Security/Misinformation

“When Open Source models reach GPT-4 level performance things are going to get intense pretty quickly (especially if you also note the papers on how good GPT-4 is at phishing) I think it is worth planning for now, since crossing that threshold is very likely to happen this year.” / X – https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1758588414260056300

“Huh: “we show that LLM agents can autonomously hack websites, performing tasks as complex as blind database schema extraction and SQL injections without human feedback. Importantly, the agent does not need to know the vulnerability beforehand.” https://t.co/Bkc2gupDWL https://t.co/D0S0iAAEkJ” / X – https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1757937829340967240

Disrupting malicious uses of AI by state-affiliated threat actors – https://openai.com/blog/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-by-state-affiliated-threat-actors

Staying ahead of threat actors in the age of AI | Microsoft Security Blog – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/02/14/staying-ahead-of-threat-actors-in-the-age-of-ai/

Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers are using ChatGPT to improve cyberattacks – The Verge – https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/14/24072706/microsoft-openai-cyberattack-tools-ai-chatgpt

Provenance, Watermarking & Deepfake Detection – a society-ethics Collection – https://huggingface.co/collections/society-ethics/provenance-watermarking-and-deepfake-detection-65c6792b0831983147bb7578

White House to ‘Cryptographically Verify’ Official Communications As AI Deep Fakes Surge – https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-cryptographically-verify-official-communications-ai-deep-fakes-surge-2024-2

Meta will start detecting and labeling AI-generated images from other companies | TechSpot – https://www.techspot.com/news/101779-meta-start-detecting-labeling-ai-generated-images-other.html

Open-Source Security Chip Released – IEEE Spectrum – https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-titan-chip

“Jensen Huang just called for all countries to develop ‘Sovereign AI’ at the World Government Summit in Dubai. In other words, data is the new gold, and every country needs to own the production of its own artificial intelligence. “You cannot allow that to be done by other… https://t.co/f5gK5uqp5V” / X – https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1757080008135258258

Regulation/Legal

“This paper argues that the point of control over AI development is compute. If governments intervene in AI, that is the most effective target for regulation (or subsidies). It also includes this chart, which shows the scaling law at work. Look at that Y-axis to see rapid change. https://t.co/e1G6RBHSVk” / X – https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1757884534455144817

“We’re signing the Tech Accord, with the goal of helping protect the integrity of upcoming elections. https://t.co/O2QGQqEXGg” / X – https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758570334717145248

AI Elections accord – A Tech accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections – https://www.aielectionsaccord.com/

Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Key AI Actions Following President Biden’s Landmark Executive Order | The White House – https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/29/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-key-ai-actions-following-president-bidens-landmark-executive-order/

The FCC’s Ban on AI in Robocalls Won’t Be Enough – IEEE Spectrum – https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-robocalls-2667266649

AI robocalls can trick voters. The FCC made them illegal | AP News – https://apnews.com/article/fcc-elections-artificial-intelligence-robocalls-regulations-a8292b1371b3764916461f60660b93e6

USPTO says AI models can’t hold patents | Ars Technica – https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/us-says-ai-models-cant-hold-patents/

Artists score a win against AI art generators in ongoing copyright battle – https://the-decoder.com/artists-score-a-win-against-ai-art-generators-in-ongoing-copyright-battle/

Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against OpenAI partially dismissed – The Verge – https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/13/24072131/sarah-silverman-paul-tremblay-openai-chatgpt-copyright-lawsuit

Ethics

With the rise of AI, web crawlers are suddenly controversial – The Verge – https://www.theverge.com/24067997/robots-txt-ai-text-file-web-crawlers-spiders

How Walmart, Delta & Starbucks are using AI to check employee messages – https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/09/ai-might-be-reading-your-slack-teams-messages-using-tech-from-aware.html

Google Uses AI To Detect Fake Online Reviews Faster – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-uses-ai-to-detect-fake-online-reviews-faster/508093/

AI ‘resurrects’ long dead dictator in murky new era of deepfake electioneering | CNN – https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/asia/suharto-deepfake-ai-scam-indonesia-election-hnk-intl/index.html

Imran Khan Uses A.I. To Give Victory Speech in Pakistan – The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/world/asia/imran-khan-artificial-intelligence-pakistan.html

Sam Altman owns OpenAI’s venture capital fund – https://www.axios.com/2024/02/15/sam-altman-openai-startup-fund

Protesters gather outside OpenAI office, opposing military AI and AGI | VentureBeat – https://venturebeat.com/ai/protesters-gather-outside-openai-office-opposing-military-ai-and-agi/

AI Protest at OpenAI HQ in San Francisco Focuses on Military Work – Bloomberg – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-02-13/ai-protest-at-openai-hq-in-san-francisco-focuses-on-military-work?embedded-checkout=true

“The University of Michigan is facing major backlash. A third-party vendor of the institution advertised datasets of lectures and papers for licensing to AI companies for training LLMs… WITHOUT student consent. Absolutely wild and sad to see. https://t.co/5tuLYEJvMY” / X – https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1758315172991574336

“so i guess this is a thing now universities running ads to resell students’ data for training llms 💰💰💰 https://t.co/8SR0gP6R10” / X – https://twitter.com/suchenzang/status/1758020313689006374

The Rest of Ethics/Legal/Security

Gen Zers think AI skills will give them a career edge – https://www.axios.com/2024/02/12/ai-gen-z-students-workers-school-jobs

AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class – https://www.noemamag.com/how-ai-could-help-rebuild-the-middle-class/

“They don’t want you to know, but the Apple Vision Pro is actually an IVAS. https://t.co/Scp3O4g4ak” / X – https://twitter.com/1akenh/status/1756855296218071462\

Tech Strikes Back

“Accelerationism” is an overdue corrective to years of doom and gloom in Silicon Valley.

Tech Strikes Back

‘Better than a real man’: young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends – https://techxplore.com/news/2024-02-real-young-chinese-women-ai.html
[2402.06922v1] Whispers in the Machine: Confidentiality in LLM-integrated Systems – https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.06922v1

Be Sure To Read “This Week In AI”

This week’s executive overview and top links are here:

AI News #20: Week Ending 02/16/2024 with Executive Summary and Top 39 Stories

The post you just read is an extension of my weekly newsletter, This Week In AI, an executive summary of the top things to know in AI. Each week, I create an accessible overview for laypeople to feel confident they are conversant with the week’s AI developments. I include a curated list of must-click links of the week, to offer everyone a hands-on opportunity to explore the most intriguing updates in artificial intelligence across various categories, including robotics, imagery, video, AR/VR, science, ethics, and more. Beyond the overview, I post these topic-based deeper dives (below). If you haven’t read this week’s overview, I recommend starting there.