San Francisco aims to take down AI undressing websites in new lawsuit

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• August 16, 2024

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced he intended to shut down 16 of the most popular AI “undressing” sites at a press conference on Thursday.

The Verge reported that the City Attorney is accusing these sites of violating federal laws regarding revenge pornography, deepfake pornography and child pornography. Chiu’s office also accused the sites of violating the state of California’s unfair competition law because “the harm they cause to consumers greatly outweighs any benefits associated with those practices,” according to the complaint for injunctive relief filed in a California superior court.

The complaint focuses on a total of 50 defendants Chiu intends to prosecute for operating undressing websites. Some of the defendants’ and websites’ names were redacted but it also publicly identifies a few companies that operate “some of the world’s most popular websites that offer to nudify images of women and girls” such as Sol Ecom located in Florida, Briver in New Mexico and the UK-based Itai Tech Ltd. The only identified defendant in the complaint is Augustin Gribinets of Estonia, who is accused of owning an AI undressing site featuring unconsented images of women and children.

These websites have generated over 200 million visits in a six-month period. The nonconsensual images of women and children on these sites “are used to bully, threaten and humiliate women and girls” as they gain more visitors “and this distressing trend shows no sign of abating,” according to the complaint.

The city’s attorney cites one case in its legal complaint from February in which an AI undressing site generated images of 16 eighth grade students at a California middle school. The incident possibly refers to one that occurred at a Beverly Hills high school in which 16 students were circulating fake nude images of other students. The school district expelled five students for their involvement in disseminating the illicit images, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Deepfake technology has become a major legal concern especially on the federal level. Last month, the US Copyright Office published a report on digital replicas and concluded that “a new law is needed.” Just a few days later, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the NO FAKES Act that would institute a new law protecting individuals from having their voice, face or body recreated with AI without their consent.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/san-francisco-aims-to-take-down-ai-undressing-websites-in-new-lawsuit-185202792.html?src=rss

Epic Games Store and Fortnite arrive on EU iPhones

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• August 16, 2024

Epic also launched its store on Android.

The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024

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• August 16, 2024

The parser works much better than you’d think, and the mystery is pitch-perfect.

The Slow-Burn Nightmare of the National Public Data Breach

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• August 16, 2024

Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and more—all available online. After months of confusion, leaked information from a background-check firm underscores the long-term risks of data breaches.

Ukraine incursion destroys key Russian bridge

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• August 16, 2024

Ukraine destroys a bridge over the river Seym as it continues its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

Rare ‘doomsday’ oarfish spotted off California coast

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• August 16, 2024

It is believed oarfish, which live in the deep sea, often come up to shore before earthquakes.

OpenAI Disrupts Iranian Misinformation Campaign

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• August 16, 2024

The company said the Iranian effort, which used ChatGPT, did not gain much traction.

Explosion of cicada-eating mites has the state of Illinois scratching

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• August 16, 2024

The good news: There’s little risk beyond the rash. The bad: The rash is awful.

Texas Instruments awarded $1.6 billion in CHIPS Act funding for domestic silicon production

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• August 16, 2024

Texas Instruments is the latest recipient of CHIPS Act funds. The 2022 law, signed by President Biden to boost domestic silicon production in the face of increasing Chinese chip imports, will award TI $1.6 billion in grants. The company will also receive $3 billion in loans and tax credits that could amount to $6 to $8 billion.

The effort is expected to create over 2,000 US manufacturing jobs at Texas Instruments’ new plants and “thousands of indirect jobs” for construction, suppliers and supporting industries. TI says it expects to receive another $10 million to fund workforce development.

TI’s grant money will go towards three chip fabs already under construction in Texas and Utah. The plants will produce 300mm silicon wafer chips under the bill’s $2 billion minimum set aside for legacy chips. The CHIPS Act primarily focuses on cutting-edge silicon, like those increasingly used for AI. TI’s production will go towards less advanced processors for things like smartphones, appliances and national defense. GlobalFoundries was awarded $1.5 billion for legacy silicon production in February. With Friday’s awarding of funds for TI, the government has now met its minimum quota for legacy chips.

Bloomberg notes that China has recently boosted its investments in legacy chips. Along with creating US jobs, the CHIPS Act was designed to curtail China’s influence as silicon becomes more of an essential global resource. Other recipients include Intel ($8.5 billion), TSMC ($6.6 billion) and Samsung ($6.4 billion).

Texas Instruments said it will spend around $40 billion in Utah and Texas, including two more factories in Sherman, TX. However, those aren’t expected to be operational until after 2030. For the CHIPS Act, the Commerce Department prioritizes projects that can be completed by the decade’s end, leaving those delayed plants without federal funding.

The $280 billion CHIPS Act passed in 2022 with 64 votes in the Senate and 243 in the House. The bill included $39 billion in subsidies for domestic chip manufacturing, 25 percent tax credits for manufacturing costs and $13 billion for workforce training.

After the bill passed in 2022, Biden said it would “strengthen our national security by making us less dependent on foreign sources of semiconductors.” He noted that it included “guardrails to ensure that companies receiving tax payer dollars invest in America and that union workers are building new manufacturing plants across the country.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-instruments-awarded-16-billion-in-chips-act-funding-for-domestic-silicon-production-180039388.html?src=rss

EU regulators question Meta about the shutdown of CrowdTangle

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• August 16, 2024

Meta’s decision to shut down CrowdTangle, an analytics tool that was an “invaluable” resource to the research community, is drawing fresh scrutiny from European Union regulators. The EU Commission, which had already raised concerns about the social network’s plan to discontinue the tool ahead of global elections in 2024, is now pressing Meta for more details about its work with researchers.

The EU Commission previously cited the impending shutdown of CrowdTangle as part of a broader investigation into the company’s handling of disinformation campaigns and election-related policies. Now, just days after CrowdTangle was shut off despite pleas from researchers and civil society organizations to keep it online through the end of the year, regulators are pointedly reminding Meta of its “obligation” under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to allow outside researchers access to its data.

“The Commission is requesting Meta to provide more information on the measures it has taken to comply with its obligations to give researchers access to data that is publicly accessible on the online interface of Facebook and Instagram, as required by the DSA, and on its plans to update its election and civic discourse monitoring functionalities,” the EU Commission wrote in a statement. “Specifically, the Commission is requesting information about Meta’s content library and application programming interface (API), including their eligibility criteria, the application process, the data that can be accessed and functionalities.”

Meta has previously pointed to the Meta Content Library as a replacement for CrowdTangle. But access to the Meta Content Library is much more tightly controlled, and researchers have said it doesn’t replicate all of CrowdTangle’s functionality.

“We announced earlier this year that we would discontinue CrowdTangle because it did not provide a complete picture of what is happening on our platforms,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget. “We have built new, more comprehensive tools for researchers, called the Meta Content Library & API, and we remain in discussion with the European Commission on this matter.”

Update August 16, 2024, 3:15PM ET: This story has been updated to add a statement from Meta. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/eu-regulators-question-meta-about-the-shutdown-of-crowdtangle-175641308.html?src=rss