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Tackle longstanding issues around productivity, cyber resilience and public sector culture, advises spending watchdog

The UK's government spending watchdog has called on the current administration to make better use of technology to kickstart the misfiring economy and ensure better delivery public services amid tightened budgets.…

AI systems that pose "unacceptable risk" or harm can now be banned in the European Union. Some of the unacceptable AI activities include social scoring, deceptive manipulation, exploiting personal vulnerabilities, predictive policing based on appearance, biometric-based profiling, real-time biometric surveillance, emotion inference in workplaces or schools, and unauthorized facial recognition database expansion. TechCrunch reports: Under the bloc's approach, there are four broad risk levels: (1) Minimal risk (e.g., email spam filters) will face no regulatory oversight; (2) limited risk, which includes customer service chatbots, will have a light-touch regulatory oversight; (3) high risk -- AI for healthcare recommendations is one example -- will face heavy regulatory oversight; and (4) unacceptable risk applications -- the focus of this month's compliance requirements -- will be prohibited entirely. Companies that are found to be using any of the above AI applications in the EU will be subject to fines, regardless of where they are headquartered. They could be on the hook for up to ~$36 million, or 7% of their annual revenue from the prior fiscal year, whichever is greater. The fines won't kick in for some time, noted Rob Sumroy, head of technology at the British law firm Slaughter and May, in an interview with TechCrunch. "Organizations are expected to be fully compliant by February 2, but ... the next big deadline that companies need to be aware of is in August," Sumroy said. "By then, we'll know who the competent authorities are, and the fines and enforcement provisions will take effect."

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Also, Netgear fixes critical router, access point vulnerabilities

Google has released its February Android security updates, including a fix for a high-severity kernel-level vulnerability, which is suspected to be in use by targeted exploits.…

Salesforce is cutting jobs as its latest fiscal year gets underway, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter, even as the company simultaneously hires workers to sell new artificial intelligence products. From the report: More than 1,000 roles will be affected, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Displaced workers will be able to apply for other jobs internally, the person added. Salesforce had nearly 73,000 workers as of January 2024, when that fiscal year ended.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Advanced artificial intelligence is to revolutionize fundamental physics and could open a window on to the fate of the universe, according to Cern's next director general. Prof Mark Thomson, the British physicist who will assume leadership of Cern on 1 January 2026, says machine learning is paving the way for advances in particle physics that promise to be comparable to the AI-powered prediction of protein structures that earned Google DeepMind scientists a Nobel prize in October. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he said, similar strategies are being used to detect incredibly rare events that hold the key to how particles came to acquire mass in the first moments after the big bang and whether our universe could be teetering on the brink of a catastrophic collapse. "These are not incremental improvements," Thomson said. "These are very, very, very big improvements people are making by adopting really advanced techniques." "It's going to be quite transformative for our field," he added. "It's complex data, just like protein folding -- that's an incredibly complex problem -- so if you use an incredibly complex technique, like AI, you're going to win." The intervention comes as Cern's council is making the case for the Future Circular Collider, which at 90km circumference would dwarf the LHC. Some are skeptical given the lack of blockbuster results at the LHC since the landmark discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 and Germany has described the $17 billion proposal as unaffordable. But Thomson said AI has provided fresh impetus to the hunt for new physics at the subatomic scale -- and that major discoveries could occur after 2030 when a major upgrade will boost the LHC's beam intensity by a factor of ten. This will allow unprecedented observations of the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God particle, that grants mass to other particles and binds the universe together. Thomson is now confident that the LHC can measure Higgs boson self-coupling, a key factor in understanding how particles gained mass after the Big Bang and whether the Higgs field is in a stable state or could undergo a future transition. According to Thomson: "It's a very deep fundamental property of the universe, one we don't fully understand. If we saw the Higgs self-coupling being different from our current theory, that that would be another massive, massive discovery. And you don't know until you've made the measurement." The report also notes how AI is being used in "every aspect of the LHC operation." Dr Katharine Leney, who works on the LHC's Atlas experiment, said: "When the LHC is colliding protons, it's making around 40m collisions a second and we have to make a decision within a microsecond ... which events are something interesting that we want to keep and which to throw away. We're already now doing better with the data that we've collected than we thought we'd be able to do with 20 times more data ten years ago. So we've advanced by 20 years at least. A huge part of this has been down to AI." Generative AI is also being used to look for and even produce dark matter via the LHC. "You can start to ask more complex, open-ended questions," said Thomson. "Rather than searching for a particular signature, you ask the question: 'Is there something unexpected in this data?'"

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A study found that bonobos can recognize when someone lacks knowledge they possess and take action to help, demonstrating a basic form of theory of mind. This suggests that the ability to understand others' perspectives is evolutionarily older than previously thought and may have existed in our common ancestors to enhance cooperation and coordination. New Scientist reports: [W]e have been missing clear evidence from controlled settings that primates can track a perspective that differs from their own and then act upon it, says Luke Townrow at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. To investigate this, Townrow and Christopher Krupenye, also at Johns Hopkins University, tested if three male bonobos at the Ape Initiative research centre in Iowa could identify ignorance in someone they were trying to cooperate with, and then gesture to them to help solve the task. On a table between the bonobo and an experimenter were three upturned plastic cups. A second researcher placed a barrier between the experimenter and the cups, then hid a treat, like a juicy grape, under one of them. In one version of the experiment, the "knowledge condition," a window in the barrier allowed the experimenter to watch where the treat was placed. In the "ignorance condition," their view was completely blocked. If the experimenter found the food, they would give it to the bonobo, providing a motivation for the apes to share what they knew. Townrow and Krupenye looked at whether the ape pointed at the cup, and how quickly they pointed, after the barrier had been removed over 24 trials for each condition. They found that, on average, the bonobos took 1.5 seconds less time to point and pointed in approximately 20 per cent more trials in the ignorance condition. "This shows that they can actually take action when they realize that somebody has a different perspective from their own," says Krupenye. It appears that bonobos understand features of what others are thinking that researchers have historically assumed they didn't comprehend, he adds. The findings have been published in the journal PNAS.

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GPU giant could just wait eight minutes for Donald to change his mind

US President Donald Trump loves his tariffs and it seems that not even a meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang could persuade him to change course.…

Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a bill that would criminalize the import, export, and collaboration on AI technology with China. What this means is that "someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass," reports 404 Media. From the report: Hawley introduced the legislation, titled the Decoupling America's Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act, on Wednesday of last year. "Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States," Senator Hawley said in a statement. "America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation." Hawley's statement explicitly says that he introduced the legislation because of the release of DeepSeek, an advanced AI model that's competitive with its American counterparts, and which its developers claimed was made for a fraction of the cost and without access to as many and as advanced of chips, though these claims are unverified. Hawley's statement called DeepSeek "a data-harvesting, low-cost AI model that sparked international concern and sent American technology stocks plummeting." Hawley's statement says the goal of the bill is to "prohibit the import from or export to China of artificial intelligence technology, "prohibit American companies from conducting AI research in China or in cooperation with Chinese companies," and "Prohibit U.S. companies from investing money in Chinese AI development."

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The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General has launched an audit of the TSA's use of facial recognition technology at U.S. airports following concerns from lawmakers and privacy advocates. The Register reports: Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari notified a bipartisan group of US Senators who had asked for such an investigation last year that his office has announced an audit of TSA facial recognition technology in a letter [PDF] sent to the group Friday. "We have reviewed the concerns raised in your letter as part of our work planning process," said Cuffari, a Trump appointee who survived the recent purge of several Inspectors General. "[The audit] will determine the extent to which TSA's facial recognition and identification technologies enhance security screening to identify persons of interest and authenticate flight traveler information while protecting passenger privacy," Cuffari said. The letter from the Homeland Security OIG was addressed to Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who co-led the group of 12 Senators who asked for an inspection of TSA facial recognition in November last year. "Americans don't want a national surveillance state, but right now, more Americans than ever before are having their faces scanned at the airport without being able to exercise their right to opt-out," Merkley said in a statement accompanying Cuffari's letter. "I have long sounded the alarm about the TSA's expanding use of facial recognition ... I'll keep pushing for strong Congressional oversight." [...] While Cuffari's office was light on details of what would be included in the audit, the November letter from the Senators was explicit in its list of requests. They asked for the systems to be evaluated via red team testing, with a specific investigation into effectiveness - whether it reduced screening delays, stopped known terrorists, led to workforce cuts, or amounted to little more than security theater with errors.

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A US District Court judge denied Apple's emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial, ruling that Apple failed to show sufficient grounds for a stay. The Verge reports: Apple said last week that it needs to be involved in the Google trial because it does not want to lose "the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple's entitlement to compensation for distributing Google search to its users." The remedies phase of the trial is set for April, and lawyers for the Department of Justice have argued that Google should be forced to sell Chrome, with a possibility of spinning off Android if necessary. While Google will still appeal the decision, the company's proposed remedies focus on undoing its licensing deals that bundle apps and services together. "Because Apple has not satisfied the 'stringent requirements' for obtaining the 'extraordinary relief' of a stay pending appeal, its motion is denied," states Judge Mehta's order. Mehta explains that Apple "has not established a likelihood of success on the merits" for the stay. That includes a lack of clear evidence on how Apple will suffer "certain and great" harm.

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Who better to trust trillions of dollars, SSNs and other sensitive info with than Elon

The chaos in Washington DC continued over the weekend and into Monday with government workers locked out of their offices and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) getting unfettered access to classified materials and a top government payment system.…

As UK proposes laws against neural-nets-for-pedophiles

Americans may have to think twice about downloading a Chinese AI model or investing in a company behind such a neural network in future. A law proposed last month by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), if successfully passed by Congress, would impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison or $1 million in fines for violating its restrictions on AI-related trade and collaboration.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Anthropic, the company that made one of the most popular AI writing assistants in the world, requires job applicants to agree that they won't use an AI assistant to help write their application. "While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process," the applications say. "We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate 'Yes' if you have read and agree." Anthropic released Claude, an AI assistant that's especially good at conversational writing, in 2023. This question is in almost all of Anthropic's nearly 150 currently-listed roles, but is not in some technical roles, like mobile product designer. It's included in everything from software engineer roles to finance, communications, and sales jobs at the company. The field was spotted by Simon Willison, an open source developer. The question shows Anthropic trying to get around a problem it's helping create: people relying so heavily on AI assistants that they struggle to form opinions of their own. It's also a moot question, as Anthropic and its competitors have created AI models so indistinguishable from human speech as to be nearly undetectable.

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Senators ask, Homeland Security watchdog answers: Is it worth the money?

The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General has launched an audit of the Transportation Security Administration's use of facial recognition technology at US airports, following criticism from lawmakers and privacy advocates.…

A new update is being rolled out to Windows 11 insiders (Build 26120.3073) that introduces a Copilot button in Microsoft Paint. PCWorld reports: Clicking the Copilot button will expand a drop-down menu with all the generative AI features: Cocreator and Image Creator (AI art based on what you've drawn or text prompts), Generative Erase (AI removal of unwanted stuff from images), and Remove Background. Note that these generative AI features have been in Microsoft Paint for some time, but this quick-access Copilot button is a nice time-saver and productivity booster if you use them a lot.

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Meanwhile, the Internet Archive races to save what it can – again

Vast numbers of webpages have disappeared from federal sites in an effort to meet the deadline to implement the Trump administration's executive orders targeting diversity initiatives and gender.…

NetChoice has filed (PDF) its 10th lawsuit challenging state internet regulations, this time opposing Maryland's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. The Verge's Lauren Feiner reports: NetChoice has become one of the fiercest -- and most successful -- opponents of age verification, moderation, and design code laws, all of which would put new obligations on tech platforms and change how users experience the internet. [...] NetChoice's latest suit opposes the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a rule that echoes a California law of a similar name. In the California litigation, NetChoice notched a partial win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the district court's decision to block a part of the law requiring platforms to file reports about their services' impact on kids. (It sent another part of the law back to the lower court for further review.) A similar provision in Maryland's law is at the center of NetChoice's complaint. The group says that Maryland's reporting requirement lets regulators subjectively determine the "best interests of children," inviting "discriminatory enforcement." The reporting requirement on tech companies essentially mandates them "to disparage their services and opine on far-ranging and ill-defined harms that could purportedly arise from their services' 'design' and use of information," NetChoice alleges. NetChoice points out that both California and Maryland have passed separate online privacy laws, which NetChoice Litigation Center director Chris Marchese says shows that "lawmakers know how to write laws to protect online privacy when what they want to do is protect online privacy." Supporters of the Maryland law say legislators learned from California's challenges and "optimized" their law to avoid questions about speech, according to Tech Policy Press. In a blog analyzing Maryland's approach, Future of Privacy Forum points out that the state made some significant changes from California's version -- such as avoiding an "express obligationâ to determine users' ages and defining the "best interests of children." The NetChoice challenge will test how well those changes can hold up to First Amendment scrutiny. NetChoice has consistently maintained that even well-intentioned attempts to protect kids online are likely to backfire. Though the Maryland law does not explicitly require the use of specific age verification tools, Marchese says it essentially leaves tech platforms with a no-win decision: collect more data on users to determine their ages and create varied user experiences or cater to the lowest common denominator and self-censor lawful content that might be considered inappropriate for its youngest users. And similar to its arguments in other cases, Marchese worries that collecting more data to identify users as minors could create a "honey pot" of kids' information, creating a different problem in attempting to solve another.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), whose tagline is "Win the Fight," has paid more than a hundred thousand dollars to a company that is providing generative AI services to other parts of the Department of Defense. But the AFRL refused to say what exactly the point of the research was, and provided page after page of entirely blacked out, redacted documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from 404 Media related to the contract. [...] "Ask Sage: Generative AI Acquisition Accelerator," a December 2023 procurement record reads, with no additional information on the intended use case. The Air Force paid $109,490 to Ask Sage, the record says. Ask Sage is a company focused on providing generative AI to the government. In September the company announced that the Army was implementing Ask Sage's tools. In October it achieved "IL5" authorization, a DoD term for the necessary steps to protect unclassified information to a certain standard. 404 Media made an account on the Ask Sage website. After logging in, the site presents a list of the models available through Ask Sage. Essentially, they include every major model made by well-known AI companies and open source ones. Open AI's GPT-4o and DALL-E-3; Anthropic's Claude 3.5; and Google's Gemini are all included. The company also recently added the Chinese-developed DeepSeek R1, but includes a disclaimer. "WARNING. DO NOT USE THIS MODEL WITH SENSITIVE DATA. THIS MODEL IS BIASED, WITH TIES TO THE CCP [Chinese Communist Party]," it reads. Ask Sage is a way for government employees to access and use AI models in a more secure way. But only some of the models in the tool are listed by Ask Sage as being "compliant" with or "capable" of handling sensitive data. [...] [T]he Air Force declined to provide any real specifics on what it paid Ask Sage for. 404 Media requested all procurement records related to the Ask Sage contract. Instead, the Air Force provided a 19 page presentation which seemingly would have explained the purpose of the test, while redacting 18 of the pages. The only available page said "Ask Sage, Inc. will explore the utilization of Ask Sage by acquisition Airmen with the DAF for Innovative Defense-Related Dual Purpose Technologies relating to the mission of exploring LLMs for DAF use while exploring anticipated benefits, clearly define needed solution adaptations, and define clear milestones and acceptance criteria for Phase II efforts."

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Canadian province 'won't do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy'

The provincial government in Ontario, Canada is hitting back at President Trump's 25 percent tariffs on the US' northern neighbor by scrapping a deal with Elon Musk's Starlink.…

A century after quantum mechanics revolutionized physics, scientists still cannot agree on how the theory fundamentally works, despite its tremendous success in explaining natural phenomena and enabling modern technologies. The theory's central puzzle remains unresolved: the way quantum systems are described mathematically differs from what scientists observe when measuring them. This has led to competing interpretations about whether quantum states represent physical reality or are merely tools for calculating probabilities. As researchers debate these foundational questions, quantum mechanics has enabled breakthroughs in particle physics, chemistry, and computing. It accurately predicts phenomena from the behavior of atoms to the properties of the Higgs boson, and underlies technologies like quantum computers and ultra-precise measurement devices. The field's inability to reach consensus on its foundations hasn't hindered its practical applications. Scientists continue to develop new quantum technologies even as they grapple with deep questions about measurement, locality, and the nature of reality that have persisted since Einstein and Bohr's famous debates in the 1920s and 1930s.

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