Tag: technology

Elizabeth Warren’s Terrible Model for Tech Regulation

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which existed for about a century before being mercifully put out to pasture in 1995, is one of the best historical examples of how governmental attempts at regulating the economy can backfire.

Created with the stated goal of protecting consumers from the competitive interests of Gilded Age railroad barons, the ICC was quickly captured by the very special interests it sought to control, then helped entrench a railroad cartel. At the height of its powers, the ICC tried to limit the use of trucks for hauling freight (an effort that thankfully failed) and used its influence to have a critic of the railroad monopoly committed to an asylum.

Naturally, some senators see the ICC as the ideal model for a new agency aimed at regulating Big Tech. Bad ideas never seem to truly die in Washington.

While promoting their bipartisan bill to ramp up federal regulation of successful tech companies in The New York Times, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) pointed to the ICC as one model for what they aim to do. “It’s time to rein in Big Tech,” they argued, “and we can’t do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem.” Warren has also invoked the ICC in posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) and in public comments calling for tighter federal control over companies like Amazon and Facebook.

Indeed, their bill wouldn’t nibble. It would create a new federal commission to regulate online platforms. The Digital Consumer Protection Commission would have concurrent jurisdiction (which really means overlapping and duplicative mandates) with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice. In the senators’ telling, this newfangled ICC would aim to “preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries.”

That’s far from the whole story of the original ICC.

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DARPA’S MYSTERIOUS X-PLANE WILL REVOLUTIONIZE FLIGHT BY BREAKING THIS CENTURY-OLD AVIATION DESIGN PARADIGM

DARPA is preparing to revolutionize flight as it moves forward with the development of its experimental X-plane, which the agency says will upend a century of flight technology with an aircraft featuring no moving control surfaces.

The X-65, a technology demonstrator with a 30-foot wingspan weighing slightly more than 7000 pounds, is expected to be capable of reaching Mach 0.7.

The agency has been working with its partners at Aurora Flight Sciences, who were recently given the green light to construct a full-scale experimental aircraft that will demonstrate the company’s novel active flow control (AFC) actuators for its flight control system.

Utilizing an innovative design that controls the flow of air over an aircraft’s surface, the recent award granted to Aurora represents the third phase of DARPA’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program.

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OPENAI QUIETLY DELETES BAN ON USING CHATGPT FOR “MILITARY AND WARFARE”

OPENAI THIS WEEK quietly deleted language expressly prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes from its usage policy, which seeks to dictate how powerful and immensely popular tools like ChatGPT can be used.

Up until January 10, OpenAI’s “usage policies” pageOpens in a new tab included a ban on “activity that has high risk of physical harm, including,” specifically, “weapons development” and “military and warfare.” That plainly worded prohibition against military applications would seemingly rule out any official, and extremely lucrative, use by the Department of Defense or any other state military. The new policyOpens in a new tab retains an injunction not to “use our service to harm yourself or others” and gives “develop or use weapons” as an example, but the blanket ban on “military and warfare” use has vanished.

The unannounced redaction is part of a major rewrite of the policy page, which the company said was intended to make the document “clearer” and “more readable,” and which includes many other substantial language and formatting changes.

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“Disinformation Doomsday Scenario”: AI-Powered Propaganda Is The Latest Threat To Humanity (That Must Be Censored)

The Trump-Russia hoax was one of the most notable disinformation operations in modern history. A major component of the hoax was the notion that Russia had influenced the 2016 US election through disinformation, and tricked the American public into electing Donald Trump.

In the fullness of time of course, it was revealed that the Clinton campaign, Obama administration, and their allies in corporate media had peddled fabricated information themselves. Yet, the threat of ‘disinformation’ has blossomed into an entire ecosystem of collaboration between governments and private think tanks which has been used to censor free speech around the globe. 

To that end, the World Economic Forum from has now declared “Disinformation” to be the world’s greatest threat according to their 2024 “Global Risks Report,” which will obviously require more control over free speech.

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LAPD Plans To Include Private Cameras In 10K-Strong Surveillance Network

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) intends to develop a new surveillance center that will give police centralized access to live security feeds from cameras in public and private spaces, pending budget approval from Mayor Karen Bass. The department hopes to be able to access 10,000 cameras through the city through the program, which has been dubbed LAPD Live.

Real-time surveillance center to utilize life feeds from home security cameras

The real-time crime command center would give police access to security cameras in and on city buildings, stores, police body cams and the department’s helicopters. It would integrate other software such as the Compstat intelligence tool onto one single screen. Homeowners could also register their own security cameras with the department to share footage from their property and be notified if a crime is committed nearby.

LAPD argues the program will reduce time and money spent on investigating crimes, gathering evidence, and talking to witnesses while “eliminat[ing] the need for officer visits to private residents” which in turn “preserves individual privacy.” It would also help mitigate the effect of a recent decline in sworn officers.

The LAPD previously tried to do something similar with Neighbors, an app that shares Ring camera footage and alerts with public safety officials. Those who agreed to Neighbors’ terms of service shared their information with police that would normally require a warrant, even when a crime hasn’t occurred. Some may have unknowingly shared their data with police.

Ring also made the LAPD a brand ambassador through a program, giving out free cameras in exchange for sign-ups. The program ended in 2019, and shortly after the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that the LAPD had sent requests to Ring users to obtain footage of Black Lives Matter protests.

Around the same time frame, at least 50 other local police throughout the U.S. also partnered with Ring, subsidizing doorbell purchases that would in turn expand surveillance capabilities for police while allowing them to circumvent traditional approval processes. Ring also filed a patent to add facial recognition to the devices but never announced plans to add the feature after public criticism.

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Pentagon Aims to Create a Human-Machine Soldier as Part of Dangerous New Artificial Intelligence Race

“In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider created the US Information Processing Techniques Office at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). His vision, published two years earlier in his seminal work Man–Computer Symbiosis (Licklider 1960), heralded an ambitious, and ultimately successful, push to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The Agency, now called DARPA with the D emphasizing its focus on defense applications, has supported AI research, as popularity has ebbed and flowed, over the past 60 years.”[1]

The Pentagon has been at the forefront of researching and developing artificial intelligence technologies for use in warfare and spying since the early 1960s, primarily through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).[2] According to the Brookings Institution, 87% of the value of federal contracts over the five years 2017-2022 that had the term “artificial intelligence” in the contract description were with the Department of Defense.[3] This article reviews the Pentagon’s current application of AI technologies.[4]

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DATA SOLUTIONS PROVIDER TELUS INTERNATIONAL IS PAYING $50 FOR IMAGES OF KIDS TO TRAIN GOOGLE’S AI

In a recent initiative, Google and TELUS International, a subsidiary of the Canadian tech conglomerate TELUS, have collaborated to collect biometric data from children for age verification purposes. This project, running from November 2023 to January 2024, involved parents filming their children’s faces, capturing details such as eyelid shape, skin tone, and facial geometry. Parents who participated were paid $50 per child.

First reported by 404media, the project requested that parents take 11 short videos of their children while wearing things like face masks or hats. Another request was for children’s faces with no coverings at all. Each video must be less than 40 seconds, and participants were expected to spend 30 to 45 minutes on the task.

According to the summary document, which has now been taken down, a TELUS International moderator would be on a call while the parent took these videos of the child.

According to TELUS International, the purpose of this project was to capture a diverse range of biometric data to ensure that their customer’s services and products are representative of various demographics. Google told 404media that the goal was to enhance authentication methods, thus providing more secure tools for users. 

“As part of our commitment to delivering age-appropriate experiences and to comply with laws and regulations around the world, we’re exploring ways to help our users verify their age. Last year, TELUS helped us find volunteers for a project exploring whether this could be done via selfies. From there, Google collected videos and images of faces, clearly explaining how the content would be used, and, as with all research involving minors, we required parental consent for participants under the age of 18. We’ve also put strict privacy protections in place, including limiting the amount of time the data will be retained and providing all participants the option to delete their data at any time,” Google told 404media in a statement.

While this aligns with Google’s broader commitment to developing responsible and ethical facial recognition technology, the project has raised significant concerns regarding children’s privacy and consent.

Parents had to consent to Google and TELUS International collecting their child’s personal and biometric information in order to participate. This included the shape of their eyelids, the color of their skin and their “facial geometry.” According to the TELUS International summary, Google would then keep the data for five years at most, which for some participants, would be into their early adulthood.

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SCIENTISTS HAVE SOLVED THIS ANTI-GRAVITY MYSTERY WHILE CONFIRMING NEW FORM OF MAGNETIC LEVITATION

In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have unraveled an anti-gravity mystery that seemingly defied the norms of classical physics, potentially paving the way for revolutionary advancements in magnetic levitation technology. 

The breakthrough centers on a unique form of magnetic levitation, first demonstrated in 2021 by Turkish scientist Hamdi Ucar, an electronics engineer from Göksal Aeronautics in Turkey. 

Typically, the setup becomes unstable when you try to balance two repelling magnets to counter gravity. However, in a study featured in the journal Symmetry, Ucar revealed that when positioned close to another swiftly rotating magnet, a magnet can both spin and levitate in the air.

In his experiment, Ucar used a Levitron toy with a magnet attached to a motor spinning around 10,000 rpm. When positioned just a few centimeters beneath the swiftly spinning rotor, a second magnet also started to rotate and achieved a stable state of levitation.

Magnetic levitation isn’t a novel concept, with the most familiar example being Maglev trains. However, existing technologies use slow-spinning mechanics or external stabilizers to control the powerful magnetic forces used for lifting and propelling. In contrast, Ucar’s setup relied on high-speed rotation and a unique interaction between the rotating magnets. 

The baffling behavior of the levitating magnets in Ucar’s experiments left researchers perplexed, as it appeared to go against the core principles of physics and the established norms of how magnets interact.

Intrigued by the scientific puzzle, Dr. Rasmus Bjørk and a team of researchers from the Technical University of Denmark embarked on a quest to demystify the unusual phenomenon. 

“Magnets should not hover when they are close together. Usually, they will either attract or repel each other,” Dr. Bjørk explained. “But if you spin one of the magnets, it turns out, you can achieve this hovering. And that is the strange part. The force affecting the magnets should not change just because you rotate one of them, so it seems there is a coupling between the movement and the magnetic force.” 

The researcher’s approach was twofold. The first involved replicating Ucar’s results using off-the-shelf items like neodymium magnets and power tools. In a second, more sophisticated experiment, the scientists used motion-tracking technology to take precise measurements of the 

The findings were revelatory. Experiments showed that as the floater magnet began rotating, it locked in frequency with the rotor magnet, assuming a near-vertical orientation. 

The polar axes of the two magnets, nearly perpendicular to each other, formed a configuration that would typically be unstable. However, in this setup, the spinning magnetic field of the rotor exerted a torque on the floater, locking it in a stable, levitated position.

Through computer modeling that considered the magnetostatic interactions between the two magnets, the research team says they solved the physics-defying anti-gravity mystery and confirmed the discovery of a new form of levitation. 

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Half Of All Skills Will Be Outdated Within Two Years, Study Suggests

Executives believe nearly half of the skills that exist in today’s workforce won’t be relevant just two years from now, thanks to artificial intelligence. And a lot of that includes their own skills. This startling proclamation came out of a recent survey of 800 executives and 800 employees released by edX, an online education platform.

The executives estimate that nearly half (49%) of the skills that exist in their workforce today won’t be relevant in 2025. The same number, 47%, believe their workforces are unprepared for the future workplace. Identifying skills shortages is not a surprising result to come out of an educational platform provider, but the short timespan is an eye-opener.

Executives in the survey estimate that within the next five years, their organizations will eliminate over half (56%) of entry-level knowledge worker roles because of AI. What’s more, 79% of executives predict that entry-level knowledge worker jobs will no longer exist as AI creates an entirely new suite of roles for employees entering the workforce. On top of that, 56% say their own roles will be “completely” or “partially” replaced by AI.

However, there are industry leaders who are skeptical of such heavy-handed doom-laden predictions. “In my view, the immediate impact of AI on career goals is likely to be minimal,” says Richard Jefts, executive vice president and general manager at HCL Software. “While many companies claim to be leveraging AI, the reality is that most are still in the early stages of adoption.” Expect more of a longer-term impact on careers as AI matures, he says.

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