The declaration prohibits Meta from doing business in Russia and will lead to an immediate ban on its family of apps within the country's borders. However, Meta's messaging app WhatsApp, one of the most popular in Russia, will not be banned, according to TASS.
Representatives for Meta did not immediately return Insider's request for comment Monday.
Tensions between the Kremlin and US social-media giants have reached new heights over the last month following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Social-media companies, including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, have taken efforts to limit the spread of Russian disinformation during the conflict, leading to Russian government retaliation.
That Borg-like greeting could be coming soon to the internet in the form of new AI overlords. In a recent chilling interview, Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates called for the use of artificial intelligence to combat not just “digital misinformation” but “political polarization.”
He is only the latest to call for the use of either AI or algorithms to shape what people say or read on the internet. The danger of such a system is evident where free speech, like resistance, could become futile.
In an interview on a German program, “Handelsblatt Disrupt,” Gates calls for unleashing AI to stop certain views from being “magnified by digital channels.” The problem is that we allow “various conspiracy theories like QAnon or whatever to be blasted out by people who wanted to believe those things.”
This is not the first call for AI overlords to protect us from ourselves. Last September, Gates gave the keynote address at the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy. He told his fellow billionaires that “polarization and lack of trust is a problem.”
The problem is again … well … people: “People seek simple solutions [and] the truth is kind of boring sometimes.”
Not AI, of course. That would supply the solutions. Otherwise, Gates suggested, we could all die: “Political polarization may bring it all to an end, we’re going to have a hung election and a civil war.”
Others have suggested a Brave New World where citizens will be carefully guided in what they read and see. Democratic leaders have called for a type of “enlightened algorithms” to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) objected that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.”
Warren blamed Amazon for failing to limit searches or choices: “This pattern and practice of misbehavior suggests that Amazon is either unwilling or unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of inappropriate products.” In her letter, Warren gave the company 14 days to change its algorithms to throttle and obstruct efforts to read opposing views.
Social media responded to such calls and engaged in widespread censorship of those who held opposing views of mask mandates, vaccine safety, school mandates, and the origin of COVID-19. Many of those criticisms and views are now acknowledged as plausible and legitimate, but scientists were banned and censored. There was no “polarization” allowed. The public never was allowed to have that full debate on social media because such views were declared disinformation.
TUCKER REVEALS THE MOST 'JAW-DROPPING' TAKEAWAY FROM ELON MUSK INTERVIEW
Tucker Carlson joined 'Fox & Friends' to discuss his interview of Musk and his dire warning on the broader concerns surrounding artificial intelligence.
'I will create a third option:' Elon Musk vows to create rival AI called 'TruthGPT' as he slams Microsoft and Google for 'training artificial intelligence to 'lie' to people
Musk announced new AI platform Monday to challenge Microsoft and Google
He slammed his competitors for using the technology to 'lie' to people
Musk last month registered a firm named X.AI Corp in Nevada
Billionaire Elon Musk Told Tucker Carlson he plans to launch 'the third option' to Microsoft and Google after announcing his alternative chatbot on Monday, and slamming his competitors for how they used AI.
German artist refuses Sony photography award, admits prize-winning image AI-generated, because...
A Germany-based artist has refused a much-coveted photography award after admitting he generated the prize-winning image using artificial intelligence (AI). Boris Eldagsen said on his website that he was not accepting the prize he had won for the 'creative open' category at the Sony world photography awards held last week.
The image showed two women from different generations in black and white.
“Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI-generated image to win in a prestigious international PHOTOGRAPHY competition.
"How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award," Eldagsen said.
Eldagsen said that he applied as a "cheeky monkey" to find out if the competitions were prepared for AI images to enter, adding they are not.
"We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake? With my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate," the German artist said.
Eldagsen suggested donating the prize to the foto-festival in Odesa in war-torn Ukraine.
His refusal and admission come amid an increasing debate on AI.
According to a report by The Guardian on Monday (April 17), a spokesperson for the World Photography Organisation said that Eldagsen confirmed the co-creation of the image using AI to them before he was announced as the winner.
“In our correspondence, he (Eldagsen) explained how following ‘two decades of photography, my artistic focus has shifted more to exploring creative possibilities of AI generators’ and further emphasising the image heavily relies on his ‘wealth of photographic knowledge’.
"As per the rules of the competition, the photographers provide the warranties of their entry," the spokesperson said, as per the report.
The spokesperson said that the creative category of the open competition welcomed various experimental approaches to image making "from cyanotypes and rayographs to cutting-edge digital practices".
Following correspondence with Eldagsen, the organisation felt his entry fulfilled the criteria for this category and the organisation was supportive of his participation.
The spokesperson also said that now the German artist declined the award, the organisation suspended its activities with him. "Given his actions and subsequent statement noting his deliberate attempts at misleading us, and therefore invalidating the warranties he provided, we no longer feel we are able to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue with him."
Fowlkes argued that the government should “explicitly ban” AI companies from using copyrighted work to train their models. Copyright is intended to protect original art, “not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work,” he said.
Music giant raises alarm over AI hit
Universal Music Group wants platforms and creators to be on the “right side of history” against “deep fakes and fraud”.
After a song featuring the AI-generated voices of the rappers Drake and The Weeknd went viral on Monday, the world’s biggest record label demanded a reckoning from streaming platforms. The Netherlands-based Universal Music Group (UMG), which represents both artists, has already tried to block artificial intelligence programs from accessing its catalog, but that appears to be easier said than done.
The theory of technological singularity predicts a point in time when humans lose control over their technological inventions and subsequent developments due to the rise of machine consciousness and, as a result, their superior intelligence. Reaching singularity stage, in short, constitutes artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) greatest threat to humanity. Unfortunately, AI singularity is already underway.
“I can tell you that there is discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of the legal firms in order to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice and everybody else’s being our intellectual property.
Tom Hanks says AI is so advanced that he could star in Hollywood films long after he is dead
Doctors May Soon Use AI to Diagnose Health Conditions — But Should They?
05/12/23
More than 1,000 technology leaders signed an open letter in March urging that companies pause development on advanced artificial intelligence systems until “we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”
What use could healthcare have for someone who makes things up, can’t keep a secret, doesn’t really know anything, and, when speaking, simply fills in the next word based on what’s come before?
Lots, if that individual is the newest form of artificial intelligence (AI), according to some of the biggest companies out there.
Companies pushing the latest AI technology — known as “generative AI” — are piling on: Google and Microsoft want to bring types of so-called large language models to healthcare.
Big firms that are familiar to folks in white coats — but maybe less so to your average Joe and Jane — are equally enthusiastic: Electronic medical records giants Epic and Oracle Cerner aren’t far behind. The space is crowded with startups, too.
The companies want their AI to take notes for physicians and give them second opinions — assuming they can keep the intelligence from “hallucinating” or, for that matter, divulging patients’ private information.
“There’s something afoot that’s pretty exciting,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego. “Its capabilities will ultimately have a big impact.”
Topol, like many other observers, wonders how many problems it might cause — like leaking patient data — and how often.
“We’re going to find out,” said Topol.
The specter of such problems inspired more than 1,000 technology leaders to sign an open letter in March urging that companies pause development on advanced AI systems until “we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”
Even so, some of them are sinking more money into AI ventures.
The underlying technology relies on synthesizing huge chunks of text or other data — for example, some medical models rely on 2 million intensive care unit notes from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston — to predict text that would follow a given query.
The idea has been around for years, but the gold rush, and the marketing and media mania surrounding it, are more recent.
The frenzy was kicked off in December 2022 by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its flagship product, ChatGPT, which answers questions with authority and style. It can explain genetics in a sonnet, for example.
OpenAI started as a research venture seeded by Silicon Valley elites like Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman, has ridden the enthusiasm to investors’ pockets.
The venture has a complex, hybrid for-profit and nonprofit structure. But a new $10 billion round of funding from Microsoft has pushed the value of OpenAI to $29 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Right now, the company is licensing its technology to companies like Microsoft and selling subscriptions to consumers. Other startups are considering selling AI transcription or other products to hospital systems or directly to patients.
Hyperbolic quotes are everywhere. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers tweeted recently:
“It’s going to replace what doctors do — hearing symptoms and making diagnoses — before it changes what nurses do — helping patients get up and handle themselves in the hospital.”.... more at link below..
New AI technology in development could transform lives but also raises urgent ethical and legal questions
For years, scientists have been trying to harness the powers of the human brain, but the concept of mind-reading has remained firmly in the realms of science fiction fantasy.
But now a research team in Singapore, using artificial intelligence and a scanning machine, are developing a basic mind-reading technique that decodes brain scans to reproduce images that a person is mentally picturing.
