News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Director James Cameron Says He Warned
of the Dangers of AI in ‘Terminator’ Movie

Director James Cameron claims he tried to warn people about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI) in his 1984 movie “The Terminator” but that his concerns fell on deaf ears.
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The Oscar-winning director said he had attempted to raise his concerns about AI nearly 40 years ago when “The Terminator,” which he co-wrote and directed, hit screens.
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Mr. Cameron also said he believes it is also important to ensure that the individuals and companies working on advanced AI technology are doing so for the right reasons, otherwise, there could be deadly consequences.

“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” he said. “I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don’t build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it’ll escalate.”
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Mr. Cameron’s comments echo those of multiple experts including businessman and Twitter owner Elon Musk, who recently told U.S. lawmakers that regulations are needed for AI to prevent companies from taking “dangerous” shortcuts that could negatively impact humanity when rolling out advanced technology.

Speaking to Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) on July 12 shortly after unveiling his new AI company, xAI, Mr. Musk said he believes a “digital superintelligence” could exist within the next 5–6 years, although he stressed that it would not necessarily be “smarter than the sum of all humans.”
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According to a 2017 plan released by Beijing titled “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” China has ambitious goals when it comes to developing advanced technology, including achieving “major breakthroughs in basic theories for AI, such that some technologies and applications achieve a world-leading level and AI becomes the main driving force for China’s industrial upgrading and economic transformation” by 2025.

“The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) will profoundly change human society and life and change the world,” the 2017 plan states.

Ms. Khanna and Mr. Gallagher echoed comments made by other Republican lawmakers that the CCP may be looking to use its increasingly advanced technology to “perfect a technical totalitarian surveillance state” and for other negative reasons.

However, Mr. Musk, who recently visited China in May, told lawmakers that he believes China is “on team humanity,” when it comes to artificial intelligence, telling the lawmakers that he had spoken with senior Chinese officials during his trip and they had expressed an interest in working on a cooperative international regulatory framework for AI.

After reading the last paragraph, a  frog and a scorpion came to my mind. I wonder why.

Twitter Has ‘Negative Cash Flow’ and ‘Heavy Debt,’ Musk Reveals

Twitter is dealing with a “heavy debt load” after losing about 50 percent of its advertising revenue, and that has resulted in the app having a “negative cash flow,” Elon Musk, the company’s owner, wrote on July 14.

“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50 percent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter over the weekend.
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Ms. Yaccarino, who started working at Twitter in early June, has told investors that Twitter plans to focus on video, creator, and commerce partnerships and is in early talks with political and entertainment figures, payments services, and news and media publishers. Twitter stated on July 13 that select content creators will be eligible to receive a part of the ad revenue the company earns, in an attempt to draw more content creators to the site.

Mr. Musk wrote on July 16 in another post that his social media company didn’t see the increase in advertising revenue that was anticipated in June, writing that “July is a bit more promising.” Internal service Twitter Spaces also hasn’t generated revenue yet and is only costing the company money, he said.
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Earlier this month, he found himself competing with Meta Platforms’ Threads, an app that appears similar to Twitter, and had more than 100 million users sign up in the first several weeks. But recent analytics data suggest that engagement has dropped, while a number of users have left the platform altogether.

“The Threads launch really did ‘break the internet,’ or at least the Sensor Tower models,” Anthony Bartolacci, managing director at marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower, told CNBC last month.

But the company stated that the number of daily active users was down by 20 percent last week from July 8, noting that the time spent per user was down by 50 percent, to 10 minutes from 20 minutes in that same time period.

Tech Company Says Cars Collect 25 Gigabits of Data per Hour
Making Them Targets for Hacking

Cars today are like smartphones that have numerous apps connected to the internet which collect and share large amounts of data. Most owners do not know the amount of personal data that their vehicle collects and transmits, who collects it, for what purpose, and how it is used.

According to Privacy4Cars, a tech firm that aims to resolve privacy issues in the automotive ecosystem, a single modern car can have 60 onboard computers that run about 100 million lines of code and collect 25 gigabits of data per hour.

Andrea Amico, the founder and CEO of Privacy4Cars, told the New York Post there are two main sources of vehicle data. The first is the onboard sensors in the vehicles that collect data from the voice, fingerprints, retina, and iris, among others.

The second source involves various devices that are connected to the car like USBs and smartphones. When connecting such devices to cars, a host of data including text messages, social media posts, and photos can be downloaded.

Among the many pieces of information that are routinely left in car memory are phone books, call logs, passwords, biometrics, text messages, navigation history, home address, third-party apps, vehicle credentials, garage door codes, medical information, and financial details.

A growing number of companies are seeking to gain access to car data. Car manufacturers collect data that are used for maintenance and road assistance. Navigation and in-vehicle infotainment companies have access to data related to driving, music, and third-party applications.
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The Markup identified 37 such companies that are part of the vehicle data ecosystem.

These include entertainment and navigation services like SiriusXM, Telenav, OnStar, TomTom, and Xevo; insurance companies like Allstate, Geico, Arity, and Farmer’s; telecom corporations like AT&T and T-Mobile; vehicle data hubs like CCC X, High Mobility, and Inrix; and telematics providers like Ericsson, Cambridge Mobile, Munic, Samsara, and Geotab.