Policy

us-gov’t-announces-arrest-of-former-google-engineer-for-alleged-ai-trade-secret-theft

US gov’t announces arrest of former Google engineer for alleged AI trade secret theft

AI, AI ethics, AI safety, AI secrets, Ana Mostarac, arrests, Biz & IT, china, data centers, Google, google ai, large language models, Linwei Ding, machine learning, Policy, software engineering, supercomputers / /

Don’t trade the secrets dept. —

Linwei Ding faces four counts of trade secret theft, each with a potential 10-year prison term.

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A Google sign stands in front of the building on the sidelines of the opening of the new Google Cloud data center in Hesse, Hanau, opened in October 2023.

Enlarge / A Google sign stands in front of the building on the sidelines of the opening of the new Google Cloud data center in Hesse, Hanau, opened in October 2023.

On Wednesday, authorities arrested former Google software engineer Linwei Ding in Newark, California, on charges of stealing AI trade secrets from the company. The US Department of Justice alleges that Ding, a Chinese national, committed the theft while secretly working with two China-based companies.

According to the indictment, Ding, who was hired by Google in 2019 and had access to confidential information about the company’s data centers, began uploading hundreds of files into a personal Google Cloud account two years ago.

The trade secrets Ding allegedly copied contained “detailed information about the architecture and functionality of GPU and TPU chips and systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates thousands of chips into a supercomputer capable of executing at the cutting edge of machine learning and AI technology,” according to the indictment.

Shortly after the alleged theft began, Ding was offered the position of chief technology officer at an early-stage technology company in China that touted its use of AI technology. The company offered him a monthly salary of about $14,800, plus an annual bonus and company stock. Ding reportedly traveled to China, participated in investor meetings, and sought to raise capital for the company.

Investigators reviewed surveillance camera footage that showed another employee scanning Ding’s name badge at the entrance of the building where Ding worked at Google, making him look like he was working from his office when he was actually traveling.

Ding also founded and served as the chief executive of a separate China-based startup company that aspired to train “large AI models powered by supercomputing chips,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors say Ding did not disclose either affiliation to Google, which described him as a junior employee. He resigned from Google on December 26 of last year.

The FBI served a search warrant at Ding’s home in January, seizing his electronic devices and later executing an additional warrant for the contents of his personal accounts. Authorities found more than 500 unique files of confidential information that Ding allegedly stole from Google. The indictment says that Ding copied the files into the Apple Notes application on his Google-issued Apple MacBook, then converted the Apple Notes into PDF files and uploaded them to an external account to evade detection.

“We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda told Ars Technica. “After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement. We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the case against the 38-year-old at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco. Ding faces four counts of federal trade secret theft, each carrying a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

US gov’t announces arrest of former Google engineer for alleged AI trade secret theft Read More »

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Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more

facebook, Instagram, Meta, Policy, syndication / /

No help —

“Dramatic and persistent spike” in account takeovers is “substantial drain” on resources.

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In this photo illustration, the icons of WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Facebook are displayed on an iPhone in front of a Meta logo

Enlarge / Meta has a verified program for users of Facebook and Instagram.

Getty Images | Chesnot

Forty-one state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta’s top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook and Instagram user accounts being stolen and declaring “immediate action” necessary to mitigate the rolling threat.

The coalition of top law enforcement officials, spearheaded by New York Attorney General Letitia James, says the “dramatic and persistent spike” in complaints concerning account takeovers amounts to a “substantial drain” on governmental resources, as many stolen accounts are also tied to financial crimes—some of which allegedly profits Meta directly.

“We have received a number of complaints of threat actors fraudulently charging thousands of dollars to stored credit cards,” says the letter addressed to Meta’s chief legal officer, Jennifer Newstead. “Furthermore, we have received reports of threat actors buying advertisements to run on Meta.”

“We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company,” the officials add. “Proper investment in response and mitigation is mandatory.”

In addition to New York, the letter is signed by attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.

“Scammers use every platform available to them and constantly adapt to evade enforcement. We invest heavily in our trained enforcement and review teams and have specialized detection tools to identify compromised accounts and other fraudulent activity,” Meta says in a statement provided by spokesperson Erin McPike. “We regularly share tips and tools people can use to protect themselves, provide a means to report potential violations, work with law enforcement, and take legal action.”

Account takeovers can occur as a result of phishing as well as other more sophisticated and targeted techniques. Once an attacker gains access to an account, the owner can be easily locked out by changing passwords and contact information. Private messages and personal information are left up for grabs for a variety of nefarious purposes, from impersonation and fraud to pushing misinformation.

“It’s basically a case of identity theft and Facebook is doing nothing about it,” said one user whose complaint was cited in the letter to Meta’s Newstead.

The state officials said the accounts that were stolen to run ads on Facebook often run afoul of its rules while doing so, leading them to be permanently suspended, punishing the victims—often small business owners—twice over.

“Having your social media account taken over by a scammer can feel like having someone sneak into your home and change all of the locks,” New York’s James said in a statement. “Social media is how millions of Americans connect with family, friends, and people throughout their communities and the world. To have Meta fail to properly protect users from scammers trying to hijack accounts and lock rightful owners out is unacceptable.”

Other complaints forwarded to Newstead show hacking victims expressing frustration over Meta’s lack of response. In many cases, users report no action being taken by the company. Some say the company encourages users to report such problems but never responds, leaving them unable to salvage their accounts or the businesses they built around them.

After being hacked and defrauded of $500, one user complained that their ability to communicate with their own customer base had been “completely disrupted,” and that Meta had never responded to the report they filed, though the user had followed the instructions the company provided them to obtain help.

“I can’t get any help from Meta. There is no one to talk to and meanwhile all my personal pictures are being used. My contacts are receiving false information from the hacker,” one user wrote.

Wrote another: “This is my business account, which is important to me and my life. I have invested my life, time, money and soul in this account. All attempts to contact and get a response from the Meta company, including Instagram and Facebook, were crowned with complete failure, since the company categorically does not respond to letters.”

Figures provided by James’ office in New York show a tenfold increase in complaints between 2019 and 2023—from 73 complaints to more than 780 last year. In January alone, more than 128 complaints were received, James’ office says. Other states saw similar spikes in complaints during that period, according to the letter, with Pennsylvania recording a 270 percent increase, a 330 percent jump in North Carolina, and a 740 percent surge in Vermont.

The letter notes that, while the officials cannot be “certain of any connection,” the drastic increase in complaints occurred “around the same time” as layoffs at Meta affecting roughly 11,000 employees in November 2022, around 13 percent of its staff at the time.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more Read More »

spain-tells-sam-altman,-worldcoin-to-shut-down-its-eyeball-scanning-orbs

Spain tells Sam Altman, Worldcoin to shut down its eyeball-scanning orbs

biometrics, Policy, privacy, retina scanning, syndication, worldcoin / /

Only for real humans —

Cryptocurrency launched by OpenAI’s Altman is drawing scrutiny from regulators.

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A spherical device that scans people's eyeballs.

Enlarge / Worldcoin’s “Orb,” a device that scans your eyeballs to verify that you’re a real human.

Spain has moved to block Sam Altman’s cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, the latest blow to a venture that has raised controversy in multiple countries by collecting customers’ personal data using an eyeball-scanning “orb.”

The AEPD, Spain’s data protection regulator, has demanded that Worldcoin immediately ceases collecting personal information in the country via the scans and that it stops using data it has already gathered.

The regulator announced on Wednesday that it had taken the “precautionary measure” at the start of the week and had given Worldcoin 72 hours to demonstrate its compliance with the order.

Mar España Martí, AEPD director, said Spain was the first European country to move against Worldcoin and that it was impelled by special concern that the company was collecting information about minors.

“What we have done is raise the alarm in Europe. But this is an issue that affects… citizens in all the countries of the European Union,” she said. “That means there has to be coordinated action.”

Worldcoin, co-founded by Altman in 2019, has been offering tokens of its own cryptocurrency to people around the world, in return for their consent to have their eyes scanned by an orb.

The scans are used as a form of identification as it seeks to create a reliable mechanism to distinguish between humans and machines as artificial intelligence becomes more advanced.

Worldcoin was not immediately available for comment.

The Spanish regulator’s decision is the latest blow to the aspirations of the OpenAI boss and his Worldcoin co-founders Max Novendstern and Alex Blania following a series of setbacks elsewhere in the world.

At the point of its rollout last summer, the San Francisco and Berlin headquartered start-up avoided launching its crypto tokens in the US on account of the country’s harsh crackdown on the digital assets sector.

The Worldcoin token is also not available in major global markets such as China and India, while watchdogs in Kenya last year ordered the project to shut down operations. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has previously said it would be making inquiries into Worldcoin.

While some jurisdictions have raised concerns about the viability of a Worldcoin cryptocurrency token, Spain’s latest crackdown targets the start-up’s primary efforts to establish a method to prove customers’ “personhood”—work that Altman characterizes as essential in a world where sophisticated AI is harder to distinguish from humans.

In the face of growing scrutiny, Altman told the Financial Times he could imagine a world where his start-up could exist without its in-house cryptocurrency.

Worldcoin has registered 4 million users, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Investors poured roughly $250 million into the company, including venture capital groups Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and, prior to the collapse of his FTX empire, Sam Bankman-Fried.

The project attracted media attention and prompted a handful of consumer complaints in Spain as queues began to grow at the stands in shopping centers where Worldcoin is offering cryptocurrency in exchange for eyeball scans.

In January, the data protection watchdog in the Basque country, one of Spain’s autonomous regions, issued a warning about the eye-scanning technology Worldcoin was using in a Bilbao mall. The watchdog, the AVPD, said it fell under biometric data protection rules and that a risk assessment was needed.

España Martí said the Spanish agency was acting on concerns that the Worldcoin initiative did not comply with biometric data laws, which demand that users be given adequate information about how their data will be used and that they have the right to erase it.

Sharing such biometric data, she said, opened people up to a variety of risks ranging from identity fraud to breaches of health privacy and discrimination.

“I want to send a message to young people. I understand that it can be very tempting to get €70 or €80 that sorts you out for the weekend,” España Martí said, but “giving away personal data in exchange for these derisory amounts of money is a short, medium and long-term risk.”

Spain tells Sam Altman, Worldcoin to shut down its eyeball-scanning orbs Read More »

oregon-oks-right-to-repair-bill-that-bans-the-blocking-of-aftermarket-parts

Oregon OKs right-to-repair bill that bans the blocking of aftermarket parts

Apple, Oregon, parts pairing, Policy, repair, right to repair, Tech / /

Right to repair —

Governor’s signature would stop software locks from impairing replacement parts.

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iPhone battery being removed from an iPhone over a blue repair mat

Getty Images

Oregon has joined the small but growing list of states that have passed right-to-repair legislation. Oregon’s bill stands out for a provision that would prevent companies from requiring that official parts be unlocked with encrypted software checks before they will fully function.

Bill SB 1596 passed Oregon’s House by a 42 to 13 margin. Gov. Tina Kotek has five days to sign the bill into law. Consumer groups and right-to-repair advocates praised the bill as “the best bill yet,” while the bill’s chief sponsor, state Sen. Janeen Sollman (D), pointed to potential waste reductions and an improved second-hand market for closing a digital divide.

“Oregon improves on Right to Repair laws in California, Minnesota and New York by making sure that consumers have the choice of buying new parts, used parts, or third-party parts for the gadgets and gizmos,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, in a statement.

Like bills passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, Oregon’s bill requires companies to offer the same parts, tools, and documentation to individual and independent repair shops that are already offered to authorized repair technicians.

Unlike other states’ bills, however, Oregon’s bill doesn’t demand a set number of years after device manufacture for such repair implements to be produced. That suggests companies could effectively close their repair channels entirely rather than comply with the new requirements. California’s bill mandated seven years of availability.

If signed, the law’s requirements for parts, tools, and documentation would apply to devices sold after 2015, except for phones, which are covered after July 2021. The prohibition against parts pairing only covers devices sold in 2025 and later. Like other repair bills, a number of device categories are exempted, including video game consoles, HVAC and medical gear, solar systems, vehicles, and, very specifically, “Electric toothbrushes.”

Apple had surprised many with its support for California’s repair bill. But the company, notable for its pairing requirements for certain repair parts, opposed Oregon’s repair bill. John Perry, a senior manager for secure design at Apple, testified at an Oregon hearing that the pairing restriction would “undermine the security, safety, and privacy of Oregonians by forcing device manufacturers to allow the use of parts of unknown origin in consumer devices.”

Perry also noted Apple’s improved repair workflow, which no longer requires online access or a phone call to pair parts. Apple devices will still issue notifications and warnings if an unauthorized screen or battery, for example, is installed in an iPhone.

Disclosure: Kevin Purdy previously worked for iFixit. He has no financial ties to the company.

Oregon OKs right-to-repair bill that bans the blocking of aftermarket parts Read More »

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Report: Boeing may reacquire Spirit at higher price despite hating optics

Alaska Airlines, Boeing, Boeing 737 max 7, boeing 737 max 9, Federal Aviation Administration, Policy, spirit aerosystems / /

Still up in the air —

Spirit was initially spun out from Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 2005.

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Report: Boeing may reacquire Spirit at higher price despite hating optics

Amid safety scandals involving “many loose bolts” and widespread problems with Boeing’s 737 Max 9s, Boeing is apparently considering buying back Spirit AeroSystems, the key supplier behind some of Boeing’s current manufacturing problems, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

Spirit was initially spun out from Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 2005, and Boeing had planned to keep it that way. Last year, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun sought to dispel rumors that Boeing might reacquire Spirit as federal regulators launched investigations into both companies. But now Calhoun appears to be “softening that stance,” the WSJ reported.

According to the WSJ’s sources, no deal has formed yet, but Spirit has initiated talks with Boeing and “hired bankers to explore strategic options.” Sources also confirmed that Spirit is weighing whether to sell its operations in Ireland, which manufactures parts for Boeing rival Airbus.

Perhaps paving the way for these talks, Spirit replaced its CEO last fall with a former Boeing executive, Patrick Shanahan. In a press release noting that Spirit relies “on Boeing for a significant portion of our revenues,” Spirit touted Shanahan as a “seasoned executive” with 31 years at Boeing, and Shanahan promised to “stabilize” Spirit’s operations.

If Boeing reacquired Spirit, it might help reduce backlash over Boeing outsourcing manufacturing of its planes, but it likely wouldn’t help Boeing escape the ongoing scrutiny. While the WSJ reported that “Spirit parts frequently arrive” at the Boeing factory “with defects,” it was “a snafu at Boeing’s factory” that led Alaska Airlines to ground 65 Boeing aircraft over safety concerns after a mid-aircraft door detached mid-flight, endangering passengers and crew.

Sources later revealed that it was Boeing employees who failed to put bolts back in when they reinstalled a door plug, reportedly causing the malfunction that forced Alaska Airlines to make an emergency landing. As a result, Boeing withdrew from a safety exemption that it had requested “to prematurely allow the 737 Max 7 to enter commercial service.” At that time, US Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) accused Boeing of a “bold-face attempt to put profits over the safety of the flying public.”

Purchasing Spirit would appear to be a last resort for Boeing, the WSJ reported, noting that so far, “Boeing has done everything short of acquiring Spirit in an effort to gain control over the supplier.”

But Reuters confirmed the WSJ’s report with an industry source, so it seems like perhaps Boeing increasingly feels it has no other options left despite working closely with Shanahan for the past few months to keep Spirit’s troubles from impacting Boeing’s bottom line. One industry source told Reuters that in the time since Boeing spun off Spirit, “the optics of buying at a higher price were among the factors that discouraged such a move.”

For Spirit, which attributes nearly two-thirds of its revenues to Boeing, the WSJ reported, being brought back into the Boeing fold could be the only way to survive these turbulent times. Currently valued at about $3.3 billion, Spirit has struggled for months to shore up a commercial agreement with Airbus and notably failed to stabilize after receiving a “$100 million cash infusion from Boeing” last year, the WSJ reported.

But for Boeing, the obvious downside of the purchase would be taking on Spirit’s mess at the same time Boeing is trying to clean up its own image.

Report: Boeing may reacquire Spirit at higher price despite hating optics Read More »

whatsapp-finally-forces-pegasus-spyware-maker-to-share-its-secret-code

WhatsApp finally forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

Israel, malware, Meta, nso group, pegasus, pegasus spyware, Policy, spyware, whatsapp / /

In on the secret —

Israeli spyware maker loses fight to only share information on installation.

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WhatsApp finally forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

WhatsApp will soon be granted access to explore the “full functionality” of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware—sophisticated malware the Israeli Ministry of Defense has long guarded as a “highly sought” state secret, The Guardian reported.

Since 2019, WhatsApp has pushed for access to the NSO’s spyware code after alleging that Pegasus was used to spy on 1,400 WhatsApp users over a two-week period, gaining unauthorized access to their sensitive data, including encrypted messages. WhatsApp suing the NSO, Ars noted at the time, was “an unprecedented legal action” that took “aim at the unregulated industry that sells sophisticated malware services to governments around the world.”

Initially, the NSO sought to block all discovery in the lawsuit “due to various US and Israeli restrictions,” but that blanket request was denied. Then, last week, the NSO lost another fight to keep WhatsApp away from its secret code.

As the court considered each side’s motions to compel discovery, a US district judge, Phyllis Hamilton, rejected the NSO’s argument that it should only be required to hand over information about Pegasus’ installation layer.

Hamilton sided with WhatsApp, granting the Meta-owned app’s request for “information concerning the full functionality of the relevant spyware,” writing that “information showing the functionality of only the installation layer of the relevant spyware would not allow plaintiffs to understand how the relevant spyware performs the functions of accessing and extracting data.”

WhatsApp has alleged that Pegasus can “intercept communications sent to and from a device, including communications over iMessage, Skype, Telegram, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and others” and that it could also be “customized for different purposes, including to intercept communications, capture screenshots, and exfiltrate browser history.”

To prove this, WhatsApp needs access to “all relevant spyware”—specifically “any NSO spyware targeting or directed at WhatsApp servers, or using WhatsApp in any way to access Target Devices”—for “a period of one year before the alleged attack to one year after the alleged attack,” Hamilton concluded.

The NSO has so far not commented on the order, but WhatsApp was pleased with this outcome.

“The recent court ruling is an important milestone in our long running goal of protecting WhatsApp users against unlawful attacks,” WhatsApp’s spokesperson told The Guardian. “Spyware companies and other malicious actors need to understand they can be caught and will not be able to ignore the law.”

But Hamilton did not grant all of WhatsApp’s requests for discovery, sparing the NSO from sharing specific information regarding its server architecture because WhatsApp “would be able to glean the same information from the full functionality of the alleged spyware.”

Perhaps more significantly, the NSO also won’t be compelled to identify its clients. While the NSO does not publicly name the governments that purchase its spyware, reports indicate that Poland, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, India, Hungary, and the United Arab Emirates have used it to target dissidents, The Guardian reported. In 2021, the US blacklisted the NSO for allegedly spreading “digital tools used for repression.”

In the same order, Hamilton also denied the NSO’s request to compel WhatsApp to share its post-complaint communications with the Citizen Lab, which served as a third-party witness in the case to support WhatsApp’s argument that “Pegasus is misused by NSO’s customers against ‘civil society.’”

It appeared that the NSO sought WhatsApp’s post-complaint communications with Citizen Lab as a way to potentially pressure WhatsApp into dropping Citizen Lab’s statement from the record. Hamilton quoted a court filing from the NSO that curiously noted: “If plaintiffs would agree to withdraw from their case Citizen Lab’s contention that Pegasus was used against members of ‘civil society’ rather than to investigate terrorism and serious crime, there would be much less need for this discovery.”

Ultimately, Hamilton denied the NSO’s request because “the court fails to see the relevance of the requested discovery.”

As discovery in the case proceeds, the court expects to receive expert disclosures from each side on August 30 before the trial, which is expected to start on March 3, 2025.

WhatsApp finally forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code Read More »

judge-mocks-x-for-“vapid”-argument-in-musk’s-hate-speech-lawsuit

Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit

censorship, center for countering digital hate, defamation, elon musk, hate speech, online censorship, online hate speech, Policy, Twitter, X / /
Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit

It looks like Elon Musk may lose X’s lawsuit against hate speech researchers who encouraged a major brand boycott after flagging ads appearing next to extremist content on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

X is trying to argue that the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) violated the site’s terms of service and illegally accessed non-public data to conduct its reporting, allegedly posing a security risk for X. The boycott, X alleged, cost the company tens of millions of dollars by spooking advertisers, while X contends that the CCDH’s reporting is misleading and ads are rarely served on extremist content.

But at a hearing Thursday, US district judge Charles Breyer told the CCDH that he would consider dismissing X’s lawsuit, repeatedly appearing to mock X’s decision to file it in the first place.

Seemingly skeptical of X’s entire argument, Breyer appeared particularly focused on how X intended to prove that the CCDH could have known that its reporting would trigger such substantial financial losses, as the lawsuit hinges on whether the alleged damages were “foreseeable,” NPR reported.

X’s lawyer, Jon Hawk, argued that when the CCDH joined Twitter in 2019, the group agreed to terms of service that noted those terms could change. So when Musk purchased Twitter and updated rules to reinstate accounts spreading hate speech, the CCDH should have been able to foresee those changes in terms and therefore anticipate that any reporting on spikes in hate speech would cause financial losses.

According to CNN, this is where Breyer became frustrated, telling Hawk, “I’m trying to figure out in my mind how that’s possibly true, because I don’t think it is.”

“What you have to tell me is, why is it foreseeable?” Breyer said. “That they should have understood that, at the time they entered the terms of service, that Twitter would then change its policy and allow this type of material to be disseminated?

“That, of course, reduces foreseeability to one of the most vapid extensions of law I’ve ever heard,” Breyer added. “‘Oh, what’s foreseeable is that things can change, and therefore, if there’s a change, it’s ‘foreseeable.’ I mean, that argument is truly remarkable.”

According to NPR, Breyer suggested that X was trying to “shoehorn” its legal theory by using language from a breach of contract claim, when what the company actually appeared to be alleging was defamation.

“You could’ve brought a defamation case; you didn’t bring a defamation case,” Breyer said. “And that’s significant.”

Breyer directly noted that one reason why X might not bring a defamation suit was if the CCDH’s reporting was accurate, NPR reported.

CCDH’s CEO and founder, Imran Ahmed, provided a statement to Ars, confirming that the group is “very pleased with how yesterday’s argument went, including many of the questions and comments from the court.”

“We remain confident in the strength of our arguments for dismissal,” Ahmed said.

Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit Read More »

elon-musk-sues-openai-and-sam-altman,-accusing-them-of-chasing-profits

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of chasing profits

AI, El, elon musk, openai, Policy, syndication / /

YA Musk lawsuit —

OpenAI is now a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft, says lawsuit.

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Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of chasing profits

Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman for breach of contract, alleging they have compromised the start-up’s original mission of building artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of humanity.

In the lawsuit, filed to a San Francisco court on Thursday, Musk’s lawyers wrote that OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft had broken an agreement to make a major breakthrough in AI “freely available to the public.”

Instead, the lawsuit said, OpenAI was working on “proprietary technology to maximise profits for literally the largest company in the world.”

The legal fight escalates a long-running dispute between Musk, who has founded his own AI company, known as xAI, and OpenAI, which has received a $13 billion investment from Microsoft.

Musk, who helped co-found OpenAI in 2015, said in his legal filing he had donated $44 million to the group, and had been “induced” to make contributions by promises, “including in writing,” that it would remain a non-profit organisation.

He left OpenAI’s board in 2018 following disagreements with Altman on the direction of research. A year later, the group established the for-profit arm that Microsoft has invested into.

Microsoft’s president Brad Smith told the Financial Times this week that while the companies were “very important partners,” “Microsoft does not control OpenAI.”

Musk’s lawsuit alleges that OpenAI’s latest AI model, GPT4, released in March last year, breached the threshold for artificial general intelligence (AGI), at which computers function at or above the level of human intelligence.

The Microsoft deal only gives the tech giant a licence to OpenAI’s pre-AGI technology, the lawsuit said, and determining when this threshold is reached is key to Musk’s case.

The lawsuit seeks a court judgment over whether GPT4 should already be considered to be AGI, arguing that OpenAI’s board was “ill-equipped” to make such a determination.

The filing adds that OpenAI is also building another model, Q*, that will be even more powerful and capable than GPT4. It argues that OpenAI is committed under the terms of its founding agreement to make such technology available publicly.

“Mr. Musk has long recognised that AGI poses a grave threat to humanity—perhaps the greatest existential threat we face today,” the lawsuit says.

“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity’,” it adds. “In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”

OpenAI maintains it has not yet achieved AGI, despite its models’ success in language and reasoning tasks. Large language models like GPT4 still generate errors, fabrications and so-called hallucinations.

The lawsuit also seeks to “compel” OpenAI to adhere to its founding agreement to build technology that does not simply benefit individuals such as Altman and corporations such as Microsoft.

Musk’s own xAI company is a direct competitor to OpenAI and launched its first product, a chatbot named Grok, in December.

OpenAI declined to comment. Representatives for Musk have been approached for comment. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Microsoft-OpenAI alliance is being reviewed by competition watchdogs in the US, EU and UK.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas to OpenAI executives in November as part of an investigation into whether Altman had misled its investors, according to people familiar with the move.

That investigation came shortly after OpenAI’s board fired Altman as chief executive only to reinstate him days later. A new board has since been instituted including former Salesforce co-chief executive Bret Taylor as chair.

There is an ongoing internal review of the former board’s allegations against Altman by independent law firm WilmerHale.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of chasing profits Read More »

tesla-must-face-racism-class-action-from-6,000-black-workers,-judge-rules

Tesla must face racism class action from 6,000 Black workers, judge rules

Policy, Tesla, tesla racism / /
Aerial view of a Tesla factory shows a giant Tesla logo on the side of the building, and a parking lot filled with cars.

Enlarge / Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on September 18, 2023.

Getty Images | Justin Sullivan

Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black people who allege that they faced discrimination and harassment while working at the company’s Fremont factory, a California judge ruled.

The tentative ruling from Alameda County Superior Court “certifies a class defined as the specific approximately 5,977 persons self-identified as Black/African-American who worked at Tesla during the class period from November 9, 2016, through the date of the entry of this order to prosecute the claims in the complaint.”

The tentative ruling was issued Tuesday by Judge Noël Wise. Tesla can contest the ruling at a hearing on Friday, but tentative rulings are generally finalized without major changes.

The case started years ago. An amended complaint in 2017 alleged that Tesla “created an intimidating, hostile, and offensive work environment for Black and/or African-American employees that includes a routine use of the terms ‘Nr’ and ‘Na’ and other racially derogatory terms, and racist treatment and images at Tesla’s production facility in Fremont, California.”

The plaintiffs’ motion was not approved in its entirety. A request for class certification was denied for all people who are not on the list of class members.

However, plaintiffs will have five days to provide an updated list of class members. Anyone not on the list “may if they wish seek individual remedies through filing civil actions, through arbitration, or otherwise,” the ruling said.

Plaintiffs “heard the n-word” at factory

A class-action trial is scheduled to begin on October 14, 2024, the same day as a separate case against Tesla brought by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD).

As Wise’s ruling noted, “The CRD has filed and is pursuing a parallel law enforcement action that is alleging a pattern and practice of failing to prevent discrimination and harassment and seeking an injunction that would require Tesla to institute policies and procedures that will do a better job of preventing and redressing discrimination and harassment at Tesla. The EEOC [US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] has filed a similar action.”

In the class action, plaintiffs submitted “declarations from 240 persons who stated that they observed discrimination or harassment at the Tesla Fremont facility and that some complained about it,” Wise wrote. “Of the 240 plaintiff declarations, all stated that they heard the n-word at the Tesla Fremont facility, 112 state that they complained to a supervisor, manager or HR about discrimination, but only 16 made written complaints.”

Tesla submitted declarations from 228 people “who generally stated that they did not observe discrimination or harassment at the Tesla Fremont facility or that if they observed it then Tesla took ‘immediate and appropriate corrective action,'” Wise wrote.

Tesla also said it “created a centralized internal tracking system to document complaints and investigations” in 2017 and will rely on this database “to demonstrate that Tesla was aware of complaints about race discrimination and harassment and how it responded to the complaints.”

Tesla must face racism class action from 6,000 Black workers, judge rules Read More »

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CenturyLink left customers without Internet for 39 days—until Ars stepped in

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Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

When a severe winter storm hit Oregon on January 13, Nicholas Brown’s CenturyLink fiber Internet service stopped working at his house in Portland.

The initial outage was understandable amid the widespread damage caused by the storm, but CenturyLink’s response was poor. It took about 39 days for CenturyLink to restore broadband service to Brown and even longer to restore service to one of his neighbors. Those reconnections only happened after Ars Technica contacted the telco firm on the customers’ behalf last week.

Brown had never experienced any lengthy outage in over four years of subscribing to CenturyLink, so he figured the telco firm would restore his broadband connection within a reasonable amount of time. “It had practically never gone down at all up to this point. I’ve been quite happy with it,” he said.

While CenturyLink sent trucks to his street to reconnect most of his neighbors after the storm and Brown regularly contacted CenturyLink to plead for a fix, his Internet connection remained offline. Brown had also lost power, but the electricity service was reconnected within about 48 hours, while the broadband service remained offline for well over a month.

Fearing he had exhausted his options, Brown contacted Ars. We sent an email to CenturyLink’s media department on February 21 to seek information on why the outage lasted so long.

Telco finally springs into action

Roughly four hours after we contacted the firm, a CenturyLink technician arrived at the Portland house Brown shares with his partner, Jolene Edwards. The technician was able to reconnect them that day.

“At 4: 30 pm, a CenturyLink tech showed up unannounced,” Brown told us. “No one was home at the time, but he said he would wait. I get the idea that he was told not to come back until it was fixed.”

Brown’s neighbor, Leonard Bentz, also lost Internet access on January 13 and remained offline for two days longer than Brown. The technician who arrived on February 21 didn’t reconnect Bentz’s house.

“My partner gently tried to egg him to go over there and fix them too, and he more or less said, ‘That’s not the ticket that I have,'” Brown said.

After getting Bentz’s name and address, we contacted CenturyLink again on February 22 to notify them that he also needed to be reconnected. CenturyLink later confirmed to us that it restored his Internet service on February 23.

“They kept putting me off and putting me off”

Bentz told Ars that during the month-plus outage, he called CenturyLink several times. Customer service reps and a supervisor told him the company would send someone to fix his service, but “they kept putting me off and putting me off and putting me off,” Bentz said.

On one of those calls, Bentz said that CenturyLink promised him seven free months of service in exchange for the long outage. Brown told us he received a refund for the entire length of his outage, plus a bit extra. He pays $65 a month for gigabit service.

Brown said he is “happy enough with the resolution,” at least financially since he “got all the money for the non-service.” But those 39 days without Internet service will remain a bad memory.

Unfortunately, Internet service providers like CenturyLink have a history of failing to fix problems until media coverage exposes their poor customer service. CenturyLink is officially called Lumen these days, but it still uses the CenturyLink brand name.

After fixing Brown’s service in Portland, a CenturyLink spokesperson gave us the following statement:

It’s frustrating to have your services down and for that we apologize. We’ve brought in additional resources to assist in restoring service that was knocked out due to severe storms and multiple cases of vandalism. Some services are back, and we are working diligently to completely restore everything. In fact, we have technicians there now. We appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding, and we welcome calls from our customers to discuss their service.

CenturyLink left customers without Internet for 39 days—until Ars stepped in Read More »

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A big boost to Europe’s climate-change goals

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carbon-neutral continent —

A new policy called CBAM will assist Europe’s ambition to become carbon-neutral.

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Steelworker starting molten steel pour in steelworks facility.

Enlarge / Materials such as steel, cement, aluminum, electricity, fertilizer, hydrogen, and iron will soon be subject to greenhouse gas emissions fees when imported into Europe.

Monty Rakusen/Getty

The year 2023 was a big one for climate news, from record heat to world leaders finally calling for a transition away from fossil fuels. In a lesser-known milestone, it was also the year the European Union soft-launched an ambitious new initiative that could supercharge its climate policies.

Wrapped in arcane language studded with many a “thereof,” “whereas” and “having regard to” is a policy that could not only help fund the European Union’s pledge to become the world’s first carbon-neutral continent, but also push industries all over the world to cut their carbon emissions.

It’s the establishment of a carbon price that will force many heavy industries to pay for each ton of carbon dioxide, or equivalent emissions of other greenhouse gases, that they emit. But what makes this fee revolutionary is that it will apply to emissions that don’t happen on European soil. The EU already puts a price on many of the emissions created by European firms; now, through the new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, the bloc will charge companies that import the targeted products—cement, aluminum, electricity, fertilizer, hydrogen, iron, and steel—into the EU, no matter where in the world those products are made.

These industries are often large and stubborn sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and addressing them is key in the fight against climate change, says Aaron Cosbey, an economist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an environmental think tank. If those companies want to continue doing business with European firms, they’ll have to clean up or pay a fee. That creates an incentive for companies worldwide to reduce emissions.

In CBAM’s first phase, which started in October 2023, companies importing those materials into the EU must report on the greenhouse gas emissions involved in making the products. Beginning in 2026, they’ll have to pay a tariff.

Even having to supply emissions data will be a big step for some producers and could provide valuable data for climate researchers and policymakers, says Cosbey.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve gone through this exercise of trying to identify, at a product level, the greenhouse gas intensity of exports from particular countries and had to go through the most amazing, torturous processes to try to do those estimates,” he says. “And now it’s going to be served to me on a plate.”

CBAM will apply to a set of products that are linked to heavy greenhouse gas emissions.

Enlarge / CBAM will apply to a set of products that are linked to heavy greenhouse gas emissions.

Side benefits at home

While this new carbon price targets companies abroad, it will also help the EU to pursue its climate ambitions at home. For one thing, the extra revenues could go toward financing climate-friendly projects and promising new technologies.

But it also allows the EU to tighten up on domestic pollution. Since 2005, the EU has set a maximum, or cap, on the emissions created by a range of industrial “installations” such as oil and metal refineries. It makes companies within the bloc use credits, or allowances, for each ton of carbon dioxide—or equivalent discharges of other greenhouse gases—that they emit, up to that cap. Some allowances are currently granted for free, but others are bought at auction or traded with other companies in a system known as a carbon market.

But this idea—of making it expensive to harm the planet—creates a conundrum. If doing business in Europe becomes too expensive, European industry could flee the continent for countries that don’t have such high fees or strict regulations. That would damage the European economy and do nothing to solve the environmental crisis. The greenhouse gases would still be emitted—perhaps more than if the products had been made in Europe—and climate change would careen forward on its destructive path.

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism aims to impose the same carbon price for products made abroad as domestic producers must pay under the EU’s system. In theory, that keeps European businesses competitive with imports from international rivals. It also addresses environmental concerns by nudging companies overseas toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than carrying on as usual.

This means the EU can further tighten up its carbon market system at home. With international competition hopefully less of a concern, it plans to phase out some leniencies, such as some of the free emission allowances, that existed to help keep domestic industries competitive.

That’s a big deal, says Cosbey. Dozens of countries have carbon pricing systems, but they all create exceptions to keep heavy industry from getting obliterated by international competition. The carbon border tariff could allow the EU to truly force its industries—and consumers—to pay the price, he says.

“That is ambitious; nobody in the world is doing that.”

A big boost to Europe’s climate-change goals Read More »

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OpenAI accuses NYT of hacking ChatGPT to set up copyright suit

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OpenAI accuses NYT of hacking ChatGPT to set up copyright suit

OpenAI is now boldly claiming that The New York Times “paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products” like ChatGPT to “set up” a lawsuit against the leading AI maker.

In a court filing Monday, OpenAI alleged that “100 examples in which some version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model supposedly generated several paragraphs of Times content as outputs in response to user prompts” do not reflect how normal people use ChatGPT.

Instead, it allegedly took The Times “tens of thousands of attempts to generate” these supposedly “highly anomalous results” by “targeting and exploiting a bug” that OpenAI claims it is now “committed to addressing.”

According to OpenAI this activity amounts to “contrived attacks” by a “hired gun”—who allegedly hacked OpenAI models until they hallucinated fake NYT content or regurgitated training data to replicate NYT articles. NYT allegedly paid for these “attacks” to gather evidence to support The Times’ claims that OpenAI’s products imperil its journalism by allegedly regurgitating reporting and stealing The Times’ audiences.

“Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, however, ChatGPT is not in any way a substitute for a subscription to The New York Times,” OpenAI argued in a motion that seeks to dismiss the majority of The Times’ claims. “In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product for that purpose. Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.”

In the filing, OpenAI described The Times as enthusiastically reporting on its chatbot developments for years without raising any concerns about copyright infringement. OpenAI claimed that it disclosed that The Times’ articles were used to train its AI models in 2020, but The Times only cared after ChatGPT’s popularity exploded after its debut in 2022.

According to OpenAI, “It was only after this rapid adoption, along with reports of the value unlocked by these new technologies, that the Times claimed that OpenAI had ‘infringed its copyright[s]’ and reached out to demand ‘commercial terms.’ After months of discussions, the Times filed suit two days after Christmas, demanding ‘billions of dollars.'”

Ian Crosby, Susman Godfrey partner and lead counsel for The New York Times, told Ars that “what OpenAI bizarrely mischaracterizes as ‘hacking’ is simply using OpenAI’s products to look for evidence that they stole and reproduced The Times’s copyrighted works. And that is exactly what we found. In fact, the scale of OpenAI’s copying is much larger than the 100-plus examples set forth in the complaint.”

Crosby told Ars that OpenAI’s filing notably “doesn’t dispute—nor can they—that they copied millions of The Times’ works to build and power its commercial products without our permission.”

“Building new products is no excuse for violating copyright law, and that’s exactly what OpenAI has done on an unprecedented scale,” Crosby said.

OpenAI argued that the court should dismiss claims alleging direct copyright, contributory infringement, Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations, and misappropriation, all of which it describes as “legally infirm.” Some fail because they are time-barred—seeking damages on training data for OpenAI’s older models—OpenAI claimed. Others allegedly fail because they misunderstand fair use or are preempted by federal laws.

If OpenAI’s motion is granted, the case would be substantially narrowed.

But if the motion is not granted and The Times ultimately wins—and it might—OpenAI may be forced to wipe ChatGPT and start over.

“OpenAI, which has been secretive and has deliberately concealed how its products operate, is now asserting it’s too late to bring a claim for infringement or hold them accountable. We disagree,” Crosby told Ars. “It’s noteworthy that OpenAI doesn’t dispute that it copied Times works without permission within the statute of limitations to train its more recent and current models.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment.

OpenAI accuses NYT of hacking ChatGPT to set up copyright suit Read More »