Greetings, and welcome to the AI & Human Rights newsletter. 24 January 2024 edition.
So, inevitably, we’re going to kick off with some facial recognition. First, a not super interactive quiz: did you know that Cheshire Constabulary are using retrospective facial recognition for systematic monitoring, tracking individuals location & behaviour, & carrying out profiling, evaluation & scoring? That was rhetorical. They are. At least according to their Data Protection Impact Assessment. This represents quite a radical shift in police surveillance capability, and it has really flown under the radar (until now!) which is a little troubling.
WIRED have a story on how police in the US have generated a model of a face on the basis of DNA samples and then used this as the probe image for facial recognition searches. Oh so many issues. TL;DR. It didn’t work. But, if you think you can do better, you can test yourself and try to figure out which of these faces are AI generated. It’s a bit of a revelation. For this newsletter at least.
Moving on to our periodic AI for Good section, there’s an interesting piece on using AI to combat racial segregation in South Africa, in terms of access to housing and resources. Worth a read I think. There’s also a story on AI’s role in early detection of pancreatic cancer, and its role in letting us know we’re actually all drinking plastic.
In the AI for Not So Good Section the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK is apparently going to use automated social media monitoring to detect fraud. I’d like to see the impact assessment. The risk of discriminatory outcomes, and stigmatisation around ‘poor shaming’ seem absolutely huge. I’d also love to know what the cost to the economy of social welfare fraud is compared to white collar fraud, tax evasion, etc.
I’ll leave on a positive note with this story of how 21st century hero Ashley Beauchamp struck one back against our robot overlords (/DPD’s chatbot).
Hope you all have a good week, a lovely weekend, and that January ends soon.
Thanks as ever to Sarah Zarmsky.
OK, January didn’t end that soon and things are still a bit glum, so I’ll leave you with some Disco infused sunshine in the shape of Soul Makossa. Apparently this was one of the first records to set the template for disco after Dave Mancuso found it and started playing it at the Loft. This essential knowledge comes from a good 3-part documentary on Disco thats up on BBC iPlayer if you’re so inclined.
Be good.
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Modern War Institute, Trust But Verify: US Troops, Artificial Intelligence, and an Uneasy Partnership
Sky News, DPD customer service chatbot swears and calls company ‘worst delivery firm’
JDSupra, Voice to be a New Property Right of Musical Artists to Protect Against Unauthorized “Soundalikes”
Biometric Update, India govt blocks plans to procure facial recognition, drones to monitor election
The Times of India, Election Commission Cancels Government Tender for Surveillance Equipment
PC Tablet, Microsoft’s Controversial Copilot AI Test: A Step Too Far for Privacy?
ABC News Australia, Risky AI tools to operate under mandatory safeguards, as government lays out response to rapid rise of AI
AI News, Google announces UK data centre to meet ‘growing demand’ for AI
Insider Higher Ed, AIs enrolling as students in Michigan university’s experiment
Bloomberg, AI Certification Program Verifies Systems Are ‘Fairly Trained’
Bloomberg, Bottled Water Contains More Plastic Particles Than Previously Thought
Reuters, How technology and artificial intelligence are bolstering the battle against wildfires
The Asahi Shimbun, Robots key to new ways of farming as labor shortage looms
MIT Technology Review, How satellite images and AI could help fight spatial apartheid in South Africa
MIT Technology Review, A new AI-based risk prediction system could help catch deadly pancreatic cancer cases earlier
MIT Technology Review, Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024
Foreign Policy, What AI Will Do to Elections
UNESCO, Launch of the UNESCO AI Readiness Assessment Report for Chile
The Guardian, OpenAI bans bot impersonating US presidential candidate Dean Phillips
Financial Times, Avatars, robots and AI: Japan turns to innovation to tackle labour crisis
The Guardian, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin among thousands of British artists used to train AI software, Midjourney
The Washington Post, AI bots are everywhere now. These telltale words give them away.
The Washington Post, AI could flag patients’ dangerous alcohol use before surgery
The Register, How artists can poison their pics with deadly Nightshade to deter AI scrapers
The Washington Post, Silicon Valley insiders are trying to unseat Biden with help from AI
The New York Times, Test Yourself: Which Faces Were Made by A.I.?
The Register, FDA approves AI-powered skin cancer-screening device
Financial Times, For all our fear of AI dystopia, it may help to level up society
WIRED, AI Hits the Campaign Trail
The Guardian, Big tech firms recklessly pursuing profits from AI, says UN head
Financial Times, How AI is decoding the animal kingdom
WIRED, A Flaw in Millions of Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm GPUs Could Expose AI Data
The New York Times, Artificial Intelligence, Ukraine, China — The Big Buzz at Davos
The New Yorker, A Facial-Recognition Tour of New York
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, AI hiring chatbot breach exposes alarming privacy violations and hiring concerns in fast food industry
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, UK: Deepfake video ads of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Facebook raise alarm over AI risk to general elections
Defense One, How often does ChatGPT push misinformation?
WIRED, Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face—and Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It
Blog Posts
The Conversation, Lawyers are rapidly embracing AI: here’s how to avoid an ethical disaster
The Conversation, Face recognition technology follows a long analog history of surveillance and control based on identifying physical features
The Conversation, How AI threatens free speech – and what must be done about it
The Conversation, Fowl language: AI is learning to analyze chicken communications to help us understand what all the clucking’s about
The Conversation, What social robots can teach America’s students
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
R. W. Painter, Deepfake 2024: Will Citizens United and Artificial Intelligence Together Destroy Representative Democracy?
C. Novelli et al., Generative AI in EU Law: Liability, Privacy, Intellectual Property, and Cybersecurity
A. Vwen Yen Lee, Staying ahead with generative artificial intelligence for learning: challenges and opportunities
D. Drollette Jr., Interview with Sneha Revanur, “the Greta Thunberg of AI”
Media
Ted Talks, Joy Buolamwini: How to protect your rights in the age of AI