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INTERNATIONAL TECH GOVERNANCE NEWS
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EU Passes AI Act, Places First Binding Rules on Generative AI |
The European Union has voted to approve the AI Act, the world's first major set of regulatory ground rules on AI. The regulation separates unacceptable use cases from high, medium or low risk. The set of rules bans AI applications that pose risks to citizens' rights, such as biometric categorization systems, emotion recognition in the workplace and AI that manipulates human behavior. General-purpose AI systems and models will need to comply with EU copyright law and publish detailed summaries of the content used for training. The rules are still subject to a final check as well as formal endorsement by the Council. Once the act is published in the Official Journal, certain rules will begin applying in the following six to 36 months.
Unlike other regulatory actions, such as the Biden Administration's executive order or voluntary commitments, the EU's AI Act aims to bring consequences to those organizations that break the rules. Noncompliant organizations are looking at paying fines ranging from 7.5 million to 35 million euros ($8.2 million to $38 million), depending on the infringement and size of the company. (https://www.ciodive.com/news/EU-passes-AI-Act-noncompliant-fines-genAI/710239/)
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EU's Digital Markets Act is Live; Here's How Tech Giants are Responding |
March 6 was the deadline for tech's biggest "gatekeepers" to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA requires powerful companies to allow more interoperability and avoid preferencing their own digital services. It has generated disputes over which services should be included, sparked excitement among smaller competitors, and resulted in changes to how companies handle fundamental parts of their business. And, in March 2024, after years of debate, the rules are coming into force. The EU has designated six companies as gatekeepers, which it defines as large digital platforms providing "core" services like app stores, search engines, and web browsers. The DMA's restrictions apply to specific services within these companies: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft. Here's what each has been doing to meet - and fight - those demands: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/6/24091592/eu-dma-competition-compliance-deadline-big-tech-policy-changes
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U.S. TECH GOVERNANCE NEWS
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Justice Department Hires First Chief AI Officer |
On February 22, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Jonathan Mayer as the Justice Department's inaugural Chief Science and Technology Advisor and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer. Mayer will sit in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and lead the Department's newly established Emerging Technologies Board which coordinates and governs AI and other emerging technologies across the Department. Mayer will also build a team of technical and policy experts in cybersecurity and AI. The Chief AI Officer position is a role required by President Biden's Executive Order on AI. Mayer is an assistant professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University and served as the technology law and policy advisor to then-Senator Kamala Harris as well as the chief technologist to the FCC's Enforcement Bureau. This appointment, alongside Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco's recent remarks on AI, signals the Department's determination to keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments that come with generative AI. (https://www.consumerfinanceandfintechblog.com/2024/03/justice-department-hires-first-chief-ai-officer/)
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U.S. Must Move 'Decisively' to Avert 'Extinction-Level' Threat From AI, Government-Commissioned Report Says |
U.S. government must move "quickly and decisively" to avert substantial national security risks stemming from artificial intelligence which could, in the worst case, cause an "extinction-level threat to the human species," says a recently published report commissioned by the U.S. government. "Current frontier AI development poses urgent and growing risks to national security," the report, which TIME obtained ahead of its publication, says. "The rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilize global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons." AGI is a hypothetical technology that could perform most tasks at or above the level of a human. Such systems do not currently exist, but the leading AI labs are working toward them, and many expect AGI to arrive within the next five years or less.
The three authors of the report worked on it for more than a year, speaking with more than 200 government employees, experts, and workers at frontier AI companies - like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Meta - as part of their research. The finished document, titled "An Action Plan to Increase the Safety and Security of Advanced AI," recommends a set of sweeping and unprecedented policy actions that, if enacted, would radically disrupt the AI industry. Among the Report's recommendations are: Congress should make it illegal to train AI models using more than a certain level of computing power. That threshold should be set by a new federal AI agency, although the report suggests, as an example, that the agency could set it just above the levels of computing power used to train current cutting-edge models like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini. The report further recommends that the new AI agency should require AI companies on the "frontier" of the industry to obtain government permission to train and deploy new models above a certain lower threshold,. Authorities should also "urgently" consider outlawing the publication of the "weights," or inner workings, of powerful AI models, for example under open-source licenses, with violations possibly punishable by jail time. And the government should further tighten controls on the manufacture and export of AI chips, and channel federal funding toward "alignment" research that seeks to make advanced AI safer. (https://time.com/6898967/ai-extinction-national-security-risks-report/)
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FCC Creates Voluntary Cybersecurity Labeling Program for Smart Products |
The Federal Communications Commission has voted to create a voluntary cybersecurity labeling program for wireless consumer Internet of Things products. Under the program, qualifying consumer smart products that meet robust cybersecurity standards will bear a label - including a new "U.S Cyber Trust Mark" - that will help consumers make informed purchasing decisions, differentiate trustworthy products in the marketplace, and create incentives for manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards. The Commission is also seeking public comment on additional potential disclosure requirements, including whether software or firmware for a product is developed or deployed by a company located in a country that presents national security concerns and whether customer data collected by the product will be sent to servers located within such a country. (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401201A1.pdf)
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TRANSPORTATION TECH NEWS & TRENDS
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Waymo's Self-Driving Taxis Take on Los Angeles |
On March 1, state of California regulators gave Waymo, the self-driving taxi company owned by Google's parent, Alphabet, the green light to expand its robotaxi service to LA County, clearing the way for the company's expansion into one of the largest markets in the country. Under its new approval agreement, Waymo's driverless fleet can operate in LA, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Inglewood, East Los Angeles, Compton and many more locales. (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-08/what-does-the-future-of-driverless-taxi-service-in-los-angeles-look-like-its-already-here)
SUBSEQUENTLY, the Associated Press announced that, effective March 15, Waymo would offer free robotaxi rides to some of the roughly 50,000 people in L.A. who have signed up for its driverless ride-hailing service. Waymo is expanding into L.A. seven months after California regulators authorized its robotaxis to begin charging for around-the-clock rides throughout San Francisco. Waymo said it will eventually collect fares from passengers in L.A., too. The company also hopes to begin commercial operations in Austin, TX, later this year, a goal that makes its robotaxi service available in four major U.S. cities 15 years after it began as a secret project within Google. Waymo's robotaxis have been charging for rides in Phoenix, AZ, since 2020. For now, Waymo's free rides in L.A. will cover a 63-square-mile area spanning Santa Monica to Downtown. (https://apnews.com/article/waymo-google-robotaxis-driverless-los-angeles-expansion-6f06b65b5ad14f3f19609190c64d131f)
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Delivery Drones Are Gaining a Clearer Commercial Flight Path |
Routine delivery service has mostly eluded drone operators in the U.S. as they've navigated regulatory obstacles, community unease and challenging economics over the past decade in a bid to bring new technology to solve the puzzle of last-mile delivery. Industry executives say they have an improved landscape in 2024, however, after federal regulators recently granted several drone-delivery companies permission to fly more freely. That has led several retailers, restaurants and healthcare systems to expand their services across the U.S. "We're in a different phase fundamentally as a whole industry than we have been in for the better part of a decade," said Adam Woodworth, chief executive of Wing, which handles deliveries on behalf of companies such as Walmart and DoorDash. "2024 will be, I think, the first real year of scaling for residential drone delivery, particularly in the United States." Still, logistics experts caution drones have a long way to go before they become entrenched in commercial parcel distribution in the U.S. Drone delivery has expanded more rapidly outside the U.S., as McKinsey estimated that more than a million commercial drone deliveries were completed around the world last year; of which, about 157,500 were in North America. The FAA, meantime, is developing rules to make drone delivery "routine, scalable and economically viable," a spokesperson said. The agency asked a panel of academics, drone makers and industry experts to study the safety of operating drones out of a human's line of sight in 2021. The spokesperson said the FAA is now reviewing that Committee's final report. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/delivery-drones-are-gaining-a-clearer-commercial-flight-path-dec702be)
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WORKFORCE NEWS
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Dell Workers Can Stay Remote - But They're Not Going to Get Promoted |
Dell has had a hybrid working culture in place for more than a decade - long before the pandemic struck. But in February, Dell introduced a strict return-to-office mandate, with punitive measures for those who want to stay at home. Under the new policy, staff were told that from May almost all employees will be classified as either "hybrid," or "remote." Hybrid workers will be required to come into an "approved" office at least 39 days a quarter - the equivalent of about three days a week, internal documents seen by BI show. If they want to keep working from home, staff can opt to go fully remote. But that option has a downside: fully remote workers will not be considered for promotion, or be able to change roles. The memo states: "For remote team members, it is important to understand the trade-offs: Career advancement, including applying to new roles in the company, will require a team member to reclassify as hybrid onsite." Dell told BI in a statement that "in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation." (https://www.businessinsider.com/dell-remote-workers-promotion-return-office-push-flexible-work-2024-3)
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