11 October 2023 (more or less)

Greetings.

So, I’ll kick things off with an apology to those of you who receive this as an actual newsletter, as you haven’t been receiving it. Some SPAM company cunningly infiltrated the mailing list resulting in the cancellation of the mail out functionality. It should be sorted soon, hopefully – if all is going to plan you might even be reading this from the comfort of your own inbox.

Not really sure where to start this week, other than with total solidarity to everyone in Israel & Palestine affected by the current horrors, and the horrors that are coming.

To be honest, I don’t think there’s too much more I can say than that.

I’ll sign off with Dark was the night, Cold was the Ground. Apparently this record was included on the Voyager space mission, as a way of communicating part of our humanity: “Johnson’s song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.” Seems appropriate this week.

Thanks as every to Sarah Zarmsky.

BBC News, AI: Voice cloning tech emerges in Sudan civil war 

BBC, Generative AI at the BBC 

MIT Technology Review, How generative AI is boosting the spread of disinformation and propaganda

Telegraph, Robotaxi parks on woman’s leg after running her over 

Electronic Frontier Foundation, GAO Report Shows the Government Uses Face Recognition with No Accountability, Transparency, or Training 

Tom’s Hardware, Raspberry Pi Tracks Unseen Drones Using Sound 

ZDNET, Is AI lying to us? These researchers built an LLM lie detector of sorts to find out  

Roll Call, Threats like AI-aided bioweapons confound policymakers 

UNESCO, An algorithm to combat school dropout in Argentina

UNESCO, Education in the age of artificial intelligence  

The Register, AI girlfriend encouraged man to attempt crossbow assassination of Queen 

The Guardian, UK data watchdog issues Snapchat enforcement notice over AI chatbot

The Washington Post, Meta and X questioned by lawmakers over lack of rules against AI-generated political deepfakes

The Guardian, Artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT to be allowed in Australian schools from 2024

Financial Times, Broken ‘guardrails’ for AI systems lead to push for new safety measures

Financial Times, We need a political Alan Turing to design AI safeguards

WIRED, Generative AI Has Ushered In the Next Phase of Digital Spirituality      

WIRED, AI Chatbots Are Learning to Spout Authoritarian Propaganda 

The Guardian, Female-founded AI startups win just 2% of funding deals in UK

WIRED, AI Algorithms Are Biased Against Skin With Yellow Hues

The Register, Academics blast holes in AI-made images’ watermark security

Financial Times, When it comes to AI and democracy, we cannot be careful enough

BBC News, AI facial recognition: Campaigners and MPs call for ban

BBC News, Police access to passport photos ‘risks public trust’ 

The Washington Post, Opinion | Ellis Rosen cartoon on facial-recognition databases

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, UK: Snapchat’s AI chatbot under scrutiny for alleged privacy risks to children

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, UN Secretary General & ICRC call on states to establish new rules on autonomous weapon systems to protect humanity

Big Brother Watch, 65 parliamentarians call for “immediate stop” to live facial recognition surveillance    

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Study reveals the perils of AI-driven search engines in influencing voter information      

Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Watch responds to Government plans to create a giant facial recognition database out of passport photos 

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, OPT/Israel: 7amleh NGO warns against proposed bill advancing facial recognition surveillance in public spaces

Defense One, Taiwan is using generative AI to fight Chinese disinfo  

Blog Posts

The Digital Constitutionalist, Symposium on Safeguarding the Right to Good Administration in the Age of AI

Communications of the ACM Blog, Can AI be fair? 

Just Security, Using AI to Comply With Book Bans Makes Those Laws More Dangerous 

The Conversation, The dawn of domestic robots could dramatically cut gender inequality when it comes to household work 

Academic Literature

*Disclaimer: The following articles, chapters, and books have not been evaluated for their methodology and do not necessarily reflect the views of the AI & Human Right Blog 

Jude Browne, Stephen Cave, Eleanor Drage, and Kerry McInerney, Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Algorithms, Data, and Intelligent Machines 

Cameron Hunter and Bleddyn E Bowen, We’ll never have a model of an AI major-general: Artificial Intelligence, command decisions, and kitsch visions of war

Claudia Aradau, Borders have always been artificial: Migration, data and AI 

Sreejith Balasubramanian, Vinaya Shukla, Nazrul Islam, Arvind Upadhyay and Linh Duong, Applying artificial intelligence in healthcare: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic 

Michael Mayer, Trusting machine intelligence: artificial intelligence and human-autonomy teaming in military operations 

Media

Sophie Wang and Taylor M Cruz, AI for Whose Good? Lessons from Community Resistance to Automation at the Port of Los Angeles

Calls for Papers

Call for contributions: Shifting AI: Controversies Prompts, Provocations, and Problematisations for Society-Centered AI 

EventsUCALL Conference 2023: Autonomy, Algorithms and Accountability

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