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Humans Need to Be ‘Unquestionably’ in Charge of Powerful AI to Keep Things From Getting Out of Control, Microsoft CEO Says
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is looking forward to more powerful AI models but cautioned that human oversight will be key. In an interview with CBS Mornings, Nadella said that these powerful AI models need to be used in a way “where humans are unambiguously, unquestionably” in charge to keep them from going out of control.
Tony Dokoupil, who interviewed Nadella, asked about the possibility of AI “somehow going wrong in a way that is ‘lights out for humanity,'” echoing the phrase that ChatGPT founder and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman used to describe a worst-case scenario.
Nadella said if “runaway AI” happens, “it’s a real problem,” but the way to handle it is to “make sure it never runs away.” Before thinking about safety and alignment, Nadella said people need to think about what AI is being used for.
Elon Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018, previously called the technology the “biggest existential threat” to humanity.
U.S. House Votes to End Foreign Air Traveler COVID Vaccine Requirement
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to end a requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the few remaining pandemic travel restrictions still in place.
The vote was 227 to 201 with seven Democrats joining Republicans. No Republicans voted against the bill.
The U.S. Travel Association said “the need for this requirement has long since passed, and we appreciate the bipartisan action by the U.S. House to end this outdated policy … The U.S. is the only country that has maintained this policy.”
Currently, adult visitors to the United States who are not citizens or permanent residents must show proof of vaccination before boarding their flight, with some limited exceptions.
Hospitals Sell Your Medical Data to Advertisers. A New Lawsuit Wants to Hold One Accountable.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the 886-bed hospital where I was born in Los Angeles, has a privacy problem. If you head to the Cedars website today you’ll be greeted by six ad trackers and 17 third-party cookies — according to the Markup’s Backlight tool — and, apparently, that’s an improvement.
A class action lawsuit filed in California accuses the mega-hospital of sharing patient data with Google, Microsoft and Meta, owner of Facebook. It’s a reminder that yes, your medical data is for sale.
According to the lawsuit, spotted by the Register, Cedars shared a wide variety of data with Meta, including the types of medical treatment patients were looking for, details about the doctors they looked up and even the fact that a patient was making an appointment.
Cedars changed this practice in 2022, but the damage is done, according to plaintiff John Doe (who is suing anonymously, because, you know, privacy). Cedars-Sinai did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New GOP-Led Panel to Hold First Public Hearing Thursday on Alleged ‘Weaponization’ of Federal Government
The GOP-led House committee on the alleged “weaponization” of the federal government kicks off Thursday with its first public hearing with a witness list that suggests Republicans on the committee will push a popular narrative among conservatives that has been disputed by federal officials.
The hearing will be split into two sessions, featuring a swath of current and former lawmakers, former FBI officials and legal experts. They plan to discuss allegations of how the government has been weaponized against Republicans, as well as the general belief among some conservatives that federal officials and mainstream media have been working to silence the right.
“We’re focused on the whole weaponization of government, and the idea that the government is not working for the American people,” subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan told CNN. “The government is supposed to protect the First Amendment, not have, as Mr. (Jonathan) Turley said, ‘censorship by surrogate,’” he said, referencing one of the witnesses slated for Thursday’s hearing who is a George Washington University Law Center professor.
A World in Which Your Boss Spies on Your Brainwaves? That Future Is Near
The reptilian annual World Economic Forum at Davos, where the masters of the universe meet to congratulate themselves on their benevolent dictatorship, is home to many sinister ideas. Sharing the latest sinister ideas with business leaders is, in essence, why the event exists. This year, one of the creepiest discussions of all was delivered under the guise of progress and productivity.
Nita Farahany, a Duke University professor and futurist, gave a presentation at Davos about neurotechnology that is creating “brain transparency,” something I previously associated more with a bullet to the head. The new technologies, which Farahany says are being deployed in workplaces around the world, may prove to be nearly as destructive.
They include a variety of wearable sensors that read the brain’s electrical impulses and can show how fatigued you are, whether you’re focused on the task at hand or if your attention is wandering. According to Farahany, thousands of companies have hooked workers ranging from train drivers to miners up to these devices already, in the name of workplace safety. But what we are really discussing is workplace surveillance.
At Davos, Farahany said that neurotechnology in the workplace “has a dystopian possibility.” But that is not stating the case strongly enough. Absent stringent regulation, it has a dystopian certainty. Waiting to see how this all turns out is a very dangerous idea. The biggest mistake you can make with dystopias is assuming that they never become real.
Thousands of Kids Are Missing From School. Where Did They Go?
Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then.
She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere.
An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found an estimated 240,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.
In short, they’re missing. The missing kids identified by AP and Stanford represent far more than a number. The analysis highlights thousands of students who may have dropped out of school or missed out on the basics of reading and school routines in kindergarten and first grade.
Nancy Mace Reveals Health Problems After COVID Jab While Criticizing Twitter Censorship
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said she experienced health complications from a COVID vaccine during a Wednesday hearing about alleged Twitter censorship.
The social media giant stifled the voices of medical experts who raised doubts about the prevailing narrative of the pandemic, Mace argued as she shared details about her own health.
In particular, 45-year-old Mace said she suffered side effects from a COVID vaccine jab, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has encouraged people to get to protect themselves from severe illness. Mace said she developed asthma, tremors in her left hand and occasional heart problems that doctors cannot explain.
“I find it extremely alarming Twitter’s unfettered censorship spread into medical fields and affected millions of Americans by suppressing expert opinions from doctors and censoring those who disagree with the CDC,” Mace said.
China’s Balloon Was Capable of Spying on Communications, U.S. Says
The alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a broader People’s Liberation Army intelligence-gathering effort that spanned more than 40 countries, a State Department official said Thursday.
High-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes that flew past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment that was inconsistent with Beijing’s claim that it was a weather device blown off course, the official said in a statement provided on condition of anonymity.
The statement, released before State and Defense Department officials appeared before Congress in open hearings and closed briefings on Thursday, marks the fullest accounting yet for the Biden administration’s insistence over the course of a week-long drama that the balloon was meant to spy on the U.S.
Police in England and Wales Botch More Than 1,500 DNA Samples
More than 1,500 DNA samples were either compromised or lost by police forces in England and Wales last year after what were often basic errors in evidence taking, a watchdog has found.
In nearly two-thirds of cases between January 2021 and March 2022 — or 953 samples — DNA taken from people of interest could not be analyzed because officers failed to seal swab bags correctly, a process that is crucial to protect the genetic material. The figure marks a 23% increase in the 773 cases reported in 2021.
Writing in his annual report, Prof Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, said it was “very frustrating for all involved that the forensic science cycle continues to fall down at what must be the simplest stage.”
The blunders arose as the number of DNA profiles added to the police national database soared by 57% from 217,609 in 2020 to 341,141 over the following 15 months. The rise is thought to be driven by the easing of lockdown restrictions and more concerted efforts to capture biometric information.
Musk’s Twitter Gets ‘Yellow Card’ for Missing Data in EU Disinformation Report
The first batch of reports by tech giants, ad tech entities and others on how they’re tackling online disinformation in the European Union since the bloc unveiled a strengthened version of its Code of Practice last year have been published today.
Google, Meta, TikTok, Twitch and Twitter are among 30 platforms that submitted reports to the EU on time, meeting a deadline at the end of last month, the EU’s executive confirmed today. However, the Commission has singled out Twitter for delivering the least substantial submission, per its first look at the reports.
“All signatories have submitted their reports on time, using an agreed harmonized reporting template aiming to address all commitments and measures they signed onto. This is however not fully the case for Twitter, whose report is short of data, with no information on commitments to empower the fact-checking community,” the Commission wrote in a press announcement.
EU officials said today that they will be following up with Twitter to try to better understand its approach to disinformation. The EU’s revamped Disinformation Code currently has 38 signatories in full — which run the gamut from major social media networks to smaller platforms, ad tech entities, civil society organizations and fact-checkers.
