The FTC’s biggest AI enforcement tool? Forcing companies to delete their algorithms
Algorithm disgorgement requires companies to remove products built on data they shouldn't have used in the first place.
Google, which has seen its planet-warming emissions rise because of artificial intelligence, has stopped buying cheap offsets and dropped its claim to be carbon neutral
The United Kingdom, 2020:
Where the government is hiring 18,000 contact tracers to help contain a pandemic that has already killed over 28,000 people
and
training up 50,000 people to fill out customs forms for post-Brexit trade.
Meanwhile, in another galaxy, ministers are stepping up plans to train up to 50,000 people needed to fill in customs forms for post-Brexit trade with the EU through the creation of a special academy.
via
@financialtimes
An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang, and can still be observed today, says Nobel winner
Sir Roger Penrose: 'The Big Bang was not the beginning. There was something before, and that something is what we will have in our future'
A California-based law firm is launching a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the AI company that created ChatGPT massively violated thecopyrights and privacy of countless people when it used data scraped from the internet to train its tech.
I interviewed
@crmiller1
about his new book, Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
One of the most important — and impressive — books I’ve read in years.
@BaillieGifford
@LeoKelion
2015: British taxpayers finish paying off the last instalment on the loan to compensate slave *owners*.
Not slaves or descendants of slaves.
Slave owners.
Today in my
#CogX19
keynote, I ask the
@UKParliament
to consider a moratorium on the use of
#facialrecognition
technology in the United Kingdom until we decide if we want to use it, and if so, with what safeguards (from 1:12:45, panel discussion follows)
The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) solves the wrong problem: it protects data, not people, and thus fails to protect our privacy and civil liberties:
1. Why did they not notify the public when they started using facial recognition tech?
2. Why are there no signs even now?
3. What impact assessments did they conduct?
4. What companies built the tech?
5. With what 3rd parties are they sharing our data?
6. Did
@SadiqKhan
know?
Sam Altman in a week:
1. Regulate us please, we are building technology that poses serious risks
2. If the EU regulates us too hard with the AI Act, we’ll leave Europe
3. Of course we have no plans to leave Europe
very productive week of conversations in europe about how to best regulate AI! we are excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave.
@DominicRaab
, here's some reading on this "taking the knee thing":
Eric Reid: Why Colin Kaepernick and I Decided to Take a Knee in The New York Times, in 2017
“The question of the environmental cost of AI is the biggest secret in the industry right now.... we have enormous environmental costs that are not being fully shared with the public.”
My interview with Prof. Kate Crawford will change how you see AI:
“Rather than tell you comforting lies and what you want to hear, I’m going to tell you some unpleasant truths.”
Professor
@devisridhar
starts like this and does not pull her punches — thank you
Fiona Hill: "I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.
Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a “self-coup” and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it." 1/n
For the media. We need you to step up and describe what is happening to our country. Use the words. “Authoritarian.” “Unlawful.” “Autocratic” “Illegal.” It’s not “dramatic” or “trumpian.” Or “risky.” This isn’t a show.
"Now that the UK’s “dirty little secret” of facial recognition has been revealed for all the world to see, the government has run out of excuses. Parliament must protect all our biometrics in law immediately" My op-ed for
@guardianopinion
Fiona Hill: "I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.
Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a “self-coup” and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it." 1/n
Unbelievable.
The U.K. govt does not want vaccine passports for the pub to keep us safe, but to ‘nudge’ supposedly vaccine-hesitant young people to get vaccinated.
Solve the problem (vaccine hesitancy).
No need to create an expensive, discriminatory, civil liberties problem.
@BethRigby
Given that the government's call for evidence only ended today, why is the expectation that domestic certification will be introduced?
How could they possibly have had time to review the submissions of evidence?
If this was a foregone conclusion, what's the point of a review?
For four years, as Trump has brought ever more havoc and hatred to this country, many have wondered what it would take to dent his impunity. The answer appears to be twofold: Committing sedition, and losing power.
“Children have been going hungry under a Labour government for years” says Conservative Paul Scully
Ahead of a Commons debate on free meals in school holidays, Labour’s Tulip Siddiq asked him: “Do you want to feed hungry children or not?”
#politicslive
“The prime minister believes that ordering people to stay away from work, closing schools or cancelling football matches would have little effect currently, but would leave people fed up or angry and less likely to comply in three to six weeks time, when the crisis may peak.”
Boris Johnson has taken a politically risky strategy to avoid drastic measures to contain coronavirus. While he claims it’s backed by medical and behavioural science, he is facing awkward questions as Britain’s outbreak worsens
A pilot study by academics at the University of Oxford found some care providers had been using generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard to create care plans for people receiving care.
That presents a potential risk to patient confidentiality
The UK govt has given
@PalantirTech
access to data such as "contact info, gender, race, work, physical + mental health conditions, political + religious affiliation, + past criminal offenses."
Which data is needed to suppress the coronavirus, + which is not?
cc:
@ICOnews
Britain’s National Health Service gave Peter Thiel's Palantir access to sensitive personal data of patients under a deal to help it cope with the Covid-19 outbreak
@MartinSLewis
@hmtreasury
Why does
@RishiSunak
think it is fair for workers in this category to *take on debt* in order to financially survive this pandemic, while furloughed self-employed and salaried workers receive 80% of their monthly pay without having to take on debt? Thank you
Silicon Valley friends: a) you'll probably get bailed out so stop saying the world's about to end. b) please now stop insisting that you don't need government. You're literally begging for it.
London is implementing facial recognition without public consultation, a legislative framework or judicial oversight, endangering our civil liberties and the rule of law. What a disturbing example to set for the world.
My latest for
@washingtonpost
:
This must be what it feels like to be a fish swimming into a net:
@metpoliceuk
is using live facial recognition technology outside Oxford Circus. There are signs outside, but none in the Tube
@TfL
, so you exit the Tube and GOTCHA!
So much for consent. Smile! You're on camera.
My questions:
"We don’t know if vaccine passports would help to stop the spread of the virus. We don’t know how long immunity lasts. We don’t know to what extent vaccines reduce transmission or whether this varies depending on which vaccine we’ve had."
"Less than half the UK population can expect to be vaccinated against coronavirus, the head of the government’s vaccine task force said.
Kate Bingham told the FT that vaccinating everyone in the country was “not going to happen”: “We just need to vaccinate everyone at risk.”
"In front of a book you are still free. Between reader and book, there is only the continual risk of wrongness, word by word, sentence by sentence. The Internet does not get to decide. Nor does the writer. Only the reader decides. So decide." Zadie Smith
Home Office secretly backs facial recognition technology to curb shoplifting
Covert government strategy to install electronic surveillance in shops raises issues around bias + data, and contrasts sharply with the EU ban to keep AI out of public spaces
The Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the House of Lords warned in January that the UK's use of live facial recognition technology has no clear foundation in law and no legal framework to regulate it:
@ComputerWeekly
@UKHouseofLords
@10DowningStreet
1⃣ Increasing surveillance of suspects using facial recognition technology, backed by a £55 million investment for police forces.
Using mobile units with live facial recognition across the country, police forces will be able to track down perpetrators and prevent crime.
The British government is framing the downloading of its contact tracing app as the 'duty' of everyone with a smartphone so that we can all get back to work. The threat has not diminished: there is still no cure, no vaccine. 1/n
Amazon sued for not telling New York store customers about facial recognition
Thanks to a 2021 law, New York is the only major American city to require businesses to post signs letting customers know they’re tracking biometric information.
@ICOnews
Facial recognition technology as part of a vaccine passport in Israel, presented by the
@wef
as though this is a positive thing, with no acknowledgement of the ethical and legal issues this poses:
Revealed: Vermeer's patron was, in fact, a woman—and she bought half the artist’s entire oeuvre
New research in the Rijksmuseum's catalogue for its Vermeer blockbuster suggests that Maria de Knuijt may have influenced his subject matter
Appealing to our sense of duty, rather than saying "our app is the best and here's why" = back to the drawing board.
It's our duty to challenge tech when it:
- does not solve the problem
- is not the best way to solve the problem
- is not interoperable w/other countries' apps
The Health Secretary explains on
#BBCBreakfast
what the contact tracing app would say if he and
@mrdanwalker
spent a period of time together and Matt Hancock went on to display coronavirus symptoms ⤵️
More here:
Top snark from
@robertshrimsley
on certain people warning about AI risks while still creating the technologies they claim will lead to those risks materialising:
Germany is possibly the only country in the world where struggling parents are legally entitled to a "Kur", a health retreat of about 3 weeks, every 4 years. A Kur is prescribed by a doctor, and mostly funded by insurance. Meals, childcare and therapies are all included.
‘I do not think ethical surveillance can exist’: Rumman Chowdhury on accountability in AI
One of the leading thinkers on artificial intelligence discusses responsibility, ‘moral outsourcing’ and bridging the gap between people and technology
AI expert
@merbroussard
: ‘Racism, sexism and ableism are systemic problems’
The journalist and academic says that the bias encoded in artificial intelligence systems can’t be fixed with better data alone – the change has to be societal
Adolfo Kaminsky Dies at 97; His Forgeries Saved Thousands of Jews
His talent for creating realistic documents helped children, their parents and others escape deportation to concentration camps, and in many cases to flee Nazi-occupied territory.
‘I feel like my kids have been part of a huge massive experiment I have no control over.’ Parents question how much technology in schools is helping. via
@WSJ
NEWS: We've worked with Lord Clement-Jones, chair of
@LordsAICom
, on.. Automated Facial Recognition Moratorium Bill!
The ICO report on FR today confirms "blanket, opportunistic & indiscriminate processing (of) thousands of individuals to identify a few minor suspects" isn't ok.
Tim Snyder is now one of the very few historians capable of conducting original research across the region. He speaks 10 languages. “I think of history as having been this amazing liberatory form of education.”
"OpenAI and Microsoft also created a joint safety board, which includes Mr. Altman and Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, that has the power to roll back Microsoft and OpenAI product releases if they are deemed too dangerous."
Who else is on this board?
Will thermal cameras help to end the lockdown?
1: will not catch pre-symptomatic people
2: will not catch asymptomatic people
3: will catch people who have a higher temperature for reasons other than COVID-19
Bottom line: meh
“We urgently need a legal framework for the use of algorithms by public bodies and government. There is a real risk of unlawful deployment, or of discrimination or bias that may be unwittingly built into an algorithm or introduced by an operator.”
NOW: Professor
@katecrawford
and co-founder of
@AINowInstitute
is giving a masterclass the École normale supérieure in Paris
@ENS_ULM
on AI and Power:
1: What is AI?
2: Bias: No Easy Tech 'Fix'
3: Classification as Power
4: Geopolitics of AI
5: From Fairness to Justice
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on 15 February 2021: "What I don’t think we will have in this country is, as it were, vaccination passports to allow you to go to, say, the pub or something like that."
@Steven_Swinford
On 7 February Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi ruled out vaccine passports in the UK, arguing that they could be “discriminatory” and that it is unclear what impact vaccine passports would have on transmission of the virus:
The Red Cross is "concerned that unsuitable design or usage of contact tracing apps could lead to stigmatization, increased vulnerability and fragility, discrimination, persecution, and attacks on the physical and psychological integrity of certain populations."
"The Social History of the Potato is an extraordinary book, like no other, a vast compendium of curious fact and passionately recounted social history."
“The New York legislature today passed a moratorium on the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in schools until 2022. The bill...appears to be the first in the nation to explicitly regulate or ban use of the technology in schools.”
“The UK is in a structural hole, not a cyclical downturn"
"little prospect of an improvement in living standards unless some sanity returns to our trade relations with the EU +until we have a govt with an adequately long-term economic strategy it can get through parliament”.
“An artificial intelligence firm hired to work on the Vote Leave campaign may analyse social media data, utility bills and credit rating scores as part of a £400,000 contract to help the government deal with the coronavirus pandemic.”
To recap where we are with facial recognition in London 1/n:
- King's Cross developer used it secretly for nearly 2 years, claims to have been helping the
@metpoliceuk
and
@BTP
, both of whom deny this.
- King's Cross developer plans to continue using facial recognition