Tag Archives: AI ethics

Niantic uses Pokémon Go player data to build AI navigation system

Last week, Niantic announced plans to create an AI model for navigating the physical world using scans collected from players of its mobile games, such as Pokémon Go, and from users of its Scaniverse app, reports 404 Media. All AI models require training data. So far, companies have collected data from websites, YouTube videos, books,… Read More »

Ars Live: Our first encounter with manipulative AI

While Bing Chat’s unhinged nature was caused in part by how Microsoft defined the “personality” of Sydney in the system prompt (and unintended side-effects of its architecture with regard to conversation length), Ars Technica’s saga with the chatbot began when someone discovered how to reveal Sydney’s instructions via prompt injection, which Ars Technica then published.… Read More »

Is “AI welfare” the new frontier in ethics?

The researchers propose that companies could adapt the “marker method” that some researchers use to assess consciousness in animals—looking for specific indicators that may correlate with consciousness, although these markers are still speculative. The authors emphasize that no single feature would definitively prove consciousness, but they claim that examining multiple indicators may help companies make… Read More »

Claude AI to process secret government data through new Palantir deal

An ethical minefield Since its founders started Anthropic in 2021, the company has marketed itself as one that takes an ethics- and safety-focused approach to AI development. The company differentiates itself from competitors like OpenAI by adopting what it calls responsible development practices and self-imposed ethical constraints on its models, such as its “Constitutional AI”… Read More »

Hospitals adopt error-prone AI transcription tools despite warnings

In one case from the study cited by AP, when a speaker described “two other girls and one lady,” Whisper added fictional text specifying that they “were Black.” In another, the audio said, “He, the boy, was going to, I’m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.” Whisper transcribed it to, “He took a big piece… Read More »

Omnipresent AI cameras will ensure good behavior, says Larry Ellison

reader comments 155 On Thursday, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison shared his vision for an AI-powered surveillance future during a company financial meeting, reports Business Insider. During an investor Q&A, Ellison described a world where artificial intelligence systems would constantly monitor citizens through an extensive network of cameras and drones, stating this would ensure both police… Read More »

My dead father is “writing” me notes again

Enlarge / An AI-generated image featuring my late father’s handwriting. Benj Edwards / Flux reader comments 14 Growing up, if I wanted to experiment with something technical, my dad made it happen. We shared dozens of tech adventures together, but those adventures were cut short when he died of cancer in 2013. Thanks to a… Read More »

Critics question tech-heavy lineup of new Homeland Security AI safety board

reader comments 28 On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the formation of an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board that consists of 22 members pulled from the tech industry, government, academia, and civil rights organizations. But given the nebulous nature of the term “AI,” which can apply to a broad spectrum of… Read More »

Deepfakes in the courtroom: US judicial panel debates new AI evidence rules

reader comments 15 On Friday, a federal judicial panel convened in Washington, DC, to discuss the challenges of policing AI-generated evidence in court trials, according to a Reuters report. The US Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, an eight-member panel responsible for drafting evidence-related amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence, heard from computer… Read More »

Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track

Enlarge / A sample image from Microsoft for “VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time.” reader comments 131 On Tuesday, Microsoft Research Asia unveiled VASA-1, an AI model that can create a synchronized animated video of a person talking or singing from a single photo and an existing audio track. In the future,… Read More »