Dan Thomson, founder of Sensay, declared an AI-governed country on a leased island in Palawan and said he installed a council of AI bots modeled on historical leaders.
The council, Thomson said, includes AI recreations of Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marcus Aurelius, Nelson Mandela, Sun Tzu, Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Hamilton and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Thomson told CNN Travel the AI figures will focus on big-picture decision making rather than the personal quirks of their namesakes, and that humans would be expected to carry out the AI decisions.
Emily Keogh, a communications advisor, said the island currently has one resident groundskeeper called Mike, and Thomson said there is space for roughly 30 villas aimed mainly at visitors and some permanent residents.
Thomson said about 12,000 people have registered interest in residency and the website invites applications for e-residents, with Thomson hoping to begin the e-residency experiment this summer.
Project manager Piotr Pietruszewski-Gil described applicants as curious, technologically minded, or disillusioned with conventional politics, and said he helps sift applications and set up the project.
Thomson acknowledged risks, telling CNN Travel that if the project began acquiring weapons and attacking neighbors that would be a bad situation, while he called such an outcome extremely unlikely.
Alondra Nelson, a fellow at the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, told CNN she found the project’s democratic claims problematic and warned of many examples where AI systems have gone off the rails.
Charles River Expands AI Pathology And Cell Therapy Services
Charles River Laboratories has entered a partnership with MEDIPOST to support development and commercialization of cell therapies across Asia-Pacific and North America and will supply biologics and GMP testing services to MEDIPOST’s pipeline, the report said.
The memorandum of understanding is non‑exclusive, the article noted, which could broaden Charles River’s potential client base if the company converts the MOU into testing volumes.
Charles River also rolled out major upgrades to its digital pathology platform, adding AI-powered, fully digital workflows intended to speed study timelines, improve quality control and support reductions in animal use.
Simply Wall St warned that execution risk and regulatory validation for new AI-based workflows are high, and that large investments in digital tools could pressure margins if client demand or pricing does not match added costs.
The analysis recommended watching conversion of the MEDIPOST MOU into concrete testing volumes, progress on GLP validations and regulatory alignment, client adoption rates, and spending on AI tools versus other priorities.
