Chat:
Big news on bans this week, as the European Parliament votes to (partially) ban AI surveillance tools (in certain circumstances), and Illinois bans police from using facial recognition and drones (in certain circumstances – the imminent escape of a suspect seems quite loose?). It will be interesting to see if the drone ban gives rise to an authorisation mechanism, maybe like OCDA here in the UK.
There is also a really interesting piece on problems linked to training AI models on AI generated content.
Kashmir HIll, who has done incredible work on facial recognition and technology in general, has a new book coming out ‘Your Face Belongs to Us’, now available for pre-order.
You may also be interested in watching a talk on AI and Human Rights in the context of Israel’s surveillance of the Palestinians, I haven’t watched it yet, but this follows Amnesty’s report on Automated Apartheid, documenting israel’s use of facial recognition in the west bank – i’m working to insane deadlines at the moment so haven’t had a chance to read this yet either, but am looking forward to it once things calm down. In August
Obviously, the AI news of the week is that the Beatles Will Release One Last Song. It was an old demo that John Lennon recorded on boom box and left in a ‘for Paul’ pile. AI was used to isolate the instruments, etc, in order to create different tracks, remove noise. Its quite a cool use of the tech, and I guess doesn’t give rise to the same intellectual property concerns as other uses of AI (particularly of voices) in music. Its apparently based on techniques used during the Get Back documentary series, which now allows Paul to play ‘live’ with John on his current tour. The last ‘new’ songs were pretty pants though, so not holding out for ‘A Day in the Life’.
Have a lovely week, couldn’t decide on today’s songs, super funky, or super chill.
The Register, No-No Cop: Illinois bans drones from using facial recognition or weapons (to my shame, i just got the pun as i typed this).
WIRED, Talitrix Prison-Monitoring System Tracks Inmates Down to Their Heart Rate
Venture Beat, The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of ‘model collapse’ as AI trains on AI-generated content | VentureBeat
Foreign Policy, Facebook Will Set a Precedent With Cambodia’s Hun Sen (content moderation)
NYT Opinion, ‘One of the last bastions of digital privacy is under threat’
Financial Times, AI in Recruitment: The Death Knell of the CV?
EDRI, Bits of Freedom monthly update on human rights & tech: April 2023
Financial Time, Best summer books of 2023: Technology
Towards Data Science, How GPT works: A Metaphoric Explanation of Key, Value, Query in Attention, using a Tale of Potion
Reports:
Human Rights Watch, Automated Neglect: How the World Bank’s Push to Allocate Cash Assistance Using Algorithms Threatens Rights’
Ada Lovelace Institute, Regulating AI in the UK: three tests for the Government’s plans
UNESCO, Reporting on artificial intelligence: A handbook for journalism educators
Blogs:
RAILS, Attributing Legal Consequences to and from AI Systems
EJIL:Talk! Artificial Intelligence and International Criminal Law – EJIL: Talk!