The Biden administration may be funding AI research, but it's also hoping to keep companies accountable for their behavior. Vice President Kamala Harris has met the CEOs of Alphabet (Google's parent), Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic in a bid to get more safeguards for AI. Private firms have an "ethical, moral and legal responsibility" to make their AI products safe and secure, Harris says in a statement. She adds that they still have to honor current laws. The Vice President casts generative AI technologies like Bard, Bing Chat and ChatGPT as having the potential to both help and harm the country.

Air raid sirens sounded in Ukraine's Kyiv after residents were subjected to drone attacks, spasms of gunfire and explosions during the fourth attack on the capital in as many days, according to officials. Officials said at least one drone was downed after anti-aircraft units went into action during the raid on Thursday evening, which began just after 8pm (17:00 GMT) and lasted about 20 minutes. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said there had been two impacts from downed drones. "During the last air alert, an unmanned aerial vehicle was spotted over Kyiv. The object was shot down by air defence forces," Kyiv city military administration head Serhiy Popko said on Telegram.

Kyiv and Washington deny involvement in what Russia says was an assassination attempt on President Putin.

So, who fired two drones at the Kremlin in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, and what does the act say about the course of the war in Ukraine? The whole business is a mystery, and may remain so forever, except to those who did the deed. The two questions are, of course, related; the intended impact on the war depends on who launched the weapons. But there might also be separate impacts, depending on who the combatants think fired the shots. So, it may be worth scurrying down the rabbit holes of straight or madcap logic to examine the possibilities.

Tom Newhouse, vice president of Convergence Media, discusses the potential impact of artificial intelligence on elections after an RNC AI ad garnered attention. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., warned this week that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using artificial intelligence to stoke disinformation globally through "deep fakes." "The CCP will stop at nothing to sow chaos and confusion within our country and around the world." Ricketts said at a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing. "Deep fakes are the newest chapter in disinformation operations used to weaken the United States and our allies. We must develop a cross-government strategy to combat these threats."

The Biden administration said Thursday that the U.S. government will ask for public guidance on its own plans to use AI inside government agencies. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said that the agency "will be releasing draft policy guidance on the use of AI systems by the U.S. government for public comment." It comes as administration officials including Vice President Kamala Harris meet with the chief executives of Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI--the four companies at the heart of AI development in the United States. "AI is one of the most powerful technologies of our time, but in order to seize the opportunities it presents, we must first mitigate its risks," the administration said in a statement. "President Biden has been clear that when it comes to AI, we must place people and communities at the center by supporting responsible innovation that serves the public good, while protecting our society, security, and economy."

WASHINGTON--The Biden administration is confronting the rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence, warning of the dangers the technology poses to public safety, privacy and democracy while having limited authority to regulate it. Vice President Kamala Harris, who met Thursday with the chief executives of leading AI companies Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic, said the technology "has the potential to dramatically increase threats to safety and security, infringe civil rights and privacy, and erode public trust and faith in democracy."

A USC sociology, history or dance major may not be attuned to the discipline of quantum computing, but the university's soon to open School of Advanced Computing will open its doors to all -- as well as dramatically expand the number of degrees it confers in technology-related fields, officials announced Thursday. The new University of Southern California school comes at time when jobs for computer and information research scientists are in high demand and fast-growing, projecting to increase 21% from 2021 to 2031, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A major component of the school will be dedicated to teaching data science and information technology to non-computer majors -- an offering that officials say will allow all students to develop their understanding of elements that shape the digital world, such as coding. "We want to develop a digital backbone across USC that touches every student and every graduate," said Ishwar Puri, senior vice president of research and innovation. "So when they go out into the world, they understand what computing is."

Click the article below to learn more. HUMAN INTELLIGENCE – Meet the two teenagers (and a few others) who are using AI tech to tackle deadly glioblastoma. BE WELL – Here's the one easy thing you can do every day for heart health. VACCINE APPROVED – The FDA green-lights the first inoculation against RSV. The FDA has approved the first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for use in the U.S. (iStock) BACTERIAL OUTBREAK – Thirty-one patients are infected at one Seattle hospital.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we rely on metaphor, as we always do when dealing with something new and unfamiliar. Metaphors are, by their nature, imperfect, but we still need to choose them carefully, because bad ones can lead us astray. For example, it's become very common to compare powerful A.I.s to genies in fairy tales. The metaphor is meant to highlight the difficulty of making powerful entities obey your commands; the computer scientist Stuart Russell has cited the parable of King Midas, who demanded that everything he touched turn into gold, to illustrate the dangers of an A.I. doing what you tell it to do instead of what you want it to do. There are multiple problems with this metaphor, but one of them is that it derives the wrong lessons from the tale to which it refers.