…in the corner [DOT 15/6/23]

…well…the week trudges onwards…& that counter pegs the still-dark portion of reddit nearer 5500 than 5000…so…that hasn’t exactly blown over…but I’m supposed to be behaving myself…so I’ll leave it at that…& I’ll skip past the part where the daily star in the UK ran a front page about some shite elon was talking about how “we” are now so reliant on computers to outsource bits of our thinking & doing to that he thinks we’re effectively cyborgs already…though…that begs more questions than I usually leave hanging all on its own…so I felt it necessary to draw attention to not bringing it up just to bank some good-behavior points before I commence looking like I’m falling off that wagon

Using AI for loans and mortgages is big risk, warns EU boss [BBC]

…I dunno…apparently sometimes it’s necessary to state the obvious…or, indeed, to suddenly produce articles that talk about something “new” that…isn’t

Stopping ransomware has become a priority for many organizations. So, they are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) as their defenses of choice. However, threat actors are also turning to AI and ML to launch their attacks. One specific type of attack, data poisoning, takes advantage of this.
[…]
“Adversarial data poisoning is an effective attack against machine learning and threatens model integrity by introducing poisoned data into the training dataset,” researchers from Cornell University explain.

What makes attacks through AI and ML different from typical  ‘bug in the system’ attacks? There are inherent limits and weaknesses in the algorithms that can’t be fixed, says Marcus Comiter in a paper for Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

“AI attacks fundamentally expand the set of entities that can be used to execute cyberattacks,” Comiter adds. “For the first time, physical objects can be now used for cyberattacks. Data can also be weaponized in new ways using these attacks, requiring changes in the way data is collected, stored, and used.”

…see…not talking about cyborgs or anything, me

Ask a chief information security officer what the greatest threat to an organization’s data is, and more often than not they’ll tell you it’s human nature.

Employees don’t plan to be a cyber risk, but they are human. People are distractible. They miss a threat today they would have easily avoided yesterday. An employee rushing to make a deadline and expecting an important document may end up clicking on an infected attachment, mistaking it for the one they need. Or, employees simply may not be aware, as their security awareness training is too inconsistent to have made an impression. Threat actors know this, and like any good criminal, they are looking to find the easiest way into a network and to the data. Phishing attacks are so common because they work so well.
[…]
At best, we can use AI to better protect networks from ransomware attacks by telling the difference between real and malicious files on unsupervised computers and networks, blocking access to the bad files. AI could sniff out shadow IT, telling authorized connections from threatening ones and giving insight into the number of endpoints the workforce uses.
[…]
For AI and ML to be successful in fighting cyber threats, they rely on data and the algorithms created over a specified period of time. That’s what allows them to find the problems efficiently (and frees up the security team for other tasks). And it is also the threat. The rise in AI and ML is leading directly to the sleeper threat of data poisoning.
[…]
At the surface level, it doesn’t look that difficult to poison the algorithm. After all, AI and ML only know what people teach them. Imagine you’re training an algorithm to identify a horse. You might show it hundreds of pictures of brown horses. At the same time, you teach it to recognize cows by feeding it hundreds of pictures of black-and-white cows. But when a brown cow slips into the data set, the machine will tag it as a horse. To the algorithm, a brown animal is a horse. A human would be able to recognize the difference, but the machine won’t unless the algorithm specifies that cows can also be brown.

…more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat.gif

“Hackers may use AI to help choose which is the most likely vulnerability worth exploiting. Thus, malware can be placed in enterprises where the malware itself decides upon the time of attack and which the best attack vector could be. These attacks, which are, by design, variable, make it harder and [take] longer to detect.” says Grajek.
[…]
An important thing to note with data poisoning is that the threat actor needs to have access to the data training program. So you may be dealing with an insider attack, a business rival or a nation-state attack.
[…]
“Current research on adversarial AI focuses on approaches where imperceptible perturbations to ML inputs could deceive an ML classifier, altering its response,” Dr. Bruce Draper wrote about a DARPA research project, Guaranteeing AI Robustness Against Deception. “Although the field of adversarial AI is relatively young, dozens of attacks and defenses have already been proposed, and at present a comprehensive theoretical understanding of ML vulnerabilities is lacking.”
[…]
Attackers can also use data poisoning to make malware smarter. Threat actors use it to compromise email by cloning phrases to fool the algorithm. It has now even moved into biometrics, where attackers can lock out legitimate users and sneak in themselves.
[…]
Deepfakes are a level of data poisoning that many expect to be the next big wave of digital crime. Attackers edit videos, pictures and voice recordings to make realistic-looking images. Because they can be mistaken for real photographs or videos by many eyes, they’re a ripe technique for blackmail or embarrassment. Wielded at corporate level, a variant of this can also lead to physical dangers, as Comiter pointed out.

“[A]n AI attack can transform a stop sign into a green light in the eyes of a self-driving car by simply placing a few pieces of tape on the stop sign itself,” he wrote.

Fake news also falls under data poisoning. Algorithms in social media are corrupted to allow for incorrect information to rise to the top of a person’s news feed, replacing authentic news sources.

https://securityintelligence.com/articles/data-poisoning-ai-and-machine-learning/

…oddly enough…despite being from back in april of ’21…that seems to offer a better grasp of the phenomenon than the handful of more recent stuff I’ve seen bobbing about in the last few days…funny how that works

When ChatGPT and similar chatbots first became widely available, the concern in the cybersecurity world was how AI technology could be used to launch cyberattacks. In fact, it didn’t take very long until threat actors figured out how to bypass the safety checks to use ChatGPT to write malicious code.

It now seems that the tables have turned. Instead of attackers using ChatGPT to cause cyber incidents, they have now turned on the technology itself. OpenAI, which developed the chatbot, confirmed a data breach in the system that was caused by a vulnerability in the code’s open-source library, according to Security Week. The breach took the service offline until it was fixed.
[…]
ChatGPT’s popularity was evident from its release in late 2022. Everyone from writers to software developers wanted to experiment with the chatbot. Despite its imperfect responses (some of its prose was clunky or clearly plagiarized), ChatGPT quickly became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, reaching over 100 million monthly users by January. Approximately 13 million people used the AI technology daily within a full month of its release. Compare that to another extremely popular app — TikTok — which took nine months to reach similar user numbers.

One cybersecurity analyst compared ChatGPT to a Swiss Army knife, saying that the technology’s wide variety of useful applications is a big reason for its early and quick popularity.
[…]
In the grand scheme of things, the ChatGPT exploit was minor, and OpenAI patched the bug within days of discovery. But even a minor cyber incident can create a lot of damage.
[…]
Already there are privacy concerns surrounding the use of chatbots. Mark McCreary, the co-chair of the privacy and data security practice at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, told CNN that ChatGPT and chatbots are like the black box in an airplane. The AI technology stores vast amounts of data and then uses that information to generate responses to questions and prompts. And anything in the chatbot’s memory becomes fair game for other users.

For example, chatbots can record a single user’s notes on any topic and then summarize that information or search for more details. But if those notes include sensitive data — an organization’s intellectual property or sensitive customer information, for instance — it enters the chatbot library. The user no longer has control over the information.
[…]
Because of privacy concerns, some businesses and entire countries are clamping down. JPMorgan Chase, for example, has restricted employees’ use of ChatGPT due to the company’s controls around third-party software and applications, but there are also concerns surrounding the security of financial information if entered into the chatbot. And Italy cited the data privacy of its citizens for its decision to temporarily block the application across the country. The concern, officials stated, is due to compliance with GDPR.

Experts also expect threat actors to use ChatGPT to create sophisticated and realistic phishing emails. Gone is the poor grammar and odd sentence phrasing that have been the tell-tale sign of a phishing scam. Now, chatbots will mimic native speakers with targeted messages. ChatGPT is capable of seamless language translation, which will be a game-changer for foreign adversaries.

A similarly dangerous tactic is the use of AI to create disinformation and conspiracy campaigns. The implications of this usage could go beyond cyber risks. Researchers used ChatGPT to write an op-ed, and the result was similar to anything found on InfoWars or other well-known websites peddling conspiracy theories.

https://securityintelligence.com/articles/chatgpt-confirms-data-breach/

…so

Why this tool is reducing Asian influence in AI-generated art [NBC]

Discrimination bigger concern from AI than human extinction, says EU chief [BBC]

…despite what they say

European Union lawmakers on Wednesday took a key step toward passing landmark restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence, putting Brussels on a collision course with American tech giants funneling billions of dollars into the burgeoning technology.

The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the E.U. AI Act, a sweeping package that aims to protect consumers from potentially dangerous applications of artificial intelligence. Government officials made the move amid concerns that recent advances in the technology could be used to nefarious ends, ushering in surveillance, algorithmically driven discrimination and prolific misinformation that could upend democracy. E.U. officials are moving much faster than their U.S. counterparts, where discussions about AI have dragged on in Congress despite apocalyptic warnings from even some industry officials.

The legislation takes a “risk-based approach,” introducing restrictions based on how dangerous lawmakers predict an AI application could be. It would ban tools that European lawmakers deem “unacceptable,” such as systems allowing law enforcement to predict criminal behavior using analytics. It would introduce new limits on technologies simply deemed “high risk,” such as tools that could sway voters to influence elections or recommendation algorithms, which suggest what posts, photos and videos people see on social networks.

The bill takes aim at the recent boom in generative AI, creating new obligations for applications such as ChatGPT that make text or images, often with humanlike flair. Companies would have to label AI-generated content to prevent AI from being abused to spread falsehoods. The legislation requires firms to publish summaries of what copyrighted data is used to train their tools, addressing concerns from publishers that corporations are profiting off materials scraped from their websites.

The threat posed by the legislation to such companies is so grave that OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said it may be forced to pull out of Europe, depending on what is included in the final text. The European Parliament’s approval is a critical step in the legislative process, but the bill still awaits negotiations involving the European Council, whose membership largely consists of heads of state or government of E.U. countries. Officials say they hope to reach a final agreement by the end of the year.

The vote cements the E.U.’s position as the de facto global leader on tech regulation, as other governments — including the U.S. Congress — are just beginning to grapple with the threat presented by AI. The legislation would add to an arsenal of regulatory tools that Europe adopted over the past five years targeting Silicon Valley companies, while similar efforts in the United States have languished. If adopted, the proposed rules are likely to influence policymakers around the world and usher in standards that could trickle down to all consumers, as companies shift their practices internationally to avoid a patchwork of policies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/14/eu-parliament-approves-ai-act/

…there may be some running before “we” can walk

People are using ChatGPT like a personal trainer [NBC]

‘AI Jesus’ is giving gaming and breakup advice on a 24/7 Twitch stream [ibid.]

Musk and Dorsey criticize Apple over its treatment of a social media app that allows bitcoin tips [ibid.]

A viral video of a ‘reckless’ robotaxi caused an uproar in San Francisco. Police say the internet got it wrong. [ibid.]

…not that it’s exactly surprising

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/26/openai-embraced-regulation-until-talks-got-serious-europe/

…ultimately these things are directed by people

A powerful U.S. political family is linked to copper mining in the Colombian rainforest [NBC]

…however much they may not really have control of the steering or the throttle

What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?

What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”
[…]
Where would statements and actions like those have left Kevin McCarthy, his knuckleheads in the House G.O.P. caucus, and other Republicans who now are defending Trump against the Justice Department indictment? Would they be so eager to proclaim Trump’s innocence? Would they be raging against Tuesday’s hearing in Miami? Would they be claiming, falsely, that President Biden was indicting Trump, when they know full well that the president doesn’t have the power to indict anyone?

I doubt it. But I know that all of these questions are rhetorical. None of those people have the character to rise to these ethical challenges and take on Trump and what he has done to break our political system. Trump is like a drug dealer who thrives in a broken neighborhood, getting everyone hooked on his warped values. That is why he is doing everything he can to break our national neighborhood in two fundamental ways.

For starters, Trump has consistently tried to denigrate people who have demonstrated character and courage, by labeling them losers and weaklings. This comes easy to Trump because he is a man utterly without character — devoid of any sense of ethics or loyalty to any value system or person other than himself. And for him, politics is a blood sport in which you bludgeon the other guys and gals — whether they are in your party or not — with smears and nicknames and lies until they get out of your way.
[…]
The second way that Trump is trying to break our system was on display on Tuesday in Miami, where he followed his appearance as a federal criminal defendant with a political meet-and-greet at a Cuban restaurant. There, once again, Trump tried to discredit the rules of the game that would restrain him and his limitless appetite for power for power’s sake.

How does he do that? First, he gets everyone around him — and, eventually, the vast majority of those in his party — to stop insisting that Trump abide by ethical norms. His family members and party colleagues have grown adept at running away from reporters’ microphones after every Trump outrage.

But precisely because key political allies, church leaders and close family members will not call out Trump for his moral and legal transgressions — which would make his 2024 re-election bid unthinkable and hasten his departure from the political scene — we have to rely solely on the courts to defend the rules of the game.

And when that happens, it puts tremendous stress on our judicial system and our democracy itself, because the decision to prosecute or not is always a judgment call. And when those judgment calls have to be rendered at times by judges or prosecutors appointed by Democrats — which is how our system works — it gives Trump and his flock the perfect opening to denounce the whole process as a “witch hunt.”

And when such behavior happens over and over across a broad front — because Trump won’t stop at red lights anywhere and just keeps daring us to ignore his transgressions or indict him so he can cry bias — we end up eroding the two most important pillars of our democratic system: the belief in the independence of our judiciary that ensures no one is above the law, and the belief in our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately.

Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon. [NYT]

…not that profiting legitimately is easily mistaken for a desirable yardstick

In a cavernous, Pentagon-sized facility nestled in an Appalachian valley, thousands upon thousands of empty holes line the bare concrete floor.

A mere 16 of them house the spindly, 30-foot-tall centrifuges that enrich uranium, converting it into the key ingredient that fuels nuclear power plants. And for now, they are dormant.

But if each hole housed a working centrifuge, the facility could get the United States out of a predicament that has implications for both the war in Ukraine and for America’s transition away from burning fossil fuels. Today, American companies are paying around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy the fuel that generates more than half of the United States’ emissions-free energy.

It is one of the most significant remaining flows of money from the United States to Russia, and it continues despite strenuous efforts among U.S. allies to sever economic ties with Moscow. The enriched uranium payments are made to subsidiaries of Rosatom, which in turn is closely intertwined with Russia’s military apparatus.

The United States’ reliance on nuclear power is primed to grow as the country aims to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. But no American-owned company enriches uranium. The United States once dominated the market, until a swirl of historical factors, including an enriched-uranium-buying deal between Russia and the United States designed to promote Russia’s peaceful nuclear program after the Soviet Union’s collapse, enabled Russia to corner half the global market. The United States ceased enriching uranium entirely.

The United States and Europe have largely stopped buying Russian fossil fuels as punishment for the Ukraine invasion. But building a new enriched uranium supply chain will take years — and significantly more government funding than currently allocated.

That the vast facility in Piketon, Ohio, stands nearly empty more than a year into Russia’s war in Ukraine is a testament to the difficulty.

Nuclear power companies rely on cheap enriched uranium made in Russia. That geopolitical dilemma is intensifying as climate change underscores the need for emissions-free energy. [NYT]

…maybe someone can explain why the market hasn’t managed to solve that with a wave of an invisible hand or two…I know I can’t

A group of contract workers tasked with training Google’s new AI chatbot said they were fired for speaking out about low pay and unreasonable deadlines they believe have left them unable to properly do their jobs and ensure the bots don’t cause harm.

In a complaint filed to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, six workers claim they were illegally fired for organizing by their employer Appen, which provides tens of thousands of contract workers for Big Tech firms. The workers say they had spent nearly a year pushing for better pay and working conditions, and were then fired two weeks after one of the most prominent worker organizers among them sent a letter to Congress saying their situation could lead to Google’s chatbot, known as Bard, acting dangerously.

Workers who rate the chatbots “are often not given enough time to evaluate longer responses,” one of the workers, Ed Stackhouse, 49, wrote in a May 15 letter to two senators leading a congressional hearing on the risks of AI. “The fact that raters are so exploited could lead to a faulty and ultimately more dangerous product.”

Appen told the workers they were fired because of “business conditions,” Stackhouse said. Appen did not respond to requests for comment.

“Appen is responsible for the working conditions of their employees, including pay, benefits, employment changes, and the tasks they’re assigned,” said Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini. “We, of course, respect the right of these workers to join a union or participate in organizing activity, but it’s a matter between the workers and their employer, Appen.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/14/google-ai-bard-raters-chatbot-accuracy/

…is it, tho?

The Biden administration has been negotiating quietly with Iran to limit Tehran’s nuclear program and free imprisoned Americans, according to officials from three countries, in part of a larger U.S. effort to ease tensions and reduce the risk of a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. goal is to reach an informal, unwritten agreement, which some Iranian officials are calling a “political cease-fire.” It would aim to prevent a further escalation in a long-hostile relationship that has grown even more fraught as Iran builds up a stockpile of highly enriched uranium close to bomb-grade purity, supplies Russia with drones for use in Ukraine and brutally cracks down on domestic political protests.
[…]
The indirect talks, some occurring this spring in the Gulf Arab state of Oman, reflect a resumption of diplomacy between the United States and Iran after the collapse of more than a year of negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. That agreement sharply limited Iran’s activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran accelerated its nuclear program months after President Donald J. Trump withdrew from the deal and imposed a slew of new sanctions on the country in 2018.

Iran would agree under a new pact — which two Israeli officials called “imminent” — not to enrich uranium beyond its current production level of 60 percent purity. That is close to but short of the 90 percent purity needed to fashion a nuclear weapon, a level that the United States has warned would force a severe response.

Iran would also halt lethal attacks on American contractors in Syria and Iraq by its proxies in the region, expand its cooperation with international nuclear inspectors, and refrain from selling ballistic missiles to Russia, Iranian officials said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/us/politics/biden-iran-nuclear-program.html

…because sometimes I could swear it seems like matters between an all-too-finite shortlist of interests are very much of pressing concern to the near-infinite list of interested parties with a lot riding on the outcomes…probably just me, though

Are record warm oceans reason to freak out? Scientists are divided. [WaPo]

Democrats’ clean-energy tax credits are popular — and expensive [ibid.]

On frontier of new ‘gold rush,’ quest for coveted EV metals yields misery [ibid.]

Republicans undercut one of the best investments the U.S. can make [ibid.]

…where was I?

What the first net-zero military base could mean for the Pentagon’s future [ibid.]

…uh huh…sure, horatio…but there are more things in heaven & earth than are dreamt of in WaPo’s philosophy…so…moving on

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/14/privileges-committee-signs-off-boris-johnson-partygate-report

…mustbehavemustbehavemustbehave…don’t start

However, what Johnson, who studied classics at the University of Oxford, did not include in his speech was that while the Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is said to have left Rome for a bucolic existence on his farm, he was later called upon to return to Rome and lead as a dictator.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/06/boris-johnson-likens-himself-to-roman-cincinnatus-who-returned-as-dictator

…surely we’ve covered this more than amply

Fox News says graphic calling Biden a ‘wannabe dictator’ has been ‘addressed’ [NBC]

Here's the “wannabe dictator” chyron in question:https://t.co/pm1ObL5BiW

— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2023

…maybe someone could tell that to these assholes, though?

I am so, so tired of being slandered by these despicable people.

— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) June 14, 2023

…because app…arently reinventing the wheel is the order of the day

[ETA …that mid-word ellipsis is either a typo or one of the many bits of this post that got mangled when my laptop crashed after I refused to let its lack of cooperation deter me from trying to post what I had…but…you know what…I’m keeping that one…though I have had to retrofit a bunch of other stuff…hopefully before too many people got lost among the digitally-induced non sequiturs?]

Every Western democracy and everyone here on Twitter needs to see this tweet, and consider what it means, who Elon has become.

This is no own-the-libs shit. It's a direct call for the ending of American democracy by force, a violent coup against a sitting American President. https://t.co/dJdvdsLl00

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) June 14, 2023

…but…well…even my devices are openly revolting against me keeping this up any longer…so I guess I’ll just post this before rebooting any & everything & seeing if that might make them at least no more sluggish than I am this morning…being as how I can’t ply them with caffeine…&

How does trauma spill from one generation to the next? [WaPo]

…eventually

…see about some tunes…speaking of which

Battle rap is an art form and a sport, as well as an industry that has been slowly growing over the last decade. While there are proving grounds all over the country, New York is its epicenter. [NYT]

…probably best not to sleep on the importance of the eye of the beholder

‘Touch mic and shell it!’ How British freestyle rap videos became a global phenomenon [Guardian]

…it…might could have one of those wider applications I’ve been hearing about

It’s Not a Good Sign When People Who Don’t Pay for News Have So Little to Choose From [NYT]

…uh huh…says the piece run by a firm that operates a news paywall..irony, how do I love thee…let me count the ways