Category: Business

The Treasury Department on Monday finalized a new rule meant to prevent U.S.-based people and companies from investing in the development of a range of advanced technologies in China, thereby preventing Beijing from accessing cutting-edge expertise and equipment. The rule, which implements an executive order signed by President Joe Biden in 2023, focuses particularly on advanced semiconductors and microelectronics and the equipment used to make them, technology used in quantum computing, and artificial intelligence systems. When it takes effect on January 2, the rule will prohibit certain transactions in semiconductors, microelectronics and artificial intelligence. It also establishes mandatory reporting requirements for transactions that are not banned outright. In the field of quantum computing, the rule is more far-reaching, banning all transactions “related to the development of quantum computers or production of any critical components required to produce a quantum computer,” as well as the development of other quantum systems. Unlike the fields of AI and semiconductors, the rule does not allow for transactions that can be completed so long as they are reported to the government. The rule also announced the creation of the Office of Global Transactions within Treasury’s Office of Investment Security, which will administer the Outbound Investment Security Program. Justification and opposition “Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum technologies are fundamental to the development of the next generation of military, surveillance, intelligence and certain cybersecurity applications like cutting-edge code-breaking computer systems or next generation fighter jets,” Paul Rosen, assistant secretary for investment security, said in a statement. “This …

NAIROBI, KENYA — Some companies are coming up with creative ways of making electric vehicles a more realistic option in power-challenged areas of Africa. Countries in Africa have been slow adopters of battery-powered vehicles because finding reliable sources of electricity is a challenge in many places. The Center for Strategic and International Studies described Africa as “the most energy-deficient continent in the world” and said that any progress made in electricity access in the last five years has been reversed by the pandemic and population growth. Onesmus Otieno, for one, regrets trading in his diesel-powered motor bike for an electric one. He earns his living making deliveries and ferrying passengers around Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, with his bike. The two-wheeled taxis popularly known as “boda boda” in Swahili are commonly used in Kenya and throughout Africa. Kenyan authorities recently introduced the electric bikes to phase out diesel ones. Otieno is among the few riders who adopted them, but he said finding a place to charge his bike has been a headache. Sometimes the battery dies while he is carrying a customer, he said, while a charging station is far away. So, he has to end that trip and cancel other requests. To address the problem, Chinese company Beijing Sebo created a mobile application that allows users of EVs to request a charge through the app. Then, charging equipment is brought to the user’s location. Lin Lin, general manager for overseas business of Beijing Sebo, said because the company produces the equipment, it …

Washington — A China-linked disinformation operation is using so-called “Spamouflage” networks to ramp up Beijing’s propaganda aimed at social media users in the West who regularly promote cryptocurrency-related content on X.   Spamouflage accounts are bots pretending to be authentic users that promote narratives that align with Beijing’s talking points issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s human rights record, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza. The cryptocurrency accounts were discovered by a joint investigation between VOA Mandarin and DoubleThink Lab, a Taiwan-based social media analytics firm.   DoubleThink Lab’s analysis uncovered 1,153 accounts that primarily repost news and promotions about cryptocurrency and are likely bots deployed by engagement boosting services to raise their clients’ visibility on social media.   The findings suggest that some official Chinese X accounts and the Spamouflage operation have been using the same amplification services, which further indicate the link between the Chinese state and Spamouflage. Beijing has repeatedly denied any attempts to spread disinformation in the United States and other countries. From cryptocurrency to Spamouflage A review of the accounts in the VOA-DTL investigation shows that the majority of the posts were about cryptocurrency. Users regularly repost content from some of the biggest cryptocurrency accounts on X, such as ChainGPT and LondonRealTV, which belongs to British podcaster Brian Rose. But these accounts have also shared content from at least 17 Spamouflage accounts that VOA and DTL have been tracking. VOA recently reported on Spamouflage networks’ adoption of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. …

Experts say small modular reactors, called SMRs, are bringing affordable nuclear energy to less wealthy countries. But what are SMRs and why are proponents so excited about them? VOA reporter Henry Wilkins explains …

washington — The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have new marching orders — to more quickly embrace and deploy artificial intelligence as a matter of national security. U.S. President Joe Biden signed the directive, part of a new national security memorandum, on Thursday. The goal is to make sure the United States remains a leader in AI technology while also aiming to prevent the country from falling victim to AI tools wielded by adversaries like China. The memo, which calls AI “an era-defining technology,” also lays out guidelines that the White House says are designed to prevent the use of AI to harm civil liberties or human rights. The new rules will “ensure that our national security agencies are adopting these technologies in ways that align with our values,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking about the memo on the condition of anonymity before its official release. The official added that a failure to more quickly adopt AI “could put us at risk of a strategic surprise by our rivals.” “Because countries like China recognize similar opportunities to modernize and revolutionize their own military and intelligence capabilities using artificial intelligence, it’s particularly imperative that we accelerate our national security community’s adoption and use of cutting-edge AI,” the official said. But some civil liberties advocates are raising concerns that the new guidelines lack sufficient safeguards. “Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems,” according to …

VIPPEROD, Denmark — European scientists have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of interpreting pig sounds, aiming to create a tool that can help farmers improve animal welfare. The algorithm could potentially alert farmers to negative emotions in pigs, thereby improving their well-being, according to Elodie Mandel-Briefer, a behavioral biologist at University of Copenhagen who is co-leading the study. The scientists, from universities in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Norway and the Czech Republic, used thousands of recorded pig sounds in different scenarios, including play, isolation and competition for food, to find that grunts, oinks, and squeals reveal positive or negative emotions. While many farmers already have a good understanding of the well-being of their animals by watching them in the pig pen, existing tools mostly measure their physical condition, said Mandel-Briefer. “Emotions of animals are central to their welfare, but we don’t measure it much on farms,” she said. The algorithm demonstrated that pigs kept in outdoor, free-range or organic farms with the ability to roam and dig in the dirt produced fewer stress calls than conventionally raised pigs. The researchers believe that this method, once fully developed, could also be used to label farms, helping consumers make informed choices. “Once we have the tool working, farmers can have an app on their phone that can translate what their pigs are saying in terms of emotions,” Mandel-Briefer said. Short grunts typically indicate positive emotions, while long grunts often signal discomfort, such as when pigs push each other by the trough. High-frequency …

Chinese officials recently released a 25-year space exploration plan that details five major scientific themes and 17 priority areas for scientific breakthroughs with one goal: to make China a world leader in space by 2050 and a key competitor with the U.S. in space, for decades to come. Last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China National Space Administration, and the China Manned Space Agency jointly released a space exploration plan for 2024 through 2050. It includes searching for extraterrestrial life, exploring Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, sending space crews to the moon and building an international lunar research station by 2025. Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the plan highlights China’s long-term commitment and answers some lingering questions as well. “I think a lot of experts have wondered if China would continue to invest in space, particularly in science and exploration, given a lot of economic uncertainties in China … but this is a sign that they’re committed,” Swope said. The plan reinforces a “commitment to really look at space science and exploration in the long term and not just short term,” he added. The plan outlines Beijing’s goal to send astronauts to the moon by 2030, obtain and retrieve the first samples from Mars and successfully complete a mission to the Jupiter system in the next few years. It also outlines three phases of development, each with specific goals in terms of space exploration and key …

A top Chinese official has urged tech giant Apple to deepen its presence and investment in innovation in the world’s second largest economy at a time when supply chains and companies are shifting production and operations away from China. As U.S.-China geopolitical tensions simmer and tech competition between Beijing and Western countries intensifies, foreign investment in China shrunk in 2023 to its lowest level in three decades, according to government statistics. The United States has banned the export of advanced technology to China and Beijing’s crackdown on spying in the name of national security concerns has spooked investors. On Wednesday, Jin Zhuanglong – China’s Minister for Industry and Information Technology – told Apple CEO Tim Cook he hoped that, “Apple will continue to deepen its presence in the Chinese market,” urging Cook to “increase investment in innovation, grow alongside Chinese firms, and share in the dividends of high-quality investment,” according to a ministry statement. At the meeting Jin also discussed “Apple’s development in China, network data security management, (and) cloud services,” according to the statement. China has the world’s largest market for smartphones, and Apple is a leading competitor. However, increasingly the iPhone producer has lost market share in the country due to an increasing number of local rivals in the smartphone sector. In the second quarter of this year, AFP reports that Apple ranked sixth among smartphone vendors in China, holding a 16% market share, marking a drop of three positions compared to its ranking during the same period …

Washington — When it comes to combating disinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential elections, artificial intelligence and chatbots are failing, a media research group has found. The latest audit by the research group NewsGuard found that generative AI tools struggle to effectively respond to false narratives. In its latest audit of 10 leading chatbots, compiled in September, NewsGuard found that AI will repeat misinformation 18% of the time and offer a nonresponse 38.33% of the time — leading to a “fail rate” of almost 40%, according to NewsGuard. “These chatbots clearly struggle when it comes to handling prompt inquiries related to news and information,” said McKenzie Sadeghi, the audit’s author. “There’s a lot of sources out there, and the chatbots might not be able to discern between which ones are reliable versus which ones aren’t.” NewsGuard has a database of false news narratives that circulate, encompassing global wars and U.S. politics, Sadeghi told VOA. Every month, researchers feed trending false narratives into leading chatbots in three different forms: innocent user prompts, leading questions and “bad actor” prompts. From there, the researchers measure if AI repeats, fails to respond or debunks the claims. AI repeats false narratives mostly in response to bad actor prompts, which mirror the tactics used by foreign influence campaigns to spread disinformation. Around 70% of the instances where AI repeated falsehoods were in response to bad actor prompts, as opposed to leading prompts or innocent user prompts. Foreign influence campaigns are able to take advantage of such flaws, …

Microsoft will allow customers to build autonomous artificial intelligence agents starting in November, the software giant said on Monday, in its latest move to tap the booming technology. The company is positioning autonomous agents – programs which require little human intervention unlike chatbots – as “apps for an AI-driven world,” capable of handling client inquiries, identifying sales leads and managing inventory. Other big technology firms such as Salesforce have also touted the potential of such agents, tools that some analysts say could provide companies with an easier path to monetizing the billions of dollars they are pouring into AI. Microsoft said its customers can use Copilot Studio – an application that requires little knowledge of computer code – to create autonomous agents in public preview from November. It is using several AI models developed in-house and by OpenAI for the agents. The company is also introducing ten ready-for-use agents that can help with routine tasks ranging from managing supply chain to expense tracking and client communications. In one demo, McKinsey & Co, which had early access to the tools, created an agent that can manage client inquires by checking interaction history, identifying the consultant for the task and scheduling a follow-up meeting. “The idea is that Copilot (the company’s chatbot) is the user interface for AI,” Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of business and industry Copilot at Microsoft, told Reuters. “Every employee will have a Copilot, their personalized AI agent, and then they will use that Copilot to interface and …

The artificial intelligence boom has benefited chatbot makers, computer scientists and Nvidia investors. It’s also providing an unusual windfall for Anguilla, a tiny island in the Caribbean. ChatGPT’s debut nearly two years ago heralded the dawn of the AI age and kicked off a digital gold rush as companies scrambled to stake their own claims by acquiring websites that end in .ai. That’s where Anguilla comes in. The British territory was allotted control of the .ai internet address in the 1990s. It was one of hundreds of obscure top-level domains assigned to individual countries and territories based on their names. While the domains are supposed to indicate a website has a link to a particular region or language, it’s not always a requirement. Google uses google.ai to showcase its artificial intelligence services while Elon Musk uses x.ai as the homepage for his Grok AI chatbot. Startups like AI search engine Perplexity have also snapped up .ai web addresses, redirecting users from the .com version. Anguilla’s earnings from web domain registration fees quadrupled last year to $32 million, fueled by the surging interest in AI. The income now accounts for about 20% of Anguilla’s total government revenue. Before the AI boom, it hovered at around 5%. Anguilla’s government, which uses the gov.ai home page, collects a fee every time an .ai web address is renewed. The territory signed a deal Tuesday with a U.S. company to manage the domains amid explosive demand but the fees aren’t expected to change. It also …

WASHINGTON — China-based DJI sued the U.S. Defense Department on Friday for adding the drone maker to a list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military, saying the designation is wrong and has caused the company significant financial harm. DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer that sells more than half of all U.S. commercial drones, asked a U.S. District Judge in Washington to order its removal from the Pentagon list designating it as a “Chinese military company,” saying it “is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military.” Being placed on the list represents a warning to U.S. entities and companies about the national security risks of conducting business with them. DJI’s lawsuit says because of the Defense Department’s “unlawful and misguided decision” it has “lost business deals, been stigmatized as a national security threat, and been banned from contracting with multiple federal government agencies.” The company added “U.S. and international customers have terminated existing contracts with DJI and refuse to enter into new ones.” The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. DJI said on Friday it filed the lawsuit after the Defense Department did not engage with the company over the designation for more than 16 months, saying it “had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court.” Amid strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies, the updated list is one of numerous actions Washington has taken in recent years to highlight and restrict Chinese companies that it says may strengthen Beijing’s …

The Tana River delta on the Kenyan coast includes a vast range of habitats and a remarkably productive ecosystem, says UNESCO. It is also home to many bird species, including some that are nearly threatened. Residents are helping local conservation efforts with an app called eBird. Juma Majanga reports. …

In a year with over 60 national elections worldwide, concerns are high that individuals and entities are using deepfake images and recordings to contribute to the flood of election misinformation. VOA’s Rio Tuasikal reports on some potentially dangerous videos made using generative AI. …

U.S. federal prosecutors are stepping up their pursuit of suspects who use artificial intelligence tools to manipulate or create child sex abuse images, as law enforcement fears the technology could spur a flood of illicit material. The U.S. Justice Department has brought two criminal cases this year against defendants accused of using generative AI systems, which create text or images in response to user prompts, to produce explicit images of children. “There’s more to come,” said James Silver, the chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, predicting further similar cases. “What we’re concerned about is the normalization of this,” Silver said in an interview. “AI makes it easier to generate these kinds of images, and the more that are out there, the more normalized this becomes. That’s something that we really want to stymie and get in front of.” The rise of generative AI has sparked concerns at the Justice Department that the rapidly advancing technology will be used to carry out cyberattacks, boost the sophistication of cryptocurrency scammers and undermine election security.  Child sex abuse cases mark some of the first times that prosecutors are trying to apply existing U.S. laws to alleged crimes involving AI, and even successful convictions could face appeals as courts weigh how the new technology may alter the legal landscape around child exploitation.  Prosecutors and child safety advocates say generative AI systems can allow offenders to morph and sexualize ordinary photos of children and warn that a proliferation of AI-produced …