One of the most profound aspects of Europes new Digital Markets Act is that its the first antitrust law to try to ward off future abuses by Big Tech, rather than limiting enforcers to punishing companies for abuses that theyve already perpetrated.

Identifying potential miscreants and giving them clear ground rules, with swift comeback when those rules are broken, is an approach born of the frustrations that regulators have experienced when scrambling to keep up with the sectors move-fast-and-break-things approach. And now Indiathe worlds most populous nationmay take much the same approach thanks to a recently proposed government bill.

Big Tech, understandably, doesnt want this to happen. Reuters today reported on a letter sent by the U.S.-India Business Council to the Indian government, arguing that targeted companies are likely to reduce investment in India, pass on increased prices for digital services, and reduce the range of services in the country, should the Indian Digital Competition Bill come to pass.

A government panel proposed the bill in March and the consultation period just closed; the U.S.-India Business Council, whose board includes representatives of Google and Meta, submitted its comments at the last moment. Like the EU law, the Indian proposal would see Big Tech firms face fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue for sins like using personal data from one of the companys services in another, or self-preferencing ones own services in search results. Apple would be forced to allow third-party app stores in India, like its had to do in Europe.

The council isnt the only lobbying group to come out swinging for the likes of Google, Apple, and Amazon. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a U.S. think tank thats funded by Big Tech and reliably speaks out in its interests, also responded to the Indian consultation with arguments against the new billthis time in publicly released comments, unlike those submitted by the U.S.-India Business Council.

ITIFs take was that switching to so-called ex-ante (i.e. before the event) antitrust regulation could only be justified when the market has failed, and market failure does not appear to exist in Indias digital markets. The think tank also warned of deleterious effects on innovation that could stifle Indias economic aspirations.

However, Indian startups have quite a different take, with dozens coming out in support of the bill. We see it as a catalyst for creating a fairer and more competitive digital ecosystem in the country, one that allows startups to thrive, they told the government.

Its not clear what the Indian government will do next, now that the responses to its consultation are in, but if it pushes ahead with the bill, that will be a major endorsement of the new European approach to regulating Big Tech. And as for the levels of the fines that could be involved, up to 10% of global revenue is bad enough if youre receiving such a fine in one place, but extremely damaging if different countries join in the fun.

More news below.

David Meyer

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OpenAI safety. Following a string of high-profile departures by employees who were concerned about OpenAIs rush to release potentially unsafe AI technologies, and the companys disbanding of its internal safety team, OpenAI has set up a board committee to evaluate safety and security, Bloomberg reports. CEO Sam Altman is on the committee, as are board members Bret Taylor, Adam DAngelo, and Nicole Seligman. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports that EU privacy regulators remain undecided about OpenAIs compliance with European data-protection law.

Social media dictators. Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning American-Filipina journalist, has accused Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk of being the largest dictators in the way they run their social networks. According to the Guardian, Ressa said people around the world are all being manipulated the same way by platforms such as Facebook and X. She recommended shielding kids from social media, and overturning U.S. legislation that shields platforms from lawsuits over user-generated content.

Christies cyberattack. A group called RansomHub is threatening to soon publish the personal information of wealthy clients of the auction house Christies, from which it claims to have taken the data. As Bloomberg reports, Christies admits that some client information was taken in an attack earlier this monthwhich took the art-world titans website offline for 10 daysbut says theres no evidence of financial or transactional records having been purloined.

The year-on-year increase in iPhone shipments in China last month, indicating a reversal of fortunes after Apples dismal start to the year in that country.

Beijing answers Bidens CHIPS Act with the $47.5 billion Big Fund IIIChinas largest-ever semiconductor investment fund, by Bloomberg

Tesla shareholders should reject Elon Musks excessive pay package, proxy advisor says, noting extraordinarily time-consuming projects unrelated to EV maker, by Bloomberg

Elon Musks xAI raises $6 billion from Sequoia, Andreessen, and Saudi royals as it hails significant strides in AI research, by the Associated Press

Top VC Kai-Fu Lee says his prediction that AI will displace 50% of jobs by 2027 is uncannily accurate, by Jason Ma

T-Mobile will buy almost all of U.S Cellular in $4.4 billion deal, by the Associated Press

Families of slain Uvalde victims sue Meta, Call of Duty maker, and gun manufacturer: This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, by the Associated Press

The legal team that Twitter built. The New York Times has a lovely article on New York lawyer Akiva Cohen and the legal team he assembled on the basis of their hilarious and astute legal tweeting. They bonded while piling into the dubious defamation claims made by the lawyer of a voiceover artista moment on Twitter that came to be known as Threadnoughtand now work together at Cohens law firm. What's more, the team is taking on X owner Elon Musk by representing over 200 former Twitter employees who didnt get the severance they were owed.

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Big Tech's lobbyists sound alarm over Indian antitrust reform - Fortune

With their visions of the future, Big Tech pushes people to not only buy certain products and learn certain skills, but to always view the future as the same thing: technological development. Asher Kessler explores the history of how Facebook/Meta has imagined the future so that we might think about it in a different way today.

Asher Kesslers research is being exhibited as part of LSE Festival.

Our perspective of the future, of what lies ahead of us, has historically been shaped by an array of actors. For millennia, religious thinkers have offered vivid descriptions of an afterlife while certain Christian leaders have imagined that the end of the world is imminent. Marxist philosophers also, through their analysis of history and class struggle, have argued that the future was inevitable: revolution and socialism.

Yet, over the past few decades, alongside our preachers and philosophers, it is our technological leaders who have radically shaped what we anticipate as ahead of us. For many, the future does not appear to lie in revolution, let alone heaven or hell, but in some sort of science fiction. Whether it is the promise of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Elon Musks vision of colonising Mars, or the radical extension of human life spans, we are continuously confronted with visions of radically transformed techno-futures.

We can often overlook how our sense of what lies ahead, of what is imagined as possible or probable, has tremendous power over how we interact with the world. How we anticipate the future has the power to reorient our sense of the present. But it also can reshape our memory of the past, inviting us to re-tell history so that it better fits into the futures slipstream. Because of this, I follow Jenny Andersson in thinking of the future as a field of struggle in which different actors compete over the boundaries of what is considered imaginable.

In my PhD research on the intellectual history of Facebook/Meta, I explore how actors in the company have imagined the future in different ways over the past two decades. Over the last three years, I have analysed thousands of documents produced by the company, interviewed different high-level employees and read dozens of blogs to explore Facebooks different futures. This research is being exhibited as part of LSE Festival.

In its early years, actors in Facebook began disseminating a future in which all people would be connected. This was a vision of a global communication network that would, for the first time in human history, it was claimed, connect all humans on the planet. Such a world, Facebook imagined, would be one in which hierarchies were flattened, people would have greater direct access to each other without institutional intermediaries, and one could find their community beyond national or geographical boundaries. It was also a world in which Big Tech companies would push forward progress by enabling developing countries to modernise and catch up with the developed world. In exchange, Big Tech companies would produce and have access to huge future markets.

If the first vision of a world connected was communicated to broad audiences of Facebook users and journalists, the companys second big vision of the future was articulated forcefully to a separate community: shareholders. Here Facebook envisioned a different, although not contradictory future in which human intention and behaviour becomes increasingly knowable, predictable and responsive to controllable signals. With its business model based upon the extraction and analysis of user data, and the selling of the opportunity to shape that behaviour, actors in Facebook depicted a future in which human behaviour become ever-more rationalised, manageable and commercialised.

Most recently, after a spate of scandals, Facebook disseminated a vision of a new social reality, blending together the physical world with virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. The metaverse, Zuckerberg announced, would allow people to be together with anyone, to be able to teleport anywhere, and to create and experience anything. In this quasi-utopian vision, people would be radically freed from the laws of nature. Geography, distance, and gravity would no longer be a limitation for humanity. Space would collapse as individuals entered the embodied internet, affording them presence in an infinite variety of places with people from across the world.

Instilled with norms of inevitability and directionality, these futures are intended to shape how people act in their present. To not be left behind, they convince us that we need to buy certain products or reskill for a different career. Today, as Meta, alongside other Big Tech companies, work to embed artificial intelligence in our sense of the future, how many times have you considered whether your need to act now to prepare for what you believe is ahead?

How Big Tech companies express their visions for the future have shaped how their products are received and imagined both by their audience and users, as well as politicians and regulators. For example, Facebooks depiction of a future world connected moulded the boundaries of what regulations were imagined as possible and impossible. Just as Facebook worked hard to shape our understanding of the future of technology and regulation in the 2000s, they too have been at the forefront of conditioning the norms, rules and ways of imagining emerging and future technologies today.

These attempts to shape what we anticipate as ahead of us also remould how we come to remember the past, so that it better fits with particular future-oriented narratives. To give one example, in countless interviews, Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly depicted history as one long journey in which humans came together in bigger and bigger scales: from hunter-gatherer tribes to Facebooks global community. Influenced by popular historical book Sapiens, Zuckerberg placed his vision of the future within a particularly progressive narrative of the past. Yet, to accept this progressive historical story is to re-tell the past in a way that ignores the peoples and events that dont fit neatly into this narrative of ever-betterment.

Underlying all three of Facebooks futures is the same logic: that the future emerges from the next imagined technological breakthrough. Whether it was the proliferation of smartphones, Virtual Reality headsets, or AI, these visions of the future close the future around the same thing: technological development. This norm blinds us from recognising that the future is actually indeterminate the future remains radically open.

While these visions of the future emphasise certain lines of possibility, they close others; seducing us to look one way and distracting us from alternative considerations. The next time you encounter a techno-future, the next time you are promised to be on the verge of unprecedented change, I want you to ask why it is that some company or person is trying to convince you to believe in this. More than this, I want us to consider how we might imagine a future away from the visions and norms of Big Tech? If the future is radically open, what can we do with it?

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Big Techs's vision of the future | LSE Business Review - LSE Home

The UK could subject big tech companies to hefty fines if they dont comply with new rules meant to promote competition in digital markets. On Thursday, lawmakers passed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (DMCC) through Parliament, which will let regulators enforce rules without the help of the courts.

The DMCC also addresses consumer protection issues by banning fake reviews, forcing companies to be more transparent about their subscription contracts, regulating secondary ticket sales, and getting rid of hidden fees. It will also force certain companies to report mergers to the UKs Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Only the companies the CMA designates as having strategic market status (SMS) have to comply. These SMS companies are described as having substantial and entrenched market power and a position of strategic significance in the UK. They must have a global revenue of more than 25 billion or UK revenue of more than 1 billion.

The law will also give the CMA the authority to determine whether a company has broken a law, require compliance, and issue a fine all without going through the court system. The CMA can fine companies up to 10 percent of the total value of a businesss global revenue for violating the new rules.

If all of this sounds familiar, its because the European Union enacted a similar law, called the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The legislation issues sweeping requirements for companies deemed digital gatekeepers, such as Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon. However, unlike the DMA, the DMCC offers a more tailored approach to the requirements that each SMS firm will have to meet.

Some companies, such as Spotify and Epic Games, have long sought government intervention to help fight against the app store fees imposed by companies like Apple. In a post published in response to the DMCCs passing, Spotify says the UK should act to regulate Apples practices. Apple has spent millionsin country after countrytrying to circumvent and make a mockery of laws like the DMCC, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a statement. The DMCC has the potential to unlock real competition and growth and Apple must be held accountable in the U.K. because we cannot miss the opportunity to get it right.

Apple has faced criticism over its response to the DMA, and the European Union has already opened an investigation to evaluate whether the company is complying with the regions new rules.

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UK law will let regulators fine Big Tech without court approval - The Verge

Stacker compiled resources from the United Nations to illustrate how novel statistical models are helping shed light on human trafficking. - MADAREE TOHLALA/AFP // Getty Images

Dom DiFurio

How does one measure a crime as pernicious and brutal as human trafficking without putting the victims behind the numbers at risk?

Stacker compiled resources from the United Nations International Organization for Migration, or IOM, to explain how new discoveries in statistical analysis are helping illuminate the dark world of human trafficking.

The U.N. first set out to solve this dilemma by partnering with big technology companiesincluding Microsoft, Amazon, British Telecommunications, and Salesforcethrough its Tech Against Trafficking Accelerator program in 2019. It published its first anonymized data set in 2021 and updated it again with case data from 2022.

For decades, broadly shared human trafficking statistics have been limited to estimates based on tips reported to organizations like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or criminal justice statistics, which experts say paint a conservative picture, highlighting only the cases in which authorities are able to intervene and prosecute perpetrators.

And the data that has been available suffers from another problemsharing detailed information about the demographics of who engages in and is victimized by the crime risks putting victims in more danger.

In the 2022 update, the U.N.s partnership with Microsoft and others launched a new way to shed light on the relationships between victims and their captors while preserving victim privacy and the integrity of the underlying data. Theyve done it by combining cutting-edge statistical methods such as synthetic data and differential privacy.

Synthetic data is data that is artificially generated via algorithms and comes in various forms. It can be based on real data, partially based on real data, or completely artificial. Finance companies like American Express, as well as those in autonomous vehicles and health care, have been working to harness the power of synthetic data for the last several years.

Differential privacy is a method for describing patterns within a group of people without giving away identifiable information about any one individual in the group. Microsoft has used differential privacy algorithms since at least 2017 to protect user privacy while collecting data from their devices.

In the past, agencies releasing case data might redact certain aspects that could be used to identify an individual. This is also called de-identified data. However, each redaction or alteration removes information that could add to understanding trafficking networks.

Other methods of obscuring data to provide privacy include aggregated data and anonymized data, a method that has been found in studies to sometimes distort the underlying data.

The tech coalitions now-public algorithm ingests sensitive case data from the U.N. and outputs figures that cannot be linked to the individuals represented in it. The authors of the data set refer to this as safety in noise. Importantly, however, the data that the updated algorithm outputs preserves the statistical relationships between cases so experts can trace patterns without sacrificing victim safety.

The data set released as a product of the accelerator includes records of 17,000 victims as well as more than 37,000 perpetrators of human trafficking who were active in criminal activity across 123 countries from 2005-2022, according to the IOM.

Specifically, the data set allows more people to analyze the relationships between victims of trafficking and their perpetrators.

The synthetic data created based on the descriptions from trafficking victims assisted by the IOM reveals that forced labor was seven times more prevalent than sexual exploitation from 2021-2022, the most recent time span for which data is available.

Women were the most prevalent victims of the crime last year, and those victims traffickers were almost equally as likely to be male or female. The perpetrators in these cases were most often a stranger to the victim, but a significant portion of victims reported that they knew the perpetrator either as a friend or an acquaintance.

Human trafficking is a global problem and often happens when vulnerable populations like migrants are forced into enslavement or sex trafficking. The case data that describe each individual victim or perpetrators situationlike that held by immigration agencies globallyhas the potential to help unlock insights for the authorities making an effort to catch and prosecute perpetrators and protect victims.

The accelerators efforts in conjunction with the U.N. dovetail with the Biden administrations updated, four-pronged action plan for combatting human trafficking released in 2021. The plan emphasizes the importance of partnerships with the private sector to increase information-sharing that supports efforts to prevent the crime, protect victims, and prosecute those who facilitate the crime.

Story editing by Ashleigh Graf. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.

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How Big Tech protects victims' privacy in the fight against human trafficking - Digital Journal

Some of the biggest names in tech are joining forces to try something that many before them have failed to do: use trees to cancel out their greenhouse gas emissions. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce are creating theSymbiosis Coalition as an effort to support nature-based projects aimed at taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Its a tactic companies have used for decades to try to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees, which take in and store carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The hope is that paying to restore forests will amplify that process, ostensibly counteracting companies carbon footprint. It sounds simple enough on paper. However, a growing body of evidence has shown that this strategy fails time after time.

A growing body of evidence has shown that this strategy fails time after time

The Symbiosis Coalition seems to think it can turn things around. Together, the companies have committed to purchasing credits from high-impact, science-based restoration projects representing up to 20 million tons of captured carbon dioxide by 2030. They say theyll vet projects for quality control, aiming to drum up demand for carbon credits that have earned a bad rap because so many carbon offset initiatives have fallen flat in the past.

In one recent example, a study of 26 carbon offset projects across six countries published in the journal Science last year found that few of them succeeded in stopping deforestation. Whatever climate benefits the projects were purported to have were overblown by as much as 300 percent. A separate investigation into one of the worlds leading carbon registries found that 90 percent of its rainforest offsets turned out to be phantom creditsthat likely didnt represent real-world reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. And a 2022 report by nonprofit watchdog Carbon Market Watch determined that carbon offset credits offered by major European airlines were similarly linked to faulty forestry projects.

A big part of the problem is that its difficult to measure just how much carbon dioxide a tree or forest has absorbed, which has led to projects exaggerating how much good they do for the climate. Planting trees is also a tricky endeavor if they dont live for hundreds of years, they just wind up releasing all the carbon theyve stored. Planting the wrong trees in the wrong place, creating tree farms instead of forests, can also harm the local environment. In 2020, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff backed a World Economic Forum plan to plant a trillion trees although the research undergirding the effort was quickly criticized by dozens of scientists for grossly overestimating the potential environmental benefits.

Salesforce, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are confident they can keep history from repeating itself

Nevertheless, Salesforce, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are confident they can keep history from repeating itself. To try to accomplish that, they worked alongside independent experts to establish strict criteria for forestry projects. Symbiosis also says in a press release that itll involve and compensate Indigenous Peoples and local communities to work toward equitable outcomes. And while its starting with forestry projects, Symbiosis says that, over time, itll incorporate other strategies, like sequestering carbon dioxide in soil.

Nature-based projects are complex and challenging to get right and havent always lived up to their intended impact, Symbiosis executive director Julia Strong said in an email to The Verge. Symbiosis aims to address challenges around nature-based project integrity to date by setting a high-quality bar that builds on best in class market standards and the latest science, data, and best practice.

The coalition is modeled after a similar initiative called Frontier launched by Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinseyin 2022. Frontier is focused on supporting new technologies to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Frontier has contracted more than 510,000 tons of carbon removal but delivered just around 1,700 tons of captured carbon so far.

Both Symbiosis and Frontier are aimed at facilitating deals between carbon removal projects and companies that want to pay for their services. Eventually, Symbiosis hopes more companies beyond its founders will hop on board.

For perspective, all of these efforts still add up to a small fraction of the emissions these companies produce. The 20 million metric tons of nature-based carbon dioxide removal that Symbiosis committed to is just slightly more than the 15.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide Microsoft alone produced in its last fiscal year.

To be sure, safeguarding the worlds forests does a lot of good for the planet. But exploiting them in the name of fighting climate change hasnt been a safe bet. Raising the stakes, Big Techs greenhouse gas emissions are growing with the rise of energy-hungry AI tools. If companies are serious about taking on climate change, theyll still have to rein in the amount of pollution they produce in the first place. Even successful forest projects cant do all the dirty work for them.

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Big Tech thinks it can plant trees better than everyone else - The Verge

This profile was originally published on January 17, 2024. With the news that Max Wolf Friedlichs Job is coming to Broadway, we republished it on May 28, 2024.

Max Wolf Friedlich is 29 and so grew up seeing, and sometimes seeking out, all sorts of crazy shit online. Perhaps as a result, he has a certain unbothered, button-pushing bravado. This is true in person, I realize when we meet, a few days into the New Year, for lunch at Shopsins, the diner in Essex Market. There, he declares that, even as I make some tepid chitchat about resolutions and minding my carbs, he is still planning to eat like a little piece of shit in 2024. But also in his clever, psychologically harrowing play Job, which I couldnt stop thinking about after I saw it in the fall at the Soho Playhouse (it begins another run at the Connelly Theater in the East Village this month). The show is about a millennial content moderator named Jane who, after having an office breakdown that goes viral, is mandated by her Facebook-esque employer to see a technophobic boomer therapist; upping the drama, she brings a gun along to the session. Its 80 anxiety-inducing minutes long, and I was so distracted by the final plot twist that I couldnt hold a conversation with my friends over drinks afterward.

At lunch, just as our food arrives, I ask Friedlich what is the most disturbing thing hes ever witnessed online. Sorry, were eating, he says, before admitting that as a kid he was obsessed with watching a video of an American journalist being beheaded in the Middle East. I watched it so many times just being like, Whoa, he says between big bites of his brisket-and-chorizo sandwich. It is a blithely unaware, or perhaps blithely calculated, thing to say to a journalist.

Friedlich is a gentle, droopy-eyed Manhattan kid who was clearly well supported by his well-off parents. His father, Jim Friedlich, is the CEO of a journalism nonprofit who worked at Dow Jones, and his mother, Melissa Stern, is an artist. They raised him in a Chelsea loft and sent him to school at Friends Seminary, which he describes, side-eyeing his own privilege, as a good lesson in liberal hypocrisies. (A line from Job: Everyones racist and were all alone. Thats sort of our brand in 2020, which is the year the play is set; he calls it a period piece.)

He was a chubby and insecure kid, in his own telling, so his mom sent him to LARP (live-action role-playing) camp to help him come out of his shell. Its a very simple psychological trick to play on a child. You can be a warrior. You can choose to be confident, he explains. It really worked on me. From there, I started doing theater.

At 14, he wrote his first play about a glory hole in the back of an upstate dive bar on the opposite side of which was Jesus Christ giving hand jobs. My eighth-grade English teacher was like, I have to tell your parents because they need to be aware but this is amazing, he remembers, grinning.

At 16, a girl at his after-school playwriting program got into the now-defunct New York International Fringe Festival, and he says he thought, Im a much better writer than her. He submitted a script the next year and was chosen for the festivals showcase. The play, called SleepOver, was once again rather naughty: It was about two upper-middle-class teens, one white and neurotic (based in part on himself) and the other Black, who end up at the white boys Park Slope brownstone for a two-week visit. They spend time precociously holding forth about sex, race, and girls while dropping a lot of F-bombs. The Black friend also sleeps with his hosts mother.

For college, Friedlich followed his father to Wesleyan. After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles, planning on a career in Hollywood. But like so many clever boys who arrived before him (and have since), the town didnt immediately fall for his youthful charm. I was so lonely and depressed, he says, adding that he even took a job as an usher at the Dolby Theatre. I was showing people to their seats at Enrique Iglesias concerts.

Instead of writing prestige TV, he got hired by the start-up Brud, famous at the time for creating a cute computer-generated influencer named Lil Miquela. She wasnt human, or even AI, but she had a sponsorship with Prada and was named one of Times 25 Most Influential People on the Internet in 2018. Friedlich wrote her Instagram captions and monitored her DMs. The way in which Job is slightly autobiographical is I did have this weird experience of being a famous woman on the internet and having 1 million-something people talking to you at all times, he says. The job led him to ghostwrite actual human-celebrity social-media accounts, though his NDAs prevent him from saying whose.

In 2018, he met a stressed-out real-life content moderator at a house party and began writing Job the next year. In 2021, after moving back to New York, he entered the script into a competition hosted by Soho Playhouse and it beat out 19 other plays for the prize: the chance to show there for one night only. The playhouse offered him the opportunity to stage the play for five weeks later extended to eight instead. Successions Peter Friedman played the therapist and Sydney Lemmon, Jane. (Lemmon told me that after reading the script for the first time, she had a stomach-ache for three days: It stirred something up inside me thats not easy to digest or think about or talk about.) Theyre both returning for the run at the Connelly.

Job is both a send-up of Silicon Valley (Its considered, like dystopian to love your tech job, but anyone who says that hasnt tasted the alkali waters Ive tasted, Jane declares at one point) and a generational death match between an older man, who believes the internet is evil, and a younger woman, who cant imagine a world without it. As Jane says, The phone is never the problem. People do bad things, not phones. Its the kind of jaded millennial commentary not wrong, maybe brilliant, maybe clich that I realize collapses the distance between Friedlich and his characters.

The play was a New York Times Critics Pick, but this magazines Sara Holdren came away less convinced, calling it a horror piece a Black Mirror episode with the sci-fi dialed down (because the horrors are real) and the punchy, cynical, HBO-ready dialogue dialed up. Julianne Moore came one night, and Hugh Jackman posted about it. Fittingly, the play quickly sold out its run after a TikToker named @moschinodorito hyped it up: When was the last time you saw a play? Because if you live in New York, holy shit I got one for you.

As Friedlich puts it, Were a hit among teenagers; were a hit among NYU people and Dimes Square motherfuckers. What is exciting to me is that young people were excited about the show.

But hes not, he insists, trying to moralize about big tech. I really dont think in the digital age that theater has the power to, like, change hearts and minds, he says. Whats more interesting to me is the base act of getting a bunch of people together.

That said, there has been some interest in adapting Job for the screen, and hes not against the idea of selling out a little. If I could write Transformers 8 and direct a Mitsubishi commercial and do whatever I want theaterwise, that would be great, he says. But he also thinks its possible to get his peers to care about seeing plays as much as they care about streetwear drops. Call it theater for the boys, he says, half-kidding. After all, there have been some advantages to appealing to the world he parodies in Job. Candidly, and to be a pure capitalist about it, its a new fundraising network: these people who are very liquid and want to be culturally engaged, he says. If the industry is going to survive, we need 30-year-old bros to get onboard thinking this is a cool thing.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the January 15, 2024, issue of New YorkMagazine.

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Max Wolf Friedlich: Job Peers Into the Dark Soul of Big Tech - Vulture

Social media applications are displayed on an iPhone. Source: AP/Jenny Kane

Big tech providers need to urgently improve their dispute resolution services and back their small and family business customers, according to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) Bruce Billson.

The ASBFEO issued the call on Tuesday to some of the globes largest digital platform providers, including Meta, Uber, Amazon, eBay and Shopify, citing an urgent need to support small businesses that are using platforms to launch or grow their businesses.

At the same time, the Ombudsman has released a free Guide to Using Social Media Securely for small businesses, which explains how small business operators can tighten security and reduce the risk of social media accounts being hacked.

Speaking to SmartCompany, Billson said big tech platforms must do better by their small business customers.

We are urgently calling for big tech providers to introduce codified, dependable and easy-to-use dispute resolution processes to get problems resolved quickly for their small business customers, he says.

This needs to be backed up by a real person you can speak to when a problem cant be easily fixed.

In too many cases, when there is a problem, these platforms require a time- and resource-poor small business to navigate the most elaborate maze of dead-ends and blockages.

One of the absurdities of the current situation is, after being locked out of your account, you need to access your account to make a complaint. Its the ultimate run-around.

According to the Ombudsmans data, since July 2022, the number of cases involving a small business having issues with a digital platform has gone up by 127%, with two-thirds of the cases relating to Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

Last month, 75% of the disputes were about getting access to an account after being hacked and issues with digital platforms continue to be one of the top reasons small businesses contact Billsons office for help.

Billson says some of the delays experienced by small businesses have lasted many months.

Some people have built their entire businesses on social media and digital platforms and having someone else access and control their account is devastating for their business and their reputation, he says.

They watch the financial, business and emotional damage occur in real-time with no ability to stop it.

Small business owners need to know there is help available if they find themselves in a dispute, says Billson.

Publicising that ASBFEO is an external escalation point if internal dispute resolution processes fail to secure a satisfactory outcome would also help small businesses dependent on these platforms, he says.

We have helped many small and family businesses across various digital platforms to resolve their disputes, and (the) guide includes some simple cybersecurity tips and practices for small businesses to protect themselves.

Billson says its vital that small businesses dont overlook important security elements when operating on social media.

Treat your online business security like you would a shop, factory or your home, he says.

You wouldnt give a person you have just met the keys to your business or your house, so only give access to your business account to trusted individuals. And remember not all users require full admin access.

If you are hacked, report your issue immediately to the platform and make sure you are actually communicating with the platform and not the hacker.

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Ultimate run-around: ASBFEO calls on big tech to do better by small businesses - SmartCompany

President Joe Bidens administration is pushing the tech industry and financial institutions to shut down a growing market of abusive sexual images made with artificial intelligence technology.

New generative AI tools have made it easy to transform someones likeness into a sexually explicit AI deepfake and share those realistic images across chatrooms or social media. The victims be they celebritiesor children have little recourse to stop it.

The White House is putting out a call Thursday looking for voluntary cooperation from companies in the absence of federal legislation. By committing to a set of specific measures, officials hope the private sector can curb the creation, spread and monetization of such nonconsensual AI images, including explicit images of children.

As generative AI broke on the scene, everyone was speculating about where the first real harms would come. And I think we have the answer, said Bidens chief science adviser Arati Prabhakar, director of the White Houses Office of Science and Technology Policy.

She described to The Associated Press a phenomenal acceleration of nonconsensual imagery fueled by AI tools and largely targeting women and girls in a way that can upend their lives.

If youre a teenage girl, if youre a gay kid, these are problems that people are experiencing right now, she said. Weve seen an acceleration because of generative AI thats moving really fast. And the fastest thing that can happen is for companies to step up and take responsibility.

A document shared with AP ahead of its Thursday release calls for action from not just AI developers but payment processors, financial institutions, cloud computing providers, search engines and the gatekeepers namely Apple and Google that control what makes it onto mobile app stores.

The private sector should step up to disrupt the monetization of image-based sexual abuse, restricting payment access particularly to sites that advertise explicit images of minors, the administration said.

Prabhakar said many payment platforms and financial institutions already say that they wont support the kinds of businesses promoting abusive imagery.

But sometimes its not enforced; sometimes they dont have those terms of service, she said. And so thats an example of something that could be done much more rigorously.

Cloud service providers and mobile app stores could also curb web services and mobile applications that are marketed for the purpose of creating or altering sexual images without individuals consent, the document says.

And whether it is AI-generated or a real nude photo put on the internet, survivors should more easily be able to get online platforms to remove them.

The most widely known victim of pornographic deepfake images is Taylor Swift, whose ardent fanbase fought back in January when abusive AI-generated images of the singer-songwriter began circulating on social media. Microsoft promised to strengthen its safeguards after some of the Swift images were traced to its AI visual design tool.

A growing number of schools in the U.S. and elsewhere arealso grappling with AI-generateddeepfake nudes depicting their students. In some cases, fellow teenagers were found to be creating AI-manipulated images and sharing them with classmates.

Last summer, the Biden administrationbrokered voluntary commitmentsby Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other major technology companies to place a range of safeguards on new AI systems before releasing them publicly.

That was followed by Biden signing anambitious executive orderin October designed to steer how AI is developed so that companies can profit without putting public safety in jeopardy. While focused on broader AI concerns, including national security, it nodded to the emerging problem of AI-generated child abuse imagery and finding better ways to detect it.

But Biden also said the administrations AI safeguards would need to be supported by legislation. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is now pushing Congress to spend at least $32 billion over the next three years to developartificial intelligenceand fundmeasures to safely guide it, though has largely put off calls to enact those safeguards into law.

Encouraging companies to step up and make voluntary commitments doesnt change the underlying need for Congress to take action here, said Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council.

Longstanding laws already criminalize making and possessing sexual images of children, even if theyre fake. Federal prosecutors brought charges earlier this month against a Wisconsin man they said used a popular AI image-generator, Stable Diffusion, to make thousands of AI-generated realistic images of minors engaged in sexual conduct. An attorney for the man declined to comment after his arraignment hearing Wednesday.

But theres almost no oversight over the tech tools and services that make it possible to create such images. Some are on fly-by-night commercial websites that reveal little information about who runs them or the technology theyre based on.

The Stanford Internet Observatoryin December said itfound thousands of images of suspected child sexual abuse in the giant AI database LAION, an index of online images and captions thats been used to train leading AI image-makers such as Stable Diffusion.

London-based Stability AI, which owns the latest versions of Stable Diffusion, said this week that it did not approve the release of the earlier model reportedly used by the Wisconsin man. Such open-sourced models, because their technical components are released publicly on the internet, are hard to put back in the bottle.

Prabhakar said its not just open-source AI technology thats causing harm.

Its a broader problem, she said. Unfortunately, this is a category that a lot of people seem to be using image generators for. And its a place where weve just seen such an explosion. But I think its not neatly broken down into open source and proprietary systems.

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The White House is pleading with Big Tech to shut off the firehose of sexually abusive AI deepfakes'if you're a ... - Fortune

In a nutshell: Big Tech is the term conventionally given to the largest technology companies. This group of financial and economic titans essentially "owns" the IT market and is subject to increasingly tighter scrutiny from government authorities around the world.

The UK Parliament recently approved a new bill concerning digital markets and consumer rights, designed to significantly impact IT companies operating in the country. The government-sponsored Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act (DMCC) of 2024 will amend existing laws to enhance and regulate competition in the technology market, granting the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) new regulatory powers that do not require prior court approval.

Under the DMCC, the UK's competition authority can swiftly act against technology companies with strategic market status (SMS) in the IT sector. As explained by the UK government earlier this year, SMS corporations are designated after an "evidence-based investigation" and public consultation. If an SMS company is using its monopolistic grip to gain an unfair competitive advantage, the CMA can force the company to change its business practices.

One of the most significant provisions in the DMCC is the CMA's ability to impose hefty fines on Big Tech corporations, which can amount to up to 10 percent of an organization's global revenue. The CMA essentially operates beyond the UK's judiciary system under the DMCC, although the targeted companies must be world-class "giants" with more than 25 billion in total revenue or 1 billion in UK revenue.

The DMCC also includes new protections for UK consumers, forcing companies to ban fake reviews and be more transparent about subscriptions. Hidden fees are no longer allowed, and IT corporations could be required to report mergers to the CMA. The law also introduces new regulations for secondary ticket sales.

The UK's new stringent law against Big Tech companies closely resembles the Digital Markets Act (DMA) approved by European authorities to regulate Europe's digital business. Compared to the DMA, however, the DMCC requires the CMA to closely study how tech "gatekeepers" conduct business to determine whether they can be classified as having strategic market status.

After the UK Parliament approved the DMCC, Spotify welcomed the law as new ammunition in the fight for "fair competition" against IT monopolies. Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek highlighted Apple's conduct in digital marketplaces, noting the significant amounts spent "in country after country" to try and circumvent laws like the DMCC.

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UK Parliament approves law to strictly regulate Big Tech companies - TechSpot

Nvidia shares surged 9% to a record high above $1,000 on Thursday after another blowout earnings report, but the stock is about to get a lot cheaper as the AI chip leader announced a 10-for-1 split that will help retail investors more readily buy its shares.

Bank of America analysts, led by Jared Woodard, head of the banks research investment committee, described the share split as another large-cap tech pursuing shareholder-friendly policies in a Thursday note to clients. Nvidia is the fourth Magnificent Seven Big Tech company to announce a stock split since 2022, with Google, Amazon, and Tesla also all making shares more accessible, Woodard and his team noted.

With many Big Tech companies seeing their share prices top $500 in recent years, something that can limit retail investors ability to buy shares, theyve been looking to make it easier for nonprofessional investors to buy in. In other words, Big Tech is going bite-sized, BofA said.

BofAs sell-side analysts have long been bullish on shares of Nvidia, and they once again hiked their lofty 12-month price target for the chip giant after Thursdays earnings releasethis time from $1,100 to $1,320. Nvidia shares could surge another 26% if the outlook proves prescient, and the stock split might help with that bullish move, according to Bank of Americas reading of history.

Splits have boosted returns in every decade, including the early 2000s when the S&P 500 struggled, Woodard and his team explained.

Specifically, Bank of Americas research shows that stocks have managed 25% total returns in the 12 months after a stock split historically, compared with 12% for the S&P 500.

Bank of America also noted that stock splits even manage to spark bull runs in stocks that have been struggling. BofA gave the example of chip company AMD and oil-refining giant Valero, both of which saw their share prices surge after announcing stock splits, despite a poor performance prior to the split. Since gains are more common and larger than losses on average, splits appear to introduce upside potential into markets, the analysts added.

However, channeling the Securities and Exchange Commission here, its important to add the caveat that all mutual funds are required to tell investors by law: Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Bank of America was also quick to note that outperformance is no guarantee after a stock split. Companies that announce stock splits still see negative returns 30% of the time, and when they do, the average drop is a sizable 22% over the following 12 months.

While splits could be an indication of strong momentum, companies can struggle in a challenging macro environment, the analysts noted. Companies like Amazon, Google, Tesla, and Dexcom struggled in the 12 months after splits were announced in 2022 as interest rates spiked.

Still, the vast majority of Wall Street analysts remain bullish on shares of Nvidia: The company boasts 48 buy ratings, eight overweight ratings, six hold ratings, and zero sell ratings, according to the Wall Street Journal. And CEO Jensen Huangs announcement that Nvidia will develop another new AI chip within the next 12 months, because the company is now on a one-year rhythm of development, was also just the news bulls wanted to hear.

As Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives, a noted Nvidia bull, put it in a Thursday note: The Godfather of AI, Jensen, and Nvidia delivered another masterpiece quarter and guidance that should be hung in the Louvre.

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Nvidia's 10-for-1 stock split confirms 'Big Tech is going bite-sized' to lure retail investors, BofA says - Fortune

For years, tech giants in California and Washington have been leading the charge to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid. Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple, for example, are members of Climate Group RE100, an organization of major corporations who are dedicated to accelerating change toward zero-carbon grids at scale by 2040.

In 2018, Apple proclaimed that it was globally powered entirely by 100% renewable energy.

This achievement includes retail stores, offices, data centers and co-located facilities in 43 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, China and India, the company boasted in a press release.

At first glance, it may appear that the company managed to run its operations entirely on wind and solar power, which likely promoted the idea that it was technically feasible to do. The press release includes photos of yaks grazing next to solar panels, and it highlights a number of wind and solar projects that the company had built or was planning to build.

The company, however, never managed to power facilities like data centers, which require 24/7 electricity without interruptions, using intermittent power from wind and solar. While the company makes no mention of it in its press release, Apple explains how it accomplished 100% renewable in its annual Apple Environmental Progress Reports. Apple invests in high-quality carbon credits to offset the remaining hard-to-decarbonize corporate emissions. In other words, Apple is powered by fossil fuel energy, but other companies that have low emissions sell Apple credits to offset Apples high-emission energy.

New era

Currently, these same tech companies are running into a problem as electricity demands from their data centers and artificial intelligence are putting increasing pressure to produce more electricity on a grid thats being deprived of energy as a result of the retirement of coal-fired power plants.

Microsoft reported a 30% rise in emissions in 2023 compared to a 2020 baseline, the Wall Street Journal reported, and it's now demanding its suppliers use 100% carbon-free energy by 2030. The company attributed the increase to the construction of data centers.

The problem was the topic of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., chair of the committee, said that for the past two decades, annual electricity demand across the U.S. has been flat.We're here today because that era appears to be coming to an end rapidly, Manchin said.

Between 2021 and 2023, the International Energy Agency increased its forecast for global electricity demand up to 2050 by 16%, which represents 7,300 terawatt hours. According to the Energy Policy Research Foundation, thats more than double the total electricity generation from solar and wind in 2022. To put this in another perspective, the average American home uses 899,000 watt hours of electricity in a month.

In the U.S., the increases in electricity demand are driven by A.I. and electrification of transportation by adoption of electric vehicles. Increased manufacturing capacity, which is driven by the Inflation Reduction Act, is also putting increased loads on the grid.

We are seeing new factories to build advanced energy and semiconductor technology springing up practically every week, Manchin said.Citing figures from the North American Electric Reliability Corporations 2023 long-term assessment, Manchin added that by 2030, the U.S. will see an increase in demand of 90 gigawatts.

At the same time as demands for electricity are rising, in part because of President Bidens climate agenda, the EPA passed new rules regarding power plants that will likely lead to the retirement of the nations last coal plants and discourage investment in new gas plants.

Biden wants to force operators to shut down these plants before the end of their useful life. It is a disgrace. We cannot regulate our way to more electric generation, said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

Americas dwindling electricity supply, Barrasso said, is also making the U.S. less competitive with China. While the U.S. has shut down 100 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity since 2015, China has added 262 gigawatts. This will make the country more attractive for investments in A.I. development because the country, Barrasso said, will be able to guarantee enough reliable, affordable electricity to support facilities.

The race for artificial intelligence is one America cannot afford to lose, Barrasso said.

Semiconductors

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, said the 2022 CHIPS Act, which provided billions for semiconductor research and manufacturing incentives, will make the U.S. less reliant on China for semiconductors, which he said is a national security concern.

Theyre in just about everything we manufacture having to do with defense, Risch said.

As with data centers, chip fabrication facilities need constant power, which makes reliable power from nuclear, fossil fuels or hydroelectric vital to supporting these industries. Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics, explained that for chip manufacturers, outages are very costly.

If you take power away for milliseconds, you cause astonishing economic disruption, Mills said.

Scott Gatzemeier, corporate vice president for front end U.S. Expansion at Micron Technology, a semiconductor manufacturer, said he had to recover a chip fab from a minor power blip lasting milliseconds, which resulted in tens of millions of dollars in produce loss.

One of the approaches to creating grid reliability when theres not enough dispatchable power from fossil fuels, nuclear or hydroelectric is through incentives to get major power consumers to use electricity during periods of low demand from other consumers. Mills said these programs are impractical for semiconductor manufacturing facilities because they run 24 hours a day every day of the year.

You dont get to ask them, Can you please turn it off right now, because the wind isnt blowing? Mills said.

He said batteries arent an ideal solution to the problem because they dont produce power. They store it. Theyre also a hundred times more expensive than other forms of energy storage, such as tanks of liquified natural gas or piles of coal. Batteries also would require an investment of tens of trillions of dollars, as well as critical mineral supply chains that the world cant currently produce at that scale, Mills said.

Manchin said the testimony revealed the scale and severity of the electricity shortage happening in the U.S.

I think it's something that we need to continue to raise the alarm, because I can see that real, catastrophic situation happening in our country, Manchin said.

Manchin discussed the political impacts in West Virginia from the war on coal that began under President Barack Obama, which resulted in a lot of lost jobs.

I will tell you this politically. It changed my state of West Virginia to being over 75% Democrat registration old line conservative Democrats, but they were still Democrat that switched out to 80% Republican in one decade because of that, Manchin said.

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Big Tech championed zero emissions but now its power-hungry data centers are straining the grid - Just The News

Do you know how your 401(k) funds are investedthe kind of companies they hold, and what those companies are doing to respond to urgent global risks like climate change? Theres a good chance that, like almost half of workers, you dont. You hand your contributions over to the plan, which puts them in whatever investments your employer and their fund manager have picked.

Then you sit back and hope your balance grows. Whether it does, and how much, depends on where those fund managers are putting your money. Since default allocations and target date funds are how most peoples 401(k) funds get invested, its imperative that they reflect the financial interests of employee-investors like you.

Big Tech companies have tens of billions of employee 401(k) funds invested. One of the easiest ways they can help their employees money grow faster is to switch their default option to a sustainable fund and stop putting it into fossil fuel companieswhich will help protect the climate, too.

New research conducted at the University of Waterloo (Canada) in partnership with the shareholder organization I lead, As You Sow, looked at the 401(k) plans of 12 tech-sector companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Netflix. It found that 2 million tech workers could have earned an estimated $5.1 billion in additional returns if their employers had pulled their retirement plan holdings out of fossil fuels a decade ago. Google employees alone lost out on an estimated $1.1 billion in gains. On average, investments in fossil-free portfolios did 8.9% better over 10 years. Compound that over an employees whole careerand its big money.

Thats because, as the global economy rapidly transitions to renewable energy, fossil fuels are an objectively risky investment compared to the market overall. And the risk is accelerating: One study suggests that half of the worlds fossil fuel assets could be worthless by 2036.

The amount of employees money that Big Tech 401(k) plans have invested in fossil fuels, especially through target date funds, is stunning. Google employees are believed to have roughly $2 billion in fossil fuels. Apple employees to have another billion. The bulk of this money is invested not by choice but by default, through target date funds. Moving it out of risky fossil fuel investments into safer, future-forward assets is the best choice for employees and it aligns with these companies stated sustainability goals.

As You Sow presented these findings to the 12 companies prior to the public release of the study. None of the companies offered a substantive response. However, its also not the first time theyve learned that their 401(k) plans are out of alignment with their publicly stated climate commitments. In fact, As You Sow has previously met with senior management and filed shareholder resolutions over several years, raising the issue at several of the companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix.

So why arent Big Tech companies fixing the problem? Its particularly puzzling given that theyve all implemented their climate goals in their operations. Google markets its third decade of climate action on its main landing page, and clearly states on its sustainability landing page that it is critical to track our progress and be transparent with what weve accomplished and where were going. Amazon encourages consumers to discover and shop for more sustainable products as part of its Climate Pledge Friendly program. Apples 2030 plan commits to using recycled and renewable materials, clean electricity, and low-carbon shipping to bring its net emissions to zero. Yet, their employee retirement plans are counteracting those efforts while also resulting in lower returns.

Addressing the systemic risk of investing in high-carbon companies is a proven win-win strategy for companies looking to reduce their emissions while protecting their employees from climate-related financial risk. Big Tech companies could do it with one call to Vanguard or BlackRock telling them to provide fossil-free default investment funds for their employees money.

That one phone call would change the face of 401(k) investing. It would be a substantive step toward climate change mitigation and would earn employees better investment returns for retirement. It would send the global business community a message that fulfilling their fiduciary duty to choose the funds with the greatest long-term sustainable growth potential is not hard. It will protect employees from climate-related financial risk, demonstrate that the company applies its sustainability goals holistically, create a positive culture that attracts and retains the best and brightest employees, and build customer loyalty.

Andrew Behar is the CEO of As You Sow.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs ofFortune.

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Big Tech employees missed out on $5.1 billion in 401(k) gains over the last decade because of fossil fuels, new ... - Fortune

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Big Tech execs say Europe's new AI law could harm innovation - The Albany Herald

Graphic: Laura Bratton (Canva)

Four tech giants Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce just created a non-profit committed to investing in the removal of 20 million tons worth of carbon by 2030.

Starbucks and Workers United are heading back to the bargaining table

Thats equal to the carbon removal goals of the state of California, the companies noted in their announcement of the project, dubbed the Symbiosis Coalition. But its just a fraction of the carbon removal that would be required for the world to reach net-zero emissions.

Carbon credits are investments in environmental projects made by companies as a way to theoretically offset their emissions and meet their net-zero goals. An analysis from McKinsey at the end of last year noted that carbon removal, while obviously less effective than reducing emissions directly, could play a vital role in reducing so-called residual emissions since the move away from fossil fuels wont be enough to stop all pollution. The report also noted that carbon removal credits would need to capture between six and 10 gigatons of carbon in order for the world to meet the net-zero emissions goals outlined by the Paris Agreement by 2050.

Critics argue that such credits enable businesses to keep polluting without making needed changes to their corporate practices. Plus thereve been scandals surrounding the actual efficacy of such carbon offsets. Case in point: An investigation from The Guardian in 2023 found that one of the biggest carbon credit issuers used by companies such as Shell and Disney was selling credits that had no benefit to the climate.

Googles carbon credits lead Randy Spook said in a statement that Symbiosis will address key issues plaguing the carbon market one being a lack of adequate funding to bring carbon removal projects to scale. The coalition will pool demand from the four large companies and require carbon removal projects it invests in to meet a set of criteria its developing, which it has yet to disclose.

Well also share our project criteria publicly, helping other companies to adopt best practices and increase their confidence in high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects, Googles carbon credits lead Randy Spook wrote in the companys announcement. Spook said Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce expect other companies to join the coalition in the future.

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Google, Meta and other tech giants aim to revive the carbon market - Quartz

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

In a significant move, 97 African tech workers involved in AI training and content moderation for major US corporations like Meta and OpenAI have addressed an open letter to President Biden. The letter, published on 22 May, accuses these companies of systemic abuse and exploitation of African workers and calls for urgent intervention.

The letter, first reported by Wired, was also ccd to US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai. It coincides with Kenyan President William Rutos visit to the US to mark the 60th anniversary of US-Kenyan diplomatic relations and discuss trade, investment, and technological innovation.

The workers allege that the practices of companies like Meta, OpenAI, and data provider ScaleAI amount to modern-day slavery. They describe severe exploitation, including mentally and emotionally draining tasks such as monitoring distressing content on social media and labeling data for AI models, often for less than $2 per hour. They also highlight the lack of adequate mental health support, which leaves many workers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

The letter details instances of union busting in the digital sector. For example, when Facebook content moderators in Kenya attempted to unionize, the entire workforce was dismissed. Meta then shifted its moderation work to Ghana to avoid accountability. A similar incident occurred with Kenyan workers labeling data for the US AI startup ScaleAI. In March 2024, ScaleAIs outsourcing firm, Remotasks, abruptly exited the African market, leaving workers unemployed and owed significant unpaid wages.

The letter also alleges that US tech companies often consider themselves above Kenyan law and ignore court orders. For instance, despite a court ruling ordering Meta to pay Facebook moderators their salaries, the company has continuously ignored the order, leaving workers unpaid even a year later.

The workers argue that their contributions are vital for the usability of these platforms. Without their work, platforms like Facebook would become unmanageable, potentially causing companies like Meta to lose billions. Despite this, they are paid a fraction of what their US counterparts earn.

The letter details several key demands:

The letter also highlights Kenyas role as a major tech hub, known as the Silicon Savannah, and the critical contributions of Kenyan workers to the tech industry. It calls for President Biden to honor his commitment to labor rights and worker-centered trade and to ensure that the benefits of technological advancements do not come at the expense of workers health and well-being.

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Kenyan tech workers call out US Big Tech for 'modern-day slavery' - Android Authority

Swedish-American physicist and machine learning researcher Max Tegmark (file photo)

Big tech companies have effectively diverted global attention away from the ongoing existential threat that AI continues to present to humanity, a prominent scientist of artificial intelligence says.

Max Tegmark toldthe AI Summit in Seoul that the shift in focus from the extinction of life to a broader conception of safety of artificial intelligence risked an unacceptable delay in imposing strict regulation on the creators of the most powerful programs.

Tegmark, who trained as a physicist, recalled1942 whenEnrico Fermi built the first ever reactor with a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under a Chicago football field.

When the top physicists at the time found out about that, they really freaked out, because they realized that the single biggest hurdle remaining to building a nuclear bomb had just been overcome. They realized that it was just a few years away and in fact, it was three years, with the Trinity test in 1945.

In Seoul, just one out of the three high-level groups focused on safety as a direct concern, examining a wide range of risks, from privacy breaches to job market disruptions and potential catastrophic outcomes.

Tegmark contends that downplaying the most serious risks is not beneficial, and is not coincidental.

Thats exactly what I predicted would happen from industry lobbying, he said.

In 1955, the first journal articles came out saying smoking causes lung cancer, and youd think that pretty quickly there would be some regulation. But no, it took until 1980, because there was this huge push to by industry to distract. I feel thats whats happening now.

Press TVs website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

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Top scientist: Big tech distracting attention from AI's existential threat - Press TV

A new bill has been passed by the UK Parliament which may put third-party stores on equal footing with bigger digital storefronts.

As reported by the Press Gazette, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (DMCC) was pushed through ahead of Parliament's dissolution in July. Under it, tech platforms are prohibited from treating its own products more favorably or "applying discriminatory terms, conditions, and policies" on specific users.

In other words, UK iOS users would be allowed to see a Fortnite or a hypothetical PlayStation mobile store feature prominently on Apple's platform.

Months ago, Apple came under fire after it deleted Epic Games' UK account. It was done ahead of Fortnite's return to iOS in the region and was later reinstated.

Earlier this year, the UK's Digital Markets Act (DMA) made it so Apple had to allow third-party stores on iOS. The DMCC helps curb any other possible attempts at downplaying those storefronts, be it from Epic or another tech company like Microsoft.

Other perks of the bill include "effective processes" for complaints or disputes by current and future users, and giving clear explanations (with "reasonable notice") to users about "relevant digital activity" before material changes take place.

Labour frontbencher Baroness Jones called the bill "long overdue, [and it] take the first steps on regulating the behavior of the big tech companies."

More insight on the DMCC bill and its full scope can be read here.

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New UK bill aims to make big tech play nice with third-party app stores - Game Developer

No. 2 Sussex Tech may have overreacted just a bit after giving up a two-run home run to visiting No. 15 Red Lion in the top of the first. The Ravens baseball squad proceeded to mercilessly hang 10 runs on the Lions in their bottom half of the inning to propel the Henlopen Conference champions to a 12-5 victory May 25.

Sussex Tech coach G.L. Jefferson opted to go with southpaw Jeremy Vest to start the contest. After surrendering a lead-off single, the senior settled down to record two outs in a row. Red Lions Brayden Redmond watched one of Vests throws sail in for a strike before the sophomore sent a laser over the fence in right-center.

[Redmond] put a great swing on the ball, Jefferson said.And with our guys, I think the way our energy levels have been the past few games, I knew we would match it. I didn't expect a 10-run first inning, but I knew we would be able to match it. I was proud of our guys for keeping their heads up and then continuing to battle through that first and be able to put that big cushion ahead of us.

Braydon Hazzard and Sean Ely walked to start the inning. It looked like Red Lion was about to roll a double play before Ely beat the throw to second. With the bases loaded, Rosnell Lewis singled on a line drive to left field to score Hazzard and Ely. Gavin Hudson scored on the next play, a ground out to second. Lewis scored on a passed ball before the Ravens collected three free passes to load the bases. Zane Adams picked up an RBI with his walk before a pair of singles off the bats of Hazzard and Ely scored one and two runs, respectively. With the bases loaded, Gavin Hudson tripled to plate another three, giving the Ravens a 10-2 lead at the end of one.

The defensive play of the game came in the second inning when Lewis fielded a single to center and came up firing with no need for a cut-off man. Kade Hall had plenty of time to position himself, grab the missile and tag Logan Hill for the final out.

Ely, who led the team in hits and RBIs, drove in another run in the bottom of the second to continue padding the lead.

This morning, I got into the cages early, started working off the tee and working balls into the back of the net, Ely said.

Red Lion scored once in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but it wasnt enough, as the Ravens sailed to a 12-5 victory and into the quarterfinals. The Ravens added their 12th run in the fifth inning. Ely thinks the team can use the game as a mental boost heading into the next round.

This definitely does build our energy back up and gets us ready for our quarterfinal against William Penn, Ely said.

Following the win, Sussex Tech was all business.

They realize how much we've invested into the season and not to give it away just by having low energy or having a low-quality outing, Jefferson said.

The Ravens will welcome No. 7 William Penn to their nest at 4 p.m., Tuesday, May 28.

Read more:

Sussex Tech uses big first inning to advance to quarterfinals - CapeGazette.com

Another week and another round of crazy cash injections and valuations emerged from the AI realm.

DeepL, an AI language translation startup, raised $300 million on a $2 billion valuation; Scale AI, a data-labeling platform for machine learning models, secured $1 billion as its valuation nearly doubled to $13.8 billion; and H, a fledgling French startup working on its own frontier models, raised an eye-watering $220 million seed round at an undisclosed valuation (though it surely takes H comfortably into unicorn territory).

While all the usual institutional investors are present, such as Accel, Index, and Y Combinator (YC), these investments really underscore the corporate clamber to get in on the action while keeping regulators at arm's length.

Take Scale AI, a company that had so far attracted purely institutional and angel investors from its inception in 2016 through its Series E round in 2021. Similar investors returned for the Series F, but also in tow were Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, and the VC arms of Intel, AMD, Cisco, and ServiceNow.

On the same day as Scale AI announced its chunky Series F investors, H showed its hand: Amazon had bought in, too, alongside Samsung's VC arm and UiPath, an automation software company worth $10 billion today.

Corporate investment in AI startups has been a big story in the last couple years, best exemplified by Microsoft's close affinity with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. That deal has attracted scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the European Union and the U.K., drawn by growing concerns that Big Tech is adopting a new quasi-merger tactic that seeks control and influence over nascent technologies without buying them outright -- for example, through hiring founding startup teams or by making strategic investments.

Microsoft is said to own a 49% stake in OpenAI, meaning there could well be a case to answer once European regulators have concluded their initial investigations -- regardless of whether Microsoft has voting clout in OpenAI or not.

Anthropic could find itself in a similar position. The three-year-old company has raised north of $7 billion from numerous investors, with corporates such as Google, SAP, and the venture arms of Salesforce and Zoom throwing cash into the pot. But Amazon, specifically, is responsible for more than half of Anthropic's fundraising to date, concluding a $4 billion investment in March. Even though its investment has not given Amazon a majority stake (similar to Microsoft with OpenAI), U.K. antitrust regulator the CMA last month confirmed it was looking at the deal to establish whether it might qualify for an antitrust investigation.

At the same time, the CMA also revealed it was looking into Microsoft's recent acqui-hire of Inflection AI (a year after Microsoft became Inflection's biggest backer), which saw Microsoft scoop up its founders and key colleagues to run a new consumer AI unit, leaving a bare-bones Inflection AI focused on the enterprise segment.

The CMA also confirmed it was investigating Microsoft's recent $16 million investment in French AI startup Mistral. But the regulator swiftly concluded that the deal didn't qualify for investigation due to its relative size.

"The CMA has considered information submitted by Microsoft and Mistral AI, together with feedback received in response to its invitation to comment," a CMA spokesperson said at the time. "Based on the evidence, the CMA does not believe that Microsoft has acquired material influence over Mistral AI as a result of the partnership and therefore does not qualify for investigation."

While Nvidia hasn't historically been shoehorned into the same "Big Tech" bracket as these aforementioned companies, it has emerged as one of the major players in the AI gold rush, and its clout can't be overstated: The company was valued at a not-insignificant $770 billion this time last year, but this figure has ballooned to more than $2.5 trillion in the intervening months. This positions Nvidia as the third most valuable company globally, behind Microsoft ($3.17 trillion) and Apple ($2.87 trillion), but ahead of Meta ($1.18 trillion), Amazon ($1.88 trillion), and Alphabet ($2.15 trillion).

Nvidia has invested in AI startup Hugging Face, alongside Amazon, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, and others. Elsewhere, Nvidia has bought stakes in Cohere, Perplexity AI, Inflection AI, Cohesity, Mistral AI, Weka, Wayve, and a host of other AI startups.

Big Tech is showing no sign of easing on its AI startup investment ethos, in the hope that procuring smaller equity stakes might just get them a regulatory pass. But that's not to say that the juggernauts of Silicon Valley and Seattle won't be able to exert some form of control over these companies -- they are stakeholders, after all, and can influence startups in all manner of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

See the article here:

Big tech companies are plowing money into AI startups, which could help them dodge antitrust concerns - Yahoo News Australia

Effecting Change

The disgraced former head of the crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, built his formidable public persona on the idea that he was a new type of ethical crypto exec. In particular, he was a vocal proponent of "effective altruism" — the vague-but-noble concept of using data to make philanthropic giving as targeted and helpful as possible.

But in a direct message, Vox's Kelsey Piper asked Bankman-Fried if the "ethics stuff" had been "mostly a front."

Bankman-Fried's reply: "Yeah."

"I mean that's not *all* of it," he wrote. "But it's a lot."

Truth Be Told

If the concept of becoming rich to save the world strikes you as iffy, you're not alone — and it appears that even Bankman-Fried himself knows it.

When Piper observed that Bankman-Fried had been "really good at talking about ethics" while actually playing a game, he responded that he "had to be" because he'd been engaged in "this dumb game we woke Westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and everyone likes us."

Next time you're thinking of investing in crypto, maybe it's worth taking a moment to wonder whether the person running the next exchange might secretly be thinking the same thing.

More on effective altruism: Elon Musk Hired A Professional Gambler to Manage His Philanthropic Donations

The post Sam Bankman-Fried Admits the "Ethics Stuff" Was "Mostly a Front" appeared first on Futurism.

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Sam Bankman-Fried Admits the "Ethics Stuff" Was "Mostly a Front"