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Taiwan’s Digital Minister Has an Ambitious Plan to Align Tech With Democracy
TIME (May 20, 2024)
TIME reporter Will Henshall breaks down Taiwan Digital Minster’s ongoing “world tour – which included a stop with us at Northeastern University to discuss her work, as highlighted in the article – to promote the collaborative approaches to digital democracy that have flourished in Taiwan. Henshall’s reporting also considers the conception and impact of Tang’s new book, Plurality – written jointly with E. Glen Weyl and over 100 online collaborators.
AI's Energy Appetite: Challenges for Our Future Electricity Supply
GovTech (May 19, 2024)
Addressing the underdiscussed, “inconvenient truth” around AI development, this article unveils how surging AI demand is actively being undercut by limited energy resources, requiring a reshaping of U.S. energy infrastructure. GovTech congregates a series of reported articles, videos, and statements from energy officials to present a comprehensive snapshot of the energy discussion within AI.
Labor Department releases principles on AI and workers, with pledges from Microsoft, Indeed
FedScoop (May 17, 2024)
In a statement intended to build upon Biden’s executive order from last year, the Department of Labor announced “the release of a far-reaching set of principles that provide employers and developers that create and deploy artificial intelligence with guidance.” The pro-worker guidelines emphasize ethical development and transparent use – though notably missing is comment on the use of AI within hiring decisions and practices.
OpenAI dissolves team focused on long-term AI risks, less than one year after announcing it
CNBC (May 17, 2024)
The headline says it all: OpenAI has announced the dissolution of the Superalignment team, which was announced in 2023 to focus on developing scientific breakthroughs to mitigate any long-term risks of smart AI systems. One of the team’s departing co-leads, Jan Leike, notably lambasted the company’s decision-making process, where she wrote that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.”
Many high schools are curbing the use of AI. These schools are leaning in
CNN (May 17, 2024)
As school boards and curriculum bodies across the nation tackle whether or not to include AI skills or restrictions in student education, some high schools are jumping right in. One such institution, Princeton High School, has tried to embrace it “as much as possible” – including preparing to host an AI summit over the summer and encouraging a group of students to develop an AI-powered, Mayan-language-speaking robot-plushie. However, many school districts are taking a more cautious approach, with some restricting or even outright banning the use of generative AI in their schools.
How the State Department used AI and machine learning to revolutionize records management
FedScoop (May 16, 2024)
Pursuing three pilot projects, the State Department has begun streamlining their document review process for declassification, archival management, and improving requestee experience when meeting FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. In one pilot group, the machine-learning model “performed the same as human reviewers 97% to 99% of the time and reduced staff hours by at least 60%,” allowing human employees to refocus on more complex aspects of the newly streamlined process.
How the Biden administration is tackling diversity in federal AI hiring
FedScoop (May 16, 2024)
As the Biden administration continues to build the government's AI workforce, it’s becoming clear that the AI talent pool faces many of the same demographic representation challenges as other STEM industries – impeding the federal government’s ability to ensure AI teams “look like America.” To ameliorate this, the administration is pursuing targeted outreach and partnering groups that focus on diversifying technologists.
News publishers sound alarm on Google’s new AI-infused search, warn of ‘catastrophic’ impacts
CNN (May 15, 2024)
Google announced last week that it would infuse its search engine with Gemini, its in-house AI model, claiming that now “Google will do the Googling for you.” However, news publishers have quickly raised alarms about further separation of news content from monetization, as ad revenue is only received when a searcher clicks on their individual website. These summaries, bigwigs in journalism argue, “will be catastrophic to our traffic, as marketed by Google to further satisfy user queries, leaving even less incentive to click through so that we can monetize our content.’ Google anticipated and disputes this claim, arguing that the new search process will better connect searchers to news publishers’ websites.
