Tech & Society
Don’t Be Evil?!: AI Could Tempt Corporations to Ignore Social Responsibility
Tech companies generally try to be (or to appear to be) socially responsible. Would some rather let AI’s negative impacts slide?
Tech & Society
Tech & Society
Your Voice, Your Choice: AI-Powered Tool Modifies Voices in Real Time
A startup enables people who participate in voice chat to use realistic artificial voices in real time. What’s new: Massachusetts-based Modulate offers a voice-masking tool to forestall harassment of people, particularly women and trans individuals,
Tech & Society
White House Supports Limits on AI: U.S. Rules Protect Citizens from AI-Powered Surveillance and Discrimination
As governments worldwide mull their AI strategies and policies, the Biden administration called for a “bill of rights” to mitigate adverse consequences.What’s new: Top advisors to the U.S. president announced a plan to issue rules
Tech & Society
Roll Over, Beethoven: AI Completes Beethoven's 10th Symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven died before he completed what would have been his tenth and final symphony. A team of computer scientists and music scholars approximated the music that might have been.
Tech & Society
Search Goes Multimodal: Google Upgrades its Search Algorithm with Multimodal AI
Google will upgrade its search engine with a new model that tracks the relationships between words, images, and, in time, videos — the first fruit of its latest research into multimodal machine learning and multilingual language modeling.
Tech & Society
The Social Nightmare: Facebook Whistleblower Exposes How Company Harms Users
Scrutiny of Facebook intensified after a whistleblower leaked internal research showing the company has known that its ongoing drive to engage users has harmed individuals and society at large.
Tech & Society
Conference Paper Choices Under Fire: NeurIPS Failed to Identify High Impact Research
A prestigious machine learning conference failed to highlight the highest-impact research, according to a new study.What’s new: In a retrospective analysis, researchers found that papers accepted to NeurIPS 2014 showed little correlation
Tech & Society
Too Fabulous for Face Recognition: Makeup May Fool Some Face Recognition Systems
Drop off your adversarial hats, eyeglasses, and tee shirts to the second-hand store. The latest fashion statement is adversarial makeup. What’s new: Researchers at Ben-Gurion University and NEC developed a system
Tech & Society
Who Needs a Covid Test? AI Decides: Greek Border Patrol Used AI to Screen for Covid
Greece’s border agents last year had enough Covid tests to swab only 17 percent of people who sought to enter the country. They managed the shortage by using an AI system to flag high-risk visitors.
Tech & Society
Distance Killing: Israeli Agents Assasinated Iranian Scientist With AI-Sniper Rifle
A remote sniper used an automated system to take out a human target located thousands of miles away.What happened: The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad used an AI-assisted rifle in the November killing of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist,
Tech & Society
UN Calls Out AI: UN Report Highlights AI-Related Risks for Privacy, Bias
Human rights officials called for limits on some uses of AI.What’s new: Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, appealed to the organization’s member states to suspend certain
Tech & Society
AI Engineers Weigh In on AI Ethics: Survey Shows How AI Engineers Feel About Ethical Issues
Machine learning researchers tend to trust international organizations, distrust military forces, and disagree on how much disclosure is necessary when describing new models, a new study found.