Tag: technews

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A coalition of 20 tech companies signed an agreement Friday to help prevent AI deepfakes in the critical 2024 elections taking place in more than 40 countries. OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, Adobe and X are among the businesses joining the pact to prevent and combat AI-generated content that could influence voters. However, the agreement’s vague language and lack of binding enforcement call into question whether it goes far enough.

The list of companies signing the “Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections” includes those that create and distribute AI models, as well as social platforms where the deepfakes are most likely to pop up. The signees are Adobe, Amazon, Anthropic, Arm, ElevenLabs, Google, IBM, Inflection AI, LinkedIn, McAfee, Meta, Microsoft, Nota, OpenAI, Snap Inc., Stability AI, TikTok, Trend Micro, Truepic and X (formerly Twitter).

The group describes the agreement as “a set of commitments to deploy technology countering harmful AI-generated content meant to deceive voters.” The signees have agreed to the following eight commitments:

• Developing and implementing technology to mitigate risks related to Deceptive AI Election content, including open-source tools where appropriate

• Assessing models in scope of this accord to understand the risks they may present regarding Deceptive AI Election Content

• Seeking to detect the distribution of this content on their platforms

• Seeking to appropriately address this content detected on their platforms

• Fostering cross-industry resilience to deceptive AI election content

• Providing transparency to the public regarding how the company addresses it

• Continuing to engage with a diverse set of global civil society organizations, academics

• Supporting efforts to foster public awareness, media literacy, and all-of-society resilience

The accord will apply to AI-generated audio, video and images. It addresses content that “deceptively fake or alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials, and other key stakeholders in a democratic election, or that provide false information to voters about when, where, and how they can vote.”

The signees say they will work together to create and share tools to detect and address the online distribution of deepfakes. In addition, they plan to drive educational campaigns and “provide transparency” to users.

FABRICE COFFRINI via Getty Images

OpenAI, one of the signees, already said last month it plans to suppress election-related misinformation worldwide. Images generated with the company’s DALL-E 3 tool will be encoded with a classifier providing a digital watermark to clarify their origin as AI-generated pictures. The ChatGPT maker said it would also work with journalists, researchers and platforms for feedback on its provenance classifier. It also plans to prevent chatbots from impersonating candidates.

“We’re committed to protecting the integrity of elections by enforcing policies that prevent abuse and improving transparency around AI-generated content,” Anna Makanju, Vice President of Global Affairs at OpenAI, wrote in the group’s joint press release. “We look forward to working with industry partners, civil society leaders and governments around the world to help safeguard elections from deceptive AI use.”

Notably absent from the list is Midjourney, the company with an AI image generator (of the same name) that currently produces some of the most convincing fake photos. However, the company said earlier this month it would consider banning political generations altogether during election season. Last year, Midjourney was used to create a viral fake image of Pope Benedict unexpectedly strutting down the street with a puffy white jacket. One of Midjourney’s closest competitors, Stability AI (makers of the open-source Stable Diffusion), did participate. Engadget contacted Midjourney for comment about its absence, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

Only Apple is absent among Silicon Valley’s “Big Five.” However, that may be explained by the fact that the iPhone maker hasn’t yet launched any generative AI products, nor does it host a social media platform where deepfakes could be distributed. Regardless, we contacted Apple PR for clarification but hadn’t heard back at the time of publication.

Although the general principles the 20 companies agreed to sound like a promising start, it remains to be seen whether a loose set of agreements without binding enforcement will be enough to combat a nightmare scenario where the world’s bad actors use generative AI to sway public opinion and elect aggressively anti-democratic candidates — in the US and elsewhere.

“The language isn’t quite as strong as one might have expected,” Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told The Associated Press on Friday. “I think we should give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge that the companies do have a vested interest in their tools not being used to undermine free and fair elections. That said, it is voluntary, and we’ll be keeping an eye on whether they follow through.”

AI-generated deepfakes have already been used in the US Presidential Election. As early as April 2023, the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran an ad using AI-generated images of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The campaign for Ron DeSantis, who has since dropped out of the GOP primary, followed with AI-generated images of rival and likely nominee Donald Trump in June 2023. Both included easy-to-miss disclaimers that the images were AI-generated.

Anadolu via Getty Images

In January, an AI-generated deepfake of President Biden’s voice was used by two Texas-based companies to robocall New Hampshire voters, urging them not to vote in the state’s primary on January 23. The clip, generated using ElevenLabs’ voice cloning tool, reached up to 25,000 NH voters, according to the state’s attorney general. ElevenLabs is among the pact’s signees.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) acted quickly to prevent further abuses of voice-cloning tech in fake campaign calls. Earlier this month, it voted unanimously to ban AI-generated robocalls. The (seemingly eternally deadlocked) US Congress hasn’t passed any AI legislation. In December, the European Union (EU) agreed on an expansive AI Act safety development bill that could influence other nations’ regulatory efforts.

“As society embraces the benefits of AI, we have a responsibility to help ensure these tools don’t become weaponized in elections,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote in a press release. “AI didn’t create election deception, but we must ensure it doesn’t help deception flourish.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-openai-google-and-others-agree-to-combat-election-related-deepfakes-203942157.html?src=rss

Epic Games just announced that Apple has finally reinstated its iOS developer account in the European Union. This means that the developer plans to launch a digital storefront for iOS devices sometime this year. More importantly, this will allow users to easily download Fortnite on iPhones.

The company revealed that it would be bringing its games store and Fortnite to iOS back in January, but it wasn’t clear if Apple would grant it a developer account. This account makes it much easier for developers to distribute apps and content across Apple’s various platforms.

This is all thanks to the EU’s new Digital Markets Act, which officially goes into effect on March 7. The law designates large services as “gatekeepers,” like Apple’s App Store, and commands them to become interoperable with competing products to remain in compliance. As far as enforcement in this case, the DMA will all developers to take payments and distribute apps on iOS from outside of official App Store. Apps sold by a third-party sales platform still need to be approved by Apple, via the company’s Notarization process, to spot and remove potentially harmful content.

There’s been a lot of bad blood between Apple and Epic ever since the latter company began using its own in-app payment option in the iOS version of Fortnite. Using it’s own payment processing, the 30 percent cut of cosmetic upgrades and power-ups it sold to Fortnite players was no longer landing in Apple’s pockets. This launched a lengthy legal battle in the US over whether or not Apple’s walled-garden approach was anticompetitive. Epic sued Apple and Apple banned Epic from its platform. 

A judge recently issued a permanent injunction that gives developers a way to avoid the 30 percent cut of sales that Apple takes via its in-house payment system. This seemed to satisfy neither company. Apple wasn’t happy about being forced to allow third-party payment options on its platform. Epic was unhappy regarding the language of the injunction, in which it was decided that Apple did not have a monopoly on mobile gaming and did not violate antitrust law by banning competing app marketplaces.

Apple is also allowed to arrange fee structures to dissuade developers from using a third-party payment option. It’s widely expected that the ruling, as it stands, will not reduce Apple’s current 30 percent cut of App Store sales in any meaningful way. Both companies appealed. California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s rulings. The companies took their appeals to the US Supreme Court, but the court refused to hear them. That’s where we stand right now.

As all of this was happening on this side of the pond, the EU passed the aforementioned Digital Markets Act, which also forced Apple’s hand into allowing third-party storefronts on iOS devices. There’s no ongoing legal battle in Europe between the two companies, so EU residents will get to play Fortnite again. Americans will have to rely on Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now to get the popular shooter running on their Apple device.

In any event, maybe things are cooling off a bit between the two companies. It’s worth noting that Disney recently bought an equity stake in Epic Games, to the tune of $1.5 billion. Apple and Disney are known to be particularly cozy.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/epic-plans-to-launch-its-own-ios-storefront-in-the-eu-this-year-192358893.html?src=rss

Engadget has always been a scrappy team, but there are only so many news stories, reviews, reports and buying guides our staff can write in a given week. As such, we’re looking to add some reliable contributing writers to our team who know their way around the tech space and can turn around some fast, clean copy to boot. We are looking for writers across a variety of disciplines: short-form news writing, product reviews and buying guides (what some will call “best lists,” but frankly, we prefer the term guides).

You don’t have to fit all three of those boxes to apply. If you’re looking to contribute to our news desk specifically, the hours we most need help are the very long stretch from 7AM ET to 7PM ET. As such, it would probably be helpful if you were based in North America, or even the UK or Europe. For reviews, features and buying guides, it really doesn’t matter where you’re based so long as you do great work.

What we’re looking for:

• You must already be a published journalist. It’s true that some of us got our start in tech blogging after switching careers, but this time at least, we feel someone who has already worked in a newsroom of some kind is going to have the best chance of success.

• We strongly prefer writers who already have experience writing about consumer tech, gaming, space, science or some combination thereof.

• Being fast is nice, but producing well-written, well-researched copy is paramount.

• You’re generally a good colleague who’s receptive to feedback and understands that sometimes things get chaotic when news is breaking and we have to work quickly and calmly.

And a little about us:

• This is not a staff position; it’s freelance work.

• We pay $32 an hour for news writing. Flat rates for longer pieces vary, starting at $750 for lightly reported features.

• We have several senior editors specializing in news, reviews and buying guides. Depending on your assignment, you may not work with the same editor each time.

• We are a remote newsroom. For all intent and purposes, Slack is our office.

• We are a friendly group, if we do say so ourselves! Many of our teammates have been here for five, 10, almost 15 years, in no small part due to the fact that this is simply a lovely place to work.

Qualified candidates should ping us at [email protected]. Please send a resume and at least three clips. Don’t bother with a cover letter; just a polite, grammatically correct email introducing yourself will do. Please note, there are several of us monitoring this inbox and reviewing resumes. We will respond to applicants who could be a good match.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-is-looking-for-experienced-writers-190906506.html?src=rss