In conjunction with the UN General Assembly in New York, the U.S. State Department held an event this week focusing on the role of AI in advancing sustainable development. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was joined by eight leading AI companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others, to announce a $100 million investment to bring AI to countries in the Global South. Blinken underscored that supporting AI access in developing nations would help tackle major global challenges such as food insecurity, climate change, and the spread of infectious diseases. Coverage of the event from CNET can be found here and a transcript and video of the event here.
Also this week, Microsoft published a progress report on its Secure Future Initiative (SFI). Launched late last year, SFI now has the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers dedicated to the program—making it the largest cybersecurity engineering effort in history. This new Microsoft Security blog summarizes SFI, and you can find coverage of this development from The Verge.
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This Week in Washington
- Nextgov: Members of Congress introduced a bipartisan AI research and development bill, focused on enhancing the Department of Energy’s AI efforts by providing more funding and updating guidelines for testing AI for energy operations.
- CyberScoop: U.S. House Homeland Security chair Rep. Mark Green is working to advance a bill to strengthen the cybersecurity workforce. The bill would create a program within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that offers scholarships to community college and technical school students in exchange for two years of service in government cyber jobs.
- FedScoop: Federal agencies have begun releasing their plans to comply with an AI-related memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget. The compliance plans outline the steps each agency must take when updating their internal policies, collecting information for AI use case inventories, removing barriers to responsible AI tool use, and more. These plans must be updated every two years until 2036.
- Reuters: The U.S. Commerce Department has finalized a $123 million grant for Polar Semiconductor to expand its plant in Minnesota, intended to nearly double the company’s U.S. production capacity of power and sensor chips with aerospace, automotive, and defense uses. The award is the first finalized grant from the Biden administration’s $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program, and officials are optimistic that more awards will be finalized soon.
- Washington Post: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has alleged that Social media and streaming companies, including Facebook and Amazon (owner of streaming platform Twitch), fail to adequately protect users from privacy intrusions and safeguard teens on their platforms. The agency critiqued the companies for not prioritizing user privacy consistently, refusing to confront potential risks for kids, and broadly taking data to power new AI tools.
- Washington Post: The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was lured into a video call with a malevolent actor who was likely using deepfake AI technology to appear as the former Ukrainian foreign minister. While the person’s voice and appearance matched that of Dmytro Kubela, they began to ask out-of-character questions regarding the upcoming election that made Senator Ben Cardin suspicious. This incident has raised concerns that more lawmakers could become targets of these sophisticated deepfake impersonations.
Article Summary
- Colorado Sun: The Boulder County Regional Fire Training Center will be headlining new sensor technology that allows firefighters to “smell” origin points and locate hot spots or new fires before smoke can be seen. The sensor is able to detect fire-born particles, chemicals, gasses, and volatile organic compounds and sends out geographically targeted alerts to first responders.
- Ars Technica: Cox Communications asked a court to stop Rhode Island’s plans to distribute over $100 million in federal funds for broadband deployment. Cox claims that the state used “flawed internet speed data” to decide which areas were underserved and the current plan will instead benefit places that already have high-speed internet. If the lawsuit is successful, the company could prevent other internet providers from receiving grants to expand into areas they already serve.
- Wall Street Journal: AI data centers require a massive amount of energy. While the rush to build these centers is upending the industry’s climate pledges, it is also spurring the tech industry to work with power producers to speed up the development of new clean-energy sources.
Featured Podcast
- TED Tech
In the last few years, AI technology has become available for the average person to use in their day-to-day life. However, where there are opportunities for growth, there are also opportunities for risk. Thus, the UN recently released a report for “Governing AI for Humanity” which focuses on the pressing need to guide AI. Tune in to hear Ian Bremmer, a political scientist, talk through the UN’s report. (“The TED AI Show: The UN is speaking up about AI – here’s what they’re saying” – September 24, 2024)