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Coop jagt mit KI-Kameras Selfcheckout-Trickser

Last week, I had numerous conversations about the decision by Coop, a major Swiss supermarket chain, to implement AI-supported video surveillance technology. What struck me was that everyone—from NGOs to official delegates—was in the dark about this until the news broke. I am even more surprised that there has been less public outcry compared to (…)

US suspends offensive cyber operations against Russia, senior US official says

The article reports that the US may have paused its offensive cyber operations against Russia, suggesting it is likely part of a broader diplomatic strategy to encourage talks over the Ukraine conflict, or to possibly focus more on addressing cyber threats posed by China. Scaling back offensive actions without reciprocal guarantees risks exposing critical infrastructure (…)

Google says commercial quantum computing applications arriving within five years

‘Quantum computing applications may become practical within the next 5 years’, according to recent claims by Microsoft and Google, both of which released statements within days of each other. The fact that these two rival tech giants made the same prediction at the same time lends credibility to the statement, especially given the ongoing global (…)

Book Review: “The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley” – Marietje Schaake (2024)

Posted on by Melanie Kolbe-Guyot

In our latest edition of the C4DT Digital Governance Book Review, we discuss Marietje Schaake’s book which explores the deep intertwining of Big Tech with politics, highlighting its threat to democracy and proposing practical regulatory solutions to reclaim democratic processes and safeguard state sovereignty.    

Book Review: The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley (2024)

Schaake, Marietje (2024). The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. Princeton University Press, 336 pages. By Melanie Kolbe-Guyot It is safe to say that probably no other book should more be on your reading list this year than Marietje Schaake’s 2024 “The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley”. (…)

Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital

Here is an article, in Cory Doctorow’s signature style, discussing social networks and what drives them and what makes people leave or stay. I like specifically how he dissects the way the once-good services these platforms used to provide got untethered from the profits their creators and CEOs were chasing over the years. Towards the (…)

The Confluence Of Two Empires: Microsoft And OpenAI Hold Hands

For a long time, Google dominated the search market, but this may be changing with new search habits emerging. Instead of googling multiple sites, I now primarily use two AI chatbots, challenge them to avoid hallucinations, and, if needed, click on their suggested links. For me, this is a more concise and much faster way (…)

U.S. officials say they still have not expelled Chinese telco hackers

I always supposed naively that once a breach in a system is detected, it will be fixed in a timely manner. Even more so if it’s in an important system from the government, like the networks used for data gathering of the telecommunication companies. Reality shows that even after many months, the FBI is still (…)

Trying to square the circle: the ICRC AI Policy

I like this article because it gives us a peek into how an organization develops responsibly and with intention an AI use policy aligned with its mission and operations. In this case, the stakes are high, as the International Committee of the Red Cross operates in conflict zones and humanitarian crises. They emphasize the importance (…)

Swiss cheesed off as postal service used to spread malware

Most people are nowadays aware of phishing attempts by e-mail and double-check an e-mails trustworthiness before clicking any links. But how many are just as cautious with their physical mail? This unusual campaign distributes its malware via the Swiss postal services. Phishing attempts by letter is definitely a new one for me, and a reminder (…)

We finally have an ‘official’ definition for open source AI

I found this article fascinating since it highlights the complexity of defining what ‘open-source AI’ should mean. Today, it is a confusing topic, with many models being ‘open-source’ in name only. For neural networks, training data and source code are inseparable; together, they define how the model is programmed. Therefore, should we be allowed to (…)

Artificial Intelligence Day

EPFL and UNIL invite you to a special event on the theme of Artificial Intelligence on Saturday 23 November 2024 at the Rolex Learning Center.

A unique opportunity to better understand and embrace the AI revolution, while discussing the issues surrounding its use with an exclusive panel of scientists and experts. Laboratory demonstrations and workshops for adults and young people will also be on offer. The event is free of charge and open to all, aged 10 and over.

Change Healthcare Breach Hits 100M Americans

The Change Healthcare breach is deeply concerning, highlighting the vulnerabilities in centralized data systems used to protect sensitive healthcare information. The response to this illustrates a consistently reactive (rather than proactive) political action, where acceptable cybersecurity standards in legislation are only proposed after a significant data breach affects 100 million Americans.

Anomaly detection in dynamic networks

The temporal evolution of the structure of dynamic networks carries critical information about the development of complex systems in various applications, from biology to social networks. While this topic is of importance, the literature in network science, graph theory, or network machine learning, still lacks of relevant models for dynamic networks, proper metrics for comparing network structures, as well as scalable algorithms for anomaly detection. This project exactly aims at bridging these gaps.

Monitoring Swiss industrial and technological landscape 2

The main objective of the project is to perform online monitoring of technologies and technology actors in publicly accessible information sources. The monitoring concerns the early detection of mentions of new technologies, of new actors in the technology space, and the facts related to new relations between technologies and technology actors (subsequently, all these will be called technology mentions). The project will build on earlier results obtained on the retrieval of technology-technology actors using Large Language Models (LLMs).