Every assumption about AI ethics and potential regulation is based on our ability to understand how a system works and thereby identify and manage the implications of its operation. Only doing so is impossible, by definition, and there’s a name for why: Impossibility Theorems. The language of this white paper…

OpenAI’s co-founder Sam Altman was fired last week for “being not consistently candid in his communications” with the company’s board. He joined Microsoft about a nanosecond later. Candid about what? One theory is that Altman wasn’t doing enough to mitigate the threats to humanity posed by AI development. …

An industrial robot in South Korea killed a worker. Who, or what, is responsible? The AI reportedly grabbed the hapless employee and added him to the bell peppers and other vegetables on a conveyor belt. The guy died from head and chest injuries. Authorities are trying to fathom if the…

Last week, bureaucrats from 28 countries met in the UK and issued a declaration that they will “work together to meet the most significant challenges” of AI. And nobody listened. In fact, at the same time as the politicians were bloviating, Google announced it would integrate AI into the basic…

The guy is a technical genius, a zillionaire (and deservedly so), and a risk-taker who puts people like me to shame. But he’s also wrong about the role and meaning of AI and tech. Last week, Andreessen published an orgiastic paen to the glories of technology entitled The Techno-Optimist Manifesto…

A handful of tech luminaries have called for an international body to advise policymakers on AI risks, modeled on a group that does the same thing on the science of climate change. Look how effective the latter has been. What they’re really worried about is regulation, not the lack of…

“Oh, so you’re the ethics evangelist,” one of my fellow panel participants sneered and then walked past me toward the stage. We were at a conference in Amsterdam to talk about AI ethics and what businesses could do to implement them. …

Forget anything you’ve heard about Twitter, now “X,” serving as a “public square” or that it values “free speech.” There’s nothing free about it beyond we of the public giving up our freedom for the platform’s financial gain. X changed its terms of service early last month. It’s the kind…

New York City has deployed a robot to patrol its Times Square subway station. It will retire it within weeks, if not sooner. The gizmo, called ”K5,” is shaped like a giant Weeble and is stuffed with cameras and other sensors. It has no arms, can’t navigate stairs, and has…