A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (03139939) and a charity registered in England and Wales (1051681) and Scotland (SC039534). A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (01735872).

Companies are increasingly using algorithms to manage and control individuals not by force, but rather by nudging them into desirable behavior -- in other words, learning from their personalized data and altering their choices in some subtle way. Since the Cambridge Analytica Scandal in 2017, for example, it is widely known that the flood of targeted advertising and highly personalized content on Facebook may not only nudge users into buying more products, but also to coax and manipulate them into voting for particular political parties. University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein popularized the term "nudge" in 2008, but due to recent advances in AI and machine learning, algorithmic nudging is much more powerful than its non-algorithmic counterpart. With so much data about workers' behavioral patterns at their fingertips, companies can now develop personalized strategies for changing individuals' decisions and behaviors at large scale. These algorithms can be adjusted in real-time, making the approach even more effective.

Regulators in Europe and Washington are racing to figure out how to govern business' use of artificial intelligence while companies push to deploy the technology. Driving the news: On Wednesday, the EU revealed a detailed proposal on how AI should be regulated, banning some uses outright and defining which uses of AI are deemed "high-risk." In the U.S., the federal government has yet to pass legislation specifically addressing AI, though some local governments have enacted their own rules, especially around facial recognition. Acting FTC chairwoman Rebecca Slaughter told Axios: "I am pleased that the European Commission shares the FTC's concerns about the risks posed by artificial intelligence... I look forward to reviewing the EC's proposal as we learn from each other in pursuit of transparency, fairness, and accountability in algorithmic decision making."

In 1969, as revolutionary fires burned, the Academy gave its Best Picture award to "Oliver!" Hollywood, still ruled by the crumbling studio system, was almost willfully blind to the nineteen-sixties; even breakthrough films such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Rosemary's Baby" were left off the Best Picture list, which included representatives of such superannuated genres as the big-budget musical ("Funny Girl") and the medieval costume drama ("The Lion in Winter"). Under the newly devised rating system, "Oliver!" became the first G-rated film to win Best Picture, and it remains the last. By the next year, movies like "Midnight Cowboy" and "Easy Rider" finally injected the ceremony with a dose of sixties counterculture--but the decade was over. Two of this year's eight Best Picture nominees are set largely in 1969, and they show what Hollywood wouldn't bring itself to see back then. "The Trial of the Chicago 7" dramatizes the politicized court proceedings against activists who, the year before, protested the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The EU is known for its hard line against Big Tech, but the FTC has taken a softer approach, at least in recent years. The agency is meant to police unfair and dishonest trade practices. Its remit is narrow--it does not have jurisdiction over government agencies, banks, or nonprofits. But it can step in when companies misrepresent the capabilities of a product they are selling, which means firms that claim their facial recognition systems, predictive policing algorithms or healthcare tools are not biased may now be in the line of fire. "Where they do have power, they have enormous power," says Calo.

On 21 April 2021, the European Commission proposed new rules and actions aimed at making Europe the global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI). The combination of the first-ever legal framework on AI and a new Coordinated Plan with Member States will endeavour to guarantee the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, while strengthening AI uptake, investment and innovation across the EU. New rules on Machinery will complement this approach by adapting safety rules to increase users' trust in new products. Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, said: "On Artificial Intelligence, trust is a must, not a nice to have. With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted. By setting the standards, we can pave the way to ethical technology worldwide and ensure that the EU remains competitive along the way. Future-proof and innovation-friendly, our rules will intervene where strictly needed: when the safety and fundamental rights of EU citizens are at stake."

Faced with the rapid technological development of AI and a global policy context where more and more countries are investing heavily in AI, the EU must act as one to harness the many opportunities and address challenges of AI in a future-proof manner. To promote the development of AI and address the potential high risks it poses to safety and fundamental rights equally, the Commission is presenting both a proposal for a regulatory framework on AI and a revised coordinated plan on AI.

The US Federal Trade Commission has warned companies against using biased artificial intelligence, saying they may break consumer protection laws. A new blog post notes that AI tools can reflect "troubling" racial and gender biases. If those tools are applied in areas like housing or employment, falsely advertised as unbiased, or trained on data that is gathered deceptively, the agency says it could intervene. "In a rush to embrace new technology, be careful not to overpromise what your algorithm can deliver," writes FTC attorney Elisa Jillson -- particularly when promising decisions that don't reflect racial or gender bias. "The result may be deception, discrimination -- and an FTC law enforcement action."

You're probably reading this on a browser built by Apple or Google. If you're on a smartphone, it's almost certain those two companies built the operating system. You probably arrived from a link posted on Apple News, Google News or a social media site like Facebook. And when this page loaded, it, like many others on the Internet, connected to one of Amazon's ubiquitous data centers. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google -- known as the Big 4 -- now dominate many facets of our lives. But they didn't get there alone. They acquired hundreds of companies over decades to propel them to become some of the most powerful tech behemoths in the world.

On April 21, 2021, the European Commission unveiled its long-awaited proposal for a regulation laying down harmonized rules on artificial intelligence and amending certain union legislative acts. The proposal is the result of several years of preparatory work by the commission and its advisers, including the publication of a "White Paper on Artificial Intelligence." The proposal is a key piece in the commission's ambitious European Strategy for data. The regulation applies to (1) providers that place on the market or put into service AI systems, irrespective of whether those providers are established in the European Union or in a third country; (2) users of AI systems in the EU; and (3) providers and users of AI systems that are located in a third country where the output produced by the system is used in the EU. The term "AI system" is broadly defined as "software that is developed with one or more of the techniques and approaches listed in Annex I and can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, generate outputs such as content, predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing environments they interact with." The commission takes a risk-based but overall cautious approach to AI and recognizes the potential of AI and the many benefits it presents, but at the same time is keenly aware of the dangers these new technologies present to the European values and fundamental rights and principles.