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Vance knocks globalization's 'cheap labor' and lauds 'America's great industrial comeback' at AI summit

FOX News

Vice President JD Vance joined the American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C., March 18 to discuss the future of AI. WASHINGTON -- Vice President JD Vance knocked recent globalization efforts that use "cheap labor as a crutch" while simultaneously hampering innovation on the global scale during a Tuesday tech and artificial intelligence speech. "Our workers, the populists, on the one hand, the tech optimists on the other, have been failed by this government," he said. "Not just the government of the last administration, but the government in some ways of the last 40 years, because there were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization." Vance explained that recent globalization efforts falsely assumed that world leaders could "separate the making of things from the design of things," citing the belief was that poorer nations would create goods such as cellphones, while wealthier nations would move "further up the value change."


AI Is Turbocharging Organized Crime, E.U. Police Agency Warns

TIME - Tech

"By creating highly realistic synthetic media, criminals are able to deceive victims, impersonate individuals and discredit or blackmail targets. The addition of AI-powered voice cloning and live video deepfakes amplifies the threat, enabling new forms of fraud, extortion, and identity theft," it said. States seeking geopolitical advantage are also using criminals as contractors, the report said, citing cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure and public institutions "originating from Russia and countries in its sphere of influence." "Hybrid and traditional cybercrime actors will increasingly be intertwined, with state-sponsored actors masking themselves as cybercriminals to conceal their origin and real disruption motives," it said. Polish Interior Ministry Undersecretary of State Maciej Duszczyk cited a recent cyberattack on a hospital as the latest example in his country.


Commerce Department divisions reportedly ban DeepSeek from government devices

Engadget

Several Department of Commerce bureaus are said to have told staff not to use DeepSeek's AI chatbot on government devices. "To help keep Department of Commerce information systems safe, access to the new Chinese based AI DeepSeek is broadly prohibited on all [government-furnished equipment]," one bureau told staff in an email, Reuters reports. "Do not download, view, access any applications, desktop apps or websites related to DeepSeek." The extent of any DeepSeek ban within the government as a whole is not yet known. Several states -- including New York, Texas and Virginia -- have banned DeepSeek from government devices.


The Download: speaking to robots, and growing pharmaceutical mushrooms

MIT Technology Review

Is robotics about to have its own ChatGPT moment? Researchers are using generative AI and other techniques to teach robots new skills--including tasks they could perform in homes. Studies have indicated that psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and MDMA, have swift-acting and enduring antidepressant effects. Though the US Food and Drug Administration denied the first application for medical treatments involving psychedelics (an MDMA-based therapy) last August, these drugs appear to be on the road to mainstream medicine. Research into psilocybin has been slowed in part by the complexity of the trials, but the data already shows promise for the psychedelic compound within so-called magic mushrooms.


Trump tells illegal immigrants to 'self-deport' using CBP Home app in new video

FOX News

Tech expert Kurt'CyberGuy' Knutsson joins'Fox & Friends' to discuss DHS launching the revamped CBP One app as CBP Home and Elon Musk claiming a cyberattack on X was traced to Ukraine. President Donald Trump will urge illegal immigrants to "self-deport" from the U.S. using a newly announced app from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Axios reported Monday. Trump will send the message in a video set to release on social media platforms this week, calling on illegal immigrants to use the CBP Home app to announce their departure from the country. The DHS unveiled the app earlier this month after removing the Biden-era CBP One app, which was used to allow migrants into the U.S. "People in our country can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way, and that's not pleasant," Trump says in the video. "The Biden administration exploited the CBP One app to allow more than 1 million aliens to illegally enter the United States. Now, my administration is launching the CBP Home app to give people in our country illegally an easy way to leave now and self-deport voluntarily," he continues.


Why US must assert industrial dominance in light of China-Europe ties

FOX News

As President Donald Trump has argued, America's economic security is our national security, whether it's reshoring jobs in critical industries or promoting robust commerce to create the jobs and technologies that will drive the world economy during this new Golden Age and into the future. America is already the leader in AI, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, energy and more – but that position can still be threatened not just by China, our greatest economic adversary, but also by some of our oldest allies in the European Union. As China seeks to weaken the U.S. and expand its global influence, it's eyeing the 27-nation EU as a partner against American industry. In critical sectors – auto manufacturing, clean energy, technology, aerospace and defense – China is tightening its grip on European markets. In critical sectors – auto manufacturing, clean energy, technology, aerospace and defense – China is tightening its grip on European markets.


Why is Elon Musk still CEO of Tesla?

The Guardian

In this week's edition: Elon Musk suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Apple beats itself up over Siri, and Meta goes after one of its own over a tell-all book. The past 10 days have marked several of the most significant setbacks for Musk in months. Tesla, arguably his marquee company, continued to fall in value as investors worried about the threat of trade war and possible recession – as well as declining profits. Escalating protests against the company over the billionaire's role in the government also grew in number and intensity across the US, coupled with rising cases of vandalism and social stigma against his cars. SpaceX has also struggled, with one of its rockets dramatically exploding in midflight last week and then an announcement that it was delaying a rescue mission to retrieve "stranded" astronauts. The company tried again two days later.


Performing arts leaders issue copyright warning over UK government's AI plans

The Guardian

More than 30 performing arts leaders in the UK, including the bosses of the National Theatre, Opera North and the Royal Albert Hall, have joined the chorus of creative industry concern about the government's plans to let artificial intelligence companies use artists' work without permission. They also urged the government to support the "moral and economic rights" of the creative community in music, dance, drama and opera. The 35 signatories of the statement include the chief executives of the Sadler's Wells dance theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Leeds Playhouse. The performing arts bosses added that they embraced advances in technology and were "participants" in innovation, but stated the government's plans risked undermining their ability to participate in the development and deployment of AI. Critics of the opt out plan have described it as unfair and impractical.


International Agreements on AI Safety: Review and Recommendations for a Conditional AI Safety Treaty

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The malicious use or malfunction of advanced general-purpose AI (GPAI) poses risks that, according to leading experts, could lead to the 'marginalisation or extinction of humanity.' To address these risks, there are an increasing number of proposals for international agreements on AI safety. In this paper, we review recent (2023-) proposals, identifying areas of consensus and disagreement, and drawing on related literature to assess their feasibility. We focus our discussion on risk thresholds, regulations, types of international agreement and five related processes: building scientific consensus, standardisation, auditing, verification and incentivisation. Based on this review, we propose a treaty establishing a compute threshold above which development requires rigorous oversight. This treaty would mandate complementary audits of models, information security and governance practices, overseen by an international network of AI Safety Institutes (AISIs) with authority to pause development if risks are unacceptable. Our approach combines immediately implementable measures with a flexible structure that can adapt to ongoing research.


Iffy-Or-Not: Extending the Web to Support the Critical Evaluation of Fallacious Texts

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Social platforms have expanded opportunities for deliberation with the comments being used to inform one's opinion. However, using such information to form opinions is challenged by unsubstantiated or false content. To enhance the quality of opinion formation and potentially confer resistance to misinformation, we developed Iffy-Or-Not (ION), a browser extension that seeks to invoke critical thinking when reading texts. With three features guided by argumentation theory, ION highlights fallacious content, suggests diverse queries to probe them with, and offers deeper questions to consider and chat with others about. From a user study (N=18), we found that ION encourages users to be more attentive to the content, suggests queries that align with or are preferable to their own, and poses thought-provoking questions that expands their perspectives. However, some participants expressed aversion to ION due to misalignments with their information goals and thinking predispositions. Potential backfiring effects with ION are discussed.