A controversial bill that seeks to protect Californians from artificial intelligence-driven catastrophes has caused uproar in the tech industry. This week, the legislation passed a key committee but with amendments to make it more palatable to Silicon Valley. SB 1047, from state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), is set to go to the state Assembly … Read more
A patriotic image shows megastar Taylor Swift dressed up like Uncle Sam, falsely suggesting she endorses Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. “Taylor Wants You To Vote For Donald Trump,” the image, which appears to be generated by artificial intelligence, says. Over the weekend, Trump amplified the lie when he shared the image along with others … Read more
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers intend to shelve legislation that would have required Google to pay news outlets for distributing their content, and in its place announced on Wednesday a new public-private partnership between the state and the tech giant that will fund programs to research artificial intelligence and bolster local journalism. The plan lays out a … Read more
After losing its California operating license last year over safety concerns, the autonomous vehicle company Cruise will soon partner with Uber to offer driverless transportation through the popular ride-hail app. Cruise and Uber announced a multiyear partnership that will begin in 2025 and allow Uber customers to select a driverless Cruise vehicle for qualified trips. … Read more
As more species are pushed to the brink of extinction, conservationists are responding to our biodiversity crisis in new and sometimes controversial ways. One such novel approach could be described as the mammoth in the room: “de-extinction” technology that has the potential to protect and restore species on the brink of extinction and, more provocatively, … Read more
A controversial bill that would require developers of advanced AI models to adopt safety measures is one step closer to becoming law. The bill, SB 1047, would require developers of future advanced AI models to create guardrails to prevent the technology from being misused to conduct cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants. Developers … Read more
A public battle has broken out among the titans of Silicon Valley. One side, led by Elon Musk, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, is backing Donald Trump for president. The other, led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, is behind Kamala Harris. We should not make the mistake of … Read more
San Francisco — For years, Yelp has complained about Google’s practices, alleging that the tech giant placed its own products above competitors in Google search results. Yelp says when a customer searches, say, for “restaurants in Brooklyn,” Google prioritizes putting its own summary and ratings above non-sponsored results from rivals including Yelp, resulting in fewer customer … Read more
Getty Images GP services in England and Northern Ireland faced huge disruption following IT problems caused by a software update by CrowdStrike GPs couldn’t treat patients, people were stranded as planes couldn’t get off the ground, and small businesses lost thousands in sales. Two months on from the global IT outage on 19 July, the … Read more
Vishal Jaiswal Vishal Jaiswal turned a childhood hobby into a profession Vishal Jaiswal has been flying drones since he was young. Now 27, that childhood hobby has become his profession. A recent project involved mapping part of the Sundarbans, a vast area of mangrove forests where the waters of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers … Read more