In a strange way, the best thing that could have happened to Google (now masquerading as Alphabet, its parent company) was Facebook. Because although Google invented surveillance capitalism, arguably the most toxic business model since the opium trade, it was Facebook that got into the most trouble for its abuses of it. The result was that Google enjoyed an easier ride. Naturally, it had the odd bit of unpleasantness with the EU, with annoying fines and long drawn out legal wrangles. But it was the Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg – not Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin and their adult supervisor Eric Schmidt – who was awarded the title of evil emperor of the online world.

Meeting strangers off the internet is inherently dangerous, and Tinder reportedly wants to do something about it. The popular dating app is beefing up its user security options, offering a panic alarm for when casual meet-ups or dates take a turn for the worst, the Wall Street Jourrnal reports. Tinder, which is owned by Match, will start testing a panic button in the U.S. by the end of this month, the publication said on Thursday. The offering is brought about through Match's purchase of the personal safety app Noonlight. Match will extend the feature to its other dating apps like OkCupid, Match and Hinge this year.

Tinder is adding a'panic button' to its app that will allow people to alert the police if they feel unsafe while out on a date. It will be rolled out to users of the dating service from the end of January in the USA, according to a Wall Street Journal report. They will use a technology that tracks the location of users and notifies authorities of any safety issues that is built by company Noonlight. Tinder has not said when or if the service will be rolled out to the rest of the world. 'You should run a dating business as if you are a mom,' Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of Tinder parent company Match Group, told the Wall Street Journal.

Uber has launched a'panic button' allowing passengers to call 911 directly from its app during a ride. The emergency button is part of a new'safety center' menu designed to help passengers if something goes wrong during their trip. It is hoped the feature will help allay concerns over the safety of Uber. The emergency button is located in a new'safety center' menu that is easily accessible from the app's home screen, giving riders a quick way to contact first responders in the event that something goes wrong during their trip. To dial 911, riders will need to swipe up on the safety center icon, and then tap '911 assistance.'

With artificial intelligence crossing milestones in its capability to learn rapidly from its environment and beat humans at tasks and games from Jeopardy to the ancient Chinese game Go, Alphabet's Google is taking proactive steps to ensure that the technology it is creating does not one day turn against humans. Google's AI research lab in London, DeepMind, teamed up with Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute to explore ways to prevent an AI agent from going rogue. In their joint-study, "Safely Interruptible Agents," the DeepMind-Future of Humanity team proposed a framework to allow humans to repeatedly and safely interrupt an AI agent's reinforcement learning. But, more importantly, this can be done while simultaneously blocking an AI agent's ability to learn how to prevent a human operator from turning off its machine-learning capabilities or reinforcement learning. It's not a stretch to think AI agents can learn how to outthink humans.

With artificial intelligence crossing milestones in its capability to learn rapidly from its environment and beat humans at tasks and games from Jeopardy to the ancient Chinese game Go, Alphabet's Google is taking proactive steps to ensure that the technology it is creating does not one day turn against humans. Google's AI research lab in London, DeepMind, teamed up with Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute to explore ways to prevent an AI agent from going rogue. In their joint-study, "Safely Interruptible Agents," the DeepMind-Future of Humanity team proposed a framework to allow humans to repeatedly and safely interrupt an AI agent's reinforcement learning. But, more importantly, this can be done while simultaneously blocking an AI agent's ability to learn how to prevent a human operator from turning off its machine-learning capabilities or reinforcement learning. It's not a stretch to think AI agents can learn how to outthink humans. Earlier this year, Google's AI agent AlphaGo beat world champion Lee Sedol in Go, the ancient Chinese game of strategy.