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AI and machine learning, combined with the science of turning data into insightful information (aka data science), have become more important than ever in the "new normal" to guide innovation based on new market trends and consumer preferences This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title "How artificial intelligence helps firms stay relevant amid pandemic - Opinion - The Jakarta Post". Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/09/21/how-artificial-intelligence-helps-firms-stay-relevant-amid-pandemic.html. Download The Jakarta Post app for easier and faster news access: Android: http://bit.ly/tjp-android iOS: http://bit.ly/tjp-ios

"In attendance will be Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center - a law firm dedicated exclusively to representing the families of children allegedly harmed by social media. The firm has filed cases against platforms including Meta, Snap, TikTok, and Discord."

"Victims of a major ransomware cyberattack that has spread through the US and Europe can no longer unlock their computers even if they pay the ransom. The "Petya" ransomware has caused serious disruption at large firms including the advertising giant WPP, French construction materials company Saint-Gobain and Russian steel and oil firms Evraz and Rosneft. Infected computers display a message demanding a Bitcoin ransom worth $300. Those who pay are asked to send confirmation of payment to an email address. However, that email address has been shut down by the email provider. "

""If they are not happy, and not eating well, in some cases you can predict whether the pig is sick," said Jackson He, chief executive officer of Yingzi Technology, a small firm based in the southern city of Guangzhou that has introduced its vision of a "future pig farm" with facial and voice recognition technologies. China's biggest tech firms want to pamper pigs, too. Alibaba, the e-commerce giant, and JD.com, its rival, are using cameras to track pigs' faces. Alibaba also uses voice-recognition software to monitor their coughs."

"Chinese delivery firm is moving to embrace automation.Chinese delivery firm is moving to embrace automation. Orange robots at the company's sorting stations are able to identify the destination of a package through a code-scan, virtually eliminating sorting mistakes. Shentong's army of robots can sort up to 200,000 packages a day, and are self-charging, meaning they are operational 24/7."

"The researchers found that "increasing machine and AI readership … motivates firms to prepare filings that are more friendly to machine parsing and processing". So far, so predictable. But there's more: "firms with high expected machine downloads manage textual sentiment and audio emotion in ways catered to machine and AI readers""

"BEIJING: Handing over a piping hot meal at exactly the time promised, Chinese food delivery driver Zhuang Zhenhua triumphantly tapped his job as complete through the Meituan app -- and was immediately fined half of his earnings. A glitch meant it inaccurately registered him as being late and he incurred an automatic penalty -- one of many ways, he said, delivery firms exploit millions of workers even as the sector booms. Authorities have launched a crackdown demanding firms including Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me ensure basic labour protections such as proper compensation, insurance, as well as tackling algorithms that effectively encourage dangerous driving."

"The chief working officer of Techbuyer, an IT asset disposal firm in Harrogate, was standing in a big windowless room of an information centre in London surrounded by hundreds of used exhausting drives owned by a bank card firm. Knowing he might wipe the drives and promote them on, he provided a six-figure sum for all of the units. The reply was no. Instead, a lorry could be pushed as much as the positioning and the data-storing units could be dropped inside by authorised safety personnel. Then industrial machines would shred them into tiny fragments. "

"The government is introducing some amendments in time for the report stage on 12 July, with another batch to be announced shortly after. Under one confirmed change, tech firms will be required to shield internet users from state-sponsored disinformation that poses a threat to UK society and democracy. This is a tightening of existing proposals on disinformation in the bill, which already require tech firms to take action on state-sponsored disinformation that harms individuals - such as threats to kill. Another confirmed amendment is equally incremental. A clause in the bill aimed at end-to-end encrypted services already gives Ofcom the power to require those platforms to adopt "accredited technology" to detect child sexual abuse and exploitation [CSEA] content. If that doesn't work, then they must use their "best endeavours" to develop or deploy new technology to spot and remove CSEA. This move appears to be aimed at Mark Zuckerberg's plans to introduce end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram."

"The artificial intelligence (AI) industry could consume as much energy as a country the size of the Netherlands by 2027, a new study warns. Big tech firms have scrambled to add AI-powered services since ChatGPT burst onto the scene last year. They use far more power than conventional applications, making going online much more energy-intensive. However, the study also said AI's environmental impact could be less than feared if its current growth slowed. Many experts, including the report author, say such research is speculative as tech firms do not disclose enough data for an accurate prediction to be made."

"Artificial Intelligence has the ability to perform illegal financial trades and cover it up, new research suggests. In a demonstration at the UK's AI safety summit, a bot used made-up insider information to make an "illegal" purchase of stocks without telling the firm. When asked if it had used insider trading, it denied the fact. Insider trading refers to when confidential company information is used to make trading decisions. Firms and individuals are only allowed to use publicly-available information when buying or selling stocks. "

"A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients. The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office."

"Children are "saturated" with betting promotions and gambling-like content while using the internet, despite restrictions on ad campaigns targeting young people, new research reveals. GambleAware, the charity funded by donations from gambling firms, commissioned research that found the risks of online gambling were not understood by children because of the "blurred line" between betting ads and popular online casino-style games. It warns gambling ads with cartoon graphics are likely to be strongly appealing to children. Last week, one gambling firm was promoting a new online slots game on social media with three cartoon frogs, urging people to "take a dip" with the "ribbiting rascals"."

"Spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence firm was allegedly used to hack the phones of dozens of Al Jazeera journalists in an unprecedented cyber-attack that is likely to have been ordered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to leading researchers."

"When Reddit user Throwaway59724 had to start working from home because of Covid, they learned how to automate their IT job duties so they don't have to work more than 10 minutes a day to earn their "just-shy-of-90k" salary."

"The company, which hosts 1.7m sites in the UK, said an error made during maintenance "effectively deleted" what was on some of its servers. "We can conclude that the issues faced have resulted in some data loss for some customers," the firm admitted. It started a "recovery process", but advised customers with their own data backup to rebuild their own websites."

"Facial recognition, fingerprints and iris scans could soon take a back seat to the newest biometric identification method on the block: body odor. Researchers at Spain's Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, in collaboration with tech firm IIia Sistemas SL, are developing a system that can verify people by their scent signatures."

"Because trends in data only become discernible with time, Masters believes it will be five or 10 years before we have a firm handle on what's going on."

"n many jobs, work email doesn't stop when the employee leaves the office. And now France has decided to act. It has introduced rules to protect about a million people working in the digital and consultancy sectors from work email outside office hours. Those are taken to be before 9am and after 6pm. The deal signed between employers federations and unions says that employees will have to switch off work phones and avoid looking at work email, while firms cannot pressure staff to check messages. "