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It’s been more than a decade since the end of the Iraq War. Much of the country still bears the scars of the U.S.-led invasion. But Iraqis today are working to clean up their country, and some have turned to technology for help. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

Stepping up a feud with Washington over technology and security, China’s government Sunday told users of computer equipment deemed sensitive to stop buying products from the biggest U.S. memory chipmaker, Micron Technology Inc.  Micron products have unspecified “serious network security risks” that pose hazards to China’s information infrastructure and affect national security, the Cyberspace Administration of China said on its website. Its six-sentence statement gave no details.  “Operators of critical information infrastructure in China should stop purchasing products from Micron Co.,” the agency said.  The United States, Europe and Japan are reducing Chinese access to advanced chipmaking and other technology they say might be used in weapons at a time when President Xi Jinping’s government has threatened to attack Taiwan and is increasingly assertive toward Japan and other neighbors.  Chinese officials have warned of unspecified consequences but appear to be struggling to find ways to retaliate without hurting China’s smartphone producers and other industries and efforts to develop its own processor chip suppliers.  An official review of Micron under China’s increasingly stringent information security laws was announced April 4, hours after Japan joined Washington in imposing restrictions on Chinese access to technology to make processor chips on security grounds.  Foreign companies have been rattled by police raids on two consulting firms, Bain & Co. and Capvision, and a due diligence firm, Mintz Group. Chinese authorities have declined to explain the raids but said foreign companies are obliged to obey the law.  Business groups and the U.S. government have appealed to authorities to explain newly expanded legal restrictions on information and how they will be enforced.  Sunday’s announcement appeared to try to reassure foreign companies.  “China firmly promotes high-level opening up to the outside world and, as long as it complies with Chinese laws and regulations, welcomes enterprises and various platform products and services from various countries to enter the Chinese market,” the cyberspace agency said.  Xi accused Washington in March of trying to block China’s development. He called on the public to “dare to fight.”  Despite that, Beijing has been slow to retaliate, possibly to avoid disrupting Chinese industries that …

The world must urgently assess the impact of generative artificial intelligence, G7 leaders said Saturday, announcing they will launch discussions this year on “responsible” use of the technology. A working group will be set up to tackle issues from copyright to disinformation, the seven leading economies said in a final communique released during a summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Text generation tools such as ChatGPT, image creators and music composed using AI have sparked delight, alarm and legal battles as creators accuse them of scraping material without permission. Governments worldwide are under pressure to move quickly to mitigate the risks, with the chief executive of ChatGPT’s OpenAI telling U.S. lawmakers this week that regulating AI was essential. “We recognise the need to immediately take stock of the opportunities and challenges of generative AI, which is increasingly prominent across countries and sectors,” the G7 statement said. “We task relevant ministers to establish the Hiroshima AI process, through a G7 working group, in an inclusive manner … for discussions on generative AI by the end of this year,” it said. “These discussions could include topics such as governance, safeguard of intellectual property rights including copyrights, promotion of transparency, response to foreign information manipulation, including disinformation, and responsible utilisation of these technologies.” The new working group will be organized in cooperation with the OECD group of developed countries and the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), the statement added. On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before a U.S. Senate panel and urged Congress to impose new rules on big tech. He insisted that in time, generative AI developed by his company would one day “address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, like climate change and curing cancer.” However, “we think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” he said. European Parliament lawmakers this month also took a first step towards EU-wide regulation of ChatGPT and other AI systems. The text is to be put to the full parliament next month for adoption before negotiations with EU member states on a final law. “While rapid technological …

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to clear a path for victims of attacks by militant organizations to hold social media companies liable under a federal anti-terrorism law for failing to prevent the groups from using their platforms, handing a victory to Twitter. The justices, in a unanimous decision, reversed a lower court’s ruling that had revived a lawsuit against Twitter by the American relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian man killed in a 2017 attack during New Year’s celebration in a Istanbul nightclub claimed by the Islamic State militant group.  The case was one of two that the Supreme Court weighed in its current term aimed at holding internet companies accountable for contentious content posted by users – an issue of growing concern for the public and U.S. lawmakers.  The justices on Thursday, in a similar case against Google-owned YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc, sidestepped ruling on a bid to narrow a federal law protecting internet companies from lawsuits for content posted by their users — called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  That case involved a lawsuit by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old college student from California who was fatally shot in an Islamic State attack in Paris in 2015, of a lower court’s decision to throw out their lawsuit.  The Istanbul massacre on Jan. 1, 2017, killed Alassaf and 38 others. His relatives accused Twitter of aiding and abetting the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack, by failing to police the platform for the group’s accounts or posts in violation of a federal law called the Anti-Terrorism Act that enables Americans to recover damages related to “an act of international terrorism.”  Twitter and its backers had said that allowing lawsuits like this would threaten internet companies with liability for providing widely available services to billions of users because some of them may be members of militant groups, even as the platforms regularly enforce policies against terrorism-related content.  The case hinged on whether the family’s claims sufficiently alleged that the company knowingly provided “substantial assistance” to an “act of international terrorism” that …

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte on Wednesday signed legislation to ban Chinese-owned TikTok from operating in the state, making it the first U.S. state to ban the popular short video app. Montana will make it unlawful for Google’s and Apple’s app stores to offer the TikTok app within its borders. The ban takes effect January 1, 2024. TikTok has over 150 million American users, but a growing number of U.S. lawmakers and state officials are calling for a nationwide ban on the app over concerns about potential Chinese government influence on the platform. In March, a congressional committee grilled TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew about whether the Chinese government could access user data or influence what Americans see on the app. Gianforte, a Republican, said the bill will further “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.” TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, said in a statement the bill “infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok,” adding that they “will defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana.” The company has previously denied that it ever shared data with the Chinese government and has said it would not do so if asked. Montana, which has a population of just over 1 million people, said TikTok could face fines for each violation and additional fines of $10,000 per day if it violated the ban. Apple and Google could also face fines of $10,000 per violation per day if they violate the ban. The ban will likely face numerous legal challenges on the ground that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of users. An attempt by then-President Donald Trump to ban new downloads of TikTok and WeChat through a Commerce Department order in 2020 was blocked by multiple courts and never took effect. TikTok’s free speech allies include several Democratic members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and First Amendment groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Gianforte also prohibited the use of all social media applications that collect and provide personal information or data …

When researchers at a nonprofit that studies social media wanted to understand the connection between YouTube videos and gun violence, they set up accounts on the platform that mimicked the behavior of typical boys living in the United States. They simulated two 9-year-olds who liked video games. The accounts were identical, except that one clicked on the videos recommended by YouTube, and the other ignored the platform’s suggestions. The account that clicked on YouTube’s suggestions was soon flooded with graphic videos about school shootings, tactical gun training videos and how-to instructions on making firearms fully automatic. One video featured an elementary school-age girl wielding a handgun; another showed a shooter using a .50-caliber gun to fire on a dummy head filled with lifelike blood and brains. Many of the videos violate YouTube’s policies against violent or gory content. About a dozen a day The findings show that despite YouTube’s rules and content moderation efforts, the platform is failing to stop the spread of frightening videos that could traumatize vulnerable children — or send them down dark roads of extremism and violence. “Video games are one of the most popular activities for kids. You can play a game like ‘Call of Duty’ without ending up at a gun shop — but YouTube is taking them there,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, the research group that published its findings about YouTube on Tuesday. “It’s not the video games, it’s not the kids. It’s the algorithms.” The accounts that followed YouTube’s suggested videos received 382 different firearms-related videos in a single month, or about 12 per day. The accounts that ignored YouTube’s recommendations still received some gun-related videos, but only 34 in total. The researchers also created accounts mimicking 14-year-old boys; those accounts also received similar levels of gun- and violence-related content. One of the videos recommended for the accounts was titled “How a Switch Works on a Glock (Educational Purposes Only).” YouTube later removed the video after determining it violated its rules; an almost identical video popped up two weeks later with a slightly altered name; that video …

The head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT told U.S. Congress on Tuesday that government intervention “will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful” AI systems. “As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday. His San Francisco-based startup rocketed to public attention after it released ChatGPT late last year. ChatGPT is a free chatbot tool that answers questions with convincingly human-like responses. What started out as a panic among educators about ChatGPT’s use to cheat on homework assignments has expanded to broader concerns about the ability of the latest crop of “generative AI” tools to mislead people, spread falsehoods, violate copyright protections and upend some jobs. And while there’s no immediate sign that Congress will craft sweeping new AI rules, as European lawmakers are doing, the societal concerns brought Altman and other tech CEOs to the White House earlier this month and have led U.S. agencies to promise to crack down on harmful AI products that break existing civil rights and consumer protection laws. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, opened the hearing with a recorded speech that sounded like the senator, but was actually a voice clone trained on Blumenthal’s floor speeches and reciting a speech written by ChatGPT after he asked the chatbot, “How I would open this hearing?” The result was impressive, said Blumenthal, but he added, “What if I had asked it, and what if it had provided, an endorsement of Ukraine surrendering or (Russian President) Vladimir Putin’s leadership?” Blumenthal said AI companies ought to be required to test their systems and disclose known risks before releasing them. Founded in 2015, OpenAI is also known for other AI products including the image-maker DALL-E. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into the startup and has integrated its technology into its own products, including its search engine Bing. Altman is also planning to embark on a worldwide …

U.S. law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced a series of criminal cases exposing the relentless efforts by Russia, China and Iran to steal sensitive U.S. technologies.   The five cases, which spanned a wide range of protected U.S. technologies, were brought by a new “strike force” created earlier this year to deter foreign adversaries from obtaining advanced U.S. innovation. “These charges demonstrate the Justice Department’s commitment to preventing sensitive technology from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who leads the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and co-heads the task force. Some of the cases announced on Tuesday go back several years but Olsen said the “threat is as significant as ever.” Two of the cases involve Russia. In New York, prosecutors charged a Russian national with smuggling U.S. military and dual-use technologies, including advanced electronics and testing equipment, to Russia through the Netherlands and France.  Nikolaos “Nikos” Bogonikolos was arrested last week in France and prosecutors said they’ll seek his extradition. In a second case, two other Russian nationals – Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya and Vasilii Sergeyevich Besedin – were arrested in Arizona on May 11 in connection with illegally shipping civilian aircraft parts from the United States to Russian airlines. Patsulya and Besedin, both residents of Florida, allegedly used their U.S.-based limited liability company to purchase and send the parts, according to court documents. The three other cases center on China and Iran. In New York, prosecutors charged a Chinese national for conspiring to provide materials to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Xiangjiang Qiao, an employee of a Chinese sanctioned company for its role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, allegedly conspired to furnish isostatic graphite, a material used in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, to Iran. Liming Li, a California resident, was arrested on May 6 on charges of stealing “smart manufacturing” technologies from two companies he worked at and providing them to businesses in China. Li allegedly offered to help Chinese companies build “their own capabilities,” a federal prosecutor said. He was arrested at …

Studying science, technology, engineering, and math — or STEM — can be a challenge for girls in rural Africa, especially those with disabilities. In Kenya, an aid group called The Action Foundation is helping to change that by providing remote STEM courses for girls with hearing, visual and physical impairments. Ahmed Hussein reports from Wajir County, Kenya. Camera: Ahmed Hussein …

Computer engineers and tech-inclined political scientists have warned for years that cheap, powerful artificial intelligence tools would soon allow anyone to create fake images, video and audio that was realistic enough to fool voters and perhaps sway an election.  The synthetic images that emerged were often crude, unconvincing and costly to produce, especially when other kinds of misinformation were so inexpensive and easy to spread on social media. The threat posed by AI and so-called deepfakes always seemed a year or two away.  No more.  Sophisticated generative AI tools can now create cloned human voices and hyper-realistic images, videos and audio in seconds, at minimal cost. When strapped to powerful social media algorithms, this fake and digitally created content can spread far and fast and target highly specific audiences, potentially taking campaign dirty tricks to a new low.  The implications for the 2024 campaigns and elections are as large as they are troubling: Generative AI can not only rapidly produce targeted campaign emails, texts or videos, it also could be used to mislead voters, impersonate candidates and undermine elections on a scale and at a speed not yet seen.  “We’re not prepared for this,” warned A.J. Nash, vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox. “To me, the big leap forward is the audio and video capabilities that have emerged. When you can do that on a large scale, and distribute it on social platforms, well, it’s going to have a major impact.”  AI experts can quickly rattle off a number of alarming scenarios in which generative AI is used to create synthetic media for the purposes of confusing voters, slandering a candidate or even inciting violence.  Here are a few: Automated robocall messages, in a candidate’s voice, instructing voters to cast ballots on the wrong date; audio recordings of a candidate supposedly confessing to a crime or expressing racist views; video footage showing someone giving a speech or interview they never gave. Fake images designed to look like local news reports, falsely claiming a candidate dropped out of the race.  “What if Elon Musk personally calls you and …

On a recent, cold morning, Dr. Carlos Ortuño hopped into a tiny electric car to go check on a patient in the outskirts of Bolivia’s capital of La Paz, unsure if the vehicle would be able to handle the steep, winding streets of the high-altitude city.  “I thought that because of the city’s topography it was going to struggle, but it’s a great climber,” said Ortuño about his experience driving a Quantum, the first EV to have ever been made in Bolivia. “The difference from a gasoline-powered vehicle is huge.”  Ortuño’s home visit aboard a car the size of a golf cart was part of a government-sponsored program that brings doctors to patients living in neighborhoods far from the city center. The “Doctor in your house” program was launched last month by the municipality of La Paz using a fleet of six EV’s manufactured by Quantum Motors, the country’s sole producer of electric cars.  “It is a pioneering idea. It helps protect the health of those in need, while protecting the environment and supporting local production,” La Paz Mayor Iván Arias said.  The program could also help boost Quantum Motors, a company launched four years ago by a group of entrepreneurs who believe EVs will transform the auto industry in Bolivia, a lithium-rich country, where cheap, subsidized imported gasoline is still the norm.  Built like a box, the Quantum moves at no more than 35 mph (56 kph), can be recharged from a household outlet and can travel 50 miles (80 kilometers) before a recharge. Its creators hope the $7,600 car will help revive dreams of a lithium-powered economy and make electric cars something the masses will embrace.  “E-mobility will prevail worldwide in the next few years, but it will be different in different countries,” says José Carlos Márquez, general manager of Quantum Motors. “Tesla will be a dominant player in the U.S., with its speedy, autonomous cars. But in Latin America, cars will be more compact, because our streets are more similar to those of Bombay and New Delhi than to those of California.”  But the company’s quest to …

Banned from using popular Western apps, Iranians have been left with little choice but to take up state-backed alternatives, as the authorities tighten internet restrictions for security reasons following months of protests. Iranians are accustomed to using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade restrictions and access prohibited websites or apps, including the U.S.-based Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The authorities went as far as imposing total internet blackouts during the protests that erupted after the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s dress code for women. Connections are back up and running again, and even those who are tech-savvy are being corralled into using the apps approved by the authorities such as Neshan for navigation and Snapp! to hail a car ride. As many as 89 million people have signed up to Iranian messaging apps including Bale, Ita, Rubika and Soroush, the government says, but not everyone is keen on making the switch. “The topics that I follow and the friends who I communicate with are not on Iranian platforms,” said Mansour Roghani, a resident in the capital Tehran. “I use Telegram and WhatsApp and, if my VPN still allows me, I’ll check Instagram,” the former municipality employee said, adding that he has not installed domestic apps as replacements. Integration At the height of the deadly Amini protests in October, the Iranian government cited security concerns as it moved to restrict internet access and added Instagram and WhatsApp to its long list of blocked applications. “No one wants to limit the internet and we can have international platforms” if the foreign companies agree to introduce representative offices in Iran, Telecommunications Minister Issa Zarepour said last month. Meta, the American giant that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has said it has no intention of setting up offices in the Islamic republic, which remains under crippling U.S. sanctions. The popularity of the state-sanctioned apps may not be what it seems, however, with the government encouraging people to install them by shifting essential online public services to the homegrown platforms which are often …

As Tamar Ana Jawa wove a red sarong in the fading sunlight, her neighbor switched on a light bulb dangling from the sloping tin roof. It was just one bulb powered by a small solar panel, but in this remote village that means a lot. In some of the world’s most remote places, off-grid solar systems are bringing villagers like Jawa more hours in the day, more money and more social gatherings. Before electricity came to the village, a little less than two years ago, the day ended when the sun went down. Villagers in Laindeha, on the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia, would set aside the mats they were weaving or coffee they were sorting to sell at the market as the light faded. A few families who could afford them would start noisy generators that rumbled into the night, emitting plumes of smoke. Some people wired lightbulbs to old car batteries, which would quickly die or burn out appliances, as they had no regulator. Children sometimes studied by makeshift oil lamps, but these occasionally burned down homes when knocked over by the wind. That’s changed since grassroots social enterprise projects have brought small, individual solar panel systems to Laindeha and villages like it across the island. For Jawa, it means much-needed extra income. When her husband died of a stroke in December 2022, Jawa wasn’t sure how she would pay for her children’s schooling. But when a neighbor got electric lighting shortly after, she realized she could continue weaving clothes for the market late into the evening. “It used to be dark at night, now it’s bright until morning,” the 30-year-old mother of two said, carefully arranging and pushing red threads at the loom. “So tonight, I work … to pay for the children.” Around the world, hundreds of millions of people live in communities without regular access to power, and off-grid solar systems like these are bringing limited access to electricity to places like these years before power grids reach them.   Some 775 million people globally lacked access to electricity in 2022, according to the …

As people brace for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and everyday living, those in the world of audio books say their field is already being transformed. AI has the ability to create human-sounding recordings — at assembly-line speed — while bypassing at least part of the services of the human professionals who for years have made a living with their voices. Many of them are already seeing a sharp drop off in business. Tanya Eby has been a full-time voice actor and professional narrator for 20 years. She has a recording studio in her home. But in the past six months she has seen her work load fall by half. Her bookings now run only through June, while in a normal year they would extend through August. Many of her colleagues report similar declines. While other factors could be at play, she told AFP, “It seems to make sense that AI is affecting all of us.” There is no label identifying AI-assisted recordings as such, but professionals say thousands of audio books currently in circulation use “voices” generated from a databank. Among the most cutting-edge, DeepZen offers rates that can slash the cost of producing an audio book to one-fourth, or less, that of a traditional project. The small London-based company draws from a database it created by recording the voices of several actors who were asked to speak in a variety of emotional registers. “Every voice that we are using, we sign a license agreement, and we pay for the recordings,” said DeepZen CEO Kamis Taylan. For every project, he added, “we pay royalties based on the work that we do.” Not everyone respects that standard, said Eby. “All these new companies are popping up who are not as ethical,” she said, and some use voices found in databases without paying for them. “There’s that gray area” being exploited by several platforms, Taylan acknowledged. “They take your voice, my voice, five other people’s voices combined that just creates a separate voice… They say that it doesn’t belong to anybody.” All the audio book companies contacted by …

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Friday named NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino as the chief executive officer of social media giant Twitter. From his own Twitter account Friday, Musk wrote, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! (She) will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technology.”  He said Yaccarino would transform Twitter, which is now called X Corp., into “an everything app” called X.  On Thursday, Musk teased Yaccarino’s hiring, saying only “she” will start in six to eight weeks.   Yaccarino worked in advertising and media sales for NBCUniversal since 2011 and as chairperson of global advertising since October 2020. The company announced her departure earlier in the day Friday. Analysts say Yaccarino’s background could be key to Twitter’s future. Since Musk acquired Twitter last October, he has taken some controversial steps, such as loosening controls on the spread of false information and laying off nearly 80% of its staff, which prompted advertisers to flee. No comment from Yaccarino on her hiring was immediately available. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.  …