Ukraine Turning To AI To Prioritize 700 Years of Landmine Removal
MattSparkes shares a report from NewScientist: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen so many landmines deployed across the country that clearing them would take 700 years, say researchers. To make the task more manageable, Ukrainian scientists are turning to artificial intelligence to identify which regions are a priority for de-mining, thou … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Generated Candidate Wants to Run For Mayor in Wyoming
An anonymous reader shared this report from Futurism:

An AI chatbot named VIC, or Virtually Integrated Citizen, is trying to make it onto the ballot in this year’s mayoral election for Wyoming’s capital city of Cheyenne.
But as reported by Wired, Wyoming’s secretary of state is battling against VIC’s legitimacy as a candidate — and now, an investigati … ⌘ Read more

Chemical Makers Sue Over Rule To Rid Water of ‘Forever Chemicals’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Chemical and manufacturing groups sued the federal government late Monday (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) over a landmark drinking-water standard that would require cleanup of so-called forever chemicals linked to cancer and other health risks. The industry groups said th … ⌘ Read more

Apple Brings ChatGPT To Its Apps, Including Siri
Apple is bringing ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot experience, to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. From a report: “We’re excited to partner with Apple to bring ChatGPT to their users in a new way,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “Apple shares our commitment to safety and innovation, and this partnership aligns with O … ⌘ Read more

Nvidia Takes 88% of the GPU Market Share
As reported by Jon Peddie Research, Nvidia now holds 88% of the GPU market after its market share jumped 8% in its most recent quarter. “This jump shaves 7% off of AMD’s share, putting it down to 19% total,” reports XDA Developers. “And if you’re wondering where that extra 1% went, it came from all of Intel’s market share, squashing it down to 0%.” From the report: Dr. Jon Peddie, president of … ⌘ Read more

Elon Musk Says AI Could Eliminate Our Need to Work at Jobs
In the future, “Probably none of us will have a job,” Elon Musk said Thursday, speaking remotely to the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris. Instead, jobs will be optional — something we’d do like a hobby — “But otherwise, AI and the robots will provide any goods and services that you want.”
CNN reports that Musk added this would require “universal high income” — a … ⌘ Read more

Google Search’s ‘udm=14’ Trick Lets You Kill AI Search For Good
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you’re tired of Google’s AI Overview extracting all value from the web while also telling people to eat glue or run with scissors, you can turn it off – sort of. Google has been telling people its AI box at the top of search results is the future, and you can’t turn it off, but that ignores how … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Defends Its Use of Signal Messages in Court
America’s Federal Trade Commission and 17 states filed an antitrust suit against Amazon in September. This week Amazon responded in court about its usage of Signal’s “disappearing messages” feature.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shares GeekWire’s report:

At a company known for putting its most important ideas and strategies into comprehensive six-page memos, quick messa … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Wants AI in the Hands of the People - and Universal Basic Compute?
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave an hour-long interview to the “All-In” podcast (hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg).

And when asked about this summer’s launch of the next version of ChatGPT, Altman said they hoped to “be thoughtful about how we do it, like we may releas … ⌘ Read more

Google Cloud Accidentally Deletes UniSuper’s Online Account Due To ‘Unprecedented Misconfiguration’
A “one-of-a-kind” Google Cloud “misconfiguration” resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s account last week, disrupting the financial services provider’s than half a million members. “Services began being restored for UniSuper customers on Thursday, more than a week after the sy … ⌘ Read more

TikTok Sues US Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban
Less than two weeks after President Biden signed a bill that will force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, TikTok said it sued the federal government on Tuesday, arguing the law was unconstitutional. From a report: TikTok said that the law violated the First Amendment by effectively removing an … ⌘ Read more

Jack Dorsey Departs Bluesky
Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the Twitter alternative he helped start. The announcement comes shortly after Dorsey unfollowed all but three accounts on X and referred to Elon Musk’s platform as “freedom technology.” The Verge reports: In two posts today, Bluesky thanked Dorsey while confirming his departure and adding that it’s searching for a new board member “who shares our commitment to building a … ⌘ Read more

Ex-White House Cyber Policy Director: Microsoft is a National Security Risk
This week the Register spoke to former senior White House cyber policy director A.J. Grotto — who complained it was hard to get even slight concessions from Microsoft:
“If you go back to the SolarWinds episode from a few years ago … [Microsoft] was essentially up-selling logging capability to federal agencies” instead of ma … ⌘ Read more