James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
White House secures commitment from AI firms to curb deepfake porn
The White House today announced voluntary commitments from several leading artificial intelligence companies to rein in the creation and distribution of image-based sexual abuse, IBSA, including “deepfake” content generated by AI. The announcement was made by President Biden and Vice President Harris on the eve of the anniversary of the introduction of the Violence Against ...
Coalition of US attorneys general calls for warning labels on social media
A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general today called for Congress to require Surgeon General warning labels on social media apps to attend to the growing mental health crisis among young adults in the U.S. In June this year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy penned an op-ed for the New York Times in which he called the ...
US man raked in millions from AI-generated songs played by bots on streaming platforms
Federal prosecutors today charged a North Carolina musician who’d taken in around $10 million in royalties from his AI-generated songs that were streamed by the bots he deployed. Michael Smith, a 52-year-old real musician, had seemingly decided that making a living in the legitimate world of music was a bridge too far. He proceeded to ...
Internet Archive loses appeal, court rules e-book lending is copyright infringement
The online digital library Internet Archive today lost its appeal to lend out scanned e-books without the approval of publishers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the nonprofit’s claim in a lawsuit with a coalition of book publishers that its digitized library of books can legally operate under the fair use ...
Telegram investigated in South Korea over surge of sexual deepfake content
Authorities in South Korea have begun an investigation into the embattled instant messaging app Telegram, focusing on the platform’s relationship with deepfake sex crimes that have caused a stir in the country. The probe comes after Telegram’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France in late August for a slew of charges ...
Brazil’s Supreme Court upholds X ban, Starlink won’t comply
Five Brazilian Supreme Court justices today voted to uphold a decision that requires the National Telecommunications Agency, Anatel, to block access to Elon Musk’s X Corp. platform. Millions of X users in Brazil found themselves without X over the weekend as the country’s internet providers and mobile phone companies restricted access. Alexandre de Moraes (pictured), ...
US AI Safety Institute will have access to OpenAI and Anthropic for a safer future
OpenAI and Anthropic PBC today announced they have agreed to share AI models before and after release with the U.S. government’s AI Safety Institute. The institute, housed at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, was set up through an executive order by President Biden in 2023. Working with ...
TikTok told it must face lawsuit over deadly viral challenge, despite Section 230 protections
The Chinese social media giant TikTok could potentially be found liable for content posted on its platform that led to the death of a girl, despite federal protections for publishers in such cases. A U.S. appeals court revived a lawsuit today that was filed by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who died in Pennsylvania ...
A man is playing video games again after Neuralink’s second successful brain implant surgery
Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink Corp., announced today a successful surgery in what is now its second human implant. This follows the first success back in January this year, a milestone for Neuralink, which has been talking about hooking human brains up with computers since it was founded in 2017. Hundreds of millions of ...
Google inks controversial deal with California’s lawmakers to fund local news
Google LLC and the state of California have agreed to a deal under which the tech giant will commit $172.5 million to fund local journalism over the next five years while some of the money will be set aside for artificial intelligence development in the state. The deal comes after months of dispute between lawmakers ...