In an SEC filing, NVIDIA says the US government has informed the chipmaker of a new license requirement that impacts two of its GPUs designed to speed up machine learning tasks: the current A100, and the upcoming H100.

“The license requirement also includes any future NVIDIA integrated circuit achieving both peak performance and chip-to-chip I/O performance equal to or greater than thresholds that are roughly equivalent to the A100, as well as any system that includes those circuits,” adds NVIDIA.

The US government has reportedly told NVIDIA that the new rules are geared at addressing the risk of the affected products being used for military purposes.

“While we are not in a position to outline specific policy changes at this time, we are taking a comprehensive approach to implement additional actions necessary related to technologies, end-uses, and end-users to protect US national security and foreign policy interests,” said a US Department of Commerce spokesperson.

China is a large market for NVIDIA and the new rules could affect around $400 million in quarterly sales.

AMD has also been told the new rules will impact its similar products, including the MI200.

As of writing, NVIDIA’s shares were down 11.45 percent from the market open. AMD’s shares are down 6.81 percent. However, it’s worth noting that it’s been another red day for the wider stock market.

(Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash)

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The robot, which uses AI to play three chess games at once, grabbed and pinched the child’s finger. Unfortunately, despite several people rushing to help, the robot broke the kid’s finger:

According to Moscow Chess Federation VP Sergey Smagin, the robot has been used for 15 years and this is the first time such an incident has occurred.

Reports suggest the robot expects its human rival to leave a set amount of time after it makes its play. The child played too quickly and the robot didn’t know how to handle the situation.

“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realise he first had to wait,” Smagin said. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall.”

It doesn’t paint Russia’s robotics scene in the best light and it’s quite surprising the story even made it out of the country’s notorious censorship.

Fortunately, the child’s finger has been put in a cast and he is expected to make a quick and complete recovery. There doesn’t appear to be any lasting mental trauma either as he played again the next day.

A study in 2015 found that one person is killed each year by an industrial robot in the US alone. As robots become ever more prevalent in our work and personal lives; that number is likely to increase.

Most injuries and fatalities with robots are from human error, so it’s always worth being cautious.

(Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash)

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Poppy Gustafsson spoke on Wednesday at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – the UK’s leading and world’s oldest defense think thank – on the evolving cyber threat landscape.

Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has led to a global rethinking of security. 

While some in the West had begun questioning the need for NATO post-cold war, and many members have failed to meet their defense spending commitments, the invasion of Ukraine has proven why the defense alliance remains a bedrock of Western security.

NATO members are now spending more on defense, increasing cooperation, and the alliance is now preparing to accept Sweden and Finland into its fold.

Russia has thrown out the rule book with its conduct and will eventually face war crime trials as a result. NATO members, in contrast, have acted in accordance with the UN charter and only provided resources to Ukraine that it can use to defend its territory from the invaders.

However, any provision of long-range weapons that could pose a threat to Moscow would be seen as going beyond helping an ally to defend itself into helping attack Russia itself—likely triggering a disastrous global conflict.

Those kinds of norms around conventional warfare are well-established. In the cybersphere, they’re yet to be set.

“There remains a persistent lack of clarity around how we define an act of war in the cybersphere,” said Gustafsson.

Gustafsson wants to see the creation of a dedicated international cyber task force, or a “tech NATO”, where global partners can collaborate, agree, and ratify norms for the cybersphere—including what kind of response would be warranted for breaches.

At the beginning of Russia’s invasion, the country attacked Viasat to disable Ukrainian communications. The attack spilt over into other European countries, including rendering 5,800 Enercon wind turbines in Germany unable to communicate for remote monitoring or control.

“The attack on the Viasat satellite that disabled Ukrainian military communications one hour before the invasion was a key component of the beginning of this war,” added Gustafsson. “We have seen UK, US, and EU officials jointly attribute this attack to Russia, an immensely political act. That is unprecedented.”

No-one reasonable would suggest that incident is worth triggering a full-scale war between NATO and Russia, but clarity is needed on what the response should be. If a cyberattack leads to serious loss of life, should it have any different response than if it was a missile?

“There is a shocking tolerance for cyberattacks, and that has to change,” argued Gustafsson. “Organisations that are custodians of valuable, private data can not be allowed to let that data fall into criminal hands through negligence and face no consequences.”

Darktrace says it has witnessed a global increase in attacks on critical national infrastructure bodies across its customer base—including a 90 percent increase in high priority security incidents on the networks of energy companies in Europe during the initial week of Russia’s invasion.

“Issues that we had thought about speculatively have now become our reality. We are facing war in Europe and there is an essential cyber component both to the way it is being fought and to its international ramifications,” says Professor Madeline Carr, Senior RUSI Associate Fellow and Professor of Global Politics and Cybersecurity at University College London.

“This is a complex area which is the subject of a wealth of academic debate and what is needed is clarity, consensus, and cooperation.”

Greater cooperation is certainly needed to combat evolving cyber threats. However, Gustafsson’s call for a “Tech NATO” is surprising—not least because NATO itself already has one in the form of the CCDCOE (Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence).

Despite being run by NATO, the CCDCOE is open to “like-minded non-NATO nations”. Earlier this month, non-NATO member South Korea joined the organisation alongside NATO members Canada and Luxembourg. In March, Ukraine also joined the CCDCOE despite not being a full NATO member.

“Cooperation, sharing of information, skills, and best practices are essential for tackling the challenges we face in cyberspace,” said a spokesperson for the Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, following the country’s admission to the CCDCOE.

The CCDCOE leans more towards collaboration between public agencies but also brings together representatives from academia and the private sector to discuss cyber norms and improve members’ defenses.

“Each member of the CCDCOE plays an important role in building and advancing a strong and efficient unity against cyber threats,” explained Colonel Jaak Tarien, Head of the CCDCOE.

“In the long run, the conditions for peace in the cyber realm and a response to the security threats to the modern world cannot be created without united and committed support.”

We’ve reached out to Darktrace for clarification on Gustafsson’s call for a “Tech NATO” and how it would differ from the CCDCOE. We presume it would have a greater focus on private sector companies like Darktrace but will update this article when/if we receive an official response.

Related: US disrupts large Russian botnet ‘before it could be used’

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The deepfake purports to show Zelenskyy declaring that Ukraine has “decided to return Donbas” to Russia and that his nation’s efforts had failed.

Following an alleged hack, the deepfake was first posted to a Ukrainian news site for TV24. The deepfake was then shared across social networks, including Facebook and Twitter.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy for Facebook owner Meta, wrote in a tweet:

“Earlier today, our teams identified and removed a deepfake video claiming to show President Zelensky issuing a statement he never did.

It appeared on a reportedly compromised website and then started showing across the internet.”

The deepfake itself is poor by today’s standards, with fake Zelenskyy having a comically large and noticeably pixelated head compared to the rest of his body.

It shouldn’t have fooled anyone, but Zelenskyy posted a video to his Instagram to call out the fake anyway.

“I only advise that the troops of the Russian Federation lay down their arms and return home,” Zelenskyy said in his official video. “We are at home and defending Ukraine.”

President Zelensky has uploaded a video to refute the fake video of him in the tweet above or that he ever called on his troops to lay down their arms. TV24's hacked website still has a screenshot of the fake video along with a transcript of it. pic.twitter.com/bPpYQAZubw

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) March 16, 2022

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian government posted a statement warning soldiers and civilians not to believe any videos of Zelenskyy claiming to surrender:

“​​Imagine seeing Vladimir Zelensky on TV making a surrender statement. You see it, you hear it – so it’s true. But this is not the truth. This is deepfake technology.

This will not be a real video, but created through machine learning algorithms.

Videos made through such technologies are almost impossible to distinguish from the real ones.

Be aware – this is a fake! The goal is to disorient, sow panic, disbelieve citizens, and incite our troops to retreat.”

Fortunately, this deepfake was quite easy to distinguish – despite humans now often finding it impossible – and could actually help to raise awareness of how such content is used to influence and manipulate.

Earlier this month, AI News reported on how Facebook and Twitter removed two anti-Ukraine disinformation campaigns linked to Russia and Belarus. One of the campaigns even used AI-generated faces for a fake “editor-in-chief” and “columnist” for a linked propaganda website.

Both cases in the past month show the danger of deepfakes and the importance of raising public awareness and developing tools for countering such content before it’s able to spread.

(Image Credit: President.gov.ua used without changes under CC BY 4.0 license)

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The company’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That, told Reuters that Ukraine’s defence ministry began using the software on Saturday.

Clearview AI’s facial recognition system is controversial but indisputably powerful—using billions of images scraped from the web to identify just about anyone. Ton-That says that Clearview has more than two billion images from Russian social media service VKontakte alone.

Reuters says that Ton-That sent a letter to Ukrainian authorities offering Clearview AI’s assistance. The letter said the software could help with identifying undercover Russian operatives, reuniting refugees with their families, and debunking misinformation.

Clearview AI’s software is reportedly effective even where there is facial damage or decomposition.

Ukraine is now reportedly using the facial recognition software for free, but the same offer has not been extended to Russia.

Russia has been widely condemned for its illegal invasion and increasingly brutal methods that are being investigated as likely war crimes. The Russian military has targeted not just the Ukrainian military but also civilians and even humanitarian corridors established to help people fleeing the conflict.

In response, many private companies have decided to halt or limit their operations in Russia and many are offering assistance to Ukraine in areas like cybersecurity and satellite internet access.

Clearview AI’s assistance could generate some positive PR for a company that is used to criticism.

Aside from its dystopian and invasive use of mass data scraped from across the web, the company has some potential far-right links.

“Common law has never recognised a right to privacy for your face,” Clearview AI lawyer Tor Ekeland once argued. Ekeland, it’s worth noting, gained notoriety as “The Troll’s Lawyer” after defending clients including self-described neo-Nazi troll Andrew Auernheimer.

Global regulators have increasingly clamped down on Clearview AI.

In November 2021, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) imposed a potential fine of just over £17 million to Clearview AI and ordered the company to destroy the personal data it holds on British citizens and cease further processing.

Earlier that month, the OAIC reached the same conclusion as the ICO and ordered Clearview AI to destroy the biometric data it collected on Australians and cease further collection.

“I consider that the act of uploading an image to a social media site does not unambiguously indicate agreement to collection of that image by an unknown third party for commercial purposes,” said Australia’s Information Commissioner Angelene Falk at the time.

However, Clearview AI has boasted that police use of its facial recognition system increased 26 percent in the wake of the US Capitol raid.

Clearview AI’s operations in Ukraine could prove to be a positive case study, but whether it’s enough to offset the privacy concerns remains to be seen.

(Photo by Daniele Franchi on Unsplash)

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The post Ukraine harnesses Clearview AI to uncover assailants and identify the fallen appeared first on AI News.

Last week, AI News reported on the release of a study that found humans can generally no longer distinguish between real and AI-generated “deepfake” faces.

As humans, we’re somewhat trained to believe what we see with our eyes. Many believed that it was only a matter of time before Russia took advantage of deepfakes and our human psychology to take its vast disinformation campaigns to the next level.

Facebook and Twitter removed two anti-Ukraine “covert influence operations” over the weekend. One had ties to Russia, while the other was connected to Belarus.

As we’ve often seen around things like Covid-19 disinformation, the Russian propaganda operation included websites aimed at pushing readers towards anti-Ukraine views. The campaign had links with the News Front and South Front websites which the US government has linked to Russian intelligence disinformation efforts.

However, Facebook said this particular campaign used AI-generated faces to give the idea that it was posted by credible columnists. Here’s one “columnist” and the “editor-in-chief” of one propaganda website:

Ears are often still a giveaway with AI-generated faces like those created on ‘This Person Does Not Exist’. The fictional woman’s mismatched earrings are one indicator while the man’s right ear is clearly not quite right.

Part of the campaign was to promote the idea that Russia’s military operation is going well and Ukraine’s efforts are going poorly. We know that Russia’s state broadcasters have only acknowledged ludicrously small losses—including just one Russian soldier fatality.

On Saturday, state-owned news agency RIA-Novosti even accidentally published and then deleted an article headlined “The arrival of Russia in a new world” in what appeared to be a pre-prepared piece expecting a swift victory. The piece piled praise on Putin’s regime and claims that Russia is returning to lead a new world order to rectify the “terrible catastrophe” that was the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So far, Russia is expected to have lost around 5,300 troops, 816 armoured combat vehicles, 101 tanks, 74 guns, 29 warplanes, 29 helicopters, and two ships/motorboats, as part of its decision to invade Ukraine.

The slow progress and mounting losses appear to have angered Russia with its military now conducting what appears to be very clear war crimes—targeting civilian areas, bombing hospitals and kindergartens, and using thermobaric and cluster munitions indiscriminately. Putin has even hinted at using nuclear weapons offensively rather than defensively in an unprecedented escalation.

Many ordinary Russian citizens are becoming outraged at what their government is doing to Ukraine, where many have family, friends, and share deep cultural ties. Russia appears to be ramping up its propaganda to counter as the country finds itself increasingly isolated.

Western governments and web giants have clamped down on Russia’s state propagandists in recent days.

British telecoms regulator Ofcom has launched 15 investigations into state broadcaster RT after observing “a significant increase in the number of programmes on the RT service that warrant investigation under our Broadcasting Code.”

Facebook has decided to block access to RT and Sputnik across the EU following “a number” of government requests from within the EU. Twitter, for its part, has announced that it would label tweets from Russian state media accounts.

Hacker collective Anonymous claims to have carried out over 1,500 cyberattacks against Russian government sites, transport infrastructure, banks, and state media to counter their falsehoods and broadcast the truth about the invasion to Russian citizens.

Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor, for its part, has restricted Russian users’ access to Facebook and Twitter.

(Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash)

Related: Ukraine is using Starlink to maintain global connectivity

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Deepfakes leverage machine learning and AI techniques to convincingly manipulate or generate visual and audio content. Their high potential to deceive makes them a powerful tool for spreading disinformation, committing fraud, trolling, and more.

“Every time we improve these tools, we’re actually in a sense building a toolset to create fake media — and we’re seeing it happening now,” said Cameron in a BBC video interview.

“Right now the tools are — the people just playing around on apps aren’t that great. But over time, those limitations will go away. Things that you see and fully believe you’re seeing could be faked.”

Have you ever said “I’ll believe it when I see it with my own eyes,” or similar? I certainly have. As humans, we’re subconsciously trained to believe what we can see (unless it’s quite obviously faked.)

The problem is amplified with today’s fast news cycle. It’s a well-known problem that many articles get shared based on their headline before moving on to the next story. Few people are going to stop to analyse images and videos for small imperfections.

Often the stories are shared with reactions to the headline without reading the story to get the full context. This can lead to a butterfly effect of people seeing their contacts’ reactions to the headline and feel they don’t need additional context—often just sharing in whatever emotional response the headline was designed to invoke (generally outrage.)

“News cycles happen so fast, and people respond so quickly, you could have a major incident take place between the interval between when the deepfake drops and when it’s exposed as a fake,” says Cameron.

“We’ve seen situations — you know, Arab Spring being a classic example — where with social media, the uprising was practically overnight.”

It’s a difficult problem to tackle as it is. We’ve all seen the amount of disinformation around things such as the COVID-19 vaccines. However, an article posted with convincing deepfake media will be almost impossible to stop from being posted and/or shared widely.

AI tools for spotting the increasingly small differences between real and manipulated media will be key to preventing deepfakes from ever being posted. AI tools for spotting the increasingly small differences between real and manipulated media will be key to preventing deepfakes from ever being posted. However, researchers have found that current tools can easily be deceived.

Images and videos that can be verified as original and authentic using technologies like distributed ledgers could also be used to help give audiences confidence the media they’re consuming isn’t a manipulated version and they really can trust their own eyes.

In the meantime, Cameron suggest using Occam’s razor—a problem-solving principle that’s can be summarised as the simplest explanation is the likeliest.

“Conspiracy theories are all too complicated. People aren’t that good, human systems aren’t that good, people can’t keep a secret to save their lives, and most people in positions of power are bumbling stooges.

“The fact that we think that they could realistically pull off these — these complex plots? I don’t buy any of that crap! Bill Gates is not really trying to microchip you with the flu vaccine!”

However, Cameron admits his scepticism of new technology.

“Every single advancement in technology that’s ever been created has been weaponised. I say this to AI scientists all the time, and they go, ‘No, no, no, we’ve got this under control.’ You know, ‘We just give the AIs the right goals…’

“So who’s deciding what those goals are? The people that put up the money for the research, right? Which are all either big business or defense. So you’re going to teach these new sentient entities to be either greedy or murderous.”

Of course, Skynet gets an honourary mention.

“If Skynet wanted to take over and wipe us out, it would actually look a lot like what’s going on right now. It’s not going to have to — like, wipe out the entire, you know, biosphere and environment with nuclear weapons to do it. It’s going to be so much easier and less energy required to just turn our minds against ourselves.

“All Skynet would have to do is just deepfake a bunch of people, pit them against each other, stir up a lot of foment, and just run this giant deepfake on humanity.”

Russia’s infamous state-sponsored “troll farms” are one of the largest sources of disinformation and are used to conduct online influence campaigns.

In a January 2017 report issued by the United States Intelligence Community – Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections (PDF) – described the ‘Internet Research Agency’ as one such troll farm.

“The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close ally of [Vladimir] Putin with ties to Russian intelligence,” commenting that “they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine.”

Western officials have warned that Russia may use disinformation campaigns – including claims of an attack from Ukrainian troops – to rally support and justify an invasion of Ukraine. It’s not out the realms of possibility that manipulated content will play a role, so it could be too late to counter the first large-scale disaster supported by deepfakes.

Related: University College London: Deepfakes are the ‘most serious’ AI crime threat

(Image Credit: Gage Skidmore. Image cropped. CC BY-SA 3.0 license)

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Putin ordered his government apparatus on February 27th to formulate a national artificial intelligence strategy by June 25th. With that date quickly approaching, the world is waiting to see Russia’s AI plans.

Back in September 2017, Putin famously said the nation which leads in AI “will become the ruler of the world.” Understandably, Putin’s comments generated fear of a cold war-like rush to militarise AI technology.

The Russian leader’s most recent speech won’t help to ease those concerns after reiterating that AI offers unprecedented power, including military power, to any government that leads in the field.

“Mechanisms of artificial intelligence provide real-time fast decision-making based on the analysis of huge amounts of information, which gives tremendous advantages in quality and effectiveness,” he said. “If someone can provide a monopoly in the field of artificial intelligence, then the consequences are clear to all of us: he will rule the world.”

However, there appears to be some understanding from Russia’s president of the need for a level-headed approach to AI. Putin suggested his government needs to enshrine and protect citizens’ rights and new intellectual property.

Other key areas highlighted by Putin for Russia’s AI development include:

• Training initiatives
• Legislative support
• Public-private cooperation
• Efforts to advance Russia’s STEM strengths

Putin spoke of the need to ensure “the readiness of society, citizens for the widespread introduction of such technologies. It is, therefore, necessary to provide widespread digital education, to launch retraining programs.”

An increased need for AI funding was also touched upon. Putin said cash will need to be invested from both the state and investors through public-private cooperation.

“Russia should become one of the key platforms for solving complex scientific problems with the participation of scientists from around the world,” declared Putin.

“It is fundamentally important to tune our legislation to a new technological reality, quickly and efficiently form a flexible, adequate legal basis for the development and use of artificial intelligence-based application solutions, as well as special regimes for private investment in creating breakthrough solutions,” he said.

The overview of what’s forming the base of Russia’s AI strategy was provided by Putin during a May 30th speech.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and their use cases? Attend the co-located AI & Big Data Expo events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam to learn more. Co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

The post Putin outlines Russia’s national AI strategy priorities appeared first on AI News.

The station, Q13, broadcasted a doctored Trump speech in which he somehow appeared even more orange and pulled amusing faces.

You can see a side-by-side comparison with the original below:

Following the broadcast, a Q13 employee was sacked. It’s unclear if the worker created the clip or whether it was just allowed to air.

The video could be the first DeepFake to be televised, but it won’t be the last. Social media provides even less filtration and enables fake clips to spread with ease.

We’ve heard much about sophisticated disinformation campaigns. At one point, the US was arguably the most prominent creator of such campaigns to influence foreign decisions.

Russia, in particular, has been linked to vast disinformation campaigns. These have primarily targeted social media with things such as their infamous Twitter bots.

According to Pew Research, just five percent of Americans have ‘a lot of trust’ in the information they get from social media. This is much lower than in national and local news organisations.

It’s not difficult to imagine an explosion in doctored videos that appear like they’re coming from trusted outlets. Combining the reach of social media with the increased trust Americans have in traditional news organisations is a dangerous concept.

While the Trump video appears to be a bit of fun, the next could be used to influence an election or big policy decision. It’s a clear example of how AI is already creating new threats.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and their use cases? Attend the co-located AI & Big Data Expo events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam to learn more. Co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

The post Trump speech ‘DeepFake’ shows a present AI threat appeared first on AI News.

Irakli started with a positive note that’s easily forgotten: never has the world been more safe, connected, and prosperous.

“We have developed technologies which have the potential to solve problems we never thought were possible,” says Beridze. “Most of them are related to the UN’s sustainable development goals.”

World-Changing Benefits

A look at the statistics provides evidence of a huge reduction in those dying from violence or living in extreme poverty. Many of the greatest threats we face today are shared challenges such as climate change, disease, and dwindling resources.

AI is a powerful tool which can help with all these challenges and more if we, as humankind, choose to use it this way. Alternatively, it could pose an existential threat.

Here are just some of the ways Beridze expects AI to aid the UN towards its goals:

Beridze dives deeper into some other potential benefits of AI to societies. A couple of the most interesting suggestions are its use to improve health and wellbeing, and to maintain peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Starting with health, Beridze highlights the use of AI to analyse large quantities of healthcare data in order to make scientific breakthroughs. Furthermore, it could be used to predict and project disease outbreaks to reduce mortality rates.

The impact of AI on healthcare is among our most covered subjects here on AI News. There are exciting developments on a near-daily basis.

Next up is the potential for AI when it comes to peace, law, and governance. Beridze believes AI can be integrated within an ‘e-government’ to reduce discrimination, prejudice, and corruption.

AI currently has a well-documented bias problem. However, solutions are becoming available to ensure the algorithms behind AIs are fair and do not favour any part of society over another. It’s ultimately easier to make a machine less discriminate than a person.

Global powers are seeking to establish themselves as leaders in AI. China and the US continue to be dominant by pumping billions of cash into developments, while smaller economies are playing to their own strengths.

Countries such as Japan are strong in fields such as robotics. The EU has the highest number of service robot manufacturing. Meanwhile, the UK is known for its leadership in ethics and strong academic attributes with leading universities.

There’s a now famous quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking about AI which said: “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

Putin’s quote was received in many ways. Some believe it was simply a matter of fact, while others saw it as confirmation of a potentially reckless race between world powers to become a leader.

AI-as-a-Threat

Regardless of what states do, criminals will seek to exploit AI for their own gain. This could take many forms, but one clear example is that of impersonation.

During Google’s I/O conference this year, the company showed off its Duplex demo where an AI assistant called a hair salon on a user’s behalf and was convincing enough to pass for a human. By training such a system with someone else’s voice, fraud could be completely automated.

Beridze will be meeting with Interpol next month to discuss the new risks posed by criminals using artificial intelligence, and how law enforcement agencies can work to counter them.

“When talking about the good sides of AI, we should never forget about the possible risks,” warns Beridze. “One of the biggest risks is the pace of development with how quickly it’s being developed and how fast we can adapt to that.”

One major concern is the potential impact on jobs. Low-wage workers are particularly threatened by automation.

“We don’t really have any solutions,” Beridze says. “We have some ideas that have been put on the table such as; Universal Basic Income, retraining of the population, some even say to slow down the pace of innovation.”

Other concerns highlighted by Beridze includes automated weapons, superintelligent systems like SkyNet famously depicted in the Terminator movies, and using things such as bots to influence democratic processes.

Solving International Verification

One of the most interesting uses for AI is for the verification of incidents where nations do not trust each other. This has perhaps been seen most often between Western nations and Russia where there’s still a clear level of distrust.

Take the recent chemical attack in Salisbury, UK on a former spy and his daughter. Western nations agreed it could only have been carried out by Russia. For its part, Russia denies the allegations and claims to have been locked out of seeing any evidence.

Beridze served as a special projects officer at the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) prior to joining UNICRI.

The OPCW is an independent organisation working alongside the United Nations that investigates chemical attacks. Members of OPCW represent around 98 percent of the global population.

Until a ruling last week, the OPCW was prohibited from assigning blame for a chemical attack. In Salisbury, the organisation stated it agreed with the UK’s findings the nerve agent of the kind first developed by the Soviet Union.

There have also been multiple chemical attacks in Syria. One particularly devastating attack in Douma was to be investigated by the OPCW but investigators claim they were blocked from accessing the site by Syria and its Russian allies.

Investigators were eventually provided access over a week after. However, Chlorine – at least one of the suspected chemicals used – is notoriously difficult to detect even a day after because of its gaseous state.

Russia and Syria both reject claims that chemical weapons were used. Moscow has offered several narratives on Douma, claiming simultaneously that there never was an attack and that it was the work of rebels in the area.

France said it was likely the evidence is gone, and the USA accused Russia and Syria of tampering with the site.

When everyone is pointing the finger at each other, there needs to be independent verification. Whenever people are involved there’s nearly always some accusations of foul play.

A provably unbiased, open-source AI which examines the evidence could be the answer.

“The time has come where we should employ technologies like AI and blockchain to start verification of issues where countries do not trust each other,” says Beridze. “We need to make a major leap from a system created in the [19]40s, to 80 years down the road where we live in a completely different world.”

Beridze’s session highlighted both the near-limitless potential for AI to have a positive impact on the world, or it could just as easily be devastating.

One thing is for sure, AI will transform our world. For better or worse, that’s up to all of us.

You can watch our interview with Irakli Beridze below:

Find out more about AI Expo and the next event here.

What impact do you think AI will have on the world? Let us know in the comments.

 Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located AI & Big Data Expo events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more. Co-located with the  IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo so you can explore the future of enterprise technology in one place.

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