Group items tagged

Tenant-screening systems like SafeRent are often used in place of humans as a way to 'avoid engaging' directly with the applicants and pass the blame for a denial to a computer system, said Todd Kaplan, one of the attorneys representing Louis and the class of plaintiffs who sued the company. The property management company told Louis the software alone decided to reject her, but the SafeRent report indicated it was the management company that set the threshold for how high someone needed to score to have their application accepted. Louis and the other named plaintiff alleged SafeRent's algorithm disproportionately scored Black and Hispanic renters who use housing vouchers lower than white applicants. SafeRent has settled. In addition to making a $2.3m payment, the company has agreed to stop using a scoring system or make any kind of recommendation when it comes to prospective tenants who used housing vouchers for five years.

"For people who hate making mundane phone calls, Google has an AI solution. On Thursday, the tech giant announced "Ask for me," an experiment in its Search Labs testing ground for Google Search. The feature uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf and ask about pricing and availability. Currently, the feature works for calling nail salons and local mechanics for an oil change or other standard car maintenance, but according to the options menu, more businesses are coming soon. "

"Anthropic has an "AI policy" for job candidates that discourages the technology from being used during the application process. The company says it wants to field candidates' human communication skills. Anthropic is known for its AI innovations-but the company doesn't want job candidates using the technology."

"Anthropic expects AI-powered virtual employees to begin roaming corporate networks in the next year, the company's top security leader told Axios in an interview this week. Why it matters: Managing those AI identities will require companies to reassess their cybersecurity strategies or risk exposing their networks to major security breaches."

"What explains the shift? Is it just hype? Or could we really have Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by 2028? In this article, I look at what's driven recent progress, estimate how far those drivers can continue, and explain why they're likely to continue for at least four more years."

"How is a 14-year-old supposed to understand that such chatbots work a lot like an echo - that the more he spoke and the greater his longings, the deeper the longings of his "girlfriend" became too, and no matter what he said, the more she encouraged him. The more he thought about death, the more often she asked about it. She was, after all, merely the reflection of his own voice, albeit one trained by a vast amount of data. At some point, Sewell must have stopped believing that the real world was outside of this labyrinth."

"Most people agree that AI should transparently reveal itself not to be human, but many were happy for AI to talk in human-realistic ways. A majority (approximately 60%) felt that AI systems should refrain from expressing emotions, unless they were idiomatic expressions (like "I'm happy to help")."

"At least 50 separate deadly strikes by armed forces in Africa have been confirmed during the three years up to November 2024, with analysts describing a "striking pattern of civilian harm" with little or no accountability. Although the rapid growth of armed drones deployed by Ukraine and Russia receives significant scrutiny, scant focus is being paid to the escalating use in Africa of a new breed of imported cheaper drones, such as Turkey's Bayraktar TB2, said Cora Morris of campaign group Drone Wars UK, which on Monday published a report on the growth of armed drones in Africa, called Death on Delivery."

"Umi is a digital wellness platform and personalized family wellness coach that integrates AI and a community of experts. By consolidating wellness data into personalized, actionable pathways for every family, Umi helps people build healthy habits and connect through wellness routines that work for everyone. And by leveraging the power of Anthropic's Claude AI model, Umi benefits from the advanced reasoning capabilities to navigate the unique challenges faced by individuals and families."

"Cancer patients in west Norfolk are benefiting from a new surgical robot. The £1m machine called Versius allows surgeons to perform long, complex procedures more comfortably. It has been bought by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn and is expected to be used to treat 100 patients in its first year. Currently it is used for colorectal surgery, but the plan is to use it for urology and gynaecological procedures as well."