Photographs were seen as less realistic than computer images but there was no difference with pictures of people of colour
It sounds like a scenario straight out of a Ridley Scott film: technology that not only sounds more “real” than actual humans, but looks more convincing too. Yet it seems that moment has already arrived.
A new study has found people are more likely to think pictures of white faces generated by AI are human than photographs of real individuals.
Continue reading...Travel website apologises to partners left out of pocket, but those told they do not qualify for compensation say it adds insult to injury
Travel website Booking.com has apologised and offered some hotel operators cash compensation for leaving hotels and partners out of pocket for months, but those who have been left out of the payment say it adds insult to injury.
In an email sent out to hotel operators this week, the Booking.com chief executive, Glenn Fogel, apologised for “the impact that our finance and payment systems maintenance and the resulting delay in payments may have had on you and your business”.
Continue reading...BMA raises concerns with minister about planned data platform, which could be run by US firm Palantir
Patients fear that their personal information may be misused by the NHS’s new data store, especially if the US spy technology company Palantir runs it, doctors’ leaders have warned ministers.
The planned creation of the “federated data platform” (FDP) has prompted concerns about privacy and trust in the NHS and suggestions that suspicion around it will lead patients to refuse to share their data.
Continue reading...Advisory committee on business appointments tells MP he must not utilise contacts in government in Lanistar role
The former cabinet minister Gavin Williamson has taken a job at a firm launching a payment card “built for the influencer lifestyle”, which was previously hit with a consumer warning by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and currently only offers its product in Brazil.
Williamson has gained permission to join the advisory board of Lanistar, whose website says it wants to roll out its virtual payment card and crypto services to the UK and EU.
Continue reading...Machine apparently identified man inspecting it as one of the boxes it was stacking
A robot crushed a man to death in South Korea after the machine apparently failed to differentiate him from the boxes of produce it was handling, the Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.
The man, a robotics company worker in his 40s, was inspecting the robot’s sensor operations at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang province.
Continue reading...Hospitals, homes, businesses and transport services hit by Australia-wide internet, mobile and landline network blackout; CEO says there is a ‘path to restoration’
Here’s what we know about the Optus outage so far:
Millions of Australian customers and businesses have been hit by a widespread outage on the Optus network. Affected services include mobile and fixed-line networks, along with internet connections.
According to Downdetector, reports of an outage began at 4am AEDT. A spike of reports flooded through at 5.45am, when 8,180 reports of an outage were received.
Optus provided a statement online about 6.45am, saying it was “aware of an issue impacting Optus mobile and nbn services” and was working to restore services “as quickly as possible”.
At 10.30am AEDT the telco’s chief executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, told ABC Radio Sydney the company had tested a number of “hypotheses” about what might have caused the problem but none fixed the issue.
The federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said a protocol was in place to allow Optus customers to “camp” on other mobile networks when needing to call 000. There was a marked increase in camping calls on Wednesday.
However, Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, urged people not to use Optus-linked phones to call triple zero. She said some Optus users had reported they are unable to get through.
At 12.55pm, Optus wrote on X that some services across fixed and mobile were gradually being restored. “This may take a few hours for all services to recover, and different services may restore at different sites over that time.”
Optus also reiterated its “apology to customers for the nationwide service outage”, and said it was aware of some mobile phones having issues connecting to 000. “If Optus customers need to call emergency services, we suggest finding a family member or neighbour with an alternative device.”
Shortly after 1pm Rosmarin announced that there was now a “path to restoration” and that some users had had services restored.
The outage caused major service disruptions and delays across the Melbourne train network. It was also affecting phone lines at hospitals across the country.
Rowland and the Coalition’s communications spokesperson, David Coleman, have urged Optus to keep its customers updated.
The Communication Workers Union has labelled today’s Optus outage as an “absolute disgrace” that has left vulnerable people “relying on landlines without emergency help”.
The telecommunications industry ombudsman has released a statement advising Optus customers: “We can help you with refunds for the time you have been unable to use your service, compensation claims and disputes about your contract.”
Rowland earlier said information about the cause of the outage was limited but suggested a “deep network problem”. She said there was no information suggesting a cyber-attack as of Wednesday morning.
Rowland advised small businesses to keep receipts as an “evidentiary base” for recourse and redress.
The Greens will move for an urgent inquiry into the outage in the Senate later today.
The South Australian premier said his government was already talking to Telstra about switching some of its “critical services” away from Optus. Peter Malinauskus also said the state government was “disappointed with Optus”.
Continue reading...Binance and Coinbase are under investigation – but Bitcoin was trading at highest value in a year as FTX founder convicted of fraud
As the trial of the former crypto star and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began last month, headlines declared cryptocurrency was on trial too.
But when Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of wire fraud and money-laundering conspiracy Thursday evening, after less than five hours of jury deliberations, Bitcoin was trading at its highest price in a year.
Continue reading...Conservatives furious at PM’s ‘naive’ meeting with Musk ahead of last Westminster session before election
Tory MPs have accused Rishi Sunak of “offering the electorate dystopia” after an appearance with Elon Musk in which the billionaire warned that artificial intelligence could take everyone’s jobs and leave them searching for meaning in their lives.
Many MPs were left baffled by the prime minister’s decision to conduct an interview with the Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) owner at the end of the AI safety summit at Bletchley Park. However, some are furious about the event, which painted a bleak picture of the future.
Continue reading...Sites agree to stop practices that give them an unfair advantage over businesses and shoppers
The UK’s competition watchdog has said it has secured commitments from Amazon and the Facebook owner Meta to protect consumers on their marketplaces.
The agreements come after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched separate investigations into Amazon, which sells its own products and allows sellers to retail via its online marketplace function, and Meta, which owns Facebook Marketplace.
Continue reading...The prime minister flattered the entrepreneur who in turn put aside his abrasive persona for their talk on AI
Earlier this week, Elon Musk was interviewed by the American podcast host Joe Rogan. On Wednesday he was grilled by reporters outside the AI safety summit in Bletchley Park. On Thursday, it was the turn of the British prime minister.
British officials have crowed for days about their success in getting the world’s richest man to attend the summit, which was a pet project for Sunak. So delighted were they at the UK’s pulling power they decided to give the X owner a 40-minute in-person conversation with the prime minister in the glamorous surrounds of Lancaster House, previously used as a set for The Crown.
Continue reading...‘There will come a point where no job is needed’, says Elon Musk, who predicts ‘AI will be able to do everything’
The most advanced technology companies will allow governments to vet their artificial intelligence tools for the first time, Rishi Sunak has announced, as Elon Musk warned the technology could eventually replace all human jobs.
Companies including Meta, Google DeepMind and OpenAI have agreed to allow regulators to test their latest AI products before releasing them to the public, in a move that officials say will slow the race to develop systems that can compete with humans.
Continue reading...Even China is part of the UK’s ‘Bletchley declaration’ – but Britain is not the only country ambitious to lead on the issue
Sitting in a purpose-built hut in the grounds of the historic Bletchley Park country estate, British officials believed they had pulled off a diplomatic coup.
On stage in front of them was the UK’s technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, and behind her were high-level representatives from the US and China, together for the first time to discuss the international regulation of artificial intelligence.
Continue reading...Bletchley summit communique does not agree to set up testing hub in UK, as some in government had hoped
The UK, US, EU, Australia and China have all agreed that artificial intelligence poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity, in the first international declaration to deal with the fast-emerging technology.
Twenty-eight governments signed up to the so-called Bletchley declaration on the first day of the AI safety summit, hosted by the British government. The countries agreed to work together on AI safety research, even amid signs that the US and UK are competing to take the lead over developing new regulations.
Continue reading...Elon Musk, the world’s richest man; Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind; and King Charles among those weighing in
The global AI safety summit opened at Bletchley Park on Wednesday with a landmark declaration from countries including the UK, US, EU and China that the technology poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity.
The so-called Bletchley declaration said: “There is potential for serious, even catastrophic, harm, either deliberate or unintentional, stemming from the most significant capabilities of these AI models.”
Continue reading...The actor’s likeness was used in an online advertisement without her permission
Scarlett Johansson has taken legal action against an AI app that used her name and likeness in an AI-generated advertisement without her permission.
The 22-second ad, posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by an image generating app called Lisa AI: 90’s Yearbook & Avatar, used real footage of Johansson to generate a fake image and dialogue for her.
Continue reading...Founder of FTX platform, 31, painted by prosecution as scammer and liar who defrauded customers out of billions of dollars
Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto fraud trial neared its end with closing arguments on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court following weeks of testimony that lifted the veil of FTX’s stunning collapse – and a broader murkiness surrounding digital currency markets. The prosecution quickly painted Sam Bankman-Fried as an unabashed scammer rather than the image of the wayward math nerd proffered by the defense throughout the trial, saying he created a “pyramid of deceit” with his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.
Assistant US attorney Nicholas Roos also used Bankman-Fried’s own testimony against him.
Continue reading...Payments group and TV shopping channel change small print after financial regulator steps in
The City regulator has taken action after finding that customers of two leading buy now, pay later providers were “at risk of harm” because of potentially unfair and unclear small print.
The US-based online payments group PayPal and the TV shopping channel QVC have changed the terms of their contracts after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed “concern” over the impact to customers.
Continue reading...Disgraced former CEO of crypto exchange FTX admits to disparaging regulators on third day of testimony
Sam Bankman-Fried testified in his own blockbuster crypto trial again Monday, with prosecutors grilling the one-time crypto mogul about the many discrepancies between his public and private claims about crypto-exchange FTX.
Bankman-Fried appeared to have had a haircut over the weekend, just in time for prosecutors to start their cross examination and question whether his famously unkempt hair was part of a deliberate, anti-style “tech genius” persona.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can read our full report below:
Bankman-Fried gives details about the day FTX went bankrupt
Days after Binance’s sale of FTT, the cryptocurrency issued by FTX, and CoinDesk’s story on the multibillion-dollar hole in Alameda Research’s balance sheet, there was a rush of customer withdrawals, Bankman-Fried said.
Continue reading...Motorists locked inside their cars, while an NHS doctor said her BMW iX accelerated to 65mph and then crashed
An electric car owner has claimed her vehicle’s autopilot engaged without warning and accelerated to 65mph, zigzagged across the road and caused a serious crash, the Guardian can reveal.
The alleged incident involved a doctor, Ravpreet Kaur, who was travelling in Buckinghamshire with her son in the family’s £80,000 BMW iX. Her husband said they were lucky to escape unhurt.
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