Harm

102 Posts

Algorithm Investigators: All about the EU's new Centre for Algorithmic Transparency
Harm

Algorithm Investigators: All about the EU's new Centre for Algorithmic Transparency

A new regulatory body created by the European Union promises to peer inside the black boxes that drive social media recommendations. The European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) will study the algorithms that identify, categorize...
Hinton Leaves Google With Regrets: Why Geoffrey Hinton, one of the “Godfathers of AI” resigned from Google
Harm

Hinton Leaves Google With Regrets: Why Geoffrey Hinton, one of the “Godfathers of AI” resigned from Google

A pioneer of deep learning joined the chorus of AI insiders who worry that the technology is becoming dangerous, saying that part of him regrets his life’s work.
Italy Boots ChatGPT: Italy blocked ChatGPT for alleged privacy violations.
Harm

Italy Boots ChatGPT: Italy blocked ChatGPT for alleged privacy violations.

Italy blocked ChatGPT after determining that it violates European Union laws. The Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data suspended access to ChatGPT for 20 days after saying that OpenAI enables underage children to use the chatbot, distributes misinformation about people...
The scale of justice with one side broken
Harm

Microsoft Cuts Ethics Squad: Microsoft eliminates its Ethics & Society unit.

Microsoft laid off an AI ethics team while charging ahead on products powered by OpenAI. On March 6, the tech giant dissolved the Ethics & Society unit in its Cognition group, which researches and builds AI services, amid ongoing cutbacks that have affected 10,000 workers to date...
Runaway LLaMA: How Meta's LLaMA NLP model leaked
Harm

Runaway LLaMA: How Meta's LLaMA NLP model leaked

Meta’s effort to make a large language model available to researchers ended with its escape into the wild. Soon after Meta started accepting applications for developer access to LLaMA, a family of trained large language models...
Different screen captures of Replika's website
Harm

Hot Bot Turns Cold: Why Replika's chatbot stopped flirting with users.

A chatbot that simulated erotic companionship stopped sharing intimacies, leaving some users heartbroken. Replika, a chatbot app, deactivated features that allowed premium users to engage in sexually explicit chat with the 3D avatar of their choice, Vice reported.
Bing logo talking to a therapist during a therapy session
Harm

Bing Unbound: A roundup of wacky behavior from the new AI-powered Bing

Microsoft aimed to reinvent web search. Instead, it showed that even the most advanced text generators remain alarmingly unpredictable. In the two weeks since Microsoft integrated an OpenAI chatbot with its Bing search engine, users have reported...
Security cameras somewhere around the Red Square in Moscow, Russia
Harm

From Pandemic to Panopticon: How Russia is using face recognition to punish dissidents.

Governments are repurposing Covid-focused face recognition systems as tools of repression. Russia’s internal security forces are using Moscow’s visual surveillance system, initially meant to help enforce pandemic-era restrictions, to crack down on anti-government...
Drone with thermal night vision camera view of soldiers walking on a field
Harm

New Rules for Military AI: China, U.S., and other nations want limits on military AI.

Nations tentatively agreed to limit their use of autonomous weapons. Representatives of 60 countries endorsed a nonbinding resolution that calls for responsible development, deployment, and use of military AI. Parties to the agreement include China and the United states but not Russia.
Excerpts from NIST AI Risk Management Framework
Harm

Guidelines for Managing AI Risk: NIST released its AI Risk Management Framework.

The United States government published guidelines designed to help organizations limit harm from AI. The National Institute for Standards and Technology, which recommends technological standards in a variety of industries, released the initial version of its AI Risk Management Framework.
Cruise self-driving car service shown in two angles
Harm

Robotaxis Face Headwinds: San Francisco pushes back on self-driving cars.

San Francisco officials are pushing back on self-driving taxis in the city after a deluge of public complaints.
Onscreen text shown in a Tesla video from 2026
Harm

Self-Driving Deception: Tesla allegedly misled the public about its self-driving.

Tesla, whose autonomous-vehicle technology has been implicated in a number of collisions, promoted it in a way that apparently was intended to deceive. Tesla deliberately misled the public about its vehicles’ ability to drive themselves, according to Bloomberg and other news outlets.
World map with all countries covered in words except China
Harm

Regulators Target Deepfakes: China's new law limits AI-generated media.

China’s internet watchdog issued new rules that govern synthetic media. Legislation from the Cyberspace Administration of China limits the use of AI to create or edit text, audio, video, images, and 3D digital renderings. The law took effect on January 10.
Open water tap providing sentences instead of water
Harm

Generate Articles, Publish Errors: CNET pauses its practice of writing news articles with AI.

A prominent tech-news website generated controversy (and mistakes) by publishing articles written by AI. CNET suspended its practice of publishing articles produced by a text-generation model following news reports that exposed the articles’ authorship.
Screen capture of KokoBot having a conversation with a patient
Harm

Bot Therapy and Informed Consent: Discord's Kokobot triggers an ethics controversy.

An experiment in using chatbots to dispense mental-health counseling raised questions about ethics.

Subscribe to The Batch

Stay updated with weekly AI News and Insights delivered to your inbox