Tech

As ChatGPT’s popularity explodes, U.S. lawmakers take an interest

Published

1 year ago

February 13, 2023

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As ChatGPT's popularity explodes, U.S. lawmakers take an interest

ChatGPT, a fast-growing artificial intelligence program, has drawn praise for its ability to write answers quickly to a wide range of queries, and attracted U.S. lawmakers’ attention with questions about its impact on national security and education.

ChatGPT was estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history, and a growing target for regulation.

It was created by OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), and made available to the public for free. Its ubiquity has generated fear that generative AI such as ChatGPT could be used to spread disinformation, while educators worry it will be used by students to cheat.

Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat on the House of Representatives Science Committee, said in a recent opinion piece in the New York Times that he was excited about AI and the “incredible ways it will continue to advance society,” but also “freaked out by A.I., specifically A.I. that is left unchecked and unregulated.”

Lieu introduced a resolution written by ChatGPT that said Congress should focus on AI “to ensure that the development and deployment of AI is done in a way that is safe, ethical, and respects the rights and privacy of all Americans, and that the benefits of AI are widely distributed and the risks are minimized.”

In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went to Capitol Hill where he met with tech-oriented lawmakers such as Senators Mark Warner, Ron Wyden and Richard Blumenthal and Representative Jake Auchincloss, according to aides to the Democratic lawmakers.

An aide to Wyden said the lawmaker pressed Altman on the need to make sure AI did not include biases that would lead to discrimination in the real world, like housing or jobs.
“While Senator Wyden believes AI has tremendous potential to speed up innovation and research, he is laser-focused on ensuring automated systems don’t automate discrimination in the process,” said Keith Chu, an aide to Wyden.

A second congressional aide described the discussions as focusing on the speed of changes in AI and how it could be used.

Prompted by worries about plagiarism, ChatGPT has already been banned in schools in New York and Seattle, according to media reports. One congressional aide said the concern they were hearing from constituents came mainly from educators focused on cheating.

OpenAI said in a statement: “We don’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we’re already developing mitigations to help anyone identify text generated by that system.”

In an interview with Time, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, said the company welcomed input, including from regulators and governments. “It’s not too early (for regulators to get involved),” she said.

Andrew Burt, managing partner of BNH.AI, a law firm focused on AI liability, pointed to the national security concerns, adding that he has spoken with lawmakers who are studying whether to regulate ChatGPT and similar AI systems such as Google’s Bard, though he said he could not disclose their names.

“The whole value proposition of these types of AI systems is that they can generate content at scales and speeds that humans simply can’t,” he said.

“I would expect malicious actors, non-state actors and state actors that have interests that are adversarial to the United States to be using these systems to generate information that could be wrong or could be harmful.”

ChatGPT itself, when asked how it should be regulated, demurred and said: “As a neutral AI language model, I don’t have a stance on specific laws that may or may not be enacted to regulate AI systems like me.” But it then went on to list potential areas of focus for regulators, such as data privacy, bias and fairness, and transparency in how answers are written.

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Tech

Apple CEO says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in Indonesia

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

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Apple CEO says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in Indonesia

Apple Inc will look into the possibility of building a manufacturing facility in Indonesia, its CEO said on Wednesday after meeting President Joko Widodo.

Apple CEO Tim Cook arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday, after visiting Vietnam. He met with Jokowi, as the president popularly known, and will be inaugurating an academy for Apple developers on the island of Bali.

“We talked about the president’s desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it is something that we will look at,” Cook told reporters after the meeting.

Apple has based much of its key manufacturing of iPads, AirPods and Apple Watches in Vietnam and suppliers for MacBooks are also investing in the country.

Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia but has established four Apple Developer Academies.

Indonesia has a huge tech-savvy population, making the Southeast Asian nation a key target market for tech-related investment.

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Tech

TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

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TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

ByteDance’s TikTok has been given 24 hours to provide a risk assessment on its new app TikTok Lite launched this month in France and Spain on concerns of its potential impact on children and users’ mental health, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

The move by EU industry chief Thierry Breton under EU tech rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) comes two months after he opened an investigation into TikTok over possible DSA breaches.

The landmark DSA requires companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content on their platforms, with fines of up to 6% of their global annual turnover for violations.

The Commission on Wednesday said it had sent a request for information to TikTok, asking for more details on the risk assessment the social media company should have done before deploying TikTok Lite in the 27-country European Union.

“This concerns the potential impact of the new ‘Task and Reward Lite’ programme on the protection of minors, as well as on the mental health of users, in particular in relation to the potential stimulation of addictive behaviour,” the EU executive said in a document seen by Reuters.

“TikTok must provide the risk assessment for TikTok Lite in 24 hours and the other requested information by 26 April 2024, after which the Commission will analyse TikTok’s reply, and then assess next steps.”

The Commission also asked for details on measures the company has put in place to mitigate systemic risks.

TikTok Lite, an app with a new functionality aimed at users aged 18+, was launched in France and Spain this month.

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Tech

SiTime introduces chip aimed at saving power in AI data centers

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

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SiTime introduces chip aimed at saving power in AI data centers

SiTime (SITM.O) on Wednesday introduced a chip that it says is designed to help data centers built for artificial intelligence applications run more efficiently.

SiTime makes what are known as timing chips, whose job is set a steady beat for all the parts of a computer and keep them running together in sync, like a conductor in an orchestra directing multiple groups of instruments. The company says its new line of chips, called Chorus, can do so with 10 times more precision than older styles of timing chips.

SiTime CEO Rajesh Vashist said the company aims to help customers save electricity with that precision. SiTime’s chips themselves require less than a watt of power, but powerful AI chips such as Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) require more than 1,000 watts of power.

With a more precise clock to keep all the elements of a computer in sync, parts of the machine can be turned off for a few milliseconds at a time when they are not in use. Over the multiple years a power-hungry data center server might be in use, it can generate energy savings, though the amount will depend on how SiTime’s chips are used.

“We deliver timing that they can rely on so that they can wake up their products and bring data more efficiently to them, rather than just running more often,” Vashist said in an interview.

SiTime said the chips will be available in the second half of this year.

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