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The Pentagon Is Moving Toward Letting AI Weapons Autonomously Decide to Kill Humans
The deployment of AI-controlled drones that can make autonomous decisions about whether to kill human targets is moving closer to reality, The New York Times reported.
Lethal autonomous weapons, that can select targets using AI, are being developed by countries including the U.S., China and Israel.
The use of the so-called “killer robots” would mark a disturbing development, say critics, handing life and death battlefield decisions to machines with no human input.
Several governments are lobbying the UN for a binding resolution restricting the use of AI killer drones, but the U.S. is among a group of nations — which also includes Russia, Australia and Israel — who are resisting any such move, favoring a non-binding resolution instead, The Times reported.
COVID Mask Update as California County Issues Mandate
A county in California has reinstated a face mask mandate until March 2024 in a bid to prevent the spread of diseases including COVID-19. Marin County’s health order requires anybody entering a hospital to wear a face mask, if they are vaccinated or not.
In a statement, Marin County officials said of their new restriction: “The intent of the order is to protect individuals in these high-risk healthcare settings and limit the spread of seasonal respiratory viruses including RSV, influenza, and COVID-19.”
According to the Marin County health website, there has been no significant recent spike in cases. Newsweek has contacted county officials via email for further information.
But other areas in California have gone the other way and Huntington Beach City Council banned wearing masks in the future after an 8-hour meeting in September.
Former Workers Sue LA City Over Vaccine Mandate
In August 2021, FOX 11 reported on the air that, the LA City Council unanimously approved an ordinance requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all city employees except for those with medical or religious exemptions.
The Mayor at the time, Eric Garcetti, said that any city employee who refused to get vaccinated by December 18 of that year should be prepared to lose their job.
Terminated LAPD officer Michael McMahon and others have fought back for two years. At a news conference announcing the legal filing, McMahon said Former Mayor Garcetti and current Mayor Bass didn’t have the authority then and you do not have it now.
McMahon and 55 others are suing the former and current mayors and the city of LA over what they call, “a violent assault on the individual’s constitutional right to refuse a product that’s been given an Emergency-Use-Authorization or EUA like the COVID-19 vaccine was.” The suit was filed Friday.
N.J. Proposal Would Require Age Verification, Parental Permission for Social Media Use
An influential state lawmaker hopes to require age verification and parental consent for kids to join social media platforms, which would make New Jersey one of just a handful of states to impose the requirement.
Assemblymember Herb Conaway (D-Burlington) on Monday introduced the legislation, NJ A5750 (22R), which would require social media platforms to verify that users are at least 18 and require minors to get consent to join from a parent or guardian. It would also ban certain online messages between adults and children.
“It really has been horrific on the mental health and the physical health of our young people, particularly teenagers and particularly young girls,” Conaway, who chairs the Assembly Health Committee, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Mass. Bill Would Curb Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering restrictions on law enforcement’s ability to use facial recognition technology.
Civil rights activists have criticized the emerging technology for years, pointing to a growing body of research showing the software disproportionately misidentifies people of color. Several Massachusetts cities, including Boston and Springfield, have banned the use of the technology locally.
The Joint Committee on the Judiciary heard hours of testimony Tuesday on proposals to limit the technology’s use by police.
“Facial recognition technology is dangerous, both in its ability to facilitate government surveillance, and its track record of misidentifying people in criminal investigations,” State Sen. Cynthia Creem told the panel.
Sam Altman to Return as OpenAI CEO
OpenAI said late Tuesday that it had reached a deal in principle for Sam Altman to return as CEO, with a new board chaired by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.
Why it matters: The move appears to resolve the roller-coaster drama that began Friday when OpenAI announced that its non-profit board had voted to remove Altman. Of note: The agreement includes a plan for an independent investigation into the events that led up to Altman’s original ouster, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Between the lines: At first blush, the outcome appears to be a total victory for Altman, but outgoing board members didn’t walk away from the negotiations empty-handed, according to a source familiar with their thinking.
Catch up quick: OpenAI’s non-profit board stunned the tech world Friday with the announcement that it had fired Altman for not being “consistently candid in his communications” and CTO Mira Murati would step in as interim CEO.
Italy’s Privacy Regulator Looks Into Online Data Gathering to Train AI
Italy’s data protection authority has kicked off a fact-finding investigation into the practice of gathering large amounts of personal data online for use in training artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the regulator said on Wednesday.
The watchdog is one of the most proactive of the 31 national data protection authorities in assessing AI platform compliance with Europe’s data privacy regime known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Earlier this year, it briefly banned popular chatbot ChatGPT from operating in Italy over a suspected breach of privacy rules.
On Wednesday, the Italian authority said the review was aimed at assessing whether online websites were setting out “adequate measures” to prevent AI platforms from collecting massive amounts of personal data for algorithms, also known as data scraping.
