China’s deepfake laws come into effect today

China will begin enforcing its strict new rules around the creation of deepfakes from today.

Deepfakes are increasingly being used for manipulation and humiliation. We’ve seen deepfakes of figures like disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to commit fraud, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to spread disinformation, and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to make her appear drunk.

Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced rules to clampdown on...

10 January 2023 | Applications

Cal Al-Dhubaib, Pandata: On developing ethical AI solutions

Businesses that fail to deploy AI ethically will face severe penalties as regulations catch up with the pace of innovations.

In the EU, the proposed AI Act features similar enforcement to GDPR but with even heftier fines of €30 million or six percent of annual turnover. Other countries are implementing variations, including China and a growing number of US states.

Pandata are experts in human-centred, explainable, and trustworthy AI. The Cleveland-based outfit...

24 November 2022 | Applications

Italy’s facial recognition ban exempts law enforcement

Italy has banned the use of facial recognition, except for law enforcement purposes.

On Monday, the country’s Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) issued official stays to two municipalities – the southern Italian city of Lecce and the Tuscan city of Arezzo – over their experiments with biometrics technologies.

The agency banned facial recognition systems using biometric data until a specific law governing its use is...

15 November 2022 | Applications

OpenAI and Microsoft hit with lawsuit over GitHub Copilot

A class-action lawsuit has been launched against OpenAI and Microsoft over GitHub Copilot.

GitHub Copilot uses technology from OpenAI to help generate code and speed up software development. Microsoft says that it is trained on “billions of lines of public code … written by others.”

Last month, developer and lawyer Matthew Butterick announced that he’d partnered with the Joseph Saveri Law Firm to investigate whether Copilot infringed on the rights of developers...

9 November 2022 | Applications

US court upholds ruling that AIs can’t be patent holders

The US Court of Appeals has upheld previous rulings that AIs cannot hold patents for inventions.

AIs are increasingly being used to make new discoveries but, under most patent laws, a human must be listed as the patent holder for inventions.

Dr Stephen Thaler created a device called DABUS that consists of neural networks and has been used to invent an emergency warning light, a food container that improves grip and heat transfer, and more.

Thaler believes that...

21 October 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

US federal court upholds ruling that AIs cannot patent inventions

Dr Stephen Thaler’s battle to give AIs the right to patent inventions continues to stumble.

Thaler, the founder of Imagination Engines, created a device called DABUS that consists of neural networks. DABUS was used to invent an emergency warning light, a food container that improves grip and heat transfer, and more.

In August 2021, a federal court in Australia ruled that AI systems can be credited as inventors under patent law. Ryan Abbott, a professor at the...

8 August 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Big tech could be forced to reveal their algorithms

A landmark case in Japan could force tech giants to reveal how their algorithms work.

Last month, a Tokyo court ruled in favour of Hanryumura – a BBQ restaurant chain operator – in an antitrust case brought against Kakaku.com, operator of Tabelog, Japan's largest restaurant review platform.

Hanryumura claimed that Kakaku altered the way user scores were tallied in a way that hurt sales at its restaurants. The restaurant operator received $284,000 in damages but...

5 July 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

UK eases data mining laws to support flourishing AI industry

The UK is set to ease data mining laws in a move designed to further boost its flourishing AI industry.

We all know that data is vital to AI development. Tech giants are in an advantageous position due to either having existing large datasets or the ability to fund/pay for the data required. Most startups rely on mining data to get started.

Europe has notoriously strict data laws. Advocates of regulations like GDPR believe they’re necessary to protect consumers, while...

29 June 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Clearview AI agrees to restrict sales of its faceprint database

Clearview AI has proposed to restrict sales of its faceprint database as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The controversial facial recognition firm caused a stir due to scraping billions of images of people across the web without their consent. As a result, the company has faced the ire of regulators around the world and numerous court cases.

One court case filed against Clearview AI was by the ACLU in 2020, claiming that it violated...

10 May 2022 | Applications

AI in the justice system threatens human rights and civil liberties

The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee has determined the proliferation of AI in the justice system is a threat to human rights and civil liberties.

A report published by the committee today highlights the rapid pace of AI developments that are largely happening out of the public eye. Alarmingly, there seems to be a focus on rushing the technology into production with little concern about its potential negative impact.

Baroness Hamwee, Chair of the Justice...

30 March 2022 | Artificial Intelligence