TECH

Photo Credit: Richard Drew

City lawmakers in Brazil have enacted what appears to be the nation’s first legislation written entirely by artificial intelligence — even if they didn’t know it at the time.

The experimental ordinance was passed in October in the southern city of Porto Alegre and city councilman Ramiro Rosário revealed this week that it was written by a chatbot, sparking objections and raising questions about the role of artificial intelligence in public policy.

Photo Credit: Michel Euler

Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that advertisers who have halted spending on his social media platform X in response to antisemitic and other hateful material are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.

“Don’t advertise,” Musk said.

He appeared to specifically call out Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, saying, “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience ... that’s how I feel.”

Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that advertisers who have halted spending on his social media platform X in response to antisemitic and other hateful material are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.

Photo Credit: EFE

Monday began with the visit of Elon Musk, owner of companies such as Tesla, X and SpaceX, to Israel, which is in the midst of a battle with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Photo Credit: Richard Drew

Have a Google account you haven't used in a while? If you want to keep it from disappearing, you should sign in before the end of the week.

Under Google’s updated inactive-account policy, which the tech giant announced back in May, accounts that haven’t been used in at least two years could be deleted. Accounts deemed inactive will be erased in a phased-approach beginning Friday.

If you have an account that's at risk for deletion, you should receive multiple notices from Google sent to the email affiliated with that account and its recovery address (if one exits). But if you're still catching up on this new policy — and want to ensure that your content on Google Drive, Docs, Gmail and more is saved — here's what you need to know.

Photo Credit: Jack Guez

Months before OpenAI board member Ilya Sutskever would gain notoriety for his key role in the ouster of CEO Sam Altman, Sutskever co-authored a little-noticed but apocalyptic warning about the threat posed by artificial intelligence.

Superintelligent AI, Sutskever co-wrote on a company blog, could lead to "the disempowerment of humanity or even human extinction," since engineers are unable to prevent AI from "going rogue." The message echoed OpenAI's charter, which calls for avoiding AI uses if they "harm humanity."

The cry for caution from Sutskever, however, arrived at a period of breakneck growth for OpenAI. A $10 billion investment from Microsoft at the outset of this year helped fuel the development of GPT-4, a viral conversation bot that the company says now boasts 100 million weekly users.