James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Amazon fined in France for excessively monitoring warehouse employees
France’s data protection agency announced today that it has fined Amazon.com Inc.’s French warehouses unit 32 million euros ($35 million) for using an “excessively intrusive” surveillance system to keep track of workers. The French Data Protection Authority, or CNIL, said the systems employed by Amazon France Logistique that keep an eye on workers for various ...
New Hampshire Democrats received AI-generated robocall from Joe Biden telling them not to vote
Concerns over the weaponization of generative artificial intelligence are again at the fore after Democrats in New Hampshire over the weekend received faked robocalls from President Joe Biden telling them not to bother voting in Tuesday’s primary election, according to the state attorney general’s office. It’s unclear just how many people received the call that ...
Japanese IT firm says it has a ‘moral duty’ to compensate those hurt in Britain’s Post Office scandal
In what’s now being called one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history, the Japanese information technology services company Fujitsu Ltd. said on Tuesday that it has a “moral responsibility” to compensate the many victims. Between 1999 and 2015, about 900 people who worked for the U.K.’s government-owned Post Office were wrongly accused ...
A loss for Epic, costly for Apple: Supreme Court refuses to review antitrust case
The Supreme Court today rebuffed a request to hear an antitrust dispute between Apple Inc. and “Fortnite” publisher Epic Games Ltd. In 2020, Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple for what it said was anticompetitive behavior. At the same time, the company also launched legal proceedings against Google LLC. Both companies were accused of violating ...
IMF: AI will affect 40% of jobs and could worsen inequality
Artificial intelligence is set to disrupt 40% of all jobs, according to a new analysis by the International Monetary Fund. In the 42-page report released Sunday, “Gen-AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work,” the IMF talked about the “new industrial revolution.” The consequences for societies and economies might be difficult to understand right now, said ...
AI-powered misinformation is the biggest short-term threat to the global economy, says WEF
The World Economic Forum has put AI-powered misinformation and disinformation ahead of climate change, war and economic weakness in its “Global Risks Report 2024” released today. Over 60 countries home to half the planet’s population will hold national elections in 2024, with pundits saying this is the year that democracy on our planet will be ...
In another cutback, Twitch lays off 500 people, 35% of staff
The Amazon.com Inc.-owned livestreaming platform Twitch will reportedly lose about 35% of its staff in another round of layoffs, Bloomberg reported today. The layoffs, which will number about 500, are expected to be announced Wednesday. This follows two earlier rounds of layoffs in 2023, which amounted to around 400 staff losing their jobs, while the company ...
Report: OpenAI is offering news publishers as little as $1M to use content for AI training
OpenAI is reportedly putting as little as $1 million and perhaps only up to $5 million on the table in an effort to strike deals with news publishing firms to use their content to train its large language models. This might seem like a paltry amount, given the rapid rise of the company’s flagship LLM, ...
SpaceX accused of illegally firing staff who criticized CEO Elon Musk
The National Labor Relations Board today filed a complaint that accuses Space X Corp. of unlawfully firing eight employees for a 2022 letter in which they condemned the behavior of Chief Executive Elon Musk. In the letter, which was drafted and sent to other employees to sign, Musk was said to be an embarrassment to ...
FTC calls pharmacy Rite Aid ‘reckless’ after facial recognition use in stores
The Federal Trade Commission today announced a settlement with the pharmacy chain Rite Aid that will include a five-year ban on the company using artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology. The FTC said Rite Aid had acted recklessly when it used the technology in its stores from 2012 to 2020 to capture images of its customers ...