Drones are'sniffing' ship exhaust for illegal fuel in European waters

WASHINGTON, DC, October 4, 2021 (ENS) – A new international project is creating advanced artificial intelligence, AI, programs that will enable machines to learn progressively over a lifetime and share those experiences with each other. Uses of this new technology could include co-operating self-learning autonomous vehicles such as self-driving cars, robotic rescue and exploration systems, distributed monitoring systems to detect emergencies, or cybersecurity systems of agents that monitor large networks. Researchers hope the technology will allow machines to reuse information, adapt quickly to new conditions and collaborate by sharing information. The project is part of the initiative Shared-Experience Lifelong Learning, or ShELL, a program funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA. This U.S. government military agency is credited with some of the biggest technological advances in recent history such as the Internet, the miniaturization of GPS, Siri, and the computer mouse.

The US and EU are talking up the significance of their new pact on artificial intelligence, but a closer inspection indicates the two sides still have precious little common when it comes to regulating the technology – except a desire to take the moral high ground against China. The long-awaited agreement was reached when the Trade and Technology Council met for the first time on 29 September in Pittsburgh, with Brussels and Washington vowing to make sure AI systems are "innovative and trustworthy" and "respect universal human rights and shared democratic values". The EU and US will "seek to develop a mutual understanding on the principles underlining trustworthy and responsible AI," the agreement says. But exactly what this means in practice remains to be fleshed out. While both sides said they have noted each other's domestic regulatory proposals on AI, there is no mention of coordinating their approaches.

I am in the strange position of knowing that I am on the'Kill List'. I know this because I have been told, and I know because I have been targeted for death over and over again. Four times missiles have been fired at me. I am extraordinarily fortunate to be alive. I don't want to end up a "Bugsplat" – the ugly word that is used for what remains of a human being after being blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone.

Earlier this month, a federal district court issued the first judicial decision in the country addressing whether an AI system can be an "inventor" under U.S. patent law. The decision was rendered by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Thaler v. Hirshfeld on appeal from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) decision that refused to allow Thaler's two patent applications to proceed because he listed DABUS (an AI machine) as the inventor. Thaler filed the applications in 2018--one for an invention used to contain food and the other for a flashing beacon for attracting attention in emergencies. In statements filed in support of the applications, Thaler listed DABUS as the inventor, claiming that he had acquired the right to the grant of the patents by "ownership of the creativity machine." In affirming the USPTO's denial of the applications, the court held that based on the plain statutory language of the U.S. Patent Act and Federal Circuit authority, an AI machine cannot be an inventor because an inventor must be an "individual," which under common interpretation and court precedent means a natural person. The court stated that Thaler's argument was based on policy considerations and the purpose of the patent clause of the U.S. Constitution, and that the decision to expand the scope of inventorship is squarely within the authority of Congress.

The European Commission announced first-of-its-kind legislation regulating the use of artificial intelligence in April. This unleashed criticism that the regulations could slow AI innovation, hamstringing Europe in its competition with the U.S. and China for leadership in AI. For example, Andrew McAfee wrote an article titled "EU proposals to regulate AI are only going to hinder innovation." Anticipating this criticism and mindful of the example of GDPR, where Europe's thought-leadership position didn't necessarily translate into data-related innovation, the EC has tried to address AI innovation directly by publishing a new Coordinated Plan on AI. Released in conjunction with the proposed regulations, the plan is full of initiatives intended to help the EU become a leader in AI technology.

But what the gossip and the op-eds didn't mention was that the real surprise wasn't Haqqani's public appearances--it was that he was appearing at all: Multiple times over the last two decades, the US military thought they'd killed him in drone strikes. Clearly Haqqani is alive and well. But that raises a glaring question: if Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani wasn't killed in those US drone strikes, who was? The usual bland response is "terrorists," an answer now institutionalized by the highest levels of the US security state. But the final days of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan showed that is not necessarily true.

In the aftermath of the Pegasus Spyware software revelation there were calls from all sectors of society for vendors to better regulate and control their software development. The reactions were not really surprising. There has been a well-documented suspicion of technology and what it can do going back for years. The Chapman University Survey of American Fears Wave 7 for 2020 to 2021, for example, which as was the result of a random sample of 1,035 adults across the United States taken in January of this year, showed that cyber-terrorism was 8th in the list of 95 fears followed by government tracking of personal data in 16th place Corrupt government officials scared people the most ahead of the COVID, according to a majority of those surveyed. In fact, in the list of fears, while technology was not directly mentioned, nearly 28% of people cited computers replacing people in the workforce as a major fear.

As technology has advanced and become ubiquitous in our lives, a common philosophical question is whether technology itself is neutral. There are many good arguments to be made that it is -- and that it is how technology is used and deployed that creates good or bad outcomes for individuals, companies, and society. This question is important for the digital transformation shaping businesses today. With data acting as the fuel for artificial intelligence, the issues surrounding customer privacy and data tracking are increasing. Organizations and governments are recognizing this, as evidenced by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect in 2018 to protect the privacy of European citizens.

One country going Communist was supposed to topple the next, and then the next, and the next. The metaphor drove much of United States foreign policy in the middle of the 20th century. But it had the wrong name. From a physical point of view, it should have been called the "sandpile theory." Real-world political phase transitions tend to happen not in neat sequences, but in sudden coordinated fits, like the Arab Spring, or the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.