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Rick Scott Introducing Legislation to Require Parental Consent for Kids’ AI Use
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced legislation Tuesday that will require children to get parental consent to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The AI Shield for Kids (ASK) Act will prevent children from accessing AI features on social media sites without the consent of a parent or guardian.
Scott’s bill will also require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue rules barring social media platforms from charging a fee or mandating a paid subscription before allowing either parents or children to remove AI features from products minors use.
The proposed legislation comes as Scott and other lawmakers are scheduled to speak on the issue in a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the head of the artificial intelligence company that makes the popular ChatGPT tool, will testify before Congress at the meeting.
Campaigners Welcome Kate Winslet’s Plea About Online Safety and Children
Online safety campaigners have welcomed Kate Winslet’s call on “people in power” to criminalize harmful digital content during her Bafta acceptance speech, as the U.K. parliament debates legislation to rein in social media platforms.
The actor won the television award on Sunday for her portrayal of a mother whose teenage daughter suffers from mental health problems as a result of viewing damaging online content.
Accepting the award for best leading actress for Channel 4 drama I am Ruth, in which she acted alongside her real-life daughter, Mia Threapleton, Winslet said: “We want our children back.”
She added: “For young people who have become addicted to social media and its darker sides, this does not need to be your life. To people in power, and to people who can make change, please, criminalize harmful content.”
ChatGPT Chief Says Artificial Intelligence Should Be Regulated by a U.S. or Global Agency
The head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT told Congress on Tuesday that government intervention “will be critical to mitigating the risks of increasingly powerful” AI systems.
“As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday.
Altman proposed the formation of a U.S. or global agency that would license the most powerful AI systems and have the authority to “take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards.”
Pressed on his own worst fear about AI, Altman mostly avoided specifics. But he later proposed that a new regulatory agency should impose safeguards that would block AI models that could “self-replicate and self-exfiltrate into the wild” — hinting at futuristic concerns about advanced AI systems that could manipulate humans into ceding control.
Public Trusts Childhood Vaccines but Support for School Mandates Wanes
Americans are much more confident in routine childhood vaccines than COVID-19 shots, but support for vaccine requirements in schools has slipped from pre-pandemic levels, according to a new Pew Research Center study.
Why it matters: Responses from the study of more than 10,000 adults suggest that vaccine hesitancy around COVID hasn’t fueled significantly wider anti-vax sentiment. But the share who say parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children now stands at 28%, up 12 points from four years ago.
What they found: 88% of Americans believe the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella outweigh the risks, compared to 62% who have the same views about COVID-19 vaccines.
Concerns about potential dangers are more pronounced for mothers than fathers, with about half of the mothers with a child under age 18 rating the risk of side effects from MMR vaccines as medium or high, a full 15 percentage points higher than the share of fathers with those views.
House Unanimously Passes Bill Limiting Federal Government Access to Phone, Email Data
The U.S. House of Representatives on May 15 passed a bill that would place restrictions on the federal government’s access to personal cell phone and email data. The bill passed the lower chamber in a unanimous 412–0 vote, including 212 Republicans and 200 Democrats. The legislation was sponsored by Reps. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
Under current law, prosecutors can request email and cell phone records from those not suspected of any criminal behavior. Often, these requests to service providers are accompanied by Non-Disclosure Orders (NDOs).
Nadler said in a press release that “abuse of secrecy orders is not limited to Congress — schools, local governments, Fortune 500 companies and countless others have had their data swept up by investigators looking to sidestep the basic protections afforded to Americans in criminal investigations.”
“The federal government has abused its authority to access the personal data of individuals under investigation,” Fitzgerald said in a press release.
WHO Warns Against Bias, Misinformation in Using AI in Healthcare
The World Health Organization called for caution on Tuesday in using artificial intelligence for public healthcare, saying data used by AI to reach decisions could be biased or misused.
The WHO said it was enthusiastic about the potential of AI but had concerns over how it will be used to improve access to health information, as a decision-support tool and to improve diagnostic care.
The WHO said in a statement the data used to train AI may be biased and generate misleading or inaccurate information and the models can be misused to generate disinformation.
Eyes on the Poor: Cameras, Facial Recognition Watch Over Public Housing
In public housing facilities across America, local officials are installing a new generation of powerful and pervasive surveillance systems, imposing an outsize level of scrutiny on some of the nation’s poorest citizens.
Housing agencies have been purchasing the tools — some equipped with facial recognition and other artificial intelligence capabilities — with no guidance or limits on their use, though the risks are poorly understood and little evidence exists that they make communities safer.
As cameras have gotten smarter, their use in public housing is becoming a flashpoint in the national debate over facial recognition. States including Alabama, Colorado and Virginia have passed laws limiting the use of facial recognition by law enforcement, recognizing that these tools have been shown to produce false matches — particularly when scanning women and people of color.
Israel Repeals Quarantine Mandate for Those Sick With COVID
Israel’s Health Ministry will not extend its mandatory quarantine policy for those sick with the coronavirus starting Tuesday, removing all remaining restrictions issued at the start of the pandemic.
The ministry’s announcement follows the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision last week to repeal the global state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the WHO’s announcement, although this decision is indicative of the progress the world has made on this issue, “the coronavirus is here to stay,” and will continue to be considered a pandemic similar to AIDS.
