Technology | The Guardian

Hundreds of tech industry leaders have signed a letter proposing a six-month pause on the development of systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4. Alex Hern reportsOver the last few decades, we’ve seen how the internet and the smartphone rapidly transformed our lives. Artificial intelligence is now poised to do the same, but some experts are worried that the current pace of its development will cause harm.An open letter signed by hundreds of leaders in the tech world, including Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple, and Elon Musk, has proposed pausing the development of any AI past the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT-4. Continue reading...

Parag Agrawal and other executives allege they have spent more than $1m out of pocket on feesFormer Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, are suing the social media company over legal fees incurred in a recent storm of legal battles.Agrawal is joined in the suit by the company’s former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former chief financial officer Ned Segal. They allege they have spent more than $1m out of pocket on legal fees related to shareholder lawsuits and government investigations. Continue reading...

US cybersecurity official alleges CCTV monitored for intelligence on movement of aid convoysRussians hackers have logged into private security cameras in Ukraine coffee shops to collect intelligence on aid convoys passing by, a top US security official said on Tuesday.Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, said Russian government and government-backed hackers persist in attacking Ukrainian information technology systems as part of their invasion of the country. Continue reading...

The commerce department has requested public comment on AI accountability measures to ensure privacy and transparencyThe US government is taking its first tentative steps toward establishing rules for artificial intelligence tools, as the frenzy over generative AI and chatbots reach a fever pitch.The US commerce department on Tuesday announced it is officially requesting public comment on how to create accountability measures for AI, seeking help on how to advise US policymakers to approach the technology. Continue reading...

Federal judge denies Theranos founder’s request to remain free while she appeals her conviction of fraud and conspiracyElizabeth Holmes must begin her more than 11-year prison sentence on 27 April after a federal judge denied the disgraced Theranos founder’s request to remain free while she appeals her conviction.Holmes, who was convicted on four counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the failed blood-testing startup in January 2022, is “not likely to flee or pose a danger” to the public, US district court judge Edward Davila wrote in his ruling. However, the San Jose-based judge found that her appeal was unlikely to result in a reversal of the verdict or a new trial – a requirement for a defendant to remain free post-conviction. Continue reading...

‘Juice jacking’ from public USB charging ports in airports, malls and hotels could give hackers access to sensitive informationThe FBI is alerting consumers not to use public charging stations, warning that fraudsters could infect such machines with malware and steal their data.In the newly released warnings, bureau officials cautioned customers to avoid using public USB charging ports in airports, malls and hotels, noting that hackers could use the opportunity to access a person’s phone or tablet. Continue reading...

As Respawn’s new game set in the Lucasfilm universe is released, director Stig Asmussen explains how it took a while to persuade its guardians that a Jedi is a game characterFor almost a decade, my husband and I have had an annual tradition of setting aside a full day to watch all of the Star Wars films, back-to-back. When we first met, this was a six-film undertaking, or occasionally four, if we swapped the prequels for the fan-made Neon Noir edit. Now, a Star Wars marathon means making it through 11 films – sorry, Clone Wars fans – which is less a cosy day with snack breaks, and far more like a real marathon, complete with precisely timed bathroom breaks and energy gels for sustenance.And, of course, this year’s traditional viewing came after we’d also devoured the first season of Andor, binged The Book of Boba Fett, been re-introduced to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and caught up on season three of The Mandalorian. Plus, we played through Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and visited Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars themed world at Disneyland. Twice. Continue reading...

Regulators around world are cracking down on content being hoovered up by ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and othersCutting-edge artificial intelligence systems can help you escape a parking fine, write an academic essay, or fool you into believing Pope Francis is a fashionista. But the virtual libraries behind this breathtaking technology are vast – and there are concerns they are operating in breach of personal data and copyright laws.The enormous datasets used to train the latest generation of these AI systems, like those behind ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, are likely to contain billions of images scraped from the internet, millions of pirated ebooks, the entire proceedings of 16 years of the European parliament and the whole of English-language Wikipedia. Continue reading...

Main non-US division pays $7.7bn in corporation tax but $20.7bn in dividends to California parentApple’s main Irish subsidiary paid €7.7bn (£6.8bn ) in corporation tax last year, but paid out nearly triple that amount in dividends to its California parent company, after reporting more than $69bn (£56bn) in profits.The latest financial filings for the subsidiary, which is facing legal challenges over its tax arrangements in Ireland, show the Irish division made the equivalent of nearly $190m a day over the year to September. Continue reading...

Will technological advantages be enough for China to replace the US as the world’s AI superpower?The Bible maintains that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong”, but, as Damon Runyon used to say, “that is the way to bet”. As a species, we take the same view, which is why we are obsessed with “races”. Political journalism, for example, is mostly horserace coverage – runners and riders, favourites, outsiders, each-way bets, etc. And when we get into geopolitics and international relations we find a field obsessed with arms “races”.In recent times, a new kind of weaponry – loosely called “AI” – has entered the race. In 2021, we belatedly discovered how worried the US government was about it. A National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence was convened under the chairmanship of Eric Schmidt, the former chair of Google. In its report, issued in March of that year, the commission warned: that China could soon replace the US as the world’s “AI superpower”; that AI systems will be used (surprise, surprise!) in the “pursuit of power”; and that “AI will not stay in the domain of superpowers or the realm of science fiction”. It also urged President Biden to reject calls for a global ban on highly controversial AI-powered autonomous weapons, saying that China and Russia were unlikely to keep to any treaty they signed. Continue reading...

Many have protested the ban the beleaguered app is facing, saying it would affect small businesses, educators and communitiesTikTok is at an existential crossroads, facing an unprecedented global crackdown and a potential ban in the US – and TikTok creators are caught in the balance.The platform is under bipartisan scrutiny over allegations that its parent company ByteDance is influenced by the government of China, where it is based. But those concerns have yet to dull the public’s enthusiasm – with the app more popular than ever and now surpassing 150m active users in the US. Continue reading...

Whether it’s celebrity fads or wacky creations such as lasagne-filled yorkshire pudding, how food plays online is now key to brandsSometimes you just need some vodka pasta sauce – especially when you’ve been grounded for trying to charter a helicopter on your dad’s credit card.When Sofia Coppola’s 16-year-old daughter, Romy Mars, set the internet alight last month after doing just that – and then recorded a TikTok video to complain about her punishment while making the sauce – there was plenty of discussion about her family dynamics. Others, though, were more interested in her food choices. Continue reading...

With swaths of white collar jobs at risk, the clock is ticking on the development of policy to meet this huge societal challengeElon Musk is not most people’s idea of a classic technophobe, so when the owner of Twitter warns of the dangers of artificial intelligence, it is worth sitting up and taking notice. Fearful that a new generation of ever-smarter machines threatens life on Earth as we know it, Musk was one of many at the cutting edge of technological change calling for a six-month timeout in the training of new AI systems.There is nothing new in the idea that the machines are coming, and they are out to get us. Techno-optimists are right to say that the same arguments were aired by Luddites in the early 19th century. By this token, the chatbot ChatGPT is to the fourth industrial revolution what the spinning jenny was to the first – a product that symbolises the dawning of a new era.Larry Elliott is the Guardian’s economics editor Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Discover the wild 1970s tale of the revolutionary Viva in Stiffed. Plus: five of the best podcasts for Succession fans

The CEO of Niantic has helped create technologies that have changed the way we live. How does he see the future of play?It’s not often you meet someone who’s genuinely changed the world, but that’s what happens the day I greet Niantic CEO John Hanke. Sipping his coffee alone in a gargantuan San Franciscan boardroom, I wonder whether the man on the other end of this Zoom call realises just how often people use his former company’s creation, Google Maps.Hanke’s yearning to create started young. Fresh out of business school in the 1990s and already with one of the first online gaming successes to his name, he was snapped up – along with his company, Keyhole, by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and folded into the team that made Google Maps, now arguably the most useful thing on your smartphone. Continue reading...

I’ve never had an assistant, a life coach or a personal trainer – perhaps AI is just what I’m looking for. I tried it on everything from cocktail-making to holiday-planning to health adviceAccording to a recent open letter, society needs to immediately pause development of “giant” AI models, or risk apocalyptic outcomes. Massive job losses, the destruction of consensus reality and even the end of all organic life on Earth have all been mooted as risks of pressing forward with development of these systems before we understand their intricacies.The high-water mark of these is GPT-4, the snappily named AI that underpins the latest version of the breakthrough ChatGPT service. Creating anything more powerful than GPT-4, before we spend at least six months working out its limits and risks, would be too dangerous, more than 1,000 AI experts say. Continue reading...

Human rights groups say cameras are form of mass surveillance, as report finds ‘substantial improvement’ in accuracyLive facial recognition cameras are a form of mass surveillance, human rights campaigners have said, as the Met police said it would press ahead with its use of the “gamechanging” technology.Britain’s largest force said the technology could be used to catch terrorists and find missing people after research published on Wednesday reported a “substantial improvement” in its accuracy. Continue reading...

Operation led by FBI and Dutch police with involvement of UK National Crime Agency takes Genesis Market offlineA criminal online marketplace selling millions of stolen identities for as little as 56p has been taken down in an international crackdown.The sting, led by the FBI and Dutch police with the involvement of law enforcement agencies across 18 countries, including the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), took Genesis Market offline on Tuesday evening. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Gaming’s biggest expo might be finished forever – and I know I’ll miss the buzzy, tactile, interactive hype-fest it used to be

PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Meta Quest; Wired Productions/Oiffy/Wold & Wood Interactive

Windows 11 workstation has top creative and gaming performance housed in sleek 16in laptop designThe top of Samsung’s new 2023 laptop line is the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra: a powerhouse 16in machine aiming squarely at Apple’s 16in MacBook Pro for creatives and gamers.A laptop called Ultra obviously doesn’t come cheap, costing from £2,449 ($2,200), which is about the same price as Windows 11 rivals from Dell and Razer but slightly cheaper than Apple’s top machines.Screen: 16in 3K AMOLED 2880 x 1800 (120Hz; 201 PPI)Processor: Intel Core i7-13700H or i9-13900H (13th gen)Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX4050 (6GB) or 4070 (8GB) laptop GPURAM: 16 or 32GBStorage: 512GB or 1TBOperating system: Windows 11 HomeCamera: 1080PConnectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1, USB-A, 2x Thunderbolt 4, headphones, microSD, HDMI2.0Dimensions: 355.4 x 250.4 x 16.5mmWeight: 1.79kg Continue reading...

Up to 1.4m children under 13 use app, watchdog finds – and experts say they are being flooded with harmful content to promote addiction

Information commissioner says app had done ‘very little, if anything’ to check for underage usersTikTok has been fined £12.7m for illegally processing the data of 1.4 million children under 13 who were using its platform without parental consent, Britain’s data watchdog said.The information commissioner said the China-owned video app had done “very little, if anything” to check who was using the platform and remove underage users, despite internal warnings the firm was flouting its own terms and conditions. Continue reading...

Elon Musk tweets out meme after blue bird on homepage replaced by image of shiba inu associated with cryptocurrencyAlmost 24 hours after Twitter changed its blue bird logo to a badly cut-out image of a dog meme made famous by cryptocurrencies, the company’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, has still offered no explanation or justification for the change.On Monday, US time, users noted that the blue bird logo on Twitter’s homepage and loading screen had been replaced with the shiba inu image associated with the Dogecoin memecoin cryptocurrency. For hours, neither Twitter nor Musk even acknowledged the change. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: After weeks of warnings, Twitter appears to have backed down on plans to do away with one of Musk’s original obsessions.

National Cyber Force says it is engaged in ways to ‘undermine tradecraft’ of Russian, Chinese and other state-sponsored hackersBritain’s newly created offensive hacking unit, the National Cyber Force, has said it is engaged daily in operations to disrupt terrorist groups, distributors of child sexual abuse material and military opponents of the UK.An official paper, Responsible Cyber Power in Practice, is the first policy statement from the body and is intended to describe how far the UK is prepared to fight back against growing organised online threats. Continue reading...

Concerns have arisen over tech firms using masses of unfiltered personal data culled from the internet to ‘train’ generative AIBritain’s data watchdog has issued a warning to tech firms about the use of people’s personal information to develop chatbots after concerns that the underlying technology is trained on large quantities of unfiltered material scraped from the web.The intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office came after its Italian counterpart temporarily banned ChatGPT over data privacy concerns. Continue reading...

Influencer says he is removing himself from social media for a spell after using slur in word gameThe YouTuber KSI has apologised for using a racist slur during a recent video made with his group the Sidemen.He acknowledged there was no excuse for using the slur and said he would be removing himself from social media for a spell as a result. Continue reading...

Fashion brands including Levi’s and Calvin Klein are having custom AI models created to ‘supplement’ representation in size, skin tone and ageThe star of Levi’s new campaign looks like any other model. Her tousled hair hangs over her shoulders as she gazes into the camera with that far-off high-fashion stare. But look closer, and something starts to seem a little off. The shadow between her chin and neck looks muddled, like a bad attempt at using FaceTune’s eraser effect to hide a double chin. Her French-manicured fingernails appear scrubbed clean and uniform in a creepy real doll kind of way.The model is AI-generated, a digital rendering of a human being that will start appearing on Levi’s e-commerce website later this year. The brand teamed with LaLaLand.ai, a digital studio that makes customized AI models for companies like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, to dream up this avatar. Continue reading...

Rising competition and bleak economic outlook drag down sales despite Elon Musk’s price-cutting gambleTesla on Sunday posted record quarterly vehicle deliveries, but quarter-on-quarter sales growth was modest despite price cuts as rising competition and a bleak economic outlook weighed.The electric carmaker delivered 422,875 vehicles for the first three months of this year, up 4% from the previous quarter. This was 36% higher than a year ago. In January, the chief executive, Elon Musk, said Tesla could achieve 2m vehicle deliveries this year, up 52% from last year. Continue reading...

Morning, noon and night, it’s there, whirring and whirling around. It’s so industrious I feel simultaneously scared and shamedIn domestic news, an issue has arisen with the robot vacuum cleaner. Our noisy old one annoyed me so much, bashing repeatedly into the skirting and swallowing rug tassels in confusion, that I stamped violently on its off button every time I caught it trying to do its job.The new one is less relentlessly stupid, but just as loud, and since my husband programmed it, it appears to always be on. It lurches out at 10am and is still roaring around when I come downstairs, hours later. After a brief hiatus, it re-emerges in the afternoon. It’s so noisily industrious, I feel simultaneously enervated and shamed by its productivity. Let me stare at the internet in peace, robot! Continue reading...

AI and cows | AI-free letters | Sizing up black holes | Stately homes | E-scooter exposureWe are currently hearing a lot about AI (This gung-ho government says we have nothing to fear from AI. Are you scared yet?, 31 March). As a former dairy farmer, I thought the AI man was the chap who visited on request to artificially inseminate our cows to get them in calf. With the current use of the initials meaning something rather different, I now wonder what he was actually doing.

Systems with abilities exceeding human capacity have been let loose. If big tech firms refuse to see the risks governments must step inIn case you have been somewhere else in the solar system, here is a brief AI news update. My apologies if it sounds like the opening paragraph of a bad science fiction novel.On 14 March 2023, OpenAI, a company based in San Francisco and in which Microsoft has a major investment, released an AI system called GPT-4. On 22 March, a report by a distinguished group of researchers at Microsoft, including two members of the US National Academies, claimed that GPT-4 exhibits “sparks of artificial general intelligence”. (Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is a keyword for AI systems that match or exceed human capabilities across the full range of tasks to which the human mind is applicable.) On 29 March, the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit headed by the MIT physics professor Max Tegmark, released an open letter asking for a pause on “giant AI experiments”. It has been signed by well-known figures such as Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak, and the Turing award-winner Yoshua Bengio, as well as hundreds of prominent AI researchers. The ensuing media hurricane continues. Continue reading...

The generative AI tool can write code on request, making the specialist skill of programming open to everyoneBenedict Evans, a tech analyst whose newsletter is required reading for those who follow the industry, made an interesting point this week. He had, he said, been talking to generalist journalists who “were still under the impression that ChatGPT was a trivial parlour trick and the whole thing was about as interesting as a new iPhone app”. On the other hand, he continued, “most people in tech are walking around slowly, holding on to the top of their head with both hands to stop it flying off. But within that, I think we can see a range of attitudes.”We certainly can – on a spectrum ranging from the view that this “generative AI” is going to be the biggest bonanza since the invention of the wheel, to fears that it augurs an existential risk to humanity, and numerous opinions in between. Seeking a respite from the firehose of contradictory commentary, I suddenly remembered an interview that Steve Jobs – the nearest thing to a visionary the tech industry has ever had – gave in 1990, and dug it out on YouTube. Continue reading...

Documents leaked from Vulkan cybersecurity firm also raise questions about role of IT engineers behind information-control projectA consortium of media outlets have published a bombshell investigation about Russia’s cyber-capabilities, based on a rare leak of documents. The files come from NTC Vulkan, a cybersecurity firm in Moscow that doubles as a contractor to Russian military and intelligence agencies.They reveal how, for years, a group of top Russian IT engineers have been hired to work with Russian military intelligence and a research facility of the FSB, Vladimir Putin’s domestic spy agency. This might seem an unusual mix, and would have been unimaginable before the end of the cold war. Continue reading...

• Documents leaked by whistleblower angry over Ukraine war• Private Moscow consultancy bolstering Russian cyberwarfare• Tools support hacking operations and attacks on infrastructure• Documents linked to notorious Russian hacking group Sandworm• Russian program aims to control internet and spread disinformationThe inconspicuous office is in Moscow’s north-eastern suburbs. A sign reads: “Business centre”. Nearby are modern residential blocks and a rambling old cemetery, home to ivy-covered war memorials. The area is where Peter the Great once trained his mighty army.Inside the six-storey building, a new generation is helping Russian military operations. Its weapons are more advanced than those of Peter the Great’s era: not pikes and halberds, but hacking and disinformation tools. Continue reading...

Poor spelling and grammar that can help identify fraudulent attacks being rectified by artificial intelligenceChatbots are taking away a key line of defence against fraudulent phishing emails by removing glaring grammatical and spelling errors, according to experts.The warning comes as policing organisation Europol issues an international advisory about the potential criminal use of ChatGPT and other “large language models”. Continue reading...

More than 1,000 artificial intelligence experts urge delay until world can be confident ‘effects will be positive and risks manageable’More than 1,000 artificial intelligence experts, researchers and backers have joined a call for an immediate pause on the creation of “giant” AIs for at least six months, so the capabilities and dangers of systems such as GPT-4 can be properly studied and mitigated.The demand is made in an open letter signed by major AI players including: Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, the research lab responsible for ChatGPT and GPT-4; Emad Mostaque, who founded London-based Stability AI; and Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. Continue reading...

Elon Musk says he ‘forgot to mention’ other users would be visible on ‘for you’ timeline as wellTwitter has reversed course on plans to limit presence on its “for you” timeline to paying users only, with Elon Musk claiming he “forgot to mention” that other users would be visible as well.When the company’s owner first announced the plan on Tuesday he said it would limit the tab that algorithmically curates tweets for users to only display accounts who had paid £8 a month for “Twitter Blue” and linked their account to a working phone number. Continue reading...

FTX fortune cookies and Theranos gift cards offer souvenirs from recent business disastersYou’ve just been laid off from your job at a once mighty startup that was going to change the world. The New York Times has exposed your CEO’s fraudulent business model. Investors have freaked. The stock market is hemorrhaging. Your office keycard doesn’t work. What you do next is very important: go raid the merch closet.By now, we’ve all seen enough rise-and-fall documentaries to know how this sort of thing plays out. First come layoffs, then lawsuits, and perhaps a prison sentence for bosses like Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes or Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling. One thing we hear less about: the killer resale market that comes with an era-defining financial disaster. Continue reading...

From 15 April, ‘For you’ tab that curates popular posts will feature just Twitter Blue subscribersTwitter’s feed will promote only the tweets of users paying its £8 monthly subscription service, Elon Musk, the site’s owner and chief executive, has tweeted.From 15 April, the “For you” tab on the site, which attempts to algorithmically curate popular posts for users, will feature only “verified accounts”, Musk tweeted, describing the decision as “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over”. Continue reading...

Labour criticises Rishi Sunak ‘vanity project’ announced weeks before collapse in value of cryptocurrenciesThe UK government has dropped its plans to produce a non-fungible token for sale through the Royal Mint, just under a year after it first announced the project.In response to a question from the Conservative MP Harriett Baldwin, the Treasury’s economic secretary, Andrew Griffith, confirmed the abandonment, saying: “In consultation with HM Treasury, the Royal Mint is not proceeding with the launch of a non-fungible token at this time but will keep this proposal under review.” Continue reading...

France has banned not only TikTok from government phones, but Facebook and Twitter, too. Could this be a tipping point for big tech? Plus, AI-generated pictures of the pope signal a new type of viral image

Compact wifi hifi with big sound supports hundreds of music services, multiple voice assistants and looks the partThe Era 100 is the first of a brand new line of wifi speakers from multi-room audio specialists Sonos, taking what was good about its popular longstanding One series and adding more bass and stereo sound.The new compact smart speaker costs £249 ($249/A$399), making it the mid-range option in the company’s speaker line after the firm’s collaboration with Ikea starting at £99.Dimensions: 18.3 x 12 x 13.1cmWeigh: 2kgSpeakers: two tweeters, one midwooferConnectivity: wifi 6, Bluetooth 5, USB-C, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect Continue reading...

Photos, emails, playlists: our phones and computers have become hosts for our pasts. What happens when the backups fail?No matter how much our computers assure us they’re backing everything up to a hard drive in the sky, memory failure remains a hardwired part of our lives. Writers reflect on when a digital loss created an emotional hole – from the college essay that disappeared minutes before the due date to an iPhone update that lost years of photographs. Continue reading...

Head of Norwegian manufacturer Nammo says plans to increase production at its largest factory are affected by demands of nearby data centre

Lawmakers, unconvinced after five hours of testimony from company chief Shou Zi Chew, are set on restricting the platformLawmakers have said they’re moving forward with plans for a national ban on TikTok, as users including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take to the app to protest.The snowballing effort to take action against TikTok comes after company chief Shou Zi Chew appeared before a US House committee for five hours on Thursday, where lawmakers from both parties grilled him about national security and other concerns involving the app. Continue reading...

Complaint alleges firm grew US business despite stated intent to block US customers from platformBinance and its chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, are being sued in the US by commodity market regulators in a complaint that claims the defendants committed “wilful evasion of US law”.The move is the most significant US enforcement action yet against the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Continue reading...

PC, smartphones (via Netflix); Free Lives/ Devolver Digital

Elon Musk-owned platform demands that GitHub identifies who posted parts of its codeTwitter has revealed some of its source code has been released online and the social media platform owned by Elon Musk is taking legal action to identify the leaker.According to a court filing made on Friday, Twitter is demanding that GitHub, a code-sharing service, identifies who released on the platform parts of its source code – the underlying software on which the service operates. Continue reading...