Month: February 2023

Participants at a global U.N. conference in France's capital on Wednesday urged the international community to find better safeguards against online disinformation and hate speech. Hundreds of officials, tech firm representatives, academics and members of civil society were invited to the two-day meeting hosted by the United Nation's cultural fund to brainstorm how to best vet content while upholding human rights. "Digital platforms have changed the way we connect and face the world, the way we face each other," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in opening remarks. But "only by fully evaluating this technological revolution can we ensure it is a revolution that does not compromise human rights, freedom of expression and democracy." UNESCO has warned that despite their benefits in communication and knowledge sharing, social media platforms rely on…

The Supreme Court is taking up its first case about a federal law that is credited with helping create the modern internet by shielding Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies from lawsuits over content posted on their sites by others.  The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday about whether the family of an American college student killed in a terrorist attack in Paris can sue Google for helping extremists spread their message and attract new recruits.  The case is the court's first look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, adopted early in the internet age, in 1996, to protect companies from being sued over information their users post online.  Lower courts have broadly interpreted the law to protect the industry, which the companies and their allies say has fueled…

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut will remain aboard the International Space Station for an extra six months because of damage to their Russian spacecraft. Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Frank Rubio were set to end their six-month stay aboard the ISS in late March, but the Russian space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday the trio will have to remain on the orbital outpost until September. The Soyuz MS-22 capsule that carried the crew to the ISS last September has been leaking coolant since mid-December, which both Roscosmos and the U.S. space agency NASA have blamed on a micrometeoroid, or space rock, that struck the capsule. Russia had planned to send an unmanned Soyuz capsule to the ISS earlier this month to bring the crew home, but the launch of…

A growing number of startups are using artificial intelligence to replicate human voices. A company is creating synthetic voices for organizations to use for advertising, marketing and training. Phil Dierking reports. Videographer and video editor: Philip Dierking ...

Under the fluorescent lights of a fifth grade classroom in Lexington, Kentucky, Donnie Piercey instructed his 23 students to try and outwit the “robot” that was churning out writing assignments. The robot was the new artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, which can generate everything from essays and haikus to term papers within seconds. The technology has panicked teachers and prompted school districts to block access to the site. But Piercey has taken another approach by embracing it as a teaching tool, saying his job is to prepare students for a world where knowledge of AI will be required. “This is the future,” said Piercey, who describes ChatGPT as just the latest technology in his 17 years of teaching that prompted concerns about the potential for cheating. The calculator, spellcheck, Google, Wikipedia,…

When Microsoft's nascent Bing chatbot turns testy or even threatening, it’s likely because it essentially mimics what it learned from online conversations, analysts and academics said. Tales of disturbing exchanges with the artificial intelligence chatbot, including it issuing threats and speaking of desires to steal nuclear code, create a deadly virus, or to be alive, have gone viral this week. "I think this is basically mimicking conversations that it's seen online," Graham Neubig, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University's language technologies institute, said Friday. A chatbot, by design, serves up words it predicts are the most likely responses, without understanding meaning or context. However, humans taking part in banter with programs naturally tend to read emotion and intent into what a chatbot says.  "Large language models have no concept…

The little-noticed program that led to a Chinese spy balloon drifting across the United States this month has been discussed in China’s state-controlled media for more than a decade in articles extolling its potential military applications. The reports, dating back to at least 2011, focus on how best to exploit what is known as “near space” – that portion of the atmosphere that is too high for traditional aircraft to fly but too low for a satellite to remain in orbit. Those early articles may offer clues to the capabilities of the balloon shot down by a U.S. jet fighter on Feb. 4. “In recent years, ‘near space’ has been discussed often in foreign media, with many military commentators pointing out that this is a special sphere that had been…

U.S. safety regulators have pressured Tesla into recalling nearly 363,000 vehicles with its "Full Self-Driving" system because it misbehaves around intersections and doesn't always follow speed limits. The recall, part of a larger investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into Tesla's automated driving systems, is the most serious action taken yet against the electric vehicle maker. It raises questions about CEO Elon Musk's claims that he can prove to regulators that cars equipped with "Full Self-Driving" are safer than humans, and that humans almost never have to touch the controls. Musk at one point had promised that a fleet of autonomous robotaxis would be in use in 2020. The latest action appears to push that development further into the future. The safety agency says in documents posted on…

A top U.S. law enforcement official on Thursday unveiled a new "disruptive technology strike force" tasked with safeguarding American technology from foreign adversaries and other national security threats. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 U.S. Justice Department official, made the announcement at a speech in London at Chatham House. The initiative, Monaco said, will be a joint effort between her department and the U.S. Commerce Department, with a goal of blocking adversaries from "trying to siphon our best technology." Monaco also addressed concerns about Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok. The U.S. government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a powerful national security body, in 2020 ordered Chinese company ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China's government. The…

Imagine if your dog or cat could use words to let you know when they’re angry, lonely or in pain. Well now they can, thanks to an innovative communication tool that’s helping them express themselves more effectively. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum            Produced by: Julie Taboh, Adam Greenbaum   ...

The United States Justice Department has in recent months escalated its antitrust probe on Apple Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.   Reuters had previously reported the Justice Department opened an antitrust probe into Apple in 2019.  The Wall Street Journal report said more litigators have now been assigned, while new requests for documents and consultations have been made with all the companies involved.  The probe will also look at whether Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, is anti-competitive, favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the report added.  The Justice Department declined to comment, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  ...

Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that he anticipates finding a CEO for Twitter “probably toward the end of this year." Speaking via a video call to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk said making sure the platform can function remained the most important thing for him. “I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financial healthy place,” Musk said when asked about when he'd name a CEO. “I’m guessing probably toward the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.” Musk, 51, made his wealth initially on the finance website PayPal, then created the spacecraft company SpaceX and invested in the electric car company Tesla. In recent months, however, more attention has been focused…

On Colorado's northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to plant and harvest proso millet, dryland corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out.  The tractor's manufacturer doesn't allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950.  "That's where they have us over the barrel, it's more like we are renting it than buying it," said Wood, who spent $300,000 on the used tractor.  Wood's plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that…