Category Archives: Artificial intelligence (AI)

New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement

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Lawsuit says companies gave NYT content ‘particular emphasis’ and ‘seek to free-ride’ on paper’s investment in its journalism

The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of its content to train generative artificial intelligence and large-language model systems, a move that could see the company receive billions of dollars in damages.

The copyright infringement lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, claims that while the companies copied information from many sources to build their systems, they give New York Times content “particular emphasis” and “seek to free-ride on the Times’s massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment”.

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Rite Aid facial recognition misidentified Black, Latino and Asian people as ‘likely’ shoplifters

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Surveillance systems incorrectly and without customer consent marked shoppers as ‘persons of interest’, an FTC settlement says

Rite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed “likely to engage” in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people – particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people – on “numerous” occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years.

The FTC said in a federal court complaint that Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers “it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior”. The technology sent alerts to Rite Aid employees either by email or phone when it identified people entering the store on its watchlist.

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Imran Khan deploys AI clone to campaign from behind bars in Pakistan

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PTI party uses ‘voice clone’ of imprisoned opposition leader to give impassioned speech in ‘virtual rally’

Artificial intelligence allowed Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan to campaign from behind bars on Monday, with a voice clone of the opposition leader giving an impassioned speech on his behalf.

Khan has been locked up since August and is being tried for leaking classified documents, allegations he says have been trumped up to stop him contesting general elections due in February.

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EU agrees tough limits on police use of AI biometric surveillance

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Measure bans use of real-time data without judicial authorisation in nearly all circumstances and covers both public and private spaces

Police and national security bodies in the EU will be banned from using real-time biometric data driven by artificial intelligence in most circumstances without having judicial authorisation, it has emerged.

The measure was part of a historic agreement reached between the European parliament and EU member states on Friday after three days of negotiations. However, officials only revealed the operational details on Monday, as the final text will not be published until “a cleaning-up process” is complete.

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EU agrees ‘historic’ deal with world’s first laws to regulate AI

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Agreement between European Parliament and member states will govern artificial intelligence, social media and search engines

The world’s first comprehensive laws to regulate artificial intelligence have been agreed in a landmark deal after a marathon 37-hour negotiation between the European Parliament and EU member states.

The agreement was described as “historic” by Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner responsible for a suite of laws in Europe that will also govern social media and search engines, covering giants such as X, TikTok and Google.

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Georgia county to use program linked to election denier to flag ineligible voters

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Controversial EagleAI program connected to Trump supporter uses public records to flag people who shouldn’t be on the rolls

A Georgia county on Friday agreed to use a controversial program to identify ineligible people on its voter rolls that is connected to one of the most prominent election deniers and a key figure in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Columbia county, which is just outside Augusta, is believed to be the first place in the US to use the program, which is called EagleAI, the New York Times reported. The software matches voting data with publicly available information like post office and death records to flag people who should no longer be on the rolls.

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Microsoft to join OpenAI’s board after Sam Altman rehired as CEO

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Altman says tech giant, which owns 49% of ChatGPT maker after investing $13bn, will take non-voting, observer position on board

Microsoft will take a non-voting, observer position on OpenAI’s board, CEO Sam Altman said in his first official missive after taking back the reins of the company on Wednesday.

The observer position means Microsoft’s representative can attend OpenAI’s board meetings and access confidential information, but it does not have voting rights on matters including electing or choosing directors.

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US, UK and a dozen more countries unveil pact to make AI ‘secure by design’

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Non-binding 20-page agreement signed by 18 countries says companies must develop AI that keeps public safe from misuse

The United States, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen other countries on Sunday unveiled what a senior US official described as the first detailed international agreement on how to keep artificial intelligence safe from rogue actors, pushing for companies to create AI systems that are “secure by design”.

In a 20-page document unveiled on Sunday, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse.

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UK school pupils ‘using AI to create indecent imagery of other children’

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Protection groups call for urgent action to help pupils understand risks of making images that legally constitute child sexual abuse

Children in British schools are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make indecent images of other children, a group of experts on child abuse and technology has warned.

They said that a number of schools were reporting for the first time that pupils were using AI-generating technology to create images of children that legally constituted child sexual abuse material.

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OpenAI ‘was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff’

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Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking

OpenAI was reportedly working on an advanced system before Sam Altman’s sacking that was so powerful it caused safety concerns among staff at the company.

The artificial intelligence model triggered such alarm with some OpenAI researchers that they wrote to the board of directors before Altman’s dismissal warning it could threaten humanity, Reuters reported.

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Thursday briefing: What the meltdown at OpenAI means for the future of artificial intelligence

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In today’s newsletter: Why Sam Altman was fired as the company’s CEO, why he was rehired – and what it all means for the field

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Good morning. Boardroom coups are always pretty absorbing; a boardroom coup at a company that has set itself the lofty goal of “building artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity” is more absorbing still.

The removal of chief executive Sam Altman from OpenAI, which made the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, has therefore been the subject of breathless attention since it was announced last Friday. Now Altman has got his job back, and there’s even more to get your head around.

Israel-Hamas war | Israeli officials have said a four-day Gaza truce and hostage release will not start until at least Friday, stalling a breakthrough deal to pause the bloody seven-week-old war and thwarting the hopes of families that some captives would be freed on Thursday.

Autumn statement | Jeremy Hunt sought to blunt the impact of the highest levels of taxation since the second world war with a cut in workers’ national insurance contributions, fuelling speculation about a snap spring general election. The chancellor used a fresh squeeze on public spending to pay for a reduction in NICs worth £450 a year to the average employee. See the key points and what it means for you.

Netherlands | Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) is on course to be the largest party in the Dutch parliament, according to exit polls, in a major electoral upset whose reverberations will be felt around Europe. The PVV was predicted to win 35 seats in the 150-seat parliament, but may not be able to form a governing coalition.

Covid inquiry | Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam and his family were advised by police to move out of their home during the pandemic because of a threat that they would have their throats cut, he has told the Covid inquiry. Van-Tam said that he feared the scale of such abuse would put people off taking up similar roles in the future.

US and Canada | Four border crossings between the US and Canada were closed on Wednesday after a vehicle exploded at a checkpoint on a bridge near Niagara Falls, reportedly killing two people. Governor of New York Kathy Hochul said there was “no indication of a terrorist attack”.

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Who is Helen Toner the Australian woman ousted from the board of OpenAI?

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Sam Altman and Toner reportedly discussed a paper she had written criticising the timing of OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT shortly before Altman was fired

After a tumultuous few days at OpenAI, Sam Altman has returned to the helm. But who is the young Australian board member who was reportedly in dispute with the chief executive in the lead up to his firing?

Helen Toner, along with two of the other three board members responsible for firing Altman less than a week ago, is now off the board of OpenAI.

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Sam Altman’s OpenAI exit leads to rollercoaster for sector

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Firing of industry figurehead led to rebellion at his former employer and his hiring by its rival Microsoft


The blog headline was anodyne – “OpenAI announces leadership transition” – but the consequences for Silicon Valley were seismic.

On Friday the company behind the hit AI text-generating system ChatGPT announced that Sam Altman, figurehead for the business and the artificial intelligence revolution that has enthralled and alarmed the world in equal measure, had been fired as chief executive.

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Ousted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ‘in talks to return at firm’s HQ’

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Boss was sacked by ChatGPT developer over failure to be ‘candid in his communications’

Sam Altman is being lined up for a surprise return as the chief executive of the ChatGPT developer OpenAI amid pressure from investors to reverse his shock ousting.

Altman was fired by the company board on Friday, citing a failure to be “candid in his communications”, in a move that startled Silicon Valley.

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Édith Piaf’s voice re-created using AI so she can narrate own biopic

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In-development film comes after controversy around the re-creation of late stars’ voices, such as Anthony Bourdain

Sixty years after her death, Édith Piaf’s voice will be re-created using AI to narrate her biopic.

As reported by Variety, Warner Music Group (WMG) has partnered with the Piaf estate to produce the feature-length film Edith. Artificial intelligence has been trained to replicate Piaf’s voice by feeding it hundreds of voice clips, with WMG promising the resultant re-creation will “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of her story”.

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White faces generated by AI are more convincing than photos, finds survey

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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.

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‘Alarming’: convincing AI vaccine and vaping disinformation generated by Australian researchers

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Experiment produced fake images, patient and doctor testimonials and video in just over an hour

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to generate more than 100 blog posts of health disinformation in multiple languages, an “alarming” experiment that has prompted them to call for stronger industry accountability.

Artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT contain safeguards that stop it from responding to prompts about illegal or harmful activities, such as how to buy illicit drugs.

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Revealed: Home Affairs paying to access controversial tool tracking mobile phone movements

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Agency has had access to Locate X since at least 2021, documents show, amid questions about use of data that may contain people’s sensitive information

Home Affairs has paid an American intelligence company to access Locate X, a controversial tool that can track the movement of smartphones.

The agency has had access to the product since at least 2021, according to correspondence between Home Affairs and Babel Street obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information (FOI) laws.

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Tory MPs blast ‘out of touch’ Sunak as he woos homeowners in king’s speech

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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.

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Sunak plays eager chatshow host as Musk discusses AI and politics

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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.

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