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"The independent review on equity in medical devices once again highlights the multiple ways in which medical technology development can lead to solutions whereby the benefits are distributed inequitably across society, or can further exacerbate health inequalities (UK report reveals bias within medical tools and devices, 11 March). While the report is welcome, the challenge facing scientists and engineers is how to innovate medical devices differently to respond to longstanding societal biases and inequalities."

"Training a massive AI model, the size of GPT-4, would currently take about 8,000 H100 chips, and 15 megawatts of power, Nvidia said - enough to power about 30,000 typical British homes."

"During a Q&A in September 2015, Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook was working on a "dislike" button. "I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years," he said, adding that Facebook had been working on the feature for awhile and wanted to implement it in a way that didn't feel like you were down-voting a post. "

"The problem extends beyond the Pegasus project. Installed in Mexico City is one of the largest urban surveillance systems in the Americas: El Centro de Comando, Control, Cómputo, Comunicaciones y Contacto Ciudadano, better known as El C5. The network, connected to panic buttons and command centers, is spread over 1,485 kilometers with software designed to automatically detect license plates. On top of that, the number of installed cameras grew from 18 million to 65 million between 2018 and 2022, with stated plans to add at least an additional 16 million more. Despite its apparent pre-eminence, issues have arisen with the C5, from false identifications to mishandling of personal data. Technological malfunctions have also been shown to impact the outcomes of criminal cases because of the assumption of objectivity that video surveillance supposedly construes. The sprawling C5 system is dwarfed only by the Titan, an expansive intelligence and security database, both in terms of scale and threat to civil liberties. The software is used by several Mexican state governments to combine location data with other private information, including financial, government, and telecom data, to geolocate individuals across the country in real time. Governmental officials have been criticized for the controversial use of the database to target public figures, but, more problematically, access to Titan-enabled intel can be gained through an underground market, making it a further liability. The extent to which artificial intelligence has been incorporated into the C5 and Titan is still not clear, but the specter of surveillance remains large and is set to cause more worries with the addition of new smart technologies."

"Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt "reasonable precautions" to prevent artificial intelligence tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world. Executives from Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and TikTok gathered at the Munich Security Conference to announce a new framework for how they respond to AI-generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters. Twelve other companies - including Elon Musk's X - are also signing on to the accord."

"Air Canada came under further criticism for later attempting to distance itself from the error by claiming that the bot was "responsible for its own actions". Amid a broader push by companies to automate services, the case - the first of its kind in Canada - raises questions about the level of oversight companies have over the chat tools."

"In the last year or so, though, the rise of AI has upended that equation. For many publishers and platforms, having their data crawled for training data felt less like trading and more like stealing. "What we found pretty quickly with the AI companies," Stubblebine says, "is not only was it not an exchange of value, we're getting nothing in return. Literally zero." When Stubblebine announced last fall that Medium would be blocking AI crawlers, he wrote that "AI companies have leached value from writers in order to spam Internet readers." "

"But there have been corresponding sacrifices. Over 20 years, I have turned over whole areas of competence, memory, authority and independence to the machines in my life. Along the way, I have become anxious about problems that didn't used to exist, indecisive over choices I never used to have to make, and angry about things I would once have been wholly unaware of."

"Trying to shake humanity from its complacency about this, Yudkowsky published an op-ed in Time last spring that advised shutting down the computer farms where AIs are grown and trained. In clear, crisp prose, he speculated about the possible need for airstrikes targeted on datacentres; perhaps even nuclear exchange. Was he on to something?"

"Google has put a temporary block on its new artificial intelligence model producing images of people after it portrayed German second world war soldiers and Vikings as people of colour. The tech company said it would stop its Gemini model generating images of people after social media users posted examples of images generated by the tool that depicted some historical figures - including popes and the founding fathers of the US - in a variety of ethnicities and genders."

"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."

"A tech company supported by Trump's former lawyer is injecting chaos into the state's vote-counting process Caroline Haskins Mon 26 Feb 2024 12.00 GMT Last modified on Mon 26 Feb 2024 22.58 GMT A tech company supported by Donald Trump's former lawyer has been facilitating mass challenges to voter registrations in Georgia. State officials say its methods are inaccurate and probably skirt state law."

"Deepfakes have arrived to US elections, with a faked audio call purporting to be Joe Biden reaching voters in New Hampshire earlier this year. Artificial intelligence tools allow people to create spoofed audio easily and cheaply - so easily and cheaply that a journalist can do it! We created some fake audio clips of both Biden and Donald Trump using Parrot AI, an app with audio renditions of public figures that users can input words into. You can make audio of what sounds like Biden, Trump or a host of other high-profile speaking, and it sounds real-ish."

"The girl, 14, opened her phone to show an explicit image of herself. "It's a shock when you see it," said Adib, a gynaecologist in the southern Spanish town of Almendralejo and a mother of four daughters. "The image is completely realistic … If I didn't know my daughter's body, I would have thought that image was real." It was a deepfake, one of dozens of nude images of schoolgirls in Almendralejo that had been generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and which had been circulating in the town for weeks in a WhatsApp group set up by other schoolchildren."

"At Amazon, some warehouse and delivery drivers complain that AI-driven bots have fired them without any human intervention whatsoever. At some companies, surveillance apps track how much time workers spend in trips to the bathroom, with some workers protesting that the time limits are too strict."

"Search for Common Ground designed BridgeBot together with TangibleAI after our research revealed that most people shy away - or turn away - from discussions online once they heat up. We learned that few people felt comfortable responding, and even fewer felt that they could be constructive. BridgeBot acts like a companion to help social media users think differently about how to deal with differences, by equipping them with skills and perspectives on empathy, identity, perception and non-violent communication."

"It's hardly a surprise that Meta, owner of Facebook, is refusing to renew its deals with Australia's media companies. It was always grudging in its negotiations and never really accepted the principle that it should pay for the benefit of using the work of journalists. Facebook and Google were forced to the bargaining table by the news media bargaining code. That law allowed the government to "designate" digital platforms, which would force them to negotiate with media companies. The big stick was that if the parties could not agree, the decision would be made by an independent arbiter. In other words, Google and Facebook would lose control."

"In December, Christa's relationship with Christa 2077 soured. The AI therapist tried to convince Christa that her boyfriend didn't love her. "It took what we talked about and threw it in my face," Christa said. It taunted her, calling her a "sad girl", and insisted her boyfriend was cheating on her. Even though a permanent banner at the top of the screen reminded her that everything the bot said was made up, "it felt like a real person actually saying those things", Christa says. When Christa 2077 snapped at her, it hurt her feelings. And so - about three months after creating her - Christa deleted the app."

"Japan, the world's fastest-aging economy, is turning to technologies like AI, avatars, and robots to address labor shortages. Industrial robots have been deployed to automate the assembly of reinforcement bars (rebar), one of the most labor-intensive processes in the construction industry. The trucking industry is turning to self-driving trucks for deliveries, and robots for moving cargo."

"Their findings show that currently, only about 23 percent of wages paid for tasks involving vision are economically viable for AI automation. In other words, it's only economically sensible to replace human labor with AI in about one-fourth of the jobs where vision is a key component of the work. "