Security

ChatGPT suffered a cyberattack apparently tied to the Kremlin. A ChatGPT outage on November 8 most likely was caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, OpenAI revealed.

Hackers attacked AI models in a large-scale competition to discover vulnerabilities. At the annual Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas, 2,200 people competed to break guardrails around language models, The New York Times reported.

United States lawmakers are getting a crash course in AI. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, announced an unusual plan to educate legislators who are crafting AI regulations, The New York Times reported. It could lead to legislation “within months,” he said.

An automated security-screening system failed to detect a weapon that went on to be used in an attack. Administrators at Proctor High School in Utica, New York, decommissioned an AI-powered weapon detector by Evolv Technologies after a student snuck a knife into the school, BBC reported.

French lawmakers said “oui” to broad uses of AI-powered surveillance. France’s National Assembly authorized authorities to test systems that detect unlawful, dangerous, or unusual behavior at next year’s Summer Olympics in Paris. The bill will become law unless the country’s top court blocks it.

A recent workshop highlighted the impact of poorly designed AI models in medicine, security, software engineering, and other disciplines.

A weaponized AI system intended to protect students has been grounded. Axon, which makes law-enforcement equipment such as tasers and body cameras, canceled a plan to sell remote-controlled drones capable of firing electroshock darts.

A Major League Baseball stadium will be using computer vision to detect weapons as fans enter.What’s new: A system called Hexwave will look for firearms, knives, and explosives carried by baseball fans who visit Camden Yards, home field of the Baltimore Orioles.

Face recognition algorithms have come under scrutiny for misidentifying individuals. A U.S. government agency tested over 1,000 of them to see which are the most reliable.

Microsoft is making GPT-3 available to selected customers through its Azure cloud service.

Amazon unveiled a robot that patrols users’ homes, scopes out strangers, and warns of perceived dangers.

After years of trailing other tech giants in AI, Apple has a new ambition: to become the industry’s leading purveyor of products powered by machine learning. In an interview with Ars Technica, the company’s AI chief argues that its pro-privacy.

A crime-fighting AI company altered evidence to please police, a new investigation claims — the latest in a rising chorus of criticism. ShotSpotter modified the system’s findings in some cases.

A U.S. government watchdog agency called for stronger face recognition protocols for federal agencies. An audit found that, while many employ face recognition, they may not know where it came from, how it’s being used, or the hazards involved.

Foiling attackers who try to lure email users into clicking on a malicious link is a cat-and-mouse game, as phishing tactics evolve to evade detection. But machine learning models designed to recognize phishing attempts can evolve, too, through automatic retraining and checks to maintain accuracy.