The EU has stopped sanctioning Russian hackers and started sanctioning the machine that makes them
The EU has stopped sanctioning Russian hackers and started sanctioning the machine that makes them

The European Union and the United Kingdom have jointly sanctioned Russia’s cyber apparatus for the first time. The EU listed nine individuals and four entities, while the UK went further with 24, Politico reports. The language is what matters here. The…

Meta’s AI detector can’t catch its own cropped fakes
Meta’s AI detector can’t catch its own cropped fakes

The Meta AI detector promises to catch Meta’s own fakes. Crop the image, and more than half slip straight past it. The tool was meant to be a fix for the deepfake problem, not an example of it. This week Meta previewed an image detector alongside Muse …

LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire, citing ‘serious concerns’ over civil liberties and privacy

The LAPD, one of Flock’s biggest government customers, is ending its contract with the company citing civil liberties concerns.

Cure cancer, cage the chatbots: Congress’s contradictory week on AI
Cure cancer, cage the chatbots: Congress’s contradictory week on AI

In the space of about ten days, US lawmakers introduced a small mountain of artificial-intelligence legislation. The bills, rounded up by Nextgov/FCW, pull in two opposite directions at once. One set treats AI as a tool the government should be deployi…

The EU says autoplay and infinite scroll are illegal. Meta has until it responds to disagree.
The EU says autoplay and infinite scroll are illegal. Meta has until it responds to disagree.

The European Commission issued preliminary findings on Friday accusing Meta of building Facebook and Instagram to be addictive, giving the company a formal opportunity to respond before Brussels reaches a final decision that could trigger fines of up t…

Meta killed its Muse Image AI feature three days after launch. Hollywood had had enough.
Meta killed its Muse Image AI feature three days after launch. Hollywood had had enough.

Meta has pulled its Muse Image AI feature from Instagram and the Meta AI app just three days after launch, saying the tool “missed the mark” on user privacy. The model, the first image generator to emerge from Meta Superintelligence Labs under chief AI…

Europe torched its own rulebook to please business, and business is still unhappy
Europe torched its own rulebook to please business, and business is still unhappy

Twenty months into the EU’s campaign to slash red tape, many of the businesses that demanded it are unimpressed. Firms told Politico the “simplification” drive is too slow, too costly, and too complicated. Politico spoke to 17 companies, consultancies,…

A US senator has a plan to make AI answer for its harms. It starts with your local data centre
A US senator has a plan to make AI answer for its harms. It starts with your local data centre

The fight over AI’s harms has played out state by state. One US senator wants to make it federal, all at once. Ed Markey has a long list of worries about artificial intelligence. Thirsty data centres. Workplace surveillance. Biased algorithms. Chatbots…

Home robots already walk. 1X’s new hands try to solve the part that actually matters
Home robots already walk. 1X’s new hands try to solve the part that actually matters

Humanoid robots learned to walk years ago. The thing still tripping them up is the hand. 1X has given its NEO home robot new hands, and they are the most interesting thing about it. A robot can stride across a stage and still be useless in a kitchen. L…

UK shops are about to get a four-second line to the police, powered by your face
UK shops are about to get a four-second line to the police, powered by your face

Walk into a shop with the wrong face on file, and the police could know within four seconds. That is the pitch, and the problem. A facial recognition system in more than 100 UK shops is about to start calling the police in real time. It will fire the m…