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Panera Bread Is Letting Customers Pay With Amazon’s Palm Reading Tech
Panera Bread isn’t telling its legion of customers to shove their hands directly into their broccoli and cheese bread bowl, but a few Missouri franchisees are letting their customers know they can throw their palms onto the kiosk to pay for their meal. It’s not the first time Amazon’s palm-reading payment tech has been seen outside an Amazon-owned business, though it shows that biometric scanners may be even more prevalent in the near future.
On Wednesday, Panera Bread announced it was deploying the Amazon One palm payment system to two of its shops in the company’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. The company said it plans to add even more to its restaurants in the coming months. First-time Amazon One users can pre-enroll online or sign up while placing their order.
Of course, it’s currently opt-in only, and customers don’t have to swipe in when they go to order. Amazon maintains its keeping customer’s biometric data secure and encrypted and has previously claimed it doesn’t store purchase information and only collects minimal data on where users shop. The company has said customers can delete their biometric data through the Amazon One portal.
However, now it’s clear that the Amazon partners themselves don’t have to necessarily abide by that same arrangement. Panera Bread said in its press release it knows what your typical purchase is. Furthermore, it wants to have employees offer you “recommendations” based on your profile.
The Spy Law That Big Tech Wants to Limit
Top tech companies are mounting a push to limit how U.S. intelligence agencies collect and view texts, emails and other information about their users, especially American citizens.
The companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc., want Congress to limit Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as they work to renew the law before it expires at the end of the year, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
There is a growing bipartisan consensus in Congress to not only renew the law but to make changes in response to a series of reports and internal audits documenting abuses. That’s left the tech industry optimistic that broader reforms will get through Congress this time, according to two lobbyists who asked not to be identified relaying internal discussions.
Social media companies and technology firms have an economic incentive to seek restraints on what the government can force them to do, as their relationship with U.S. agencies was criticized after former government contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed how immense the global spying apparatus had become during the Obama administration.
Tech companies and their lobbying organizations want the ability to publicly disclose more information about how many times the government requests information about their users and customers and what kind of data they are being forced to hand over. They also want to restrict the government’s ability to use the information, such as requiring the FBI to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before searching the Section 702 database for information on U.S. citizens.
Bill Gates Says ‘The Age of AI Has Begun’
In an op-ed titled “The Age of AI has Begun” on “The Blog of Bill Gates,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates discussed the upcoming paradigm shift in technology. Having been instrumental in developing personal computers several decades ago, the billionaire seems to know a thing or two about technological innovation. He believes that OpenAI’s language generation artificial intelligence tools will be at the forefront of the next technological revolution.
Gates has emerged as a significant player in the AI arms race, as Microsoft, the company he founded, has pledged over $10 billion in funding to OpenAI. Even the co-creator of ChatGPT warned that the world might not be “that far away from potentially scary” AI.
And what’s disturbing is if AI is programmed to enforce the truths determined by figures like Gates, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and the federal government.
While Gates expresses enthusiasm about the potential of AI to be game-changing for humans, there is a flip side to it. The technology could become a tool for extreme censorship, which could make the Twitter censorship program seem trivial in comparison.
Ted Cruz Introduces Bill Blocking Fed From Adopting Central Bank Digital Currency
Senate Republicans are introducing a bill to block the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration from moving forward with a central bank digital currency.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced the bill, which would prohibit the Federal Reserve System from moving forward with a direct-to-consumer central bank digital currency (CBDC) that would effectively be a dollar-based cryptocurrency. The federal government has been researching the possibility of a U.S. CBDC under an executive order President Joe Biden signed in March 2022.
Cruz explained in a press release that unlike decentralized cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, digital currencies created by the government are centralized and could be more vulnerable to cyber attacks or even used as a tool to surveil Americans’ private transactions. The bill is cosponsored by Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
TikTok Trackers Found on Multiple U.S. Government Websites
A new report by Canadian cybersecurity firm Feroot Security has found tracking pixels belonging to TikTok across numerous websites including U.S. government pages. The study looked at over 3,500 organization and government websites during the first two months of 2023 and found TikTok tracking pixels on 30 U.S. state government websites in 27 states.
While tracking pixels — or web beacons — are typically used for collecting data to better target audiences with relevant ads, concerns have been raised about the information collected and how it may be used by the Chinese company and other entities in the country.
Feroot Security CEO Ivan Tsarynny explained that the pixels “can be watching and recording you when you’re renewing your driver’s license, paying your taxes or filling out doctors’ forms” (via Wall Street Journal).
Some state government websites were also found to be housing tracking pixels from other Chinese-owned companies, including Tencent and Alibaba. Another country on the tip of many governments’ tongues, Russia, was found to have web beacons on some government pages, too.
Missouri House Advances Measure Limiting Vaccines
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:
The Missouri House approved an anti-vaccination measure Tuesday that could tie the hands of health professionals to address future pandemics.
The proposal, sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Hardwick of Waynesville, would bar governments from being able to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine or future potential medical technologies like microchips placed under someone’s skin.
The measure would require private employers, including small business owners, to provide exemptions to any vaccination requirements if an employee has a “sincere” religious belief about the health benefits of a vaccine.
Hardwick, who is among a number of Republicans who complained about personal freedom during the height of the local, state and national response to a rapidly spreading disease, also said children would not have to be vaccinated in order to go to school under his legislation. There also would be exemptions for healthcare workers and facilities if approved.
In San Francisco, Some People Wonder When A.I. Will Kill Us All
Audrey Kim is the curator and driving force behind the Misalignment Museum, a new exhibition in San Francisco’s Mission District displaying artwork that addresses the possibility of an “AGI,” or artificial general intelligence. That’s an AI so powerful it can improve its capabilities faster than humans are able to, creating a feedback loop where it gets better and better until it’s got essentially unlimited brainpower.
If the super powerful AI is aligned with humans, it could be the end of hunger or work. But if it’s “misaligned,” things could get bad, the theory goes. Or, as a sign at the Misalignment Museum says: “Sorry for killing most of humanity.”
“AGI” and related terms like “AI safety” or “alignment” — or even older terms like “singularity” — refer to an idea that’s become a hot topic of discussion with artificial intelligence scientists, artists, message board intellectuals and even some of the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley.
All these groups engage with the idea that humanity needs to figure out how to deal with all-powerful computers powered by AI before it’s too late and we accidentally build one.
Ron DeSantis Said Google Should Be Broken up
The loudest voice calling for dramatic Big Tech break up in the upcoming 2024 presidential election might not come from President Joe Biden or progressive lefties, but rather, from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The conservative governor and probable presidential candidate revealed his views at a private event caught on video, where he said dominant tech firms like Google and Meta are “ruining our country” and should be broken up. In his view, Big Tech behemoths are worse for society than Standard Oil and other monopolistic industry titans from the Gilded Age, he said.
“I do think companies like Google should be broken up,” DeSantis said during a 2021 invite-only retreat at the ultra-conservative Teneo Network. “They’re just too big and they have too much power.”
