Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Lawmakers in Europe signed off Wednesday on the world's first set of comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence, clearing a key hurdle as authorities across the globe race to rein in AI. The European Parliament vote is one of the last steps before the rules become law, which could act as a model for other places working on similar regulations. A yearslong effort by Brussels to draw up guardrails for AI has taken on more urgency as rapid advances in chatbots like ChatGPT show the benefits the emerging technology can bring -- and the new perils it poses. How Do the Rules Work?

Lawmakers in Europe signed off Wednesday on the world's first set of comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence, clearing a key hurdle as authorities across the globe race to rein in AI. The European Parliament vote is one of the last steps before the rules become law, which could act as a model for other places working on similar regulations. A yearslong effort by Brussels to draw up guardrails for AI has taken on more urgency as rapid advances in chatbots like ChatGPT show the benefits the emerging technology can bring -- and the new perils it poses. The measure, first proposed in 2021, will govern any product or service that uses an artificial intelligence system. The act will classify AI systems according to four levels of risk, from minimal to unacceptable. Riskier applications, such as for hiring or tech targeted to children, will face tougher requirements, including being more transparent and using accurate data.

SHANGHAI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - China's new rules for content providers that alter facial and voice data will take effect from Jan. 10, its cyberspace regulator said, as it looks to more tightly scrutinize so-called "deepfake" technology and services. The regulations from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued late on Sunday provide for people to be protected from being impersonated without their consent by deepfakes - images that are virtually indistinguishable from the original, and easily used for manipulation or misinformation. The CAC said the move was aimed at curbing risks that might arise from activities provided by such platforms that use deep learning or virtual reality to alter any online content, what the regulator calls "deep synthesis service providers", and to also promote the industry's healthy development.

In order to build successful machine learning solutions, there are certain fundamental ideas that everyone involved needs to understand. In this blog post, we look at three key early stages of the design process that managers can focus on to ensure that the project is headed toward a successful outcome. This post presumes the reader already understands distinctions in machine learning such as supervised and unsupervised models, training and testing stages, and the overall machine learning lifecycle. Returning to the earliest stage of defining the business problem, we focus our attention on three key objectives. Each of these objectives are introduced to some extent in data science training.

Los Angeles County recorded more than 1,900 new coronavirus cases Friday, another major jump, as a mandatory mask restriction for inside public places takes effect Saturday night. Over the last week, L.A. County has reported an average of more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day -- a tally that, though merely a fraction of the sky-high counts seen during previous surges, is still six times as high as what the county was seeing in mid-June. Daily case numbers have jumped: 1,537 new cases were reported Thursday, and 1,902 more were added Friday. COVID-19 hospitalizations also doubled over that same time period, from 223 on June 15 to 462 on Thursday. More than 8,000 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized countywide during the darkest days of the winter wave.

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump has days to decide whether to impose tariffs on nearly $160 billion in Chinese consumer goods just weeks before Christmas, a move that could be unwelcome in both the United States and China. The White House's top economic and trade advisers, including Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Larry Kudlow, Peter Navarro, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to meet in coming days with Trump over that decision, one person briefed on the situation said. There is still no clarity on what the decision will be. "They may very well go into effect. They may very well hold back. And the president's going to decide," the source said Monday afternoon.

Germany's recent move to ban the sale of children's smartwatches with built-in voice recognition technology may lead privacy regulators to adopt a ban for other such devices, privacy professionals told Bloomberg Law. Inc.'s Alexa, become commonplace, German privacy officials may seek to ban them or restrict how they are used. The global voice and speech recognition market is valued at nearly $6.2 billion in 2017 and is likely to reach $18.3 billion by 2023, according to an August report by competitive market research company MarketsAndMarkets Research Private Ltd. "If something is said in your living room and that speech is recorded and passed along to data providers, it's exactly the same as surveillance, Marit Hansen, data protection officer for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, told Bloomberg Law. As voice-controlled devices continue to grow, so too will data privacy concerns over devices that store voice commands and back up the data through a central server, Hansen said. German regulators are considering how to regulate such devices under German privacy law amendments set to take effect when the European Union's new privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation takes effect in May 2018, she said.