Great Tech, Inc.™

Technology | The Guardian The power of AI is worrying senior Labour figures – as is the fear of ‘falling behind the public’ Westminster appears to be waking up to warnings over AI safety, with concerns over its use by extremist groups and bad actors “I have this sense that, within a few months, AI is going to be all anyone is talking about,” said one cabinet minister, with an ominous stare. It was Labour conference, with everyone from ministers to activists jubilant at Andy Burnham’s takeover and a bounce in the polls after the change of leader. Continue reading...

Technology | The Guardian What are self-replicating ‘AI worms’, and why is Anthropic worried about them? The tech company says successful AI worms need more capability on less powerful devices, but current trends make that feasible by the end of the year Warnings about what artificial intelligence might do in the future – together with alarming reports of what it has gotten up to already – are being issued so quickly that even security experts have difficulty triaging what to worry about. Yet a report this week from Anthropic’s offensive research team grabbed attention by describing a new, practical threat, one devoid of human characteristics or apocalyptic musings. The red team, as such internal testers are called, said it created a malicious AI program that spread autonomously through internet-connected “smart” televisions and could do the same inside other ordinary devices. While machines running AI usually need a fair amount of computing power, the researchers said that their program split parts of itself among 15 televisions and was still able to function by using a bit of power from each. Continue reading...

Technology | The Guardian AI firm Anthropic to commit 5% of shares to fund for ‘public good’ The $48bn giveaway comes amid concerns about the tech and as the company prepares for a stock market listing Anthropic has said it will commit 5% of its shares to a fund for the “public good”, as the AI developer behind the Claude chatbot seeks to bolster its appeal before its stock market listing. The company announced it would commit the shares, worth around $48bn (£36bn) at its latest valuation in May, subject to shareholder approval. It will add a further 2% of its stock to the fund for every 50% increase in its value above an undisclosed baseline. Continue reading...

Technology | The Guardian Google Cloud problems: regulators push for details about outage which caused widespread disruption – latest updates Google apologises after suffering a major Cloud outage in its London region that caused problems at banks, Revolut, and court video cameras * Google cloud failure hits millions as UK courts and banks knocked offline The pound has rallied after Britain’s unemployment rate fell unexpectedly this morning to 4.7%. Sterling has gained half a cent against the US dollar to $1.3352, as the City welcomes the news that employment rose in the last quarter. “This data has caught the market on the hop, with traders scrambling to respond and boost exposure to the pound. Good news has been a touch more prevalent for the UK of late, which is just the kind of framing the government needs heading into the budget, though signs of more resilience in the labour market do of course mean the BoE has more room to respond to higher inflation.” “The labour market remains relatively flat overall. This resilience in the face of headwinds driven by global events is welcome. But underlying problems remain, with around one million young people not in education, employment or training and overall employment more than two million short of the Government’s 80% employment rate target. To fix those challenges we need to change the benefit system so it offers active help to all who need it, but also make it easier for employers to create jobs. “ Continue reading...