K is because actually software engineers and, like, financial analysts, they’ve worked really hard to ensure that the catastrophic incidents [didn’t] happen,» Tutor said.

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«I think the same thing could happen with AI,» she added. «If AI is built right, it can be more beneficial to Americans than the doomsday scenario.»

Milloy said the Y2K comparison also fits a pattern he sees with climate change, with dire warnings of an existential threat followed by calls for sweeping government intervention.

Climate warnings have likewise been framed in apocalyptic terms, including predictions that entire nations could be wiped out by global warming, Arctic summer ice could disappear within years and Glacier National Park’s glaciers would vanish by 2020.

POLL: VOTERS SEE AI REGULATION AS URGENT, RANK SAFEGUARDS AHEAD OF INNOVATION

«There are a lot of parallels between climate hysteria and AI hysteria,» Milloy said. «Climate was existential. It was going to destroy the planet, and by implication, humanity. As we learned last week, AI is going to destroy humanity also on a very short time frame.»

Milloy argued that while lawmakers are crying foul, they have not established enough specific evidence of catastrophic AI scenarios to justify sweeping restrictions.

Trump has responded to AI warnings by calling them a «hoax,» reviving the language he has used for years to dismiss climate change concerns.

«Give me a real-life practical scenario of how this can happen,» he said. «And then if you know what the scenario is, then you can stop it.»

DAVID MARCUS: BIG TECH INVENTED AI DOOMSDAY TO DUCK REAL LIFE PROBLEMS

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Milloy warned that overly broad regulation could carry its own cost by slowing technological advances before their benefits are fully understood.

«The opportunity costs are potentially huge,» Milloy said, pointing to potential AI-assisted advances in medicine and productivity while acknowledging that their ultimate scale remains unknown.

artificial intelligence, technologies, white house, democratic party

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Saudi Arabia is currently facing «the biggest threat» ever to its production of oil as the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are launching cross-border attacks and seizing territory near the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an expert told Fox News Digital.

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Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Thursday that the situation is escalating in the Middle East as Iran «likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.»

«I think this situation is really precarious for the Saudis. This is the biggest threat to their production of oil since their kingdom was founded in 1932. And this is almost existential,» he said.

«We see that the Saudis are trying to shop for some force to fight their war for them. And I think along the lines, they also called President Trump. It doesn’t look to me that Washington is going to get involved in this one,» he added. «We’ll probably offer them advice and tell support, but I don’t think we, the United States, will get involved with this war over Bab el-Mandeb.»

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IRAN-BACKED TERROR GROUP’S LATEST TERRITORIAL GRAB THREATENS SECOND GLOBAL SHIPPING CHOKEPOINT

Yemen’s Houthi armed forces patrol as Yemeni prisoners loyal to the Houthis arrive in the capital of Sanaa on Sept. 12, 2026, after being released on the west coast where they had been held by Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces. (AFP via Getty Images)

Saudi Arabia was forced to temporarily close its East-West oil pipeline last week following a drone attack launched from Iraq, which Trump said he believes Iran was behind. Then on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia destroyed a Houthi drone that attempted to enter the airspace near Mecca, among other recent provocations.

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«We know that the United States imposes a blockade on Iran, so Iran is unable to export any of its oil, licitly or illicitly. What the Iranians are trying to do is that they’re trying to telegraph to the other oil exporters in the region that either we export, all of us export oil, or none of us will export oil,» Abdul-Hussain told Fox News Digital. «This is why you see Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. This forced Saudi Arabia to switch its oil production from east to west, from Hormuz to the other side to the Red Sea. Tankers started picking up oil at the port of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea and sailing south through the Bab al-Mandeb all the way to the Asian markets.

«Iran didn’t like this because clearly all or none didn’t work,» he said. «So they likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.»

HOUTHIS ENTER US ‘KILL BOX’ AFTER SEIZING RED SEA ISLAND, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL WARNS

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President Donald Trump and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia pause for photographs along the West Wing Colonnade at the White House on Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

Fox News Digital, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported on Friday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump to take military action against the Houthis.

Trump then said the next day during a visit to Ireland that «the Houthis called us and they don’t want to fight with us.»

«They let us know, they don’t want to fight with us…they don’t want us to go after them,» Trump added. «But they have called and they have talked to us, and they don’t want us to, they would much prefer not having us involved.»

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Abdul-Hussain told Fox News Digital that «Our expectation as Washington is that the Saudis, with all these arms that we’ve sold them over the past few decades, with all the military support and advice we give them, that they should be able to protect their own tankers and ships in this waterway and keep it open.

«The Houthis announced that they’re only going after Saudi ships and Saudi navigation and they made it clear that they are not going after international shipping, whether [they] are U.S. ships or European ships,» he continued. «So this forces a choice on us. Do we go to war with the Houthis out of nowhere, even though they’re not willing to, or at least they didn’t wage war on our ships and our navigations through Bab el-Mandeb?»

A satellite image shows damage to the Saudi Arabia East-West pipeline after a strike on Sept. 11, 2026. The image was captured on Sept. 13, 2026. (Vantor/Reuters)

«Or we ask the Saudis to handle this, you know, after all the Houthis are not really a state, they’re a non-state actor and Saudi Arabia should be able to deal with them,» Abdul-Hussain added. «Unfortunately, the Saudis don’t seem to have been able to deal with the Houthis.»

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A senior administration official told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the U.S. remains focused on protecting core national security interests such as the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea while simultaneously empowering allies in the region to manage and resolve security challenges.

The Trump administration also remains in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and Yemen over regional stability , the official added.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.

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Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

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saudi arabia, iran, geopolitics, middle east foreign policy, foreign policy, national security, iraq, donald trump, conflicts, world

Un informe de la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos (ACNUDH) documentó un patrón sistemático de violaciones a las garantías fundamentales perpetrado por el régimen de Nicaragua, encabezado por Daniel Ortega y Rosario Murillo, que incluye 4,796 detenciones arbitrarias registradas desde 2018, junto con casos confirmados de desaparición forzada y muertes ocurridas durante la privación de libertad.

El documento oficial detalla cómo el aparato estatal nicaragüense ha mantenido un uso continuado y prolongado de la privación de libertad como un instrumento de represión contra opositores reales o percibidos.

Las cifras recopiladas por organizaciones de la sociedad civil y sistematizadas por las Naciones Unidas revelan que, entre las 4,796 personas arrestadas arbitrariamente desde el estallido social de 2018, 3,861 corresponden a hombres y 935 a mujeres, grupo que incluye a 13 mujeres trans.

Al 15 de junio de 2026, el reporte confirmó que al menos 46 personas continuaban privadas de libertad por motivos políticos. La gran mayoría de estos ciudadanos permanecía recluida antes del período analizado por la ONU, bajo dinámicas de detención prolongada que vulneran los estándares internacionales. En al menos tres casos, las víctimas continuaban en prisión a pesar de haber cumplido la totalidad de sus condenas dictadas por el sistema judicial local.

Entre estos casos destaca el de Jaime Enrique Navarrete Blandón, un ciudadano encarcelado desde 2019 que, según las denuncias recogidas por el organismo internacional, sufrió torturas sistemáticas en prisión y completó formalmente su sentencia en 2023 sin ser puesto en libertad por las autoridades del régimen de Nicaragua.

El informe de la ONU resalta que la represión evolucionó desde las capturas masivas registradas en 2018 hacia una operatividad selectiva. Además, las violaciones al debido proceso afectaron a funcionarios del propio Estado y simpatizantes del partido de gobierno, de los cuales al menos 55 sufrieron arrestos arbitrarios en el período evaluado.

La desaparición forzada se consolida como una práctica sistemática del aparato estatal

La investigación realizada por la ACNUDH identificó que, en al menos 29 de los 35 casos individuales de detención arbitraria analizados a profundidad por la oficina, las víctimas sufrieron desaparición forzada mediante el ocultamiento deliberado de su paradero y su suerte.

Al cierre del informe, las autoridades de la ONU mantenían abiertos al menos ocho expedientes de desaparición forzada, con la advertencia de que la cifra real puede ser sustancialmente mayor debido al temor a represalias que frena las denuncias de los familiares en la nación centroamericana.

Las detenciones se caracterizaron por la ausencia de órdenes judiciales, la falta de información inmediata sobre los cargos imputados y la privación del derecho a contar con un abogado de elección.

En múltiples procesos penales, agentes de la Policía Nacional figuraron como los únicos testigos presentados por la fiscalía, mientras que las audiencias se celebraron a puerta cerrada o de forma remota bajo deficientes condiciones técnicas.

Registraron múltiples fallecimientos de prisioneros políticos bajo la custodia del Gobierno

Durante el período evaluado por las Naciones Unidas, se registró un incremento en las muertes de prisioneros políticos durante su custodia estatal, con al menos cuatro casos plenamente documentados. Todos los fallecidos eran hombres y tres de ellos correspondían a personas de edad avanzada que padecían afecciones médicas graves.

Uno de los fallecimientos documentados corresponde al líder indígena miskitu Brooklyn Rivera, quien murió bajo la custodia del régimen nicaragüense tras ser víctima de desaparición forzada e incommunicación.

Rivera había sido objeto de represalias gubernamentales, entre otras razones, por mantener cooperación activa con los mecanismos de las Naciones Unidas. Tras su deceso, sus familiares enfrentaron severos obstáculos por parte de las fuerzas de seguridad para organizar las exequias según sus tradiciones culturales y religiosas.

Las precarias condiciones de los centros de reclusión contribuyeron al deterioro fatal de la salud de los prisioneros. La ACNUDH constató que los prisioneros recibieron suministro de agua contaminada para consumo y aseo personal, celdas contiguas a letrinas y la denegación sistemática de asistencia médica especializada.

Organización de las Naciones Unidas,derechos humanos,esposas,justicia internacional