The reason OpenAI is called OpenAI is because back when it started it was predominately a bunch of academics doing research in a non-profit and they wanted to be "open" with the research they did. That facade has all but disappeared now, with OpenAI changing its stance that "any member of the public can review copies of its governing documents, financial statements, and conflict of interest rules". Wired asked for a copy of the conflict of interest rules and OpenAI refused to hand it over, citing a new policy that only financial statements will be made available now. OpenAI also removed the phrase "military and warfare" from the banned uses of its products in its terms of service and a few days later announced that they're "developing tools with the US Defense Department on open-source cybersecurity software" and "has had initial talks with the US government about methods to assist with preventing veteran suicide". I'm sure there's nothing to worry about when it comes to the military using AI and everyone will be very transparent and careful.
The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) and our friends at Digital Rights Watch reckon that the government's increased restrictions on police access to Digital ID systems don't go far enough and want a total ban on cops accessing this data. They argue that to maintain community trust and buy-in to digital ID systems, they should "at least be on the same level as the federal COVIDSafe [contact tracing] app" - one of the few good things about the COVIDSafe app! NSWCCL and DRW both say that "No justification has been put forward for allowing such access", "individuals ought to voluntarily use a Digital ID without any concerns that doing so may later be used to enable mass surveillance. Such concerns undermine public trust in these systems" and "we recommend that law enforcement agencies should be explicitly prohibited from accessing Digital ID data held by any accredited agencies". Amen to that and thank you to DRW and NSWCCL for taking the time to make a submission to the government. Without their voice in the mix the thought of simply not giving cops access to something wouldn't even be imagined by the wider policy sphere, it's that ingrained. The full submission can be found here.
You'd think that by 2024 the police would have understood the basics of internet infrastructure, but in a submission to an inquiry about the capability of law enforcement to respond to cybercrime, auDA, the mob responsible for administering all the .au domains, said "there does not appear to be a deep understanding within law enforcement bodies, as to the internet ecosystem". They go on to explain that Australian law enforcement has a "lack of awareness about the roles and responsibilities of the various actors in the ecosystem, including telecommunications companies, internet service providers, web hosting companies, email service providers, cloud computing operators, domain name system (DNS) operators, registrars and web developers" and that "there is also a low level of understanding about the different top-level domains". Apparently the cops didn't know what auDA can only assist with .au TLDs and would ask them for assistance with other TLDs. auDA would like to see law enforcement receive "targeted training on the internet ecosystem and the actors within it".
Today is the Macintosh's 40th birthday and I'm a little disappointed that Apple didn't do a single thing to commemorate it. No homepage mention, not even a story in the newsroom. Except for some generic "yeah we love the Mac" quotes from SVP's (not even the CEO) in response to journalists asking Apple for a comment, you wouldn't even know the Mac had a 40th anniversary this year. At least the Steve Jobs Archive remembered. It might sound silly but the Mac, whether I like it or not, had a big impact on my life, so I wrote a blog post about it to try and explore that feeling and my relationship with that particular series of computers. I'm not the only one, with people like Jason Snell, Steven Sinofsky, Michael Tsai and even old mate Josh Withers (you know him!) putting their feelings about the Mac out into cyberspace. Steven Levy over at Wired has a nice puff piece on the Mac's 40th with some Apple executive quotes and this interview with Greg Joswiak on Six Colors is moderately interesting. Most of the original Macintosh development team that's still alive is gathering at the Computer History Museum in California as I write this and it is being livestreamed! I'm sure they'll make it available on their YouTube channel later. The first issue of Macworld is a fun read if you've never flicked through it before.
Apple Computer Research Fellow Alan Kay portrait with new Apple Macintosh computer, January 30, 1987 in Los Angeles, California. Kay is former chief scientist at Atari and Xerox Corporations. (Bob Riha, Jr. / Getty Images)
📻 Eple - Röyksopp
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