AI Seoul Summit achieves safety commitments | Taiwan confident in safeguarding lead in chipmaking | China’s latest answer to OpenAI is ‘Chat Xi PT’
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Google, Meta and OpenAI were among the companies that made voluntary safety commitments at the AI Seoul Summit, including pulling the plug on their cutting-edge systems if they can’t rein in the most extreme risks. The Associated Press
Taiwan’s new Tech Czar is confident TSMC can guard chip secrets. “When TSMC promises advanced manufacturing technology overseas, it is still building that first in Taiwan,” Wu said at his first press conference at the National Science and Technology Council on Wednesday. Bloomberg
Beijing’s latest attempt to control how artificial intelligence informs Chinese internet users has been rolled out as a chatbot trained on the thoughts of President Xi Jinping. The country’s newest large language model has been learning from its leader’s political philosophy, known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, as well as other official literature provided by the Cyberspace Administration of China. Financial Times
ASPI
Australia and New Zealand need an Anzac cyber incident review board
The Strategist
Adam Dobell
Many cyber attacks now straddle the Tasman Sea, such as last year’s data breach against Latitude, an Australian financial services provider, which affected more than 14 million people across Australia and New Zealand. As both nations focus on how to recover better from such large-scale incidents, they should combine their efforts by setting up an Anzac cyber incident review board.
Australia
‘No country in the world has solved this problem’: can Australia make age verification work for social media?
The Guardian
Josh Taylor and Tamsin Rose
Documents uncovered by Guardian Australia include a survey of the international landscape of age assurance technology prepared by the communications department in August last year and released under FoI. It says: “No countries have implemented an age verification mandate without issue.”
China
China’s latest answer to OpenAI is ‘Chat Xi PT’
Financial Times
Ryan McMorrow
Beijing’s latest attempt to control how artificial intelligence informs Chinese internet users has been rolled out as a chatbot trained on the thoughts of President Xi Jinping. The country’s newest large language model has been learning from its leader’s political philosophy, known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, as well as other official literature provided by the Cyberspace Administration of China.
Tencent and iFlytek enter China's AI language model price war
Reuters
Eduardo Baptista
China's most valuable internet company Tencent and artificial intelligence (AI) firm iFlytek on Wednesday slashed prices of large-language models(LLM) used to power ChatGPT-like chatbots, entering a brewing price war between some of the country's biggest tech companies. Tencent's cloud unit said the "lite" version of its LLM, Hunyuan, was now free, while prices of more powerful versions were cut by between 50% and 88%. A few hours prior, iFlytek said its "Spark" LLM was either free or five times cheaper than similar products from competitors.
USA
US lawmakers advance bill to make it easier to curb exports of AI models
Reuters
Alexandra Alper
The bill, sponsored by House Republicans Michael McCaul and John Molenaar and Democrats Raja Krishnamoorthi and Susan Wild, also would give the Commerce Department express authority to bar Americans from working with foreigners to develop AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security.
North Asia
Taiwan’s new tech czar is confident TSMC can guard chip secrets
Bloomberg
Jane Lanhee Lee
“When TSMC promises advanced manufacturing technology overseas, it is still building that first in Taiwan,” Wu said at his first press conference at the National Science and Technology Council on Wednesday.
Southeast Asia
Indonesia has more than 700 languages. Can AI save them?
Rest of World
Adi Renaldi
Most LLMs such as GPT, Llama, and Gemini are trained largely in English, but several Southeast Asian firms are focusing on Bahasa Indonesia and other regional languages.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Starlink live in Fiji – Musk
The Fiji Times
Starlink was granted a license to provide internet services in Fiji in November last year. Deputy PM and Minister for Communication Manoa Kamikamica welcomed the news saying, this made Fiji the first Pacific island country to have access to high-speed internet service.
Europe
China's race to tech supremacy: Driving into Europe
Financial Times
James Kynge
China’s BYD has become one of the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturers, thanks to its low production costs. The US has slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports to protect its own sector but BYD has its sights set on Europe. The FT’s James Kynge reports from Germany to find out what established European carmakers make of this burgeoning competition, and how the EU is handling it.
UK
UK not heeding warning over China threat, says ex-cybersecurity chief
The Guardian
Dan Milmo
The UK is not paying enough attention to a “gamechanging” shift in China’s cyber-espionage tactics towards infiltrating critical infrastructure including energy and communications networks, a former head of Britain’s cybersecurity agency has warned.
Africa
Congo lawyers say they have new evidence on Apple's minerals supply chain
Reuters
Sonia Rolley and Bate Felix
Another lawyer from Amsterdam & Partners LLP, Peter Sahlas, told Reuters that people who worked on Apple's supply chain verification in Congo had come forward to say that their contracts were terminated after they flagged concerns that "blood minerals" were in Apple's supply chain.
Big Tech
Misinformation posted to Twitter comes from 'superspreader' accounts, say researchers, amid warnings for future of content moderation on X
ABC News
Brianna Morris-Grant
The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, relied on "data obtained before Twitter's transformation into X", and noted many of the accounts identified as superspreaders in 2020 had already become inactive or been banned from the platform.In total, 34 per cent of the "low credibility" content posted to the site between January and October of 2020 was created by the 10 users identified by researchers based in the US and UK. This amounted to more than 815,000 tweets.
Artificial Intelligence
AI companies make fresh safety promise at Seoul summit, nations agree to align work on risks
Associated Press
Hyung-Jin Kim and Kelvin Chan
Google, Meta and OpenAI were among the companies that made voluntary safety commitments at the AI Seoul Summit, including pulling the plug on their cutting-edge systems if they can’t rein in the most extreme risks.
Productivity soars in sectors of global economy most exposed to AI, says report
The Guardian
Larry Elliott
Barret Kupelian, the chief economist at PwC UK, said: “Our findings show that AI has the power to create new industries, transform the jobs market and potentially push up productivity growth rates. In terms of the economic impact, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg – currently, our findings suggest that the adoption of AI is concentrated in a few sectors of the economy, but once the technology improves and diffuses across other sectors of the economy, the future potential could be transformative.”
ScarJo and Sam Altman’s ‘cult of personality’
POLITICO
Derek Robertson
Sam Altman’s convincing turn as a Silicon Valley visionary just ran up against one of the few forces in American life still powerful enough to rival it: A rich, famous and beautiful movie star.
Sam Altman's OpenAI signs content agreement with News Corp
Reuters
Niket Nishant
Sam Altman-led OpenAI has signed a deal that will give it access to content from some of the biggest news publications owned by media conglomerate News Corp the companies said on Wednesday. The deal comes weeks after the Microsoft-backed AI giant clinched an agreement to license content from the Financial Times for the development of AI models.
Google set to bring ads in search AI Overviews
Reuters
Jaspreet Singh
Google will start testing search and shopping ads in its AI-generated answers in the U.S., the Alphabet-owned company said on Tuesday, days after it rolled out the AI Overviews feature widely at its annual I/O conference. Ads will appear in a 'sponsored' section within AI Overview based on the query's relevance and information,the company said, in a blog post.
Events & Podcasts
The Sydney Dialogue
ASPI
The Sydney Dialogue was created to help bring together governments, businesses and civil society to discuss and progress policy options. We will forecast the technologies of the next decade that will change our societies, economies and national security, prioritising speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We will promote diverse views that stimulate real conversations about the best ways to seize opportunities and minimise risks.
JoiningFORCES
ASPI
The JoiningFORCES conference will explore ways to bridge national and international boundaries to deliver more joint, collective and effective defence. It will bring together government ministers, senior defence officials, leading industry figures, and international experts across the two-day event and formal dinner. We will also use collaborative wargaming and scenario exercise techniques to generate insights on enhancing regional deterrence. Our focus will be on strategic and operational level challenges and will consider the vital role of industry in delivering capability at the speed needed to meet the strategic threats Australia faces.
WDSN's Policy Views and Brews
ASPI
ASPI’s Women in Defence and Security Network is excited to invite you to its inaugural ‘Policy Views and Brews’ networking event on Thursday June 13! Designed to be a relaxed atmosphere where like-minded people can exchange ideas on a range of themes within defence, policy and national security, each meet-up will revolve around a specific topic, inspired by a pre-designated article sent out beforehand.
ASPI – CNAS – RUSI | Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue
ASPI
The ASPI-CNAS-RUSI Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue is an initiative across leading Australian, American, and British think tanks to hold robust, pragmatic, and principled conversations about AUKUS and related national security and defense policies.This year’s Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue will explore the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific, regional perspectives on AUKUS, and critical issues regarding tech diplomacy, technology sharing, and legislative environments necessary to deliver capabilities to meet the pact’s purposes for enhancing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The Dialogue will be held on 17-18 June 2024 in Washington, DC.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.