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September 11, 2024

Voters Will Decide America’s Digital Future

America’s digital leadership is on the ballot this fall. One option, offered by the Republican platform, is to embrace the consumer-oriented and business-led economic policies that made the US the leading country for tech startups, AI research capacity, and creating world leading tech giants. The other approach, offered by the Democratic platform, would be to continue the course…

By Mark Jamison

September 10, 2024

The Deception Dilemma: When AI Misleads

An emerging body of research suggests that large language models (LLMs) can “deceive” humans by offering fabricated explanations for their behavior or concealing the truth of their actions from human users. The implications are worrisome, particularly because researchers do not fully understand why or when LLMs engage in this behavior.   In November 2022, an AI system…

By John Bailey

September 9, 2024

California’s SB 1047 Moves Closer to Changing the AI Landscape

Last week, the California State Assembly passed SB 1047, a controversial AI safety bill that supporters contend would regulate advanced AI models to reduce the possibility of AI going haywire and posing a serious threat to people. Formally titled the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, SB 1047 now heads to Gov….

By Will Rinehart

September 6, 2024

The UK’s AI Policy Pivot: From Global AI Safety Leader to Domestic AI Adopter?

Is the new United Kingdom’s government leadership stepping back from the country’s recently acquired position as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) safety regulation? Announcements this past week show a shift in priorities around AI that comes just months after the UK hosted the groundbreaking AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in November 2023 positioning the UK at…

By Shane Tews

September 5, 2024

Telegram CEO Arrest and Brazil’s X Ban Raise Free Speech and Privacy Concerns

Last week, global headlines spotlighted two separate flashpoints in the battle by governments to police social media networks. In Paris, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested for complicity in distribution of child sexual abuse imagery. And in Brazil, a judge banned X (formerly Twitter) nationwide after the company refused to block certain users on the eve of…

By Daniel Lyons

September 2, 2024

The Potential Risks to the Tech Industry from Kamala Harris’s Economic Plan

Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled an economic plan centered on price controls, wage hikes, and subsidies. While the tech industry is not specifically targeted in her proposals, the broader economic ramifications could spell trouble for the sector. Harris’s price controls, covering essentials like food, medicine, and housing, echo the failed attempts of the past, such as Richard Nixon’s…

By Mark Jamison

September 2, 2024

Your Autonomous Vehicle Ride Might Take a While

For a time, when I wanted to make a point that AI hype was overblown, I would just cite Elon Musk’s various predictions about autonomous vehicles (AV).  In 2013, Musk predicted that by 2016 Tesla would be making self-driving cars. In 2016, the company unveiled a demonstration video in which a Tesla Model X seemed to be driving itself,…

By Will Rinehart

August 29, 2024

AI-Generated Inventions Suffer Two More Setbacks, Bolstering the “Automatoner” Viewpoint

Readers of this space are by now intimately familiar with the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS), the machine created by computer scientist and prolific inventor Stephen Thaler that purports to have invented several items on its own. According to Thaler, DABUS independently developed an improved liquid container with enhanced surface area for insulation and…

By Michael M. Rosen

August 28, 2024

Regulating AI, Hypothetically and in Reality

Let’s consider two hypothetical scenarios. First, an artist creates a new work. Copyright law protects the artist’s intellectual property, allowing the artist to release the work for public enjoyment. Copyright law also permits others to make derivative works based on the original piece. Society is enriched from the existence of both the original and the…

By Bronwyn Howell

August 27, 2024

The “Gore Tax” May Finally Get Assessed

Tech policy analysts of a certain glamorous age may remember the “Gore Tax.” That’s the partisan moniker given to a program established by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and implemented during the Clinton administration. It required telecom firms to pay into a small suite of “universal service” funds aimed at ensuring the availability of affordable…

By Jim Harper