We propose a general approach for encouraging fairness in survival analysis models based on minimizing a worst-case error across all subpopulations that occur with at least a user-specified probability. This approach can be used to convert many existing survival analysis models into ones that simultaneously encourage fairness, without requiring the user to specify which attributes or features to treat as sensitive in the training loss function. From a technical standpoint, our approach applies recent developments of distributionally robust optimization (DRO) to survival analysis. The complication is that existing DRO theory uses a training loss function that decomposes across contributions of individual data points, i.e., any term that shows up in the loss function depends only on a single training point. This decomposition does not hold for commonly used survival loss functions, including for the Cox proportional hazards model, its deep neural network variants, and many other recently developed models that use loss functions involving ranking or similarity score calculations. We address this technical hurdle using a sample splitting strategy. We demonstrate our sample splitting DRO approach by using it to create fair versions of a diverse set of existing survival analysis models including the Cox model (and its deep variant DeepSurv), the discrete-time model DeepHit, and the neural ODE model SODEN. We also establish a finite-sample theoretical guarantee to show what our sample splitting DRO loss converges to. For the Cox model, we further derive an exact DRO approach that does not use sample splitting. For all the models that we convert into DRO variants, we show that the DRO variants often score better on recently established fairness metrics (without incurring a significant drop in accuracy) compared to existing survival analysis fairness regularization techniques.

Governments, industry, and other actors involved in governing AI technologies around the world agree that, while AI offers tremendous promise to benefit the world, appropriate guardrails are required to mitigate risks. Global institutions, including the OECD, the G7, the G20, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe, have already started developing frameworks for ethical and responsible AI governance. While these are important initial steps, they alone fall short of addressing the need for institutionalised international processes to identify and assess potentially harmful AI capabilities. Contributing to the relevant conversation on how to address this gap, this chapter reflects on what functions an international AI safety institute could perform. Based on the analysis of both existing international governance models addressing safety considerations in adjacent policy areas and the newly established national AI safety institutes in the UK and US, the chapter identifies a list of concrete functions that could be performed at the international level. While creating a new international body is not the only way forward, understanding the structure of these bodies from a modular perspective can help us to identify the tools at our disposal. These, we suggest, can be categorised under three functional domains: a) technical research and cooperation, b) safeguards and evaluations, c) policymaking and governance support.

The article focuses on the urgent issue of femicide in Veracruz, Mexico, and the development of the MFM_FEM_VER_CP_2024 model, a mathematical framework designed to predict femicide risk using fuzzy logic. This model addresses the complexity and uncertainty inherent in gender based violence by formalizing risk factors such as coercive control, dehumanization, and the cycle of violence. These factors are mathematically modeled through membership functions that assess the degree of risk associated with various conditions, including personal relationships and specific acts of violence. The study enhances the original model by incorporating new rules and refining existing membership functions, which significantly improve the model predictive accuracy.

Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have rapidly penetrated into people's work and daily lives over the past few years, due to their extraordinary conversational skills and intelligence. ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing software in terms of user numbers in human history and become an important foundational model for the next generation of artificial intelligence applications. However, the generations of LLMs are not entirely reliable, often producing content with factual errors, biases, and toxicity. Given their vast number of users and wide range of application scenarios, these unreliable responses can lead to many serious negative impacts. This thesis introduces the exploratory works in the field of language model reliability during the PhD study, focusing on the correctness, non-toxicity, and fairness of LLMs from both software testing and natural language processing perspectives. First, to measure the correctness of LLMs, we introduce two testing frameworks, FactChecker and LogicAsker, to evaluate factual knowledge and logical reasoning accuracy, respectively. Second, for the non-toxicity of LLMs, we introduce two works for red-teaming LLMs. Third, to evaluate the fairness of LLMs, we introduce two evaluation frameworks, BiasAsker and XCulturalBench, to measure the social bias and cultural bias of LLMs, respectively.

"Prevailing Narrative" podcast host Matthew Bilinsky discusses the federal law enforcement request for Google to hand over YouTube data on certain users on "Fox News @ Night." Ford Motor Company recently filed a patent application that's raising eyebrows and sparking debate about privacy and surveillance on our roads. The patent, "Systems and Methods for Detecting Speeding Violations," describes a system that could turn Ford vehicles into mobile speed detectors capable of reporting other drivers to the police. The patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in January 2023. However, it was formally published by the USPTO on July 18, 2024.

More and more people are learning about the world through chatbots and the software's kin, whether they mean to or not. Google has rolled out generative AI to users of its search engine on at least four continents, placing AI-written responses above the usual list of links; as many as 1 billion people may encounter this feature by the end of the year. Meta's AI assistant has been integrated into Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and is sometimes the default option when a user taps the search bar. And Apple is expected to integrate generative AI into Siri, Mail, Notes, and other apps this fall. Less than two years after ChatGPT's launch, bots are quickly becoming the default filters for the web.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes integral to business operations, integrating Responsible AI (RAI) within Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks is essential for ethical and sustainable AI deployment. This study examines how leading companies align RAI with their ESG goals. Through interviews with 28 industry leaders, we identified a strong link between RAI and ESG practices. However, a significant gap exists between internal RAI policies and public disclosures, highlighting the need for greater board-level expertise, robust governance, and employee engagement. We provide key recommendations to strengthen RAI strategies, focusing on transparency, cross-functional collaboration, and seamless integration into existing ESG frameworks.

The rapid decline in global biodiversity demands innovative conservation strategies. This paper examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in wildlife conservation, focusing on the Conservation AI platform. Leveraging machine learning and computer vision, Conservation AI detects and classifies animals, humans, and poaching-related objects using visual spectrum and thermal infrared cameras. The platform processes this data with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and Transformer architectures to monitor species, including those which are critically endangered. Real-time detection provides the immediate responses required for time-critical situations (e.g. poaching), while non-real-time analysis supports long-term wildlife monitoring and habitat health assessment. Case studies from Europe, North America, Africa, and Southeast Asia highlight the platform's success in species identification, biodiversity monitoring, and poaching prevention. The paper also discusses challenges related to data quality, model accuracy, and logistical constraints, while outlining future directions involving technological advancements, expansion into new geographical regions, and deeper collaboration with local communities and policymakers. Conservation AI represents a significant step forward in addressing the urgent challenges of wildlife conservation, offering a scalable and adaptable solution that can be implemented globally.

This article provides a critical overview of the recently approved Artificial Intelligence Act. It starts by presenting the main structure, objectives, and approach of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. A definition of key concepts follows, and then the material and territorial scope, as well as the timing of application, are analyzed. Although the Regulation does not explicitly set out principles, the main ideas of fairness, accountability, transparency, and equity in AI underly a set of rules of the regulation. This is discussed before looking at the ill-defined set of forbidden AI practices (manipulation and e exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring, biometric identification and classification, and predictive policing). It is highlighted that those rules deal with behaviors rather than AI systems. The qualification and regulation of high-risk AI systems are tackled, alongside the obligation of transparency for certain systems, the regulation of general-purpose models, and the rules on certification, supervision, and sanctions. The text concludes that even if the overall framework can be deemed adequate and balanced, the approach is so complex that it risks defeating its own purpose of promoting responsible innovation within the European Union and beyond its borders.

Aligned LLMs are highly secure, capable of recognizing and refusing to answer malicious questions. However, the role of internal parameters in maintaining this security is not well understood, further these models are vulnerable to security degradation when fine-tuned with non-malicious backdoor data or normal data. To address these challenges, our work uncovers the mechanism behind security in aligned LLMs at the parameter level, identifying a small set of contiguous layers in the middle of the model that are crucial for distinguishing malicious queries from normal ones, referred to as "safety layers". We first confirm the existence of these safety layers by analyzing variations in input vectors within the model's internal layers. Additionally, we leverage the over-rejection phenomenon and parameters scaling analysis to precisely locate the safety layers. Building on this understanding, we propose a novel fine-tuning approach, Safely Partial-Parameter Fine-Tuning (SPPFT), that fixes the gradient of the safety layers during fine-tuning to address the security degradation. Our experiments demonstrate that this approach significantly preserves model security while maintaining performance and reducing computational resources compared to full fine-tuning. Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have showcased remarkable abilities in natural language generation. However, this progress is accompanied by the risk of producing of harmful or biased outputs, especially when confronted with malicious input prompts. To address this issue, the prevalent approach involves additional reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) (Bai et al., 2022; Dai et al., 2023; Ouyang et al., 2022b) and instruction fine-tuning Wang et al. (2022) on pre-trained LLMs. This process aligns the LLMs with human values and ensures their behavior remains within safe boundaries. These securely aligned models significantly reduce the risk of harmful content leakage when the models are used directly. Real-world applications often require fine-tuning aligned models to adapt to specific domains. This presents a significant challenge: fine-tuning these models with non-malicious normal datasets alongside backdoor datasets, which may favor positive responses, can compromise the security alignment of the models (Qi et al., 2023; Kumar et al., 2024). Restoring security alignment in compromised fine-tuned large language models (LLMs) is frequently inefficient and costly (Dai et al., 2023).