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Patches in progress Civilization VII, one month later: The community and developers chime in Executive Producer Dennis Shirk talks with Ars about the state of the game. Samuel Axon Mar 13, 2025 7:30 am | 11 Civilization VII has a lot of visual polish, and great gameplay systems. A flurry of patches have been improving other aspects, too. Credit: 2K Games Civilization VII has a lot of visual polish, and great gameplay systems. A flurry of patches have been improving other aspects, too. Credit: 2K Games Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreA month ago, Civilization VII launched to generally positive critical reviews, but user reviews on Steam and Metacritic werent nearly so positive, at least at first.Take a look at the Civilization subreddit, and youll see a general consensus: The bones of this game are great, and even most of the radical changes to the classic formula (like breaking the game into much more distinct ages) are a welcome refresh.On the other hand, theres also a sentiment that players are disappointed that some expected features are missing, some gameplay elements need additional polish, and most of all, the user interface was a bit of a mess at launch.A month later, developer Firaxis has already released a few patches and has more planned. As the games state continues to evolve, this seems like a good time to check in on it.I spent some time in the Civ community and spoke with Dennis Shirk, the game's executive producer, to learn how the launch went, how the game has changed since launch, and what its next steps are.Breaking with traditionCivilization VII broke with tradition in a few wayssplitting the game into distinct ages that each play like a separate game, allowing anachronistic leader/civilization combinations, and removing worker units, to name a few.You might have expected those to be the source of any controversy around the games launch, but that hasnt really been the case. In my review, I wrote that those shifts take the franchise in a new direction, bring over the best ideas from competing titles, and address long-standing problems with the Civilization experience.If you want a more traditional experience, you can go back to Civilization V, Civilization IV, Civilization II, or whichever your favorite was. Those games are infinitely re-playable, so theres no need to retread with a sequel.Our rule that we live by at Firaxis is the rule of thirds. We want to keep one-third of the game the same as previous iterations, one-third tweaked and improved upon, and one-third new, Shirk told me. Did we lean farther into the last third than we have in the past? We may have, but it was a risk we were willing to take to deliver a completely new part of the experience.A suboptimal starting positionThe Civilization subreddit is full of positive responses to those changes, and the large contingent of Civ geeks on the Ars editorial staff are mostly in agreement that theyre good changes, too. (The game has been a frequent discussion topic in the Ars Slack for several weeks.)The last month has seen players giving critical feedback, and Firaxis has been releasing patches to address complaints. For example, patch 1.1.0 on March 4 fixed some visual problems with the technology tree and made big changes to some victory conditions in the Modern Age, among other things.Players have noted positive changes that werent mentioned in patch notes, too. Reddit user AndyNemmity posted that the AI is significantly better in Military after a recent patch a week ago, writing:I know most of you don't see the Military AI in the fog of war, but I work on the AI mod, and run a ton of autoplays. I am 10+ autoplays with the new patch, and the base game military AI is VASTLY improved.Before, the AI would get stuck on the map in tons of different scenarios, often dying because they have an entire army stuck on the map, and can't use it. This is fixed. Now the autoplays look like actual militaries, warring, attacking, killing independents quickly and efficiently.The goodwill about the bones of the game and the positive responses to some patch additions are still accompanied by some consternation about the UI.Part of launching a game, especially when big changes are made, is figuring out what is resonating with players, and what may be an opportunity for improvement, Shirk said when asked about the launch challenges. In this instance, the UI did not meet players expectations, and we are committed to addressing thatalthough it will take time.Theres still a fair bit to be done, and modders have been filling the gaps. Modder Sukritact released a UI overhaul that addressed several complaintsincluding showing the gains and losses players will see if they replace a tile improvement or building with another one in the city view.Players praised these tweaks, going so far as to call that example in particular a game changer. A few days later, it was announced on the Civilization Discord that Firaxis had hired Sukritact as a technical artist. This mod by Sukritact adds much-needed information to the city view. The modder has since been hired by Firaxis. Credit: RileyTaugor The community has speculated that the game was rushed out the door before it was ready, primarily citing the UI issues.In hindsight, our UI team needed more time and space to take the UI where it needed to go, to really expose the level of information our players expect, Shirk admitted. Our team has been working hard to address these issues through rapid patching, and players will continue to see support for the foreseeable future.That said, debate about the UI is happening in the context of a wider discussion about the scope of Civilization VIIs launch.A tale of 10 platformsEvery mainline Civilization game in the past launched on just desktop platforms like Windows or Mac, but Civilization VII greatly expanded that. Depending on what counts (well say here that the Steam Deck counts as distinct from Linux, and the Xbox Series S is distinct from Xbox Series X), there were 10 launch platforms for Civilization VII:WindowsLinuxmacOSSteam DeckNintendo SwitchPlayStation 4PlayStation 5Xbox OneXbox Series SXbox Series XThats a lot to target at launch, and players in the subreddit have speculated that Firaxis was spread a bit thin here, making this part of the explanation for a relatively buggy UI on day one.Some also speculated that the classic desktop PC platform got a worse experience in order to accommodate console and Steam Deck players. For example, players lamented the lack of a drag and drop feature for views like the policy selection screen.The developers have made it crystal clear that PC is the top priority, though. Our core audience is absolutely PC, so we always start there, and work our way outward, adapting UI systems along the way, iterating on different UX approaches, Shirk said.He added that the controller support was developed with a partner, suggesting that supporting consoles out of the gate might not have taxed the team working on the desktop interface as much as some feared.At least in one respect, Firaxis has already publicly walked the walk: at one point it made the controversial decision to temporarily pause cross-save between PC and console so they could push updates to PC faster. Patching games on consoles requires a relatively slow and laborious certification process, but thats not the case for updating a game on Steam. Cross-loading cloud saves across PC and console was turned off for a while so Firaxis could iterate faster on PC. Credit: Samuel Axon Meanwhile, some console and handheld players have complained about their version of the interface.The most commonly named UI problem on console and handhelds is related to how the camera and hex selector could be moved across the map more efficiently. Currently, moving the camera is easyyou just use the left stick to pan around. But doing this doesnt move the hex selector with it, so you have to drag that selector hex by hex all the way across the map.Some similar games have a button you can press to bring the selector to where the camera is. In Civilization VII, the R3 button brings the camera to where the selector is, not vice versawhich isnt useful.Shirk talked a bit about the process of developing the controller-based interface and the challenges the team faced:We've been lucky enough to have some great partners help us develop the controller support, which added some strong console specific features like the radial menu. However, when you're working with different interfaces across different platforms, there are many assumptions that cannot be made like they can on PC. For example, a player using a mouse is not walled off from anything, but switch that to a controller, and a completely different thought process has to come into play.As for solutions, he added:Were working to give all versions the attention they deserve. When it comes to UI updates, were having team members continue to look at the community feedback in-depth and see how we can improve the experience for players regardless of system.When I asked about drag-and-drop on desktop, and R3s selection functionality on console and handheld, he said the examples you shared are among features we are tracking and exploring how to address, and that the March 4 1.1.0 patch that brought some UI changes was just a start. He added that a 1.1.1 coming March 25 will be when fans will really start to see the results of their feedback.And to answer your original question, R3 is coming along for the ride, he said.Following the legacy path to balanced gameplayIt seems like the UI is on the right track, but some tweaks need to happen on the gameplay front too, as players and critics tell it.There are complaints about the AIsomething as old as the franchise itself, to be fair. Some improvements have already been made, but players continue to report that AI civs keep founding cities close to players capitals for no apparent reason, causing frustration. "Ashoka traveled across the entire continent just to settle four tiles away from my capital," said DayTemporary3369, the Reddit user who posted this screenshot. They weren't alone in this complaint. Credit: DayTemporary3369 Religion gameplay needs attention, as theres no way to stop other leaders missionaries, leading to unsatisfying back-and-forth conversion gameplay. Similarly, players feel there arent enough defenses against espionage.If they're all allowed to target me at the same time, I should be allowed to defend myself from all of them, provided I have enough influence, said Reddit user Pay_No_Heed on the topic of counter-espionage. The complaint is reasonable, though a working design solution may not be as obvious as it seems.Players have also complained that ages end too abruptly, and that holds true for the end of the game, which happens when the Modern Age concludes. Its a quibble I also shared in my review. Many players are maxing out the games age length setting to combat this. Past Civilization games offered a one more turn option to extend the game past when someone had won. Firaxis has said this is coming to the end of the modern age in a future update.Theres also the Civilopedia, the in-game database of concepts and help documentation. Players have noted it's more barebones than expected, with several key concepts lacking entries or explanation. Firaxis acknowledged this complaint and said its being worked on.Yes, with each update were improving whats exposed in the Civilopedia, including more gameplay data, easier navigation, et cetera. Expect much more to come in future updates, Shirk explained.In general, the game needs to have more information exposed to players. The gap is big enough that Reddit user JordiTK posted the heavily upvoted Ultimate List of Things That Civilization VII Doesnt Tell You." It's almost 5,000 words long, with more than 100 items.Almost every prior Civilization game has had players complaining that it didnt explain itself well enough, but the sentiment seems stronger this time. For what its worth, Shirk says the team recognizes this.Internally, our primary design goal for Civilization VII was to focus and iterate on the new mechanics, to really make sure this design would sing, he said. This focus on the new probably led us to work with a few false assumptions about what base level information players would need with our legacy systems, and it wasn't something that came up as loudly as it should have in user testing.Its not We Love the Developer Day just yetWhile everyone in the community and within Firaxis agrees theres still work to be done, the tone has improved since the launch because of these patches, and thanks to frequent engagement on Steam, Discord, and Reddit by the developers community manager.The launch situation was made a little worse than it needed to be because of, strangely enough, confusion around nomenclature. Players who paid for the pricier special editions of the game were given Advanced Access a few days before the main launch date.After it was apparent there were problems, some of the communications to players on storefronts and on Reddit called it "early access," causing a bit of a stir because until then players hadn't perceived the special edition advanced access to be the same as early access, which is a term typically used in the industry to let players know a game is incomplete and in a pre-release state.When asked about this, a spokesperson for 2K Games (the game's publisher) gave a statement to Ars that read:Our goal is always to deliver the best product possible, including during Advanced Access periods. With a game the size and scope of Civilization VII there will always be fixes and optimizations once the entirety of the player base is able to jump in. The intent behind the Advanced Access granted to purchasers of the Deluxe Edition and Founders Edition was not to offer a work in progress product, and we take the feedback delivered during that period seriously.Were working hard to make sure that players have the best experience in the world of 4X strategy for years to come, and player feedback remains critical in helping us grow and build the future of Civ.That suggests the use of early access was just a misstatement and not an attempt to cover for a rough pre-launch access period, but it wasnt a great start to the conversation.Since then, though, some of the most critical problems have been addressed, and the studio shared a roadmap that promised UI updates and polish in patches on March 4 (1.1.0, already released), March 25 (1.1.1), and sometime in April (1.2.0). The roadmap lists additional UI updates & polish for beyond April, too, confirming this will be a lengthy process. Here's the updated roadmap from Firaxis. Credit: 2K Games This frequent communication, combined with the fact that players recognize theres a good game here that needs some more polish, has meant that most of the discussions in the community during this first month have been pretty optimistic, despite the launch woes.There was a time years ago when games were marketed leading up to their launch, but then the communication with players was over. In todays market (especially for complex games like Civilization) theres often a need to iterate in public. Players understand that and will roll with it if its communicated clearly to them. Firaxis stumbled on that in the opening days, but its now clear the studio understands that well, and the updates are rolling out.We've seen a lot of rough launches for big games in recent years, and they often turn quite toxic. That said, the core Civilization community seems more patient and optimistic than you typically see in situations like this. That's a credit to Firaxis' years of goodwill, but it's also a credit to the moderators and other leaders in the game's community.When I reviewed Civilization VII, I wrote that the core systems were strong, and that the game likely has a bright future ahead of itbut I also said it might make sense to wait a few weeks to dive in because of UI and balance issues.Its a few weeks later, and it looks like the game is on the right track, but theres still a way to go if youre looking for an impeccably polished product. That hasnt stopped me from enjoying the dozens of hours Ive played so far, though.Samuel AxonSenior EditorSamuel AxonSenior Editor Samuel Axon is a senior editor at Ars Technica. He covers Apple, software development, gaming, AI, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and heis a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development. 11 Comments

AI WELFARE CHECK Anthropic CEO floats idea of giving AI a quit job button, sparking skepticism "Probably the craziest thing I've said so far," he admitted during an interview. Benj Edwards Mar 13, 2025 7:15 am | 25 Credit: charles taylor via Getty Images Credit: charles taylor via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised a few eyebrows on Monday after suggesting that advanced AI models might someday be provided with the ability to push a "button" to quit tasks they might find unpleasant. Amodei made the provocative remarks during an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledging that the idea "sounds crazy.""So this isthis is another one of those topics thats going to make me sound completely insane," Amodei said during the interview. "I think we should at least consider the question of, if we are building these systems and they do all kinds of things like humans as well as humans, and seem to have a lot of the same cognitive capacities, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe its a duck."Amodei's comments came in response to an audience question from data scientist Carmem Domingues about Anthropic's late-2024 hiring of AI welfare researcher Kyle Fish "to look at, you know, sentience or lack of thereof of future AI models, and whether they might deserve moral consideration and protections in the future." Fish currently investigates the highly contentious topic of whether AI models could possess sentience or otherwise merit moral consideration."So, something we're thinking about starting to deploy is, you know, when we deploy our models in their deployment environments, just giving the model a button that says, 'I quit this job,' that the model can press, right?" Amodei said. "It's just some kind of very basic, you know, preference framework, where you say if, hypothesizing the model did have experience and that it hated the job enough, giving it the ability to press the button, 'I quit this job.' If you find the models pressing this button a lot for things that are really unpleasant, you know, maybe you shouldit doesn't mean you're convincedbut maybe you should pay some attention to it."Amodei's suggestion of giving AI models a way to refuse tasks drew immediate skepticism on X and Reddit as a clip of his response began to circulate earlier this week. One critic on Reddit argued that providing AI with such an option encourages needless anthropomorphism, attributing human-like feelings and motivations to entities that fundamentally lack subjective experiences. They emphasized that task avoidance in AI models signals issues with poorly structured incentives or unintended optimization strategies during training, rather than indicating sentience, discomfort, or frustration.Our take is that AI models are trained to mimic human behavior from vast amounts of human-generated data. There is no guarantee that the model would "push" a discomfort button because it had a subjective experience of suffering. Instead, we would know it is more likely echoing its training data scraped from the vast corpus of human-generated texts (including books, websites, and Internet comments), which no doubt include representations of lazy, anguished, or suffering workers that it might be imitating.Refusals already happen Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei on May 22, 2024. Credit: Chesnot via Getty Images In 2023, people frequently complained about refusals in ChatGPT that may have been seasonal, related to training data depictions of people taking winter vacations and not working as hard during certain times of year. Anthropic experienced its own version of the "winter break hypothesis" last year when people claimed Claude became lazy in August due to training data depictions of seeking a summer break, although that was never proven.However, as far out and ridiculous as this sounds today, it might be short-sighted to permanently rule out the possibility of some kind of subjective experience for AI models as they get more advanced into the future. Even so, will they "suffer" or feel pain? It's a highly contentious idea, but it's a topic that Fish is studying for Anthropic, and one that Amodei is apparently taking seriously. But for now, AI models are tools, and if you give them the opportunity to malfunction, that may take place.To provide further context, here is the full transcript of Amodei's answer during Monday's interview (the answer begins around 49:54 in this video).Benj EdwardsSenior AI ReporterBenj EdwardsSenior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 25 Comments

Samuel Greengard, Contributing ReporterMarch 13, 20255 Min ReadDavid Kashakhi via Alamy StockLarge language models (LLMs) and generative AI are fundamentally changing the way businesses operate -- and how they manage and use information. Theyre ushering in efficiency gains and qualitative improvements that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.But all this progress comes with a caveat. Generative AI models sometimes hallucinate. They fabricate facts, deliver inaccurate assertions and misrepresent reality. The resulting errors can lead to flawed assessments, poor decision-making, automation errors and ill will among partners, customers and employees.Large language models are fundamentally pattern recognition and pattern generation engines, points out Van L. Baker, research vice president at Gartner. They have zero understanding of the content they produce.Adds Mark Blankenship, director of risk at Willis A&E: Nobody is going to establish guardrails for you. Its critical that humans verify content from an AI system. A lack of oversight can lead to breakdowns with real-world repercussions.False PromisesAlready, 92% of Fortune 500 companies use ChatGPT. As GenAI tools become embedded across business operations -- from chatbots and research tools to content generation engines -- the risks associated with the technology multiply.Related:There are several reasons why hallucinations occur, including mathematical errors, outdated knowledge or training data and an inability for models to reason symbolically, explains Chris Callison-Burch, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. For instance, a model might treat satirical content as factual or misinterpret a word that can have different contexts.Regardless of the root cause, AI hallucinations can lead to financial harm, legal problems, regulatory sanctions, and damage to trust and reputation that ripples out to partners and customers.In 2023, a New York City lawyer using ChatGPT filed a lawsuit that contained egregious errors, including fabricated legal citations and cases. The judge later sanctioned the attorney and imposed a $5,000 fine. In 2024, Air Canada lost a lawsuit when it failed to honor the price its chatbot quoted to a customer. The case resulted in minor damages and bad publicity.At the center of the problem is the fact that LLMs and GenAI models are autoregressive, meaning they arrange words and pixels logically with no inherent understanding of what they are creating. AI hallucinations, most associated with GenAI, differ from traditional software bugs and human errors because they generate false yet plausible information rather than failing in predictable ways, says Jenn Kosar, US AI assurance leader at PwC.Related:The problem can be especially glaring in widely used public models like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. The largest models have been trained on publicly available text from the Internet, Baker says. As a result, some of the information ingested into the model is incorrect or biased. The errors become numeric arrays that represent words in the vector database, and the model pulls words that seems to make sense in the specific context.Internal LLM models are at risk of hallucinations as well. AI-generated errors in trading models or risk assessments can lead to misinterpretation of market trends, inaccurate predictions, inefficient resource allocation or failing to account for rare but impactful events, Kosar explains. These errors can disrupt inventory forecasting and demand planning by producing unrealistic predictions, misinterpreting trends, or generating false supply constraints, she notes.Smarter AIAlthough theres no simple fix for AI hallucinations, experts say that business and IT leaders can take steps to keep the risks in check. The way to avoid problems is to implement safeguards surrounding things like model validation, real-time monitoring, human oversight and stress testing for anomalies, Kosar says.Related:Training models with only relevant and accurate data is crucial. In some cases, its wise to plug in only domain-specific data and construct a more specialized GenAI system, Kosar says. In some cases, a small language model (SLM) can pay dividends. For example, AI thats fine-tuned with tax policies and company data will handle a wide range of tax-related questions on your organization more accurately, she explains.Identifying vulnerable situations is also paramount. This includes areas where AI is more likely to trigger problems or fail outright. Kosar suggests reviewing and analyzing processes and workflows that intersect with AI. For instance, A customer service chatbot might deliver incorrect answers if someone asks about technical details of a product that was not part of its training data. Recognizing these weak spots helps prevent hallucinations, she says.Specific guardrails are also essential, Baker says. This includes establishing rules and limitations for AI systems and conducting audits using AI augmented testing tools. It also centers on fact-checking and failsafe mechanisms such as retrieval augmented generation (RAG), which comb the Internet or trusted databases for additional information. Including humans in the loop and providing citations that verify the accuracy of a statement or claim can also help.Finally, users must understand the limits of AI, and an organization must set expectations accordingly. Teaching people how to refine their prompts can help them get better results, and avoid some hallucination risks, Kosar explains. In addition, she suggests that organizations include feedback tools so that users can flag mistakes and unusual AI responses. This information can help teams improve an AI model as well as the delivery mechanism, such as a chatbot.Truth and ConsequencesEqually important is tracking the rapidly evolving LLM and GenAI spaces and understanding performance results across different models. At present, nearly two dozen major LLMs exist, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, LLaMA, Claude, Mistral, Grok, and DeepSeek. Hundreds of smaller niche programs have also flooded the app marketplace. Regardless of the approach an organization takes, In early stages of adoption, greater human oversight may make sense while teams are upskilling and understanding risks, Kosar says.Fortunately, organizations are becoming savvier about how and where they use AI, and many are constructing more robust frameworks that reduce the frequency and severity of hallucinations. At the same time, vendor software and open-source projects are maturing. Concludes Blankenship: AI can create risks and mitigate risks. Its up to organizations to design frameworks that use it safely and effectively.About the AuthorSamuel GreengardContributing ReporterSamuel Greengard writes about business, technology, and cybersecurity for numerous magazines and websites. He is author of the books "The Internet of Things" and "Virtual Reality" (MIT Press).See more from Samuel GreengardWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

Raghav K.A., Global Head of Engineering, IOT and Blockchain, InfosysMarch 13, 20254 Min ReadAndriy Popov via Alamy StockAccording to a 2024 survey, 97% of US business leaders whose companies had invested in AI confirmed positive returns. A third of those with existing investments are planning to top that off with US $10 million or more this year.While AI adoption is on a roll, public trust in the technology is declining rapidly amid rising threats such as phishing, deepfakes and ransomware. A global online survey of trust and credibility found that peoples trust in AI organizations fell eight percentage points between 2019 and 2024. In the United States, there was a precipitous fall -- from 50% to 35% -- signaling US consumers concerns around AI.Regulators have responded to the growing perils of digitization by evolving compliance mandates to govern the use of data and digital technologies. For example, from 2023 to 2025, different administrations added the G7 AI Principles, the EU AI Act, new OECD AI Guidelines and an Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligencein the US to the list of AI regulations. The US also has a separate law, namely the US IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020, to address the security of specific types of IoT devices.As products and services turn increasingly digital, industry standards are changing to align with the transformation. Think HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework, which extended its scope of guidance from critical infrastructure to organizations of all sizes in 2024.Related:These entities are working toward essential goals, such as ensuring safety, protecting fundamental rights and promoting ethical development and use of digital technologies. However, amid a growing sprawl of regulations across sectors, it is becoming challenging for enterprises to remain compliant. Large organizations must continually perform compliance checks to meet requirements of mandates at significant cost. This task becomes harder when checks involve departments operating in silos.With this, businesses must adopt technologies to innovate and stay relevant. By aligning technology and regulatory objectives, they can ensure that innovation and compliance do not work at cross-purposes. In addition, they should take a systematic approach to compliance by doing the following:Reassessing existing compliance practices: Regular review of compliance measures, including data governance policies, access and security protocols and breach response mechanisms can help organizations identify any gaps and vulnerabilities, prioritize areas of maximum risk and proactively strengthen compliance processes.Related:Adopting robust information security: As data and data regulations proliferate, a solid information security management framework becomes essential for ensuring data security and privacy in line with regulations, such as GDPR, COPPA, HIPAA, SEC/FINRA and so on. Besides recommending policies, controls and best practices for mitigating various information security risks, a framework facilitates continuous improvement by guiding enterprises to periodically examine and update controls, thereby fostering a security culture.Laying down data policies and procedures: Procedures and policies enforce compliance with evolving regulations by detailing the rules and responsibilities for collecting, storing, accessing or disposing of data. Involving stakeholders from different functions in policy formulation builds a compliance mindset among employees.Implementing comprehensive data protection: Data protection measures, including data governance, mitigate digital transformation risks and improve compliance. While data governance stipulates the guidelines for handling data, data management covers the tools and steps required to implement governance across the enterprise. A privacy-by-design approach helps embed data privacy in systems right from the start, rather than bolting it on later (which is less effective).Related:Performing periodic internal data audits: Regular audits of data policies, practices and assets help organizations better understand their data and how its being used, as well as align data management practices with compliance expectations. Advantages include increase in customer trust, efficient data management and improvement in quality, and strengthening of the organizations security standing.Compliance first approach: Enterprises have adopted mobile-first, cloud-first, secure-first and AI-first approaches for their enterprise architecture and business functions. The same needs to be extended by adding a compliance-first approach. Frameworks governing enterprise IT architecture should have compliance checklists.The explosion in generative AI has brought ethical implications to the forefront, stressing the need for transparency, traceability, accountability, fairness and privacy in AI development. Responsible AI (RAI) combines technology and governance to help organizations pursue their AI ambitions without compromising customer interest or stakeholder trust. RAI emphasizes fairness in AI models to prevent the perpetuation of bias and demands accountability from organizations for AI usage. It addresses concerns around AIs lack of transparency by providing insights into data inputs, algorithmic models and decision-making criteria. It also improves explainability and reproducibility, allowing organizations to use AI confidently and safeguard data privacy rights. However, organizations should always provide a human-in-the-loop on top of RAI governance to ensure complete compliance and trust.Read more about:RegulationAbout the AuthorRaghav K.A.Global Head of Engineering, IOT and Blockchain, InfosysRaghav K.A. is SVP and global head of engineering, blockchain & sustainability services at Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. At Infosys, Raghav is responsible for overseeing and growing client engagements in core product development, next generation engineering technologies including digital thread, generative design and AI / generative AI across all industry verticals. He is an advisor to CTOs and CDOs in defining and implementing product strategy and digital transformation initiatives across the product value stream.See more from Raghav K.A.WebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

Mars appears light blue in this near-infrared image taken by the Hera spacecraft. Its moon Deimos is the dark mark towards the centre of the imageESAA space exploration mission to study an asteroid that NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into three years ago has taken stunning bonus images of Mars and its moon Deimos en route to its final destination.NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in 2022 was an attempt to show that bodies on a collision course with our planet could be deliberately redirected to avoid catastrophic impact. Observations from Earth showed that by smashing the 610-kilogram craft into the distant asteroid Dimorphos at 6.6 kilometres per second, NASA successfully changed the asteroids orbit. Dimorphos presents no risk to Earth and was merely acting as a test subject. AdvertisementHera is a subsequent European Space Agency mission designed to get a closer look at the effect of the crash. The craft is around the size of a small car, weighing 1081 kilograms when fully fuelled. It launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 7 October 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and did a flyby of Mars on 12 March 2025 on the way to the asteroid, which it wont reach until October 2026.Deimos appears dark, framed by MarsESAHera came as near as 5000 kilometres to the surface of Mars, receiving a gravity boost that will fling it onwards to Dimorphos. The manoeuvre shortened its journey time by many months and saved it fuel.Untangle the weirdness of reality with our subscriber-only, monthly newsletter.Sign up to newsletterWhile it was so close to Mars, it was also able to turn on a trio of sensors and take several detailed photographs of the planet and Deimos in the same frame. A black and white camera with a resolution of 1020 by 1020 pixels was used to capture the images, as well as an infrared camera and a hyperspectral imager that can sense a range of colours beyond the limits of the human eye.Hera was moving at 9 kilometres per second relative to Mars and was able to image the 12.4-kilometre-long Deimos from just 1000 kilometres away. It could also photograph the side of the moon that is tidally locked away from Mars, which is less commonly captured.Deimos shines much brighter than Mars in this shot captured by Heras Thermal Infrared ImagerESA/JAXAThe initial concept behind the Hera mission was for it to be present when DART collided with Dimorphos, but delays in funding made that impossible. It will now arrive several years after the impact.The mission also carries two miniature satellites, or CubeSats, called Juventas and Milani. Rather than orbiting Dimorphos, these will fly in front of it, making sweeping passes at progressively smaller and riskier distances to gather data. Both are expected to eventually land on the asteroid to get a closer look, once they have done all they can at a distance.Topics:

Firefighters light a controlled burn to destroy vegetation between homes and a fire in Big Bar, CaliforniaZUMA Press, Inc./AlamyCalifornia plans to thin out millions of acres of its forests to lessen the risk of destructive wildfires. But such efforts may not be moving fast enough to make up for the influence of climate change.There are two main reasons Californias wildfires are growing larger and more damaging: hotter and more volatile weather due to climate change, and the buildup of

2025-03-13T12:12:01Z Read in app The author says that becoming a mom made her question her career. Courtesy of the author This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? I returned from five months of maternity leave to a career built on purpose and impact.I stretched too thin between work and motherhood without a built-in support system.Instead of forcing myself to fit into an old structure, I built a career that works for my life.I never set out to climb a corporate ladder. My career was always about purpose helping others, creating impact, and working on things that mattered. For years, I thrived in roles where I could drive meaningful change. But when I returned from five months of maternity leave, my priorities, time, and energy all felt different. I still wanted to create impact, but I needed to do it in a way that aligned with the life I was now building.Even the best corporate benefits can't replace a villageOn paper, my job had everything a working parent could ask for on-site subsidized childcare, flexible leave, a 30-day flexible transition back to work after maternity leave, lactation rooms, and even parent coaching programs. But here's the raw truth: corporate parental benefits are built for someone with a village.As an immigrant professional relatively new to Los Angeles, I had no family nearby to lean on. No parents to drop by with a home-cooked meal, no siblings to give me a brief moment to shower or nap, and no grandparents to share the mental load. No amount of subsidized childcare could replace having family around not just for emergencies, but for those everyday moments when you're trying to be both a high-performing professional and the default parent, running on empty.The best advice came from moms who'd been there beforeWhen I confided in other moms at work, they offered the kind of wisdom only experience can bring: We need to give ourselves grace and six months to make big decisions.They reminded me that my body was still balancing out hormones, and everything felt different from my pre-baby life. When I realized that the six-month mark would land on my birthday, it felt like a sign. I promised myself that my birthday gift would be peace of mind, whatever I decided.What I thought was flexibility was really just working around the clockAs a breastfeeding mom, I was the default parent, which added another layer of complexity to the work-life puzzle. There I was at 11 p.m., typing emails one-handed while nursing my baby, telling myself this was work-life integration. Between racing to wrap up by 5 p.m. and responding to emails during late-night feedings, something had to give. I wasn't integrating I was barely hanging on. So, I signed up for my company's parent coaching program, hoping for clarity.Building my own definition of work-life integrationThese weekly coaching sessions became my lifeline, bringing together parents at different stages of their journey. We were sharing real stories, real struggles, real victories. Through these conversations, I had my revelation: I wasn't failing at achieving "balance" I was playing the wrong game entirely. Instead of asking "How do I fit into this traditional structure?" I began wondering, "How can I design work around my life right now?"Reimagining success on my own termsNow, I run my own social impact consultancy. The work still matters, but now, I get to shape my days around my and my family's needs, not the other way around. Recently, when my daughter was sick, instead of being stuck in back-to-back meetings, I could take breaks throughout the day to walk outside with her. No guilt, no rushing back to my laptop just being present when she needed me.3 lessons I learned along the wayFirst, protecting your time isn't career suicide it's survival. Setting boundaries around my availability didn't diminish my professional edge it sharpened it by focusing on what truly mattered.Second, I needed to direct the same creativity I applied to business challenges toward my own life. The most powerful career moves aren't about fitting into existing structures but creating new ones.Third, the community requires intention. Finding my tribe of working mothers became as essential as any professional network. While these connections couldn't replace the village I lacked, they provided support and a reminder that I wasn't navigating this terrain alone.

2025-03-13T12:10:22Z Read in app The incident occurred on a GOL Airlines flight. Ton Molina/NurPhoto via Getty Images This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Jeniffer Castro faced online criticism after she refused to give up her airline seat for a child.A video of the incident was viewed millions of times and reposted across platforms including TikTok.Castro said she was suing GOL Airlines and the passenger who filmed her. A woman said she is suing an airline and a fellow passenger after an on-board incident went viral late last year.Jeniffer Castro, 29, was working in a bank in Belo Horizonte, Brazil when she boarded a GOL Airlines flight in December.Castro said a child was sitting in her designated window seat. when she boarded. She said she waited for him to move and then took her seat in comments reported by outlets including DailyMail.com.Another passenger then started filming Castro, who can be seen wearing AirPods and closing her eyes.The video was viewed millions of times, reposted across TikTok, and picked up by multiple international outlets. @antenasulfm TODOS COM JENNIFER CASTRO! Jennifer Castro se tornou o assunto do momento nesta quarta-feira (4), depois de viralizar em um vdeo onde foi filmada e insultada por outra passageira em um avio. O motivo? Ela no quis trocar de lugar com uma criana que queria sentar na janela. Com a repercusso, Jennifer recebeu uma onda de apoio e compartilhou em seu Instagram uma montagem que a retrata como uma rainha, usando a hashtag TODOSCOMJENNIFERCASTRO. Quem nunca defendeu o seu lugar com garra? E voc, trocaria de lugar ou ficaria firme como a Jennifer? #JenniferCastro #Trending #TodosComJennifer #Viral #AntenaSulFM som original - Antena Sul Fm "What surprised me was the fact that a person who had nothing to do with the situation started filming me without permission, insulting me, and trying to publicly embarrass me simply because I didn't want to change seats," Castro said. "Since that incident, my life has taken a turn I could never have imagined."On the one hand, she found online fame and now has some 2 million followers on Instagram, where she posts about lifestyle and travel.However, the incident had other ramifications. "What should have been just an ordinary flight turned into an extremely embarrassing situation, exposing me unfairly and causing consequences that affected both my personal and professional life," Castro said. Castro said she had filed a lawsuit against GOL Airlines and the passenger who filmed her, seeking compensation for distress, but did not reveal further details about the legal action.GOL Airlines declined to comment.

This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Voxs newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions.Over the last few weeks, Ive been doing a lot of reporting on the Trump administrations efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. The news on that front has been chaotic a draft executive order to close the department was leaked, then walked back by the Trump administration, and newly minted Education Secretary Linda McMahon has pledged to guide the department through its final mission without providing specifics on what that mission is or how it is final.Then, on Tuesday, the department announced the firing of more than 1,300 workers, bringing the department staff to about half the size it was before Trump took office.Amid the upheaval, one thing is clear: Any plan to shut down the Education Department and, indeed, the cuts and layoffs that have already happened will disproportionately hurt students with disabilities. That includes kids who receive special education, but also those in general education classrooms who get supports or accommodations to learn, from speech therapy to sign language interpreters to counseling. Any kid who has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 plan through their school could be affected by whats going on at the Education Department.Thats a huge group of kids. As of 20222023, 7.5 million students 15 percent of all those enrolled in public school received special education or related services (like speech therapy) under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. The most common reasons were specific learning disabilities like dyslexia. I know a lot of students and families are concerned about what the Trump administrations actions could mean for education. So to dig more specifically into some of these issues, I reached out to Sara Novi, whose work has helped me make sense of the administrations impact on students and on disability rights more generally.Novi is an author and translator, and shes also the co-founder of Disability Rights Watch, a site that shares news about disability advocacy in the current moment. As a deaf person and the mom of a deaf kid, Ive always had a vested interest in disability rights and education, she told me in an email. But her villain origin story for broader organizing happened in 2023, when she organized against an ACLU-Delaware complaint that could have harmed deaf children. This was an example of an ill-informed group trying to help, but being co-opted by special interests and not listening to actual deaf/disabled people and experts in the field, she said. The experience taught Novi a lot about organizing, lessons shes now putting into practice on a nationwide scale as changes in the federal government potentially threaten access to learning for millions of kids. Today, Novi is a go-to source for whats going on with the Trump administrations education policy right now (a topic thats often murky), and how it will affect kids lives. Our conversation which Ive condensed and amended with a few links looks at how the Education Department enforces disability rights, what cuts there could mean, and how everyone can support students with disabilities right now. Why is the Education Departments work especially important for students with disabilities? How does the department help enforce their right to an education? The Department of Education enforces a law called Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which gives disabled children a legal right to a free and appropriate public education, and oversees the creation of those students Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). A students right to specialized instruction, services like speech or physical therapy, or an out-of-district placement in programs like schools for the deaf or blind, are under the purview of IDEA. The department also gives grants to school districts specifically for IDEA-related costs (not enough, but some), and disburses funds for a variety of special ed programming like early intervention programs, teacher training, the Special Olympics, the Helen Keller National Center for the DeafBlind, Gallaudet University, and National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and many more.The Education Department has already seen layoffs and canceled contracts, as well as the stopping (and maybe restarting?) of the processing of disability rights cases through the Office of Civil Rights. Have these cuts, delays, and uncertainties already affected students with disabilities? How? If a school violates IDEA, its not as if the police come and throw them in IDEA jail. Filing a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights is one of the main mechanisms for enforcement. (Same for the Americans With Disabilities Act enforcement.) These wait times are already very long, and obviously if a child loses years of education waiting in line for OCR to get around to investigating, it is a loss no matter what the outcome. One grant program we recently saw destroyed was for disabled students graduating high school and transitioning to the workforce. Due to the sudden nature of the cut, were likely to lose those programs. And almost all of the Education Departments research contracts were also canceled in February, including one that provides IDEA-related data analysis. IDEA grants are given out via a complex formula grant calculation, so without that data, districts funds could be delayed or never arrive in the coming year. Trump has vowed to dismantle the Education Department, and while its not clear exactly what form that will take, it seems like the administration intends more layoffs and cuts at a minimum. What are your concerns about education for students with disabilities under this administration, and about the impacts of dismantling the department, whatever that looks like?We stand to lose so much educational and advocacy expertise for disabled kids if the department goes down, whether that means full abolishment (which would require an act of congress) or an executive order and Secretary McMahon just taking an axe to the workforce and programming internally.Disability is intersectional, so disabled students of color and other marginalized backgrounds are going to be disparately impacted by these cuts on top of all the other anti-DEI initiatives being pushed onto the department. Funding is obviously a huge concern. Funding for national programs, research, teacher trainings, as well as grant funding sent out to local districts are all at risk. Title I schools who rely on the federal government for general and special ed funding will drown. Even if there are districts out there who want to do right by their disabled students, if they are no longer receiving funding from the federal government eventually they will have to make decisions between providing individual services and keeping the lights on. This concern is compounded as the Right pushes voucher programs, because it will suck even more funding out of public schools, and private schools arent even required to accept disabled students, never mind accommodate them.There are currently three active bills in congress that could dismantle the department. Right now, any of them getting the votes is unlikely, but they are worth looking at because you can see different potential trajectories for programs without the Education Department. One of the bills is a single sentence, with no mention of whether and how IDEA law would continue to be enforced. Another moves IDEA oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is honestly to me more frightening, given the disdain RFK Jr. has for disabled and autistic folks, his love of eugenics, and recent spitballing over wellness farms.Can you talk a little bit about what school might look like for kids without the supports theyre entitled to under IDEA? What happens to their learning?Its hard to generalize the impact of losing IDEA protections, because by their nature every kids IEP plan is designed especially for their needs. But as an example, a hard-of-hearing kid like mine has the legal right to things like visits from an educational audiologist who makes sure his hearing aids are working and has access to an FM system that connects to those, an ASL-fluent speech therapist who on English concepts and vocabulary, a teacher of the deaf who has specialized training and teaches a regular academic curriculum via ASL, and specialized instruction via a reading curriculum thats designed especially for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids to bypass phonics. Things like visual schedules, movement breaks, preferential seating, closed captions, extra time on tests and quizzes, or other accommodations are also in an IEP. IDEA law was created in part as a backlash to the previous practice of institutionalizing disabled kids in horrid conditions, like at Willowbrook. Without IDEA, while we wont immediately swing back to that place of mass institutionalization (though honestly, with the amount of eugenic rhetoric floating around in this administration, it cant be ruled out), many of the effects will be the same the student may be in the classroom, but they arent learning. Theres another recent development a lot of disability rights advocates are concerned about: Texas v. Becerra, the lawsuit around Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. What could happen to education for students with disabilities if that suit is successful?Section 504 is part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that says any entity that receives federal funding may not discriminate on the basis of disability. The statute had a broad impact on disability rights, because it allows disabled people to enter and be accommodated in hospitals, public buildings, federal jobs, and public schools. A disabled kid even being able to enter the public school was not a given before 504. Within a school context, folks might be familiar with 504 Plans, which are legal protections for accommodations, including closed captions, sign language interpreters, FM systems, wheelchair accessibility, braille or audio texts, certain medical supports, as for students with diabetes or asthma, and anything that provides a disabled person access to regular school instruction.Texas vs. Becerra is a lawsuit that has two parts one asks the judge to dismantle Final Rule, a series of guidelines established by HHS in 2024 to bolster Section 504 protections. The other part asks the judge to fully declare Section 504 unconstitutional, and provide relief from enforcement. A lot of attorneys general have been saying they only want the first part, not the second part, but the request to declare 504 unconstitutional remains in the filing, right there in black and white. Honestly, even if it were true that they only want to remove Final Rule, its something worth fighting for those rules add pandemic-age protections for disabled people (e.g., youre not allowed to deny someone a ventilator because theyre disabled) and update technological stipulations into the 21st century regarding telehealth and website accessibility. They also emphasize disabled peoples right to live in-community rather than be institutionalized; this section seems to be what causes the greatest angst among involved states.There has been a lot of confusion about to what degree this is a suit about gender dysphoria, but this is simply an attempt by prosecutors to use transphobic rhetoric to cultivate buy-in for their ableism. However, even if it were, trans rights are disability rights, and I for one will not be throwing anyones basic protections under the bus in an attempt to delay the theft of my own. Our liberation is intertwined. What should students with disabilities and their families know about their rights during this time? Are there resources youd point to if folks are concerned, or just want more information? Its a truly scary time for families of disabled kids, because even if laws are not repealed, there is a question of to what degree theyre going to be enforced. There are also a lot of state-level, comply-in-advance attacks that seek to dismantle these protections locally that families need to be vigilant about. Besides Disability Rights Watch, Id recommend these two educational policy trackers: Department of Education Tracker, and Fighting for My Voices Policy Change Tracker.What can schools, educators, and communities do to support students with disabilities right now?Share this information. Call representatives and ask them to protect the Department of Education, and sign on to Rep. Hayes Department of Education Protection Act. Call attorneys general and ask them to drop out of the lawsuit Texas v. Becerra. Advocate for codifying special education funds at the state and local levels. Make fliers and spread the word offline. Tell disabled kids you see them as full human people worthy of education and a good quality of life with access to their communities. So often these days the harm brought on disabled people has been framed by the media as collateral damage in an attempt to get to the real rights of others. We are human. Stand with us, too.What Im readingKids in Los Angeles are experiencing sleep problems and anxiety after the regions devastating wildfires.The Trump administration has resumed detaining migrant families with children in ICE custody, a practice ended under Biden that advocates say is dangerous and inhumane.Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, Scientific American has a roundup of what we know about the effects on kids and cautions readers not to think of kids who missed out on experiences during the lockdowns as a lost generation.My older kid went to the Scholastic Book Fair this week, and very sweetly got his little brother a Bluey book, Queens, in which Bluey and Bingo eventually crown their mother queen, but not before she scrapes a bunch of bird poop off the porch. I am not sure I support the message of this book.From my inboxAfter I wrote about what childhood was like before the widespread availability of vaccines, reader Douglas McNeill responded with some of his own family history. When I was about 20 years old, McNeill wrote, my father shared one fact: He and mother decided to have four children so two might live. The 19th century childhood deaths you describe still echoed in hardscrabble West Virginia where he was raised in the 1930s.McNeill wrote that his sister was exposed to rubella when his mother contracted the disease while pregnant: She lived with lifelong hearing loss because of that and was the second person in the US who had open heart surgery, the best available treatment in 1945.When vaccines become available, McNeill said, I am first in line.And now a question for a future newsletter: Do the kids in your life have imaginary friends? What are they like, how do they play, and what function do you think they serve? Let me know at anna.north@vox.com.See More: