Groggy greeting from somewhere above the clouds. I’m on the worlds coldest plane en route to CIVICUS week in Bangkok, and then the Defend the Defenders conference in Kampala. This is part of myself and Pete’s work supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Assembly and Association, in advance of her upcoming report on digital surveillance and chilling effects. Call for input is online, and if you’re about please drop me a line.
As you can imagine, not at my freshest, so will let the below speak for itself. Hopefully interestingly!
Update: This was put together on Wednesday, but its taken me until Saturday to clean up the hyper links. In the meantime the Met police have released their report on live facial recognition. I haven’t had a chance to read yet, so no comment. Although, did write a book about it 🙂 The Met press release is here. The full PDF of the Met report here. Big Brother Watch’s comment here. BBC story here.
OK two quick comments solely on the basis of BBC article.
8 of 10 false positives were of black people. That calls into serious question the alleged lack of bias in the system (and is also consistent with the results of the Met commissioned study of bias, if memory serves). Actually, given the unbelievably small sample size of that Met study, this comment is somewhat outrageous:
The Met said that although eight out of 10 false alerts involved individuals from black ethnic backgrounds, it was “based on a very small sample size”.
Perhaps it is an after the fact acknowledgement of that study’s flaws? Also, given the nature of the stops, you would absolutely hope there were no arrests on the basis of false positives. I’m not sure thats a major achievement, and doesn’t negate the impact of being stopped and questioned, by a group of police, in public.
Tunes this week we had options. Was leaning towards funky Kingston (toots/roots) but instead – and in the interests of calm before the chaos – I’ll leave you with the queen, Fairouz, and Ma Kederet Neseet. Just gorgeous.
Be well, be safe, be kind
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BBC, Facial recognition cameras on the way
ASPI, Artificial intelligence and the future of espionage
The Hill, Sanders: Government should break up OpenAI
The Hill, Anthropic makes waves in DC
The Hill, Musk launches Grokipedia, AI-powered alternative to Wikipedia
Noyb.eu, Criminal complaint against facial recognition company Clearview AI
The Register, Clearview AI faces criminal heat for ignoring EU data fines
Al Shabaka, AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation
Big Brother Watch, Big Issue – UK faces another Post Office Horizon scandal unless plans to snoop on benefit claimants are stopped
WIRED, Tinder Launches Mandatory Facial Verification to Weed Out Bots and Scammers
The Guardian, US expands facial recognition technology at borders to track non-citizens
BBC, Would you really trust a robot to care for you in old age?
BBC, Armed police handcuff teen after AI mistakes crisp packet for gun in US
BBC, The debate: Are facial recognition cameras in shops a step too far?
Financial Times, Criminals using AI are driving sharp rise in UK fraud cases
The Conversation, Historical images made with AI recycle colonial stereotypes and bias – new research
Washington Post, Woman sent husband AI photos of intruder as a prank. He called 911.
New York Times, With ‘Vibecoding,’ A.I. Can Help Anyone Build an App
WIRED, Rise of the Killer Chatbots
WIRED, AI’s Next Frontier? An Algorithm for Consciousness
WIRED, I Tried to Have Sex With AI Clive Owen
WIRED, AI of a Thousand Faces
The Register, Sora users trick platform into creating racist celeb videos
MIT Tech Review, An AI app to measure pain is here
MIT Tech Review, A bionic knee restores natural movement
MIT Tech Review, Job titles of the future: AI embryologist
Blogs
NRF LLP, Thailand’s New AI Guideline | Inside Tech Law
Golden Data, The Big Bad Schrems and the End of Transatlantic Fairy Tales