The coronavirus pandemic may have emerged in China, but the country now has fewer cases than the US, Italy and Spain. The Chinese government has used tools such as phone tracking to control the outbreak. Other countries are starting to look at similar technological solutions. But how does China’s controversial surveillance system work and can… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Ethical issues
To Track Coronavirus, Israel Moves to Tap Secret Trove of Cellphone Data
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has authorized the country’s internal security agency to tap into a vast and previously undisclosed trove of cellphone data to retrace the movements of people who have contracted the coronavirus and identify others who should be quarantined because their paths crossed. Source: New York Times Date: March 19th, 2020… Read more »
How computers wrote BBC election stories
For the first time, BBC News published a news story for every constituency that declared election results overnight – all written by a computer. It was the BBC’s biggest test of machine-generated journalism so far. Each of nearly 700 articles – most in English but 40 of them in Welsh – was checked by a… Read more »
The Chinese suicides prevented by AI from afar
Li Fan, a 21-year-old student, attempted suicide after posting a brief message on the Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo just after Valentine’s Day. “I can’t go on anymore. I’m going to give up,” he wrote. Soon after, he lost consciousness. He was in debt, had fallen out with his mother and was suffering from severe depression…. Read more »
Want to run faster? Improve your algorithm
Runner Guillaume Adam wants to go faster, further and for longer. Like many modern runners, the former French national team member uses technology as a key element in helping him hit a new personal best. Gadgets are as essential a part of a runner’s kit as the shoes on their feet. Few head out these… Read more »
China facial recognition: Law professor sues wildlife park
A university professor is suing a wildlife park for enforcing facial recognition, in one of the first significant legal challenges to China’s rapidly growing use of the technology. It is an issue that has become a matter of heated debate. Prof Guo Bing says the Hangzhou Safari Park is “violating consumer protection law by compulsorily collecting… Read more »
Facebook moderation firm Cognizant quits
Cognizant, a professional services firm, is to stop moderating “objectionable” content on behalf of Facebook and other internet firms. It follows an investigation by The Verge into working conditions and the mental health of employees working at an Arizona moderation centre on behalf of the social network. Cognizant also has workers in India, Europe and Latin America…. Read more »
Microsoft launches $25M program to use AI for disabilities
Microsoft is launching a $25 million initiative to use artificial intelligence to build better technology for people with disabilities. CEO Satya Nadella announced the new “AI for Accessibility” effort as he kicked off Microsoft’s annual conference for software developers. The Build conference in Seattle is meant to foster enthusiasm for the company’s latest ventures in… Read more »
China and Taiwan clash over Wikipedia edits
Ask Google or Siri: “What is Taiwan?” “A state”, they will answer, “in East Asia”. But earlier in September, it would have been a “province in the People’s Republic of China”. For questions of fact, many search engines, digital assistants and phones all point to one place: Wikipedia. And Wikipedia had suddenly changed. The edit… Read more »
‘Racist’ AI art warns against bad training data
An artificial-intelligence art project has been criticised for using racist and sexist tags to classify its users. When they share a selfie with ImageNet Roulette, the web app matches it to the ones it most closely resembles from an enormous library of profile photos. It then reveals the most popular tag, assigned to the matching pictures… Read more »
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