On Wednesday, members of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, voted to ratify a new contract for video game performers, officially bringing an end to a nearly yearlong strike. A majority, 95 percent of members, voted in favor of the contract, which guarantees annual raises for three years, increased compensation, and guardrails designed to prevent game companies from giving their work to AI. Actors in the video game industry had been on strike for 11 months as part of a fight to secure protections against AI, a sticking point that held up negotiations for most of that time. Every other issue in the contract, including compensation and working conditions, was already resolved months ago, says SAG-AFTRA's national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. The strike was temporarily suspended in June, pending contract ratification. According to Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor who also serves as a SAG-AFTRA committee chair, actors in the games industry have been wearily eyeing AI for years--even before tools like ChatGPT exploded in use.

AI is the new battleground, according to a report released by SophosLabs this week. The 2020 Threat Report highlights a growing battle between cybercriminals and security companies as smart automation technologies continue to evolve. Security companies are using machine learning technology to spot everything from malware to phishing email, but data scientists are figuring out ways to game the system. According to the report, researchers are conceiving new attacks to thwart the AI models used to protect modern networks… attacks which are starting to move from the academic space into attackers' toolkits. One such approach involves adapting malware and emails with extra data that make them seem benign to machine learning systems.

This year, Europe's banks plan to make technology investments worth in aggregate $77 billion, according to consulting firm Celent. That compares with $105 billion for their U.S. rivals. Faster, more seamless trading systems have long been a priority, but tech spending has shifted across business lines and from back office to front office. It can cover everything from maintaining decades-old systems to cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, European lenders are more focused on patching old systems.

The Chinese juggernaut is broad, with an effort to deploy AI in its military, agriculture, logistics, healthcare and media sectors, the report said. China is especially keen on two strategic areas of AI -- facial recognition, a pillar of its elevated efforts at state surveillance; and AI chips, in order to make a "direct challenge to U.S.-made chips," by companies like Nvidia, CB said. Other points made in CB's report:

IN A bid to further demarcate the battle lines between the world's largest cloud behemoths, Amazon Web Services Inc is betting big on artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years, a strategy that is aimed at extending its already considerable lead in the industry. At the recently concluded re:Invent 2017 annual conference held at the Sands Convention Centre in Las Vegas in November for customers, partners, analysts and press, the one unequivocal thing on AWS' chief executive officer (CEO) Andy Jassy's (pic, above) mind was this: We have always led in the cloud and will continue our leadership through AI and machine learning. Jassy, who was promoted from senior vice president to CEO of AWS in 2016, said AWS continues to lead the market as an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) player. Citing numbers from research firm Gartner, Jassy said AWS has captured 44% of the cloud market share in 2016, up year-over-year from 39%. The world's leading and largest cloud computing player was in a buoyant mood as Jassy set the tone of the conference by thanking all the attendees at re:invent 2017 – some 43,000 people, up 9,000 from last year's event – for keeping faith with the company and growing its user base further.

Most brand experiences will be delivered through AI by 2025. The only question is whether your brand will still exist. Some perspective: When Ray Kroc walked into the McDonald brothers' restaurant in 1954, he was taken aback with the efficiency and replicability of the facility. McDonald's lore never mentions what Kroc thought of the actual food, because he wasn't selling food. Kroc eventually fulfilled this dream, launching a franchise operation that spread McDonald's all over the country at the same time the Interstate Highway Act was being passed.