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WWW.ZDNET.COMThe one feature Bluesky really needsYou just followed a fascinating new account on Bluesky. But does that account really belong to who you think it does?0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 129 Views
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WWW.ZDNET.COM5 browser extension rules to keep your system safe in 2025If you use browser extensions, you should be careful about which ones you install and use. Here's how you can do that.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 145 Views
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WWW.FORBES.COMNYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Tuesday, January 7Answers for today's NYT Mini Crossword are just ahead.New York TimesIn case you missed Mondays NYT Mini, you can find the answers here:Wondering what a Man in Business Suit Levitating might be? Not sure what Dutch cheese is made backward? Dont worry, because I'm here to help you with the answers for today's NYT Mini crossword.The NYT Mini is a quick and dirty version of the newspaper's larger and long-running crossword. Most days, there are between three and five clues in each direction on a five by five grid, but the puzzles are sometimes larger, especially on Saturdays.Unlike its larger sibling, the NYT Mini crossword is free to play on the New York Times website or NYT Games app. However, youll need an NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives.MORE FOR YOUTo help you avoid getting stuck and having to reveal missing letters, here are the NYT Mini Crossword answers for Tuesday, January 7 (spoilers lie ahead, of course):NYT Mini Crossword Clues And AnswersNYT Mini Across Answers1 Across: Man in Business Suit Levitating, for one EMOJI6 Across: Took a nap DOZED7 Across: Flying solo ALONE8 Across: Graphic novel style for One Piece, the best-selling of its kind MANGA9 Across: Genuine REALNYT Mini Down Answers1 Down: Dutch cheese that's "made backward," per a joke EDAM2 Down: Grinding tooth MOLAR3 Down: Gas made of three oxygen atoms OZONE4 Down: Game that might end if you accidentally bump the table JENGA5 Down: Like the best-case scenario IDEALCompleted New York Times Mini crossword for Tuesday, January 7New York TimesIt took me 1:03 to complete today's NYT Mini.Not a terrible time, Ill take that. EMOJI was the one that really tripped me up today, but by opting for slept instead of DOZED on my first pass, I made things slightly more difficult for myself. At least it was clear that was incorrect as soon as I got to the Down clues thanks to EDAM.Make sure to follow my blog for more coverage of the NYT Mini and other word games, as well as video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! Its fun there.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 143 Views
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WWW.FORBES.COMSam Altman AGI & AI Workforce In 2025: The Battle Of Tech GiantsSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 06: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman smiles during the OpenAI DevDay event ... [+] on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Altman delivered the keynote address at the first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)Getty ImagesOpenAI has always been great at grabbing attention in the news. Their announcements often come with big, bold claims. For example, they announced GPT-2 but said it was too dangerous to release. Or their 12 Days of Christmas campaign, where they showcased a new product every day for 12 days.Now, Sam Altman has shared his thoughts on last year, focusing on the dramatic boardroom soap opera around his firing and return. He also made a bold prediction:"We now know how to build AGI as its usually understood. In 2025, we think AI agents will join the workforce and change how companies work."AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) means creating an AI thats as smart and general as a human. Unlike narrow AI, which is built for specific tasks like translating languages, playing chess, or recognizing faces, AGI can handle any intellectual task and adapt across different areas. While I dont think AGI is near, I do believe AI will join the workforce but maybe not in the way Altman imagines.Is AGI Near? No, At least Not The AGI We (or Sam) ImagineThe arrival of AGI in 2025 seems very unlikely. Todays AI, like ChatGPT, works by recognizing patterns and making predictions not by truly understanding. For example, completing the phrase Life is like a box of with chocolates relies on probabilities, not reasoning.I dont believe AGI will happen by 2025, and many experts agree. Demis Hassabis, who I worked with at Google, predicts AGI could arrive around 2035. Ray Kurzweil estimates 2032, and Jrgen Schmidhuber, director of IDSIA, suggests closer to 2050. The skeptics are many, and the timeline remains uncertain.MORE FOR YOUDoes It Matter When? AI Is Already Powerful.Maybe it doesnt matter exactly when AGI will arrive. Even Sam Altman recently downplayed the G in AGI, saying:"My guess is we will hit AGI sooner than most people think, and it will matter much less."I agree with this to some extent. AI already has impressive capabilities. For example, Netflixs AI knows your movie preferences better than your partner. TikToks algorithms have even been joked about for recognizing someones sexual orientation before they did. AI excels at pattern recognitionand in many cases, its better at it than humans.Sam Altman Sees That AI Join The WorkforceThe more important point in Sams memo is his belief that AI will join the workforce. I completely agree this is going to happen. As I wrote in my AI agent update, for AI to succeed in the workplace, it needs two key things: (1) access to tools and (2) access to data. These are the building blocks for making AI truly effective in enterprise settings. However, even though Sam often links this idea to AGI, it might not be OpenAI leading the charge to provide these AI workforce solutions.Microsofts Pole Position Access To UsersWho has the workforce tools? Microsoft. Microsoft. Microsoft. They are in pole position. Most people already use Microsoft products whether they like it or not and AI is becoming deeply integrated into these tools, with Copilots appearing everywhere.In 2023 and 2024, many startups launched impressive AI services for office jobs, only to be quickly overshadowed by giants like Microsoft and Google, which have direct access to customers. Take Jasper.ai, for example a once-celebrated AI tool for drafting text. As I pointed out in this LinkedIn post, similar features are now built directly into Google and Microsoft products, making it increasingly difficult for smaller players to compete.The Power Of Data AccessAI needs data to be truly effective. If youre looking for answers about a companys internal processes or insights from documents, general tools like ChatGPT wont cut it. What we need are tools that can read and summarize company documents, tailored specifically for enterprise use. As Ive said before, 2025 will be the year of SEARCH especially enterprise search. Tools that can answer questions, summarize content, and help users navigate complex information will be game-changers.Who has access to this kind of data? Microsoft is a big player, but theyre not alone. Salesforce, for instance, holds an enormous trove of valuable data customer interactions, discussions, process documents, marketing strategies, and more. Does Salesforce want AI agents to help unlock this potential? Absolutely.Its no surprise that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently took a jab at Microsoft. He called their AI assistant, Copilot, disappointing, saying, It just doesnt work, and it doesnt deliver any level of accuracy. He even dubbed it Clippy 2.0 the funniest insult Ive heard in a while before rolling out Salesforces own AI solution, Agent Forces.OpenAI Is just The Smartest Tool?OpenAI doesnt have the same level of data access or consumer reach as Microsoft, nor does it have Salesforces treasure trove of business data. So, whats their angle? They claim to be the smartest tool on the block and they probably are, although I personally find Anthropics Claude 3.5 currently better than OpenAIs GPT-4.OpenAI is betting on their ability to outperform everyone else with superior technology. Thats why Sam Altman confidently claims well see AGI. Whats behind that bold claim? Reasoning or, as OpenAI calls it, Reasoning.OpenAI and ReasoningOpenAI recently launched o1, a model designed to showcase advanced reasoning capabilities through an iterative, self-calling process:Iteration and Reflection: The model generates an output, evaluates or critiques it, and refines it in a new round of reasoning.Feedback Loop: This creates a feedback loop where the model revisits its outputs, critiques them, and improves them further.In essence, GPT with o1 doesnt just provide answers it plans, critiques the plan, and continuously improves it.Whats especially noteworthy is the paradigm shift this represents. Instead of simply releasing a bigger model like GPT-5, the next generation of AI models is focused on "thinking longer" during inference. This ability to process iteratively may be what Sam Altman refers to when he says, We now know how to build AGI.Reasoning Is Enough of a Reason?But does "reasoning" alone get OpenAI into the game? OpenAI still needs access to data and a strong user presence, similar to Salesforce or Microsoft. To address this, OpenAI launched the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS. This app can now read code directly from developer-focused tools like VS Code, Xcode, TextEdit, Terminal, and iTerm2. This means developers no longer need to copy and paste their code into ChatGPTa common workaround until now. Its a really useful tool and a smart move to integrate deeper into the developer workflow.Chatting With Large Language Models Costs MoneyEvery call to a large language model (LLM) costs money. For heavy ChatGPT users, the $20 subscription might not even cover the cost of their usage. OpenAI recently raised $6.6 billion in a Series E funding rounda much-needed boost to sustain their operations. While Agentforce generates solid revenue from its customers, and Microsoft enjoys a massive financial war chest, OpenAI is still in the early stages of getting businesses and users to pay enough to offset the steep costs of developing cutting-edge AI.Their $200-per-month premium tier, which includes the expanded version of O1, is a move in this direction. But is it worth the price? Perhaps this is why AGI keeps being part of the conversationit helps justify the premium positioning. However, the race to create superior models is far from over. Even O1 could soon be outpaced by open-source alternatives, as weve seen before with Metas Llama.Speaking of Meta, Im confident well see their attempts to monetize AI models in 2025. Ultimately, the biggest challenge for these players remains clear: justifying enormous costs without securing a steady and reliable revenue stream.Sam is right: AI Agents Will Be In The WorkforceIn 2025, well see more AI agents entering the workforce, transforming workflows by simplifying, enhancing, and automating tasks across industries. These wont be all-encompassing AGI models but smaller, specialized models designed for dedicated workflows. AI will scale and improve processes one step at a time, combining traditional AI, context retrieval, and robust user design to tackle challenges like security, hallucinations, and user control.Success will hinge on delivering value through well-integrated, user-friendly, and ethically designed solutions, as outlined in my framework for building enterprise-ready AI tools. For Sam Altman, the key strategic question wont be about achieving AGI but about how to price OpenAIs base models for enterprise customers like Microsoft or Salesforceespecially if OpenAI ends up competing directly with them.But How Will We Work With Those New AI Colleagues?Enterprises will emerge as the winners in the race for better models, better data, and better integrations. Their main focus should be on training employees and customers to work effectively with their new AI colleagues. In my eCornell certificate course on AI solutions, I saw firsthand how productivity soared once students learned to communicate with an AI co-pilot. Initially, many struggled to achieve results, but a step-by-step guide on interacting with AI made a significant difference.Why? Because even with reasoning and planning capabilities, AI isnt truly general yet, no matter how much hype Sam Altman creates. Students had to learn when to rely on the AI and when to apply human judgment. I believe 2025 will be the year companies realize this need and invest heavily in AI education.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 136 Views
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WWW.TECHSPOT.COMHDMI 2.2 and DisplayPort 2.1b debut at CES, introducing higher bandwidth and longer cablesWhat just happened? The announcements from CES are coming thick and fast. As expected, there have been updates to the two main display interface standards: HDMI and DisplayPort. The former, HDMI 2.2, offers increased bandwidth for a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates, while the latter, DisplayPort 2.1b, increases active cable lengths. The HDMI Forum had hinted at the reveal of HDMI 2.2 at CES in December. As we predicted then, the latest standard does not require a new connector, but taking advantage of all its best features will require a new cable.The new cable, called Ultra96, will enable HDMI 2.2's increased bandwidth of 96Gbps. That's double the 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 and is more than the 80Gbps supported by DisplayPort 2.1.The resolution/refresh rate combinations mentioned in the HDMI Forum's release for HDMI 2.2. include 4K at up to 480Hz, 8K at up to 240Hz, and 10K at 120Hz resolution support reaches 16K. The current HDMI 2.1 standard supports up to 10K@120Hz using Display Stream Compression (DSC) and 8K@60Hz without DSC.We currently don't have any commercial monitors or displays that are capable of these specs, but they will be here eventually. Until then, the Forum writes that the 96Gbps of bandwidth will improve demanding data-intensive, immersive and virtual applications such as AR/VR/MR, spatial reality and light field displays. It will also be useful in various commercial applications such as large-scale digital signage, medical imaging and machine vision.HDMI 2.2 also introduces Latency Indication Protocol (LIP). This improves audio and video synchronization, especially for multi-device systems such as those with AV receivers or a soundbar. LIP could be especially welcome by those whose systems can't seem to precisely synchronize the dialogue being heard with the actors' mouth movements. // Related StoriesHDMI 2.2 is set to arrive in the first half of this year, when companies will receive the full specifications. Don't expect to see the latest standard implemented in devices such as monitors or graphics cards for quite a while, though. The gap between HDMI 2.1 and the first supported TVs was about 2 years, and it took around four years before gaining widespread adoption.HDMI 2.2 is backward compatible, so it will work with anything featuring an older HDMI port. Buyers of an "Ultra96 Certified Cable" can use the HDMI Forum's labelling program to confirm it's the real thing by scanning the QR code on the box.The new DisplayPort 2.1b specification is certainly a smaller upgrade, but still a welcome one. VESA has announced new DP80LL ("low loss") active cables that enable up to four-lane UHBR20 link rate support, offering up to 80Gbps of bandwidth over lengths of up to three meters (9.4 feet). This triples the length of UHBR20 connections compared to existing DP80 passive cables.Nvidia's newly announced RTX 5000-series cards support DisplayPort 2.1b. VESA says Nvidia has been actively collaborating with the organization to ensure optimal performance and compatibility between the GPUs and DisplayPort 2.1b.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 158 Views
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WWW.WSJ.COMMicrosoft Plans to Invest $3 Billion on AI, Cloud Infrastructure in IndiaThe company plans to grow the companys Azure cloud business in India and set up new data centers.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 156 Views
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WWW.NEWSCIENTIST.COMCovid-19 led to a new era of vaccines that could transform medicineHealthmRNA vaccines have been a long time coming, but were only approved after covid-19 emerged, marking the beginning of a new way of preventing and treating various conditions 1 January 2025 Some covid-19 vaccines are based on long-anticipated mRNA technologyThe covid-19 pandemic saw the advent of a revolutionary technology: the first vaccines to be approved that contain messenger RNA (mRNA). The approach helped scientists create vaccines based on this genetic material in less than a year, turning the tide of the pandemic and shattering the previous four-year record set by the mumps vaccine.Not only have these new vaccines saved millions of lives, they have also confirmed the potential of mRNA to transform treatments. Today, hundreds of trials for mRNA-based therapies are under way. This is a technology thats0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 130 Views
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WWW.TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COMHow optimistic are you about AIs future?This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. The start of a new year, and maybe especially this one, feels like a good time for a gut check: How optimistic are you feeling about the future of technology? Our annual list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies, published on Friday, might help you decide. Its the 24th time weve published such a list. But just like our earliest picks (2001s list featured brain-computer interfaces and ways to track copyrighted content on the internet, by the way), this years technologies may come to help society, harm it, or both. Artificial intelligence powers four of the breakthroughs featured on the list, and I expect your optimism about them will vary widely. Take generative AI search. Now becoming the norm on Google with its AI Overviews, it promises to help sort through the internets incomprehensible volume of information to offer better answers for the questions we ask. Along the way, it is upending the model of how content creators get paid, and positioning fallible AI as the arbiter of truth and facts. Read more here. Also making the list is the immense progress in the world of robots, which can now learn faster thanks to AI. This means we will soon have to wrestle with whether we will trust humanoid robots enough to welcome them into our most private spaces, and how we will feel if they are remotely controlled by human beings working abroad. The list also features lots of technologies outside the world of AI, which I implore you to read about if only for a reminder of just how much other scientific progress is being made. This year may see advances in studying dark matter with the largest digital camera ever made for astronomy, reducing emissions from cow burps, and preventing HIV with an injection just once every six months. We also detail how technologies that youve long heard aboutfrom robotaxis to stem cellsare finally making good on some of their promises. This year, the cultural gulf between techno-optimists and, well, everyone else is set to widen. The incoming administration will be perhaps the one most shaped by Silicon Valley in recent memory, thanks to Donald Trumps support from venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen (the author of the Techno-Optimist Manifesto) and his relationship, however recently fraught, with Elon Musk. Those figures have critiqued the Biden administrations approach to technology as slow, woke, and overly cautiousattitudes they have vowed to reverse. So as we begin a year of immense change, heres a small experiment Id encourage you to do. Think about your level of optimism for technology and whats driving it. Read our list of breakthroughs. Then see how youve shifted. I suspect that, like many people, youll find you dont fit neatly in the camp of either optimists or pessimists. Perhaps thats where the best progress will be made. Now read the rest of The Algorithm Deeper Learning The biggest AI flops of 2024 Though AI has remained in the spotlight this year (and even contributed to Nobel Prizewinning research in chemistry), it has not been without its failures. Take a look back over the years top AI failures, from chatbots dishing out illegal advice to dodgy AI-generated search results. Why it matters: These failures show that there are tons of unanswered questions about the technology, including who will moderate what it produces and how, whether were getting too trusting of the answers that chatbots produce, and what well do with the mountain of AI slop that is increasingly taking over the internet. Above all, they illustrate the many pitfalls of blindly shoving AI into every product we interact with. Bits and Bytes What it's like being a pedestrian in the world of Waymos Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler finds that Waymo robotaxis regularly fail to stop for him at a crosswalk he uses every day. Though you can sometimes make eye contact with human drivers to gauge whether theyll stop, Waymos lack that social intelligence, Fowler writes. (The Washington Post) The AI Hype Index For each print issue, MIT Technology Review publishes an AI Hype Index, a highly subjective take on the latest buzz about AI. See where facial recognition, AI replicas of your personality, and more fall on the index. (MIT Technology Review) What's going on at the intersection of AI and spirituality Modern religious leaders are experimenting with A. just as earlier generations examined radio, television, and the internet. They include Rabbi Josh Fixler, who created Rabbi Bot, a chatbot trained on his old sermons. (The New York Times) Meta has appointed its most prominent Republican to lead its global policy team Just two weeks ahead of Donald Trumps inauguration, Meta has announced it will appoint Joel Kaplan, who was White House deputy chief of staff under George W. Bush, to the companys top policy role. Kaplan will replace Nick Clegg, who has led changes on content and elections policies. (Semafor) Apple has settled a privacy lawsuit against Siri The company has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that Siri could be activated accidentally and then record private conversations without consent. The news comes after MIT Technology Review reported that Apple was looking into whether it could get rid of the need to use a trigger phrase like Hey Siri entirely. (The Washington Post)0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 150 Views
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WWW.TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COMWhats next for our privacy?MIT Technology Reviews Whats Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Every day, we are tracked hundreds or even thousands of times across the digital world. Cookies and web trackers capture every website link that we click, while code installed in mobile apps tracks every physical location that our devicesand, by extension, wehave visited. All of this is collected, packaged together with other details (compiled from public records, supermarket member programs, utility companies, and more), and used to create highly personalized profiles that are then shared or sold, often without our explicit knowledge or consent. A consensus is growing that Americans need better privacy protectionsand that the best way to deliver them would be for Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation. While the latest iteration of such a bill, the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, gained more momentum than previously proposed laws, it became so watered down that it lost support from both Republicans and Democrats before it even came to a vote. There have been some privacy wins in the form of limits on what data brokersthird-party companies that buy and sell consumers personal information for targeted advertisements, messaging, and other purposescan do with geolocation data. These are still small steps, thoughand they are happening as increasingly pervasive and powerful technologies collect more data than ever. And at the same time, Washington is preparing for a new presidential administration that has attacked the press and other critics, promised to target immigrants for mass deportation, threatened to seek retribution against perceived enemies, and supported restrictive state abortion laws. This is not even to mention the increased collection of our biometric data, especially for facial recognition, and the normalization of its use in all kinds of ways. In this light, its no stretch to say our personal data has arguably never been more vulnerable, and the imperative for privacy has never felt more urgent. So what can Americans expect for their personal data in 2025? We spoke to privacy experts and advocates about (some of) whats on their mind regarding how our digital data might be traded or protected moving forward. Reining in a problematic industry In early December, the Federal Trade Commission announced separate settlement agreements with the data brokers Mobilewalla and Gravy Analytics (and its subsidiary Venntel). Finding that the companies had tracked and sold geolocation data from users at sensitive locations like churches, hospitals, and military installations without explicit consent, the FTC banned the companies from selling such data except in specific circumstances. This follows something of a busy year in regulation of data brokers, including multiple FTC enforcement actions against other companies for similar use and sale of geolocation data, as well as a proposed rule from the Justice Department that would prohibit the sale of bulk data to foreign entities. And on the same day that the FTC announced these settlements in December, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a new rule that would designate data brokers as consumer reporting agencies, which would trigger stringent reporting requirements and consumer privacy protections. The rule would prohibit the collection and sharing of peoples sensitive information, such as their salaries and Social Security numbers, without legitimate purposes. While the rule will still need to undergo a 90-day public comment period, and its unclear whether it will move forward under the Trump administration, if its finalized it has the power to fundamentally limit how data brokers do business. Right now, there just arent many limits on how these companies operatenor, for that matter, clear information on how many data brokerages even exist. Industry watchers estimate there may be 4,000 to 5,000 data brokers around the world, many of which weve never heard ofand whose names constantly shift. In California alone, the states 2024 Data Broker Registry lists 527 such businesses that have voluntarily registered there, nearly 90 of which also self-reported that they collect geolocation data. All this data is widely available for purchase by anyone who will pay. Marketers buy data to create highly targeted advertisements, and banks and insurance companies do the same to verify identity, prevent fraud, and conduct risk assessments. Law enforcement buys geolocation data to track peoples whereabouts without getting traditional search warrants. Foreign entities can also currently buy sensitive information on members of the military and other government officials. And on people-finder websites, basically anyone can pay for anyone elses contact details and personal history. Data brokers and their clients defend these transactions by saying that most of this data is anonymizedthough its questionable whether that can truly be done in the case of geolocation data. Besides, anonymous data can be easily reidentified, especially when its combined with other personal information. Digital-rights advocates have spent years sounding the alarm on this secretive industry, especially the ways in which it can harm already marginalized communities, though various types of data collection have sparked consternation across the political spectrum. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, was concerned about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bought location data to evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns. Then a study from last year showed how easy (and cheap) it was to buy sensitive data about members of the US military; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, called out the national security risks of data brokers in a statement to MIT Technology Review, and Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, later said he was shocked when he read about the practice in our story. But it was the 2022 Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional guarantee of legal abortion that spurred much of the federal action last year. Shortly after the Dobbs ruling, President Biden issued an executive order to protect access to reproductive health care; it included instructions for the FTC to take steps preventing information about visits to doctors offices or abortion clinics from being sold to law enforcement agencies or state prosecutors. The new enforcers With Donald Trump taking office in January, and Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress, the fate of the CFPBs proposed ruleand the CFPB itselfis uncertain. Republicans, the people behind Project 2025, and Elon Musk (who will lead the newly created advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency) have long been interested in seeing the bureau deleted, as Musk put it on X. That would take an act of Congress, making it unlikely, but there are other ways that the administration could severely curtail its powers. Trump is likely to fire the current director and install a Republican who could rescind existing CFPB rules and stop any proposed rules from moving forward. Meanwhile, the FTCs enforcement actions are only as good as the enforcers. FTC decisions do not set legal precedent in quite the same way that court cases do, says Ben Winters, a former Department of Justice official and the director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, a network of organizations and agencies focused on consumer protection. Instead, they require consistent [and] additional enforcement to make the whole industry scared of not having an FTC enforcement action against them. (Its also worth noting that these FTC settlements are specifically focused on geolocation data, which is just one of the many types of sensitive data that we regularly give up in order to participate in the digital world.) Looking ahead, Tiffany Li, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who focuses on AI and privacy law, is worried about a defanged FTC that she says would be less aggressive in taking action against companies. Lina Khan, the current FTC chair, has been the leader of privacy protection action in the US, notes Li, and shell soon be leaving. Andrew Ferguson, Trumps recently named pick to be the next FTC chair, has come out in strong opposition to data brokers: This type of datarecords of a persons precise physical locationsis inherently intrusive and revealing of peoples most private affairs, he wrote in a statement on the Mobilewalla decision, indicating that he is likely to continue action against them. (Ferguson has been serving as a commissioner on the FTC since April 20214.) On the other hand, he has spoken out against using FTC actions as an alternative to privacy legislation passed by Congress. And, of course, this brings us right back around to that other major roadblock: Congress has so far failed to pass such lawsand its unclear if the next Congress will either. Movement in the states Without federal legislative action, many US states are taking privacy matters into their own hands. In 2025, eight new state privacy laws will take effect, making a total of 25 around the country. A number of other stateslike Vermont and Massachusettsare considering passing their own privacy bills next year, and such laws could, in theory, force national legislation, says Woodrow Hartzog, a technology law scholar at Boston University School of Law. Right now, the statutes are all similar enough that the compliance cost is perhaps expensive but manageable, he explains. But if one state passed a law that was different enough from the others, a national law could be the only way to resolve the conflict. Additionally, four statesCalifornia, Texas, Vermont, and Oregonalready have specific laws regulating data brokers, including the requirement that they register with the state. Along with new laws, says Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy at Consumer Reports, comes the possibility that we can put some more teeth on these laws. Brookman points to Texas, where some of the most aggressive enforcement action at the state level has taken place under its Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. Even before the states new consumer privacy bill went into effect in July, Paxton announced the creation of a special task force focused on enforcing the states privacy laws. He has since targeted a number of data brokersincluding National Public Data, which exposed millions of sensitive customer records in a data breach in August, as well as companies that sell to them, like Sirius XM. At the same time, though, Paxton has moved to enforce the states strict abortion laws in ways that threaten individual privacy. In December, he sued a New York doctor for sending abortion pills to a Texas woman through the mail. While the doctor is theoretically protected by New Yorks shield laws, which provide a safeguard from out-of-state prosecution, Paxtons aggressive action makes it even more crucial that states enshrine data privacy protections into their laws, says Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy group. There is an urgent need for states, he says, to lock down our residents data, barring companies from collecting and sharing information in ways that can be weaponized against them by out-of-state prosecutors. Data collection in the name of security While privacy has become a bipartisan issue, Republicans, in particular, are interested in addressing data brokers in the context of national security, such as protecting the data of military members or other government officials, says Winters. But in his view, its the effects on reproductive rights and immigrants that are potentially the most dangerous threats to privacy. Indeed, data brokers (including Venntel, the Gravy Analytics subsidiary named in the recent FTC settlement) have sold cell-phone data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as to Customs and Border Protection. That data has then been used to track individuals for deportation proceedingsallowing the agencies to bypass local and state sanctuary laws that ban local law enforcement from sharing information for immigration enforcement. The more data that corporations collect, the more data thats available to governments for surveillance, warns Ashley Gorski, a senior attorney who works on national security and privacy at the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU is among a number of organizations that have been pushing for the passage of another federal law related to privacy: the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. It would close the so-called data-broker loophole that allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to buy personal information from data brokers without a search warrant. The bill would dramatically limit the ability of the government to buy Americans private data, Gorski says. It was first introduced in 2021 and passed the House in April 2024, with the support of 123 Republicans and 93 Democrats, before stalling in the Senate. While Gorski is hopeful that the bill will move forward in the next Congress, others are less sanguine about these prospectsand alarmed about other ways that the incoming administration might co-opt private systems for surveillance purposes, as Hartzog puts it. So much of our personal information that is collected for one purpose, he says, could easily be used by the government to track us. This is especially concerning, adds Winters, given that the next administration has been very explicit about wanting to use every tool at its disposal to carry out policies like mass deportations and to exact revenge on perceived enemies. And one possible change, he says, is as simple as loosening the governments procurement processes to make them more open to emerging technologies, which may have fewer privacy protections. Right now, its annoying to procure anything as a federal agency, he says, but he expects a more fast and loose use of commercial tools. Thats something we've [already] seen a lot, he adds, pointing to federal, state, and local agencies using the Clearviews of the worlda reference to the controversial facial recognition company. The AI wild card Underlying all of these debates on potential legislation is the fact that technology companiesespecially AI companiescontinue to require reams and reams of data, including personal data, to train their machine-learning models. And theyre quickly running out of it. This is something of a wild card in any predictions about personal data. Ideally, says Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, the shortage would lead to ways for consumers to directly benefit, perhaps financially, from the value of their own data. But its more likely that there will be more industry resistance against some of the proposed comprehensive federal privacy legislation bills, she says. Companies benefit from the status quo. The hunt for more and more data may also push companies to change their own privacy policies, says Whitney Merrill, a former FTC official who works on data privacy at Asana. Speaking in a personal capacity, she says that companies have felt the squeeze in the tech recession that were in, with the high interest rates, and that under those circumstances, weve seen people turn around, change their policies, and try to monetize their data in an AI worldeven if its at the expense of user privacy. She points to the $60-million-per-year deal that Reddit struck last year to license its content to Google to help train the companys AI. Earlier this year, the FTC warned companies that it would be unfair and deceptive to surreptitiously change their privacy policies to allow for the use of user data to train AI. But again, whether or not officials follow up on this depends on those in charge. So what will privacy look like in 2025? While the recent FTC settlements and the CFPBs proposed rule represent important steps forward in privacy protectionat least when it comes to geolocation dataAmericans personal information still remains widely available and vulnerable. Rebecca Williams, a senior strategist at the ACLU for privacy and data governance, argues that all of us, as individuals and communities, should take it upon ourselves to do more to protect ourselves and resist by opting out of as much data collection as possible. That means checking privacy settings on accounts and apps, and using encrypted messaging services. Cahn, meanwhile, says hell be striving to protect [his] local community, working to enact safeguards to ensure that we live up to our principles and stated commitments. One example of such safeguards is a proposed New York City ordinance that would ban the sharing of any location data originating from within the city limits. Hartzog says that kind of local activism has already been effective in pushing for city bans on facial recognition. Privacy rights are at risk, but theyre not gone, and its not helpful to take an overly pessimistic look right now, says Li, the USF law professor. We definitely still have privacy rights, and the more that we continue to fight for these rights, the more were going to be able to protect our rights.0 Yorumlar 0 hisse senetleri 148 Views