Money GamesIs Assassins Creed Shadows too little, too late? Ubisoft is reportedly looking for big money backers to fund spin-offs for some of its biggest IPA minority stake is up for grabs, and companies including Tencent might be at the table.Image credit: Ubisoft News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on March 14, 2025 Ubisoft is seemingly looking for financial backers in a new business entity, which will make use of some of its biggest IPs like Assassin's Creed and others. This information comes from a Bloomberg report, written from details from sources familiar with the situation.Bloomberg claims that the French gaming giant is apparently looking for bids for this new venture to be made by as soon as the end of the month. These bids would be for a minority stake, and one of the parties reportedly at the table for this whole affair is Tencent. Tencent, which already has a 9.99% ownership in Ubisoft and has been at the centre of prior reports regarding Ubisoft's future.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Bloomberg's Dong Cao, Vinicy Chan, and Benoit Berthelot write that Ubisoft may be seeking a valuation of this new IP offshoot business that is "higher than the size of the main company's" according to their sources, though they note that these matters are still being considered and that no final decision has been made.Bloomberg reached out for comment from Ubisoft, and was in turn sent the company's quarterly earnings, and a quote within stating, "review of various transformational strategic and capitalistic options is ongoing to help extract the best value from Ubisoft's assets and franchises for all stakeholders". Tencent, which Bloomberg also reached out to, declined to comment entirely.If accurate - this is Bloomberg we're talking about, which has a great track record, especially on this topic - it's a bold move from Ubisoft. Taking all its golden geese and placing them in a new IP house could be interpreted as the company skimming the fat off its pot of various gaming releases, and transferring all the good bits to a seperate, more appealing pot for companies to swoon over. The benefit too is that, by doing so, you'd be adding a degree of seperation between all the good Ubisoft IPs, and some of the nastier events that plague it's past. It was only earlier this month when three former Ubisoft executives stood trial following accusations of psychologically and sexually harassing employees. That trail has been adjourned to June. A new entity could very well seperate the valuable IP from this kind of stuff, making things more appealing to investors.One wonders what impact Assassin's Creed: Shadows will have on these business dealings. A game that, it's safe to say, will impact the newfound success or continued spiraling collapse of Ubisoft depending on its reception both critically and commercially. With Assassins' Creed reportedly one of the IPs included in this new venture, it's potentially more important than ever that this game does well. With Assassin's Creed Shadows launching on March 20, we've not got long to find out how it does, and how it'll impact Ubisoft as a whole later this year.

Update: Confirmed for August.Developer M2 and publisher Taito have today announced that the '80s arcade compilation title Operation Night Strikers will also receive a Switch release at some point this year.This one was initially announced for Steam back in November, but a blog post on the Taito website confirmed that the Nintendo hybrid will also be included in the collection's release plans it feels like a good fit, if you ask us.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Image: Nintendo LifeAh, yes, hello. Here I am, yet again, wandering around the same part of the world map over and over. Im surprised I havent managed to cull the White Tiger population near the city of Muse in Suikoden II, because I've been here for almost an hour and Ive probably killed over 200 of these things. All for one darn rune.'Why do I do this to myself?' I ask as I continue going through the motions: walk in a circle until I get into a random battle; make sure the enemies are tigers; run away if theyre little clockwork robots, or press fast-forward and auto-battle if they are tigers; defeat them; check the loot; roll my eyes when I dont get a Double-Jab Orb (formerly known as a Double-Beat Orb which... uh, dont think about the name too hard); rinse, repeat.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube798kWatch on YouTube I eventually got one and a second 15 minutes later but this amusing habit I and other RPG lovers have of grinding for the rarest items sometimes gets a little out of hand.I know you can get the Orb in the very first 'dungeon', where some adorable axe-wielding bunnies have a 2% chance of dropping one. Apparently, the drop rate from White Tigers is worse. Problem is, I tried that back when I first played the game seven years ago and didnt get one after two hours of slaughtering the little lapins.Hi there, me again. Got anything for me? Image: Nintendo LifeHonestly, I think Im cursed. From Shiny Pokmon hunting to hit rates in Fire Emblem, video game percentages are clearly designed to act against me.But it seems particularly bad when I want an extremely rare weapon or something that unlocks a skill, and a monster has a 0.8% chance of coughing up. You may as well slash that percentage in half for me. So, Ill ask again: Why do I do this to myself?Part of this comes from a compulsive desire to 100% everything, something Ive tried to abandon in recent years because, otherwise, Im never going to have time for other video games, hobbies, or even a normal life. But when you grow up playing collectathon platformers like Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, and your introduction to RPGs is Pokmon Yellow (you know, the franchise with the tagline 'gotta catch em all'), its a hard habit to shake.Things as simple as trying to get a female Starter Pokmon in some games meant I reset multiple times just so I had the symbol next to my Sobbles name. In some peoples minds, I 'wasted' time on something that has very little effect gameplay-wise there isnt even any physical gender difference but to me, it was important. So I spent, no joke, 45 minutes restarting Sword & Shield just to get a girl out of the gate. 12.5% my butt.It only took about 15 tries, Peppermint! Image: Nintendo LifeThe Double-Jab Orb in Suikoden II isnt exactly necessary, either. Its a pretty easy game without it, so getting one (or three, as I had by the end) makes any potential challenge irrelevant. But whats more fun than absolutely destroying everything in sight?Its the same with any Castlevania game. Aria of Sorrow is practically begging you to collect every single Soul, which means killing every enemy, often multiple times. Some enemies have absurdly high HP pools or defensive stats, so you have to get creative. Others appear in just one or two rooms in the whole map.With the Sky Fish, its too fast to kill without the Chronomage Soul, and the timing to slow the fish down is pretty finicky. At least its a relatively common drop and is right next to a save room, but it doesnt stop me seeing that room and hearing the Underground Reservoir music in my sleep.Now you don't see it... now you do! Images: Nintendo LifeDawn of Sorrow is even worse about this, mostly because the Luck stat is actually broken. It wasnt fixed in the Dominus Collection. But did that stop me killing the same two Valkyries over and over again, or attempting to get the Peeping Eye Soul so I could find all of the hidden rooms? No way. I dont need any of these Souls to make the final boss easier (okay, the Valkyrie is very good). But I want it.When does grinding for extremely rare drops get out of hand, then? What about spending six hours fighting Starman Supers in the Stonehenge Base in EarthBound, just for the Sword of Kings, Poos ultimate (and only) weapon.I. Hate. You. Image: via EarthBound Wiki / NintendoI remember toiling over this weapon vividly. I can still hear the torrential English summer rain hammering against the window and the taste of tea as I sipped and scampered around the Base, fighting these extremely powerful Starmen and hoping that the 1/128 chance would tip in my favour this time.I wouldnt have felt so bad if this wasn't the only time and place you could get the Sword of Kings when you defeat the boss of the dungeon, youre locked out of returning here. But you also cant go there before youre prompted. So this was my one chance. Thank goodness I was doing this on the Wii U.But, folks, I did it I got the Sword of Kings. Did it cost my sanity? A little. Was it worth it? No! Poo is actually better using magic, particularly on the final boss. So the Sword of Kings was really just a little trophy. I have to admit, though, I was satisfied. And that's why I keep doing this to myself.I dont know if this will surprise you or not, but Im not really a Trophy or Achievement hunter on other platforms. Particularly now, I dont have the time to grind for hours on end for that super rare weapon or overpowered ability. But I also think Ive just learned over the years that Im destined to be unlucky in the RNG and drop-rate war. I probably shouldnt play Monster Hunter Rise, then.So, if you want advice on how to get KOS-MOS in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or where to find a second (or even first) Auto Petter in Stardew Valley, then Im probably not the right person to ask. But, while I won't be dicing with 100% completion in most games anymore, I still get the itch to go against the odds and try my luck at an extra Double-Jab Rune or Valkyrie Soul.Have you ever grinded for a rare drop in an RPG? How do you fare with drop rates? Let us know down below.Have you ever tried to get a really rare drop in a video game? (39 votes)Every time, I have to get everything there is on offer13%Sometimes, if it's worth my time and not too hard72%Not the first time through, but on a replay...8%No, I have terrible luck 0%I just don't have time8% Who wants to spend hours mowing down low-level enemies?Related GamesSee AlsoShare:00 Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate. 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Weve all experienced that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you miss an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is building a low-cost GPS alternative, says thats because the current technology is limited by its reliance on satellite positioning.Tern AI says it has figured out how to locate the position of a vehicle using only map information and a vehicles existing sensor data. The companys pitch: Its a cheap system that doesnt require any additional expensive sensors.At SXSW, the Austin-based startup demonstrated exclusively for TechCrunch that it could derive a position from nothing.No triangulation, no satellites, no WiFi, nothing. We just figure out where we are as we drive, Brett Harrison, co-founder and president, told TechCrunch while Cyrus Behroozi, senior software developer at Tern, loaded up the demo on his iPhone. Thats really game changing because as we move away from triangulation-based, which limits technology, now we have the ability to be fully of that grid.Harrison says this breakthrough is important for a number of reasons. From a commercial standpoint, companies that rely on GPS including ride-hail apps to delivery companies lose time, money, and gas every time their drivers have to double back because of faulty GPS positioning.More importantly, our most critical systems such as aviation to disaster response to precision farming rely on GPS. Foreign adversaries have already demonstrated that they can spoof GPS signals, which could have catastrophic impacts both on the economy and national security.The U.S. has signaled that it wants to prioritize alternatives to GPS. During his first term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reduce reliance on a single source of PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing) services, like GPS. There are also several other initiatives which direct agencies and bodies like the Department of Defense and the National Security Council to ensure resilient PNT by testing and integrating non-GPS technologies.DeepSeek came out and said it costTern came out of stealth in February 2024 and announced its $4.4 million seed round a few months later. Thats a quick turnaround to achieve the type of positioning I experienced this week at SXSW.Testing Terns system in AustinTo start the demonstration, Behroozi connected his 2019 Honda Civic to his phone via Bluetooth, allowing the Tern application to pull in data from the vehicles existing sensors. He noted that Terns tech can be integrated directly into vehicle models years, beginning in 2009 and up.Usually, Tern sets the position manually to speed things up, but for our demo, the team wanted a cold start. Fehroozi turned off his phones location services, so the Tern intelligent system had only a cached map of a 500-square-mile boundary around Austin and vehicle sensors to work with.As the car drove, the system picked up road data to work towards convergence. It took roughly 10 minutes for the system to reach full convergence from a cold start, but Harrison assured me it usually takes around one to two minutes when it has a starting point. Plus, we were stuck in a bit of traffic, which slowed things down, Fehroozi added.Harrison noted that Terns system can also localize vehicles in parking garages, tunnels, and on mountains, which GPS struggles to do. Harrison wouldnt explain exactly how, saying the information is proprietary.We drove around for a few more minutes after the system reached full convergence, and I watched as it steadily tracked our precise movements in a way that appeared as good as, and in some cases better than, GPS. That became more apparent when we drove into downtown Austin, where my Google Maps regularly mislocated me throughout the week as I navigated urban streets dotted with towering buildings.Harrison said that Terns system is also safer from a privacy perspective because with GPS, if anyone knows your ID, they can find you at any time.Our system is a total closed loop, he said. Right now, were not emitting anything. Its independently deriving its own position [via on edge computing], so there are no external touchpoints.Built to scaleWe set up the company and the solution from the start to be scalable. If you look at that Waymo car and all of the hardware thats embedded, we dont see that going on a Nissan Sentra anytime soon. Its just too expensive. Harrison said, pointing ahead of us to a Waymo-Uber robotaxi.At the manufacturer level, if [Tern] is implemented within the infotainment system, its just a softwareTerns potential future customers could be anyone from automakers to mobile phone manufacturers, from Google to Uber. Harrison said the startup is open to growing the company, but also an acquisition.The primary thing is getting this out into the economys hands, with the growing threats and the emergence of tech thats not realizing its full potential because of the limits of triangulation, Harrison said.He noted that Tern is exploring possibilities with the government. The startup recently received a contract award from the U.S. Department of Transportation after a week of demonstrating its technology along with nine other companies from around the world.Were hoping we did a good job of showing the government whats possible now with American innovation, Harrison said.

The new Netflix movie The Electric State depicts a world full of robots but not robots as we know them.Directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who previously helmed two Avengers blockbusters, Infinity War and Endgame) for a reported budget of $320 million, The Electric State takes place in an alternate version of the 1990s, one where sentient robots have existed for decades. Thats long enough for them to have rebelled against their human masters, lost the war, and found themselves exiled to an area of the Southwest an area that the films heroes (played by Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt) must sneak into.Crucially for visual effects supervisor Matthew E. Butler, design-wise, these robots are deliberately the antithesis of the robots that exist today.Most of us have seen modern-day robots and are used to these designs, Butler told me. If you look at Boston Dynamics robots, youll notice that they concentrate the mass of the robot at the center of the robot, and then as you go out to the extremities, they get less and less massive, because thats just a defensible design.In contrast, the movies robot Cosmo has a giant head on a tiny neck, which Butler described as the worst design for a robot.Like the movie itself, that design is based on Simon Stlenhags illustrated novel of the same name. But Butler explained that theres an in-movie explanation for Cosmo and the other quirky robots that are often drawn from real and imagined pop culture: They were created to be unthreatening, which is why they all look kind of cutesy and goofy and fun.Image Credits:NetflixAll of that meant Butlers team had to start with a design that was innately impractical but eventually create something that felt physically believable and real. He said that to do that, they decided to honor Cosmos design in silhouette fashion.If you squint and you put him a distance away from [the] camera, he looks like Cosmo, the way he is in the book, Butler said. But if you go up close and you scrutinize a shoulder, youll see that there are push rods in there, and you can see the motors, you can see the circuitry, same with the ankles and the feet.The goal is to convince audiences that the thing can really work. Once theyre convinced, theyll accept Cosmos design, and the design of the other robots, without seeing all the details.And yes, there are plenty of other robots. Butler said his team had to bring hundreds and hundreds of unique robots to life unique not because every robot in this alternate world is one-of-a-kind, but because in the movie, we typically just showcase individuals.And unfortunately, there were no shortcuts.We scratched our heads so many times like, How the hell do we do this? he said. If youve got 100 different robots and theyre all moving, theyve got to be able to move, which means youve got to be able to rig them, so someone has to design them, someone has to paint them, someone has to animate them.To bring those robots to life, Butler said the team used a combination of traditional optical motion capture and a newer system using accelerometer-based suits. That allowed a troupe of seven motion capture performers to work with the live action actors on location and on set, with their performance then providing the basis for the animated robots whether theyre human-sized, gigantic, or fit into the palm of a characters hand.Image Credits:NetflixButler emphasized that the process was far more complicated than simply transposing an actors movements onto a robot body.Take little Herman as an example, he said. Youve got the [motion capture] performer, and hes adding his flair, his performance, and its someone that Chris Pratt can now act with. Then you say, Well, OK, but the actual robot cant do a lot of the things that this guy can do. So now you need to change it based on the limitations of the design of the robot itself.And its not over yet: And then you talk to the directors, and theres a particular change of characteristics, which you now need to honor, so then you change that, and then youve got your fabulous voice actors who add so much, and now its like, Well, if the character [sounds like] that then the cadence needs to change.Butler said the robots we ultimately see on screen were created by the work of all those artists and performers coming together: And thats why we really just rolled up our sleeves and got on with it.

Farshid Moussavi British architect and educator; Spanish architect Andrs Jaque the founder of the Office for Political Innovation; Neri&Hu Shanghai-based architectural design practice founded by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu; Young & Ayata New Yorkbased partnership; and Mark Wigley architect and professor at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation are the recipients of the 2025 Awards in Architecture, accolades bestowed annually by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. These professionals were each nominated by one of the 300 members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and selected by a committee of architects and educators led by Meejin Yoon and composed of Elizabeth Diller, Michael Maltzan, Toshiko Mori, Annabelle Selldorf, and Nader Tehrani.Founded in 1898, the Academy presents over 70 awards annually in the field of architecture, art, literature, and music. The Arts and Letters annual architecture award started in 1955 with the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize and has now expanded to include four Arts and Letters Awards to further honor both practicing architects and those who have contributed to the field through other mediums of expression.This year the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize, the largest prize awarded by the Academy totaling $20,000, recognized Farshid Moussavi. The four other Arts and Letters Awards are each in the amount of $10,000. Andrs Jaque is one of the five recipients of the American Academy of Arts and Letter 2025 Awards in Architecture. (Miguel de Guzman)The winners of the 2025 Architecture Award are as follows:Farshid Moussavi, a British architect and professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Moussavi leads the London-based architecture studio Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA). Projects by the firm include, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, La Folie Divine in Montpellier, flagship stores for Victoria Beckham in London and Hong Kong, and the Ismaili Cultural Center in Houston. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2018. (Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize)Andrs Jaque, a New Yorkbased architect and the Dean of Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Jaque founded the architecture practice Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN) in 2003 which has offices in New York City and Madrid. Jaque led OFFPOLINNs innovative design for Madrids Reggio School, which won Project of the Year in ANs 2022 Best of Design Awards, and was the chief curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale. (Arts and Letters Award recognizing American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction)Neri&Hu, an architectural design firm founded by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, is one of the winners of the Arts and Letters Awards recognizing American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction. (Jiaxi Yang & Zhu Zhe)Neri&Hu, an architectural design firm based in Shanghai founded in 2006 by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu. Known for its adaptive reuse projects, Neri&Hu designed the Sanya Wellness Retreat in Chinas Hainan Island province, the Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts in Xian, China, and the Aranya Art Center, located in Chinas Gold Coast. (Arts and Letters Award recognizing American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction)Young and Ayata, a contemporary practice founded by Michael Young and Kutan Ayata located in Brooklyn, New York. The partnerships work includes built commissions and experimental research with buildings such as the DL1310 Apartments in Mexico City or Incheon Museum Park in Incheon, South Korea, and artworks such as Spectral Montage a series featured in Parallel Rules at the gallery a83 or Spectral Montage 22 & 55 featured in Model Behavior at The Cooper Union. (Arts and Letters Award recognizing American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction) Mark Wigley, an architect, professor, and Dean Emeritus at Columbia Universitys GSAPP. Born in New Zealand, Wigley explores the intersection of art, architecture, philosophy, culture, and technology through architecture theory, history and criticism. He co-curated the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial and has written several books including Konrad Wachsmanns Television: Post-architectural Transmissions (2020). (Arts and Letters Award recognizing those who explore ideas in architecture through any medium of expression)In 2024, the American Academy of Arts and Letters bestowed the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize to Spanish architecture studio established by Jos Selgas and Luca Cano, SelgasCano. Other recipients of the architecture awards were American landscape architect Julie Bargmann, New Yorkbased architecture studio LEVENBETTS, architectural historian and theorist Beatriz Colomina, and Polish visual artists Krzysztof Wodiczko.

Who was Herman Jessor? And to what extent did he shape New York City? An exhibition at The Cooper Union poses these questions. Jessor studied engineering at Cooper Union and eventually won its lifetime achievement award. He worked on some of New York Citys largest cooperative housing projects, delivering over 40,000 units across a 60-year career with very little scholarly documentation. In 1976, Cooper Unions Board of Trustees said Jessor designed housing for more New Yorkers than any other architect. London critic Owen Hatherley called Jessor the most important radical architect youve never heard of.Curated by AN news editor Daniel Jonas Roche and photographer Zara Pfeifer, with a drawing by AN contributor Brad Isnard, the show is the result of over two years of research. (Roche and Pfeifers collaboration was .) Large-scale photographs, a video interview, and a map are now on view in the schools Third Floor Hallway Gallery.The exhibition is free and open to the public until March 28; Roche and Pfeifer will give a closing lecture on March 27, followed by a reception. ANs executive editor, Jack Murphy, spoke with Roche, Pfeifer, and Isnard to learn more.Herman Jessor in the middle with his nephews (Courtesy Jessor family)AN: Who was Herman Jessor?Daniel Roche (DR): Herman Jessor was born Herman Yezhersky in modern-day Belarus. He immigrated to the United States when he was about 10 years old, and then started going by Jessor after he Americanized his name, like many Jewish emigres from the Pale those days. He grew up in New York City and went to Stuyvesant High School. When Jessor was a high school student, he illegally enrolled in The Cooper Unions engineering school at night. He graduated with his engineering degree when he was a teenager. He immediately hit the ground running and went to work for an office called Springsteen and Goldhammer.One of the first projects he worked on were the United Workers Association Houses in the Bronx, which is a legendary housing estate built by trade unionists for mostly Jewish and Black families that were escaping squalor in the Lower East Side. It became a hotbed for revolutionary activity. W. E. B. Dubois, Emma Goldman, and Paul Robeson all frequented the United Workers Association Houses. Pete Seeger used to do free concerts for children there. The United Workers Association Houses are vividly captured in Vivian Gornicks The Romance of American Communism. Jessor later worked closely with Abraham Kazan of the United Housing Foundation, a group which built Mitchell-Lama cooperative housing. Overall, Jessor was behind the construction of over 40,000 cooperatively owned homes.Co-op City is situated on a sprawling 320-acre site in the north Bronx. (Zara Pfeifer)Many of todays shareholders at Co-op City have lived there since construction finished in 1973. (Zara Pfeifer)AN: Zara, could you talk about what it was like documenting these buildings? How did it start?Zara Pfeifer (ZP): Dan and I met when I started researching Co-op City in 2023. I was in New York at the time for a three-month artist residency. Before I arrived, I had researched large-scale housing. I had watched online a talk about Co-op City, and how it was so popular with residents, theres a waitlist to live there, and about how the community spaces are vividly used. Co-op City reminded me of what I experienced at Alterlaa here in Vienna, which I had photographed for a long time, so it was a good comparison. I started to visit Co-op City, and then Dan and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Brad Isnard. We eventually visited twelve projects, from the north Bronx all the way to Coney Island.There are a lot of similarities between Jessors projects and complexes like Alterlaa, such as how residents speak about their experiences, the community, and the prejudices they face from outside. On one visit with Brad in the Bronx, I felt like I was at a municipal building in Vienna. I asked myself, What is it about this place that makes me feel like Im at home? Is it the details? Is it the textures, or the architecture? Is it the atmosphere? The inner courtyards are definitely spaces I know from Viennese social housing! Before visiting each complex, we attempted to secure access beforehand, or we just approached people that we met when we went there together. Thats also often how I photograph: I go, then I see what I find interesting, but also what develops out of meeting residents who might say, Okay, let me show you this place. This happens by being on site. This is something that I always do across my projects, which helps me sense an atmosphere that you cannot see from plans or texts. Dan and I were amazed that everyone living at these places were very happy. This project fits into my overall interest in maintenance, and in challenging assumptions about what makes for good architecture.A courtyard at Penn South in Chelsea (Zara Pfeifer)An archway at Amalgamated Dwellings in the Lower East Side (Zara Pfeifer)DR: We spoke to a lot of residents. When I see particular people in Zaras photos, I remember specific conversations. I want to point out that a lot of these places are whats called NORCs, or naturally occurring retirement communities. When a population moves into a development and stays in place over time, NORC status helps them request new things to help them age in place. This is a huge problem in New York, where it is increasingly difficult to grow older, but also raise a family, so NORCs help with that. In these Jessor developments, when people move in, they dont leave. Theres a woman at Co-op city who is 113 years old. She said the thing that keeps her going are Co-op Citys dance classes. She can no longer dance, but she goes just to hang out and see her friends. These social aspects are so important.Noel Ellison at his home in Co-op City (Zara Pfeifer)Residents of Starrett City, now Spring Creek Towers (Zara Pfeifer)AN: How did Jessor design?DR: Jessor is pretty much the bogey man in Jane Jacobss urban saga; his buildings were, apparently, everything that was wrong with architecture at the time. And now were in a world where it costs $6,000 a month to live in the Greenwich Village that Jacobs romanticized. Jessor had no interest whatsoever in the sidewalk ballet Jacobs wrote of. Jessors unapologetic goal was abolishing the tenements and, in turn, poverty conditions. And he was punished for it by critics like Jacobs. Ken Wray, the last executive director of the United Housing Foundation, once called Jessor an unrepentant Commie, which is in part why hes so underappreciated today, his radical politics.Amalgamated Dwellings in the Lower East Side looked toward Europe for precedents, notably complexes like Bruno Tauts Horseshoe Estate in Berlin, Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn, and Moscows Narkomfin by Moisei Ginzburg. Jessor interviewed working mothers about what they wanted and needed, and put their inputs into his designs. This however didnt just inform interior units, but also shared spaces: The United Workers Association Houses had a kindergarten and a library with thousands of books in Yiddish, English, and Russian.Green space at Sholem Aleichem Houses (Zara Pfeifer)AN: Who were Jessors clients?Brad Isnard (BI): He worked for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the United Housing Foundation, and other groups. The participatory model Jessor used was directly connected to the social formation of the various organizations that were building these buildings. These were generally trade unions that were building these places, so they already had a political infrastructure in place to communicate their needs and to deploy methods to achieve them. With everyone having a stake in the development, theres a more robust apparatus to actually execute that architectural work that was unique to this time period, which doesnt really exist today.DR: Its important to emphasize that Herman was educated as an engineer before becoming a licensed architect. I think its his engineering background which gave him the freedom to move so fluidly between styles, and made him so malleable as a designer and problem solver. He wasnt beholden to any single movement. AN: What is the current state of Jessors projects?DR: Its all over the place. Some, like Sholem Aleichem Houses, have been privatized. The later, much larger complexes, like Co-op city, Amalgamated Houses, Rochdale village, and Penn South, are all still cooperatively owned but under a different management company called Twin Pines. United Workers Association Houses are in bad shape because of the negligence of its private management company, but it does thankfully have landmark status.BI: Hermans larger projects remain affordable through various subsidies, like the Mitchell-Lama Program. Seward Park, like the rest of Lower East Sides co-ops, remain cooperative, but only some are low income.Spring Creek Towers, previously known as Starrett City, is a private development however. This is an enormous private development on Jamaica Bay, which Kazans union began developing in the 1960s. Starrett City experienced financial hardship and was sold mid-construction to a private company owned by Fred Trump [Donalds father]. Fred Trump and Kazan were arch rivals, which is a whole other story. Even though it is privately operated, [Spring Creek Towers] received Mitchell-Lama grants to finish construction, and it continues to receive those tax subsidies to this day.For the most part, these buildings remain cooperative and affordable. Whats interesting however is that they operate like social batteries that resist market fluctuations in the neighborhoods around them, which have gotten extremely expensive. These things continue to operate in the way they were intended in spite of the way the economy changes, and the city becomes more unequal.A map at the end of the Third Floor Hallway Gallery by Brad Isnard locates Jessors major works. (Joo Enxuto)The exhibition offers vignettes from Jessors buildings. (Joo Enxuto)AN: The exhibition includes a map of the city that locates Jessors projects. How does this help us understand the development of New York?BI: This map was a first effort to survey everything Jessor worked on, and then to correlate it with wider urban development patterns, which had a lot to do with Robert Moses and the way the State of New York took a more central role in managing the citys development. We had to take a metropolitan view to begin to make sense of it all. Jessor designed more housing units than any other single architect in New York, and today more New Yorkers live in a building designed by him than by anyone else.Jessors buildings are landmarks in their own right, even though the architecture itself is not particularly notable. But as a collection of buildings, theyre very memorable. Most New Yorkers have a sense of these projects already: A Jessor complex [Seward Park] looms over Dimes Square, Penn South has a huge footprint in Midtown, and everyone sees Co-op City when driving on the Hutchinson River Parkway. At the same time, theyre mostly contained within their own campus footprint. Plus this kind of development doesnt seem to exist anywhere else in the country, much less the rest of New York City.The blue areas are where Jessors major works are sited. (Brad Isnard)BI: When you look at the project locations, a portrait emerges of an architect who works at the scale of the city plan. Initially he works on small developments at the periphery of the city in the North Bronx, where there is cheap land upon which you can build dense housing. Then he went down to the Lower East Side, using funding sources that came from urban renewal regulations that emerged in the 1920s and then again in the 1940s. He tweaked his methods as he went along. Theres an interesting interplay between periphery and core that suggests a different vision of suburban development that actually predates the postwar vision of American suburbia that took over, with the carpet of single-family homes. AN: What should architects today learn from Jessor?DR: I think people are hungry for this sort of planning and thinking that we havent seen in the U.S. for a long time. Ive interviewed New York City mayoral candidates who are interested in revisiting Mitchell-Lama, and other alternatives to the private housing industry. I hope this exhibition helps jump start this process in which we can envision what a Mitchell-Lama 2.0 could look like, but also legislation that protects Section 9 public housing, which is also under threat by predatory capital. I dont think piecemeal free market development is going to solve the affordability crisis in New York City.ZP: I also want to just generally talk about what is perceived as good architecture, because these buildings are often not taken into consideration when we talk about good architecture.Resident of Rochdale Village in Queens (Zara Pfeifer)BI: We have a bit of a chip on our shoulder, because Jessors work has largely been discarded and even openly maligned. In the architecture criticism Ive waded through for this research, both contemporary and historic, theres this general, liberal line that goes, Well, its good that it is housing and affordable, but by gosh, why is it so boring and ugly? And then a critic will do a book about why the most expensive single-family home is also the most important piece of architecture theory.Jessors architecture is interesting for a number of reasons but the primary one is: People love living there. This exhibition is one part of a larger project to analyze these housing developments and rescue them from the sentiment of, Oh its modernist and car oriented, so therefore its bad. These things came about because of a much more complex set of relations. The buildings come out of a larger, holistic design economy in which the savings from making a boring building is reaped by the people that live in them, because they collectively own the property. Bringing this ecology back into conversation is vital for us.Herman Jessor on his wedding day, at age 86 (Courtesy Jessor family)BI: As we look back at 1920s New York City, when these developments began to be built, it echoes where we are today, in that there was a huge housing crisis, but also in that there were only two types of residential buildings being built: Really nice, beautiful apartment blocks and then tenements that are expensive and horrible. Weve come full circle, but today we have the added benefit of this archipelago of collective developments that continue to exist in spite of everything. Theres inherent value in learning from that condition and being inspired.

hanohiki - stock.adobe.comNewsApple encryption legal challenge heard behind closed doors despite calls for public hearingInvestigatory Powers Tribunal hearing held behind closed doors as press and civil society groups argue for open hearingsByBill Goodwin,Computer WeeklyPublished: 14 Mar 2025 18:15 The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) held a day-long secret hearing into an appeal brought by Apple against a government notice requiring it to provide law enforcement access to data encrypted by its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service on the iCloud, despite calls for the hearing to be opened to the public.A consortium of 10 media organisations, including the BBC, the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, Reuters and Computer Weekly, alongside the Press Association, filed legal submissions yesterday calling for the case to be heard in open court, as did privacy and human rights groups.The case, heard in the Royal Courts of Justice on 14 March 2025, follows a complaint submitted by Apple to the IPT appealing against a Home Office decision to issue it with a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) that required it to provide UK law enforcement with access to protected by Apples ADP service.The order, issued by home secretary Yvette Cooper in January, extends the existing law enforcement access to encrypted data stored on Apples iCloud service worldwide to users of Apples Advanced Data Protection service who store encryption keys on their own devices.Lawyers, journalists, broadcasters and campaigners waited outside the court for the duration of the hearing, ready to present legal arguments to hold an open hearing, but were not invited to address the court.The case was heard by the president of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, Lord Justice Rabinder Singh, and high court judge Jeremy Johnson. The government was represented by James Eadie KC. Barristers Julian Milford KC and Dan Beard KC represented Apple.Civil society groups Privacy International and Liberty have separately launched a legal challenge against a secret Home Office order. The campaign groups have filed a legal challenge against the Home Office at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal arguing that the way the government has used the secret order, known as a Technical Capability Notice, is not compatible with UK law or the Human Rights Act.The groups say the move by the UK government against Apple will have global consequences by opening up a backdoor to peoples personal data, including messages and documents that could be accessed by hackers and oppressive governments.Liberty and Privacy International warn that the move could impact marginalised groups, such as political dissidents and members of religious and LGBT+ communities, who could be targeted or put under surveillance.The groups argue that the Technical Capability Notice at the centre of the case, and other TCNs in future, could be used to undermine end-to-end encryption, which they argue is essential to the protection of privacy and free expression.The campaign groups said in a statement that giving users control of who can access their data is crucial, particularly for those whose jobs, beliefs or characteristics require enhanced security.Journalists, researchers, lawyers, civil society and human rights defenders rely on encryption because it protects them and their sources, clients and partners from surveillance, harassment and oppression, the groups said.They said that secure and trustworthy end-to-end encryption services are crucial for those who are discriminated against, persecuted or criminalised because of who they are.Vulnerable populations such as religious minorities, LGBT communities, people living with HIV, or political opponents in authoritarian states are particularly dependent on the ability to form communities, communicate and build their lives in spaces without fear of repression or retribution, and free of intrusion by powerful actors who may wish to do them harm, they said.They argue in legal submissions filed at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that the TCN has very clearly not been used for purposes that are compatible with or permitted by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, or by investigatory powers regulations.Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, and Ben Wizner, a civil liberties lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and lead attorney for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, are also challenging the home secretarys TCN notice, as individuals who are likely to be affected by the order.Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director at Privacy International, said the UKs use of a TCN was disproportionate.People the world over rely on end-to-end encryption to protect themselves from harassment and oppression. No country should have the power to undermine that protection for everyone, she added.Akiko Hart, Libertys director, said the governments move would create a backdoor that could be used by hackers and foreign governments to access peoples private data.These plans have been universally criticised, from marginalised communities to tech firms to the US government and beyond. We need concrete guarantees from the UK government that they wont proceed with these plans, she said.Timeline of UK government's order for a backdoor into Apple's encrypted iCloud service7 February: Tech companies brace after UK demands back door access to Apple cloud The UK has served a notice on Apple demanding back door access to encrypted data stored by users anywhere in the world on Apples cloud service.10 February: Apple: British techies to advise on devastating UK global crypto power grab A hitherto unknown British organisation, which even the government may have forgotten about, is about to be drawn into a global technical and financial battle, facing threats from Apple to pull out of the UK.13 February: UK accused of political foreign cyber attack on US after serving secret snooping order on Apple US administration asked to kick UK out of 65-year-old UK-US Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement after secret order to access encrypted data of Apple users.14 February: Top cryptography experts join calls for UK to drop plans to snoop on Apples encrypted data Some of the worlds leading computer science experts have signed an open letter calling for home secretary Yvette Cooper to drop a controversial secret order to require Apple to provide access to users encrypted data.21 February: Apple withdraws encrypted iCloud storage from UK after government demands backdoor access After the Home Office issued a secret order for Apple to open up a backdoor in its encrypted storage, the tech company has instead chosen to withdraw the service from the UK.26 February: US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard probes UK demand for Apples encrypted data 5 March: Apple IPT appeal against backdoor encryption order is test case for bigger targets The Home Office decision to target Apple with an order requiring access to users encrypted data is widely seen as a stalking horse for attacks against encrypted messaging services WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.11 March: Secret London tribunal to hear appeal in Apple vs government battle over encryption A secret tribunal is due to meet at the High Court in London this week to hear tech giant Apple appeal against a Home Office order to compromise the encryption of data stored by its customers on the iCloud service worldwide.13 March: US Congress demands UK lifts gag on Apple encryption order Apple and Google have told US lawmakers that they cannot tell Congress whether they have received technical capability notices from the UK.In The Current Issue:Digital twins map the world and guide strategic decisionsLiverpool reinvents customer service through digital platformDownload Current IssueSLM series - Domino Data Lab: Distillation brings LLM power to SLMs CW Developer NetworkThe pros and cons of enterprise refurbished tech use Green TechView All Blogs

During the third global artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Paris, dozens of governments and companies outlined their commitments to making the technology open, sustainable and work for public interest, but AI experts believe there is a clear tension in the direction of travel.Speaking with Computer Weekly, AI Action Summit attendees highlighted how AI is caught between competing rhetorical and developmental imperatives.They noted, for example, that while the emphasis on AI as an open, public asset is promising, there is worryingly little in place to prevent further centralisations of power around the technology, which is still largely dominated by a handful of powerful corporations and countries.They added that key political and industry figures despite their apparent commitments to more positive, socially useful visions of AI are making a worrying push towards deregulation, which could undermine public trust and create a race to the bottom in terms of safety and standards.Despite the tensions present, there is consensus that the summit opened more room for competing visions of AI, even if there is no guarantee these will win out in the long run.The Paris summit follows the inauguralAI Safety Summit hosted by the UK government at Bletchley Parkin November 2023, and the secondAI Seoul Summit inSouth Koreain May 2024, both of which largely focused on risks associated with the technology and placed an emphasis onimproving its safety through international scientific cooperation and research.To expand the scope of discussions, the AI Action Summit was organised around five dedicated work streams: public service AI, the future of work, innovation and culture, trust in AI, and global governance.During the previous summit in Seoul, tech experts and civil society groups said that while there was a positive emphasis on expanding AI safety research and deepening international scientific cooperation, they had concerns about the domination of the AI safety field by narrow corporate interests.In particular, they stressed the need for mandatory AI safety commitments from companies;socio-technical evaluations of systemsthat take into account how they interact with people and institutions in real-world situations; and wider participation from the public,workersand others affected by AI-powered systems.However, despite the expanded scope of the AI Action Summit, many of these concerns remain in some form.Over the course of the two-day summit, two major initiatives were announced, including the Coalition for Environmentally Sustainable AI, which aims to bring together stakeholders across the AI value chain for dialogue and ambitious collaborative initiatives; and Current AI, a public interest foundation launched by French president Emmanuel Macron that seeks to steer the development of the technology in more socially beneficial directions.Backed by nine governments including Finland, France, Germany, Chile, India, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Slovenia and Switzerland as well as an assortment of philanthropic bodies and private companies (including Google and Salesforce, which are listed as core partners), Current AI aims to reshape the AI landscape by expanding access to high-quality datasets; investing in open source tooling and infrastructure to improve transparency around AI; and measuring its social and environmental impact.European governments and private companies also partnered to commit around 200bn to AI-related investments, which is currently the largest public-private investment in the world. In the run up to the summit, Macron announced the country would attract 109bn worth of private investment in datacentres and AI projects in the coming years.The summit ended with 61 countries including France, China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada signing a Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet at the AI Action Summit in Paris, which affirmed a number of shared priorities.This includes promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides between rich and developing countries; ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all; avoiding market concentrations around the technology; reinforcing international cooperation; making AI sustainable; and encouraging deployments that positively shape labour markets.However, the UK and US governments refused to sign thejoint declaration. While it is still not clear exactly why, a spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer said at the time that the government would only ever sign up to initiatives that are in UK national interests.Throughout the course of the event, AI developers and key political figures from the US and Europe including US vice-president JD Vance, Macron, and European commissioner Ursula von der Leyen decried regulatory red tape around AI, arguing it is holding back innovation.Vance, for example, said excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry, while both Macron and European Union (EU) digital chief Henna Virkkunen strongly indicated that the bloc would simplify its rules and implement them in a business-friendly way to help AI on the continent scale. We have to cut red tape and we will, von der Leyen added.There were also several developments in the immediate wake of the summit. This includes the EU gutting its AI liability directive, which focused on providing recourse to people when their rights have been infringed by AI systems, and the rebranding of the UKs AI Safety Institute to the AI Security Institute (AISI), which means it will no longer consider bias and freedom of expression issues, and focus more narrowly on security of the technology.Out of those Computer Weekly spoke with, many identified a clear tension in the direction of travel set for the technology over the course of the summit.For example, although key political figures were espousing rhetoric about the need for open, inclusive, sustainable and public interest AI in one breath, in the next they were decrying regulatory red tape, while committing hundreds of billions to proliferating the technology without clear guardrails.For Sandra Wachter a professor of technology and regulation, with a focus on AI ethics and law, at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) it is unclear which red tape political figures such as Macron, Vance and von der Leyen were even referring to.I often ask people to list the laws that are standing in the way of progress, she said. In many areas, we dont even have laws, or when we do have laws they arent good enough to actually address this, so I dont see how any of this is holding AI back.Highlighting common AI booster rhetoric championed by political and industry figures, Wachter said she would like to see the conversation flipped on its head: If my technology is so beneficial, if my products are so good for everyone, why wouldnt I guarantee its safety by holding myself to account?Commenting on the EUs decision to quietly rescind its AI liability directive in the wake of the summit, Wachter said that while other avenues still exist to challenge harmful automated decision-making, the decision represents a worrying potential sea change for AI regulation.It worries me a lot because its been done under the We need to foster innovation banner, but what type of innovation? For whom? Who wins if we have biased, unsustainable, misleading, deceptive AI? she said, adding that it is not clear to her how the lives of every citizen will be improved by people not being able to get their day in court if AI has harmed them.Is it the eight billionaires, or the other eight billion people? Its very clear that most people will not benefit from a system that isnt tested, that isnt safe, that is racist, and that destroys the planet so this idea that regulation is holding back innovation is completely misguided. Its very clear that most people will not benefit from a system that isnt tested, that isnt safe, that is racist, and that destroys the planet so this idea that regulation is holding back innovation is completely misguided Sandra Wachter, Oxford Internet Institute Wachter added that AI is an inherently problematic technology, in that its problems are rooted in how it works, meaning that if it is going to be used for any kind of greater good, then you have to make sure that you hold those negative side effects back as much as possible.Further warning against the dangers of creating a false dichotomy around innovation and regulation, Linda Griffin, vice-predicant of global affairs at Mozilla, said: We should be very sceptical of claims against regulation.She added that she personally finds the anti-regulation rhetoric worrying: Innovation, growth and profits for a handful of the biggest companies in the world does not mean innovation and growth for the rest of us.Gaia Marcus, director of the Ada Lovelace Institute (ALI), also came away from the summit feeling like were at something of a crossroads when it comes to AI development and deployment, arguing that governments need to build out the incentives to make sure any AI systems deployed in their jurisdictions are both safe and trustworthy.She added that it was especially important to ensure alternative models and systems are built outside the walled gardens of big tech, so governments wont be paying extortionate rents to a few technology companies for a generation; and for any incentives introduced to ensure the safety of general-purpose AI systems at the bottom of the technology stack, which everything else is built on top of.Commenting on the current inflection point of AI, Marcus said: One path is really about winners and losers, about pushing corporate interests or a narrow set of national interests ahead of the public interest, which wed say is a path to nowhere, and then the other path is about nations working together to build a world where AI works for people in society.For international cooperation to be successful, Marcus said that in the same way there are shared standards and norms around aviation or pharmaceuticals it is key to create shared infrastructure for building and testing AI systems.She added: Theyll be no greater barrier to the transformative potential of AI than fading public confidence, and that like-minded countries which recognise the costs of unaddressed risks must find other forums to continue building the safety agenda. For a summit that was framed around action, we really wanted to see governments urgently coming together to start building the incentives, institutions and alternatives that will enable broad access and enjoyment of the benefits of AI.However, Marcus acknowledged that the current geopolitical situation between the US, China and the EU makes it harder to ensure pre-deployment safety, at least in the short term.Despite the geopolitical tensions present and the calls for deregulation, Mike Bracken, a founding partner at digital transformation consultancy Public Digital, was more optimistic about the prospects for international collaboration going forward, arguing that AIs constituent elements means it always requires a mixture of sovereign action and collaboration.Each country needed its own datacentres. Where you locate them, how you fund them, who operates them, what tooling they work and what power they use that is an almost entirely sovereign question to each country, he said.But once youve got all that set up, you still need to collaborate around data. The data structures that helped create AlphaFold were essentially the creation of international collaboration. We have some sovereign data, but for this to be a truly global play, were going to have to share and that means understanding diverse regulatory environments and having a place to share them.For Bracken, the major success of the summit was in how it managed to reset the narrative around AI by casting it as a public asset.Resetting AI as a public good and basically as a team sport is good for all of us, he said. The real politik of that, the technology involved, the players, that makes it a messy business, and its an inexact science, but when we look back, well look back at this as the moment where AI was reset as a public asset.Bracken also praised Current AI as a really strong outcome of the summit: Ive attended many government-backed events which result in statements and handshakes and warm words the ones that really matter are the ones that result in institutions, money, change and delivery.What Macron has done is change the weather. Were now talking about AI as a public asset its there to help with health and education and all these other sectors, and is not simply seen as an extension of monopolistic technology providers.Commenting on the launch of Current AI, Nyalleng Moorosi a research fellow at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) who previously worked for Google as a software engineer said that while it is promising to see public resources being committed to develop AI as a shared resource, what exactly constitutes public interest still needs to be properly defined to avoid capture by narrow corporate interests.It depends on how the models get built. You certainly have to worry about representation and bias and inclusion, but then its also about what architectures you choose. Were going to want tools that are auditable, that have some transparency, she said.You also have to be very careful about what you outsource and the kinds of contracts you sign, because even if its public AI, you might still be using cloud compute from private companies, and you want to make sure you dont get locked into contracts where its not very clear about who owns the public data or whats sharable, and the kinds of security guarantees in place. Private industry does want this data, and we should not forget how powerful private industry is.Marcus said that while the emphasis on sustainable, public interest AI is a positive development of the summit in that its pushing an vision of the technology where the tooling and infrastructure underpinning it are widely accessible. Current AI will need to maintain a wide range of funding sources to ensure its ongoing independence and avoid the risks of corporate capture, as well as be very transparent with its aims and its allocation of resources, time and money.Echoing Moorosi, Marcus added that it is also currently not clear what is meant by public interest exactly: That could mean so many different things, and public interest AI should continue to mean loads of different things, as long as that doesnt lead to a sort of public interest washing. Any meaningful intervention that aims to centre the interest of the public needs to go beyond aligning with the innovation narrative Abeba Birhane, Artificial Intelligence Accountability LabOn public participation in AI development and regulation, Marcus concluded: Hopefully this has given us the floor and not the ceiling in terms of wider civil society participation you need the voices of people that represent various publics to know that youve got that vision piece.Andrew Strait, associate director at the ALI, said that although it is commendable that Current AI is steering the technology towards public interest use cases and wider accessibility particularly through its emphasis on open source approaches it will likely face conflicting pressure from its funders: I think the challenge will be who sits in their governance board, who sits in the steering committee, and how well can they keep the focus on non-profit, public interest projects.In a blog post published in the wake of the summit, Abeba Birhane, founder and principal investigator at the Artificial Intelligence Accountability Lab (AIAL), also questioned what public interest means in the context of AI: There is nothing that makes AI systems inherently good. Without intentional rectification and proper guardrails, AI often leads to surveillance, manipulation, inequity and erosion of fundamental rights and human agency while concentrating power, wealth and influence in the hands of AI developers and vendors.She added that current public interest approaches characterised by a focus on equipping public institutions with AI tools and AI-for-good initiatives that seek to use the technology to solve social, cultural or political issues; and improving existing systems by, for example, reducing their bias boil down to giving the public more AI or feeding existing corporate models with more or better data.Birhane said that while many of these approaches are well-meaning, and it might be a mistake to cast all these initiatives as unproductive and unhelpful, they fall largely within the techno-solutionist paradigm the belief that all or most problems can be solved through technology.This approach is unlikely to bring about any meaningful change to the public, as these techno-centric solutions are never developed outside of corporate silos. Any meaningful intervention that aims to centre the interest of the public needs to go beyond aligning with the innovation narrative.Most of those Computer Weekly spoke with characterised market concentration as the defining issue around AI.Its probably the most important thing because its about power, and thats what it all boils down to who has power and who is dependent on whom, said Wachter, adding that it is vital to decrease dependency on a select few cloud compute providers or chip manufacturers.She further added that aside from the market power wielded by a few companies, discussions around AI are largely dominated internationally by the US and China, and to a lesser extent the EU: Thats not all of the world, a lot of other countries are affected by AI, but dont have a voice in shaping it.Commenting on the central role played by the Indian government during the AI Action Summit, Bracken said this was a France-India summit, and that the subcontinents highly centralised technology estate, which has brought hundreds of millions of people into the formal economy, was largely done via open source tech deployments.Theyre not using proprietary licenses like the G7, theyve done it themselves. And, of course, they are incredibly well-positioned. Theyre already delivering AI-based services in many sectors and regions. Macron was smart to invite them in.He added that given the sheer size of Indias population, on top of the 500 million in Europe, suddenly youre talking real numbers we might just look back at this as the moment where public AI became a thing set for billions of people.On the next summit, which Macron confirmed will be hosted in India, Griffin said: The French did a good job of broadening the tent and making it more inclusive, so if India can double down on that, it will be really important not being in Europe, not being in the US, not being in China, its got a chance to really think about how the rest of us kind of fit into this.However, Wachter warned that to effectively bring more voices into conversations around AI and help positively shape the technologys direction of travel, there needs to be a rejection of arms-race rhetoric, which only serves as a negative mental model where the only way to travel is downward.Thats the only direction that you can go if you think you have to constantly underbid your opponent, its just a race to the bottom otherwise, she said. Its not about throwing all our values overboard and saying, Well, they are jumping off the bridge, lets beat them to the punch and jump off the bridge faster, its about fostering technologies that adhere to our stated values.Highlighting how consumers are more likely to buy Fairtrade products because they know its ethically sourced, Wachter said governments similarly need to incentivise and invest in ethical AI approaches that prove systems have been built with the social and safety consequences of the technology in mind. Thats the only way of changing course away from racing into the abyss, she said.Many of those Computer Weekly spoke with said that one of the most positive aspects of the summit wasnt the main conference, but the fringe events happening on the margins. For Griffin, these events allowed for freer conversations in which people were able to express their deep concerns and anger over the current degree of market concentration around AI.Ive not come across any other big AI gatherings where people were able to really sharply define and call out how its not in anyones interest to have this market so concentrated like it is now, she said, highlighting how the renewed emphasis on open source and public interest AI is a seed that can help move us away from proprietary, black-box AI development, and the pure for-profit motive.In attempting to solve the problem of market concentration, European leaders at the summit laid out how open source would be an integral part of their AI approaches.Marcus said this new emphasis on open source AI while not a silver bullet can help to undermine the monoculture underpinning the development and deployment of AI tools by introducing greater plurality to the mix, while simultaneously pushing the dial in terms of whats expected of large companies developing proprietary systems by improving their degrees of openness to allow for more meaningful evaluations and audits.However, Strait warned that open source approaches can also be leveraged by corporate incumbents to their advantage, pointing to how open source communities have previously been tapped by large corporates as a source of free labour that theyve used to build up their walled gardens and dependencies.Just because you make something accessible doesnt mean it automatically creates public benefit or avoids further entrenching the power of major players who have every right to use the same open source projects for their own purposes but if you use it to give other organisations access to something private companies already have, it can help produce a more level playing field, he said.Strait agreed that while the open source AI is hardly going to solve all the issues around the technology, making cutting-edge tools more accessible to a wider pool of people can help challenge AIs market concentration, as well as reverse behind-closed-doors development trend that currently characterises the technology.For Moorosi, the turn towards open source tooling and architectures during the Action Summit can help place a greater emphasis on smaller, more tailored and context-specific AI models which are less resource-intensive than the big Silicon Valley models as well as empower a greater diversity of developers to influence and control the direction of AI.Lots of progress happens when multiple people are able to tinker with these technologies, she said, adding that its imperative to support localised AI model building that is directly tied to peoples needs in a specific context, rather than trying to foist privately controlled large language model (LLM) infrastructure onto every situation.Theres so much that can be done with small models, and so many times, when its a really critical application, you do want small, because you want auditability and explainability, she said, adding that smaller models can be particularly powerful when underpinned by tailored, high-quality data sets.One of the things you find with these massive models is that they are optimised over too many things, so it does pretty good on a lot of things, but when it really matters you need excellence you need to minimise error, and you need to be able to track and catch any errors fast.Highlighting the current situation where AI development is centred around creating the biggest models with as much data as possible before throwing it out into the world, Griffin agreed there needs to be a move towards more precise applications of AI, especially for public service delivery.You cant just have proprietary, walled garden models where no one understands whats going into them, because theres no public trust, she said. Theres a lot of talk in the UK and other countries about AI manifestly changing public services, brilliant, Im up for that but theres no public trust, thats the missing element thats why open source is really important and breaking this market concentration is important too.However, despite her concerns, Griffin said that the summit was a resounding success when it came to changing the conversation around open source, which during the previous two summits was treated exclusively as a risk.Open for opens sake is bad, said Griffin, but the current leaders in the market have their proprietary systems and open source isnt in their commercial interests, so theyve been very good at briefing against it and making policy-makers worry. All AI is tricky and dangerous, but its not a particular characteristic that belongs to open source, and even open source needs guardrails.Similar points were made by Wachter, who argued that it is important to look who is arguing against open source and why they may have an interest in closed systems not open to others.She added that although the question of open source is nuanced, in that you must consider things such as infrastructural dependencies and data access, the general idea of open source is great because it allows others to enter the market and develop new things. It also makes auditing easier. Are there risks? Yes, of course. There is risk with everything, but just because theres risk doesnt mean that this would outweigh the benefits that come from it.Griffin said that there has been a realisation in Europe which was vocalised during the event by head of Current AI, Martin Tisne that unless youre the US or China, were all in the same boat with AI, and we cant play in this arena unless we have open systems.Griffin said governments outside of these two major power blocs should think about the levers they have available to move the dial on open source even further, which could include building their own national models as Greece and Spain are doing; providing material support to businesses building in the open or otherwise contributing to open data sets; and placing open source requirements in AI procurement rules. Its not headline-grabbing, but I think thats what needs to happen, she said. [Silicon Valley firms are] not factoring in the cost of having a whole community without water, a whole community without electricity, or the mental health impacts of data workers Nyalleng Moorosi, Distributed AI Research InstituteMoorosi further argued that a greater emphasis on smaller AI models can also reduce the negative environmental and social externalities associated with the development of LLMs, and which are rarely considered for by Silicon Valley firms as they dont internalise the costs themselves.Theyre not factoring in the cost of having a whole community without water, a whole community without electricity, or the mental health impacts of data workers, she said, adding that mass web scraping means theyre not even paying for the public or copyrighted data fuelling their models.If youre not paying for the data and youre not paying for any of your externalities, then obviously it feels like you can access infinite resources to build the infinite machine. Africans have to think about cost we dont have infinite money, we dont have infinite compute and it forces you to think differently and be creative.On eliminating the unfair labour practices by multinational tech firms without which the technology would not exist in its current state Moorosi said that their ability to outsource AI work to jurisdictions with lax labour regulations should be restricted, which could be done by implementing laws prohibiting the differential pricing that allows them to pay people less because of where theyre based in the world.If you work in a developing country, you dont get paid as much as if you work in Mountain View or Zurich, even if you do the same job, she said.Despite some positive steps made during the summit, most of those Computer Weekly spoke with said that the intense concentration of the whole AI stack remains their most pressing concern that needs to be resolved.Highlighting the history of the internet which was initially developed for military communications before being opened, and then closed-off again via a process of corporate enclosure in the late 1990s Griffin, for example, said there has been a lot of collective amnesia I dont think people really understand or think enough about the steps that happened or didnt happen to keep the internet open We have interoperable email. That was not a certainty.She added that open source is a key ingredient in the antidote to market concentration, and creating a future where control over the development and deployment of AI technology is much more distributed.Bracken said that while there is now a clear emphasis, especially in Europe, on the need for open source tooling and sovereign capabilities outside the purview of large American technology firms, achieving economic growth with AI will depend on the willingness of governments to actively intervene in markets.Youve got to be active, youve got to shape the market to the outcomes that you want, he added. The characterisation of AIs importance to society so far has been too often on either end of an extreme the first around existential safety, and another end around wildly buoyant enthusiasm from those who seek to capture the regulatory environment, as if there are only five or six companies that can really give us AI.Bracken concluded that while he understands both the exuberance of the market and concerns about the potentially existential risk of the technology, both of those positions are now untenable.For Marcus, concentration has created a lack of political vision around the future of AI, as the domination of the technology by relatively narrow national or corporate interests means there are currently a lack of credible alternatives being built.We need to know there are credible attempts to broaden the universe of those potential futures by various people having a stake in the technologies that could get built and the data that underpin them, she said. [We also] need to ask the fundamental question whether states are in the position to manage the incentives around what technologies get deployed in their in their jurisdictions weve got a lot of drive to build, but we dont know if the roof is going to hold and the walls are safe, and thats pretty important.Moorosi added that she is particularly concerned about AIs market concentration in the context of the technologys increasing militarisation, arguing that the trend towards both tech giants and small AI startups hawking their wares to defence contractors or state military bodies is creating a literal arms race. This militarisation could undermine efforts towards responsible and public interest AI, as it will likely prioritise power concentration and secrecy over inclusivity, she said.Contracts in the military and warfare are so massive that I feel like there wouldnt be much of an incentive to develop for anything else, except a little bit on the side here and there, she said, noting the use of AI tools in Gaza by the Israeli military which reportedly have high error rates and have contributed to the indiscriminate killing of civilians means any claims to greater precision should be challenged. AI in warfare is currently a really crude science.Going into the next summit, Strait said that we need to rethink the current emphasis on deregulation: What the public and even businesses need is reassurance the technology is safe, effective and reliable you cant do that without regulation, and reputational pressure will only get you so far.There is a lot more to do in terms of how you can create a more equitable and thriving market of AI that is more internationally inclusive and not just dominated by a handful of large US technology companies. Fundamentally its never good when you have a handful of technology companies based in Silicon Valley deciding a technology that is changing our energy policy, climate policy, foreign policy and security policy thats a very unhealthy environment.Read more about AI technologyLord Holmes warns of increasingly urgent need to regulate AI: The real-world negative impacts of artificial intelligence will only get worse if the UK does not move to regulate the technology in a way that centres on accountability, trust and public participation, says Lord HolmesKenyan AI workers form Data Labelers Association: A group of Kenyan data workers whose labour provides the backbone of modern artificial intelligence systems set up the Data Labelers Association to improve their working conditions and raise awareness about the challenges they face.DSIT permanent secretary says more AI transparency needed: The government must improve transparency around the use of artificial intelligence systems throughout the public sector if it is going to gain and retain trust in how the technology is being deployed.

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