US and UK sign landmark agreement on testing safety of AI | Biden, Xi discuss TikTok, South China Sea and de-risking in call | Shrinking Arctic ice redraws the map for internet cable connections
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The US and UK have signed a landmark agreement on artificial intelligence, as the allies become the first countries to formally co-operate on how to test and assess risks from emerging AI models. Financial Times
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping for nearly two hours Tuesday on a range of topics including TikTok ownership, tensions in the South China Sea and whether American sanctions against China amounted to de-risking or decoupling. Nikkei Asia
Thawing ice in the Arctic may open up new routes for internet cables that lie at the bottom of the ocean and carry most international data traffic. And more routes matter when underwater infrastructure is at risk of attack. POLITICO
ASPI
Governing AI in the global disorder
The Strategist
Mercedes Page
With AI increasingly affecting our economies, societies, communications and security, the debates on how to govern AI go to the heart of the ideological competition that is reshaping the global order. To get around the growing fragmentation among nations—coupled with the UN’s challenges in establishing quick and effective governance mechanisms at the best of times—there’s a rise in minilateral and other initiatives on AI as nations race to ensure rules on AI reflect their own values and interests.
Chief defence scientist: We must get emerging technologies into the hands of our war fighters faster
The Strategist
Brendan Nicholson
For chief defence scientist Tanya Monro, the concept of ‘minimum viable capability’ is critical to shifting Australia’s thinking on how to get cutting edge technologies into the hands of military personnel fast enough to give them an advantage on the battlefield.
World
Shrinking Arctic ice redraws the map for internet cable connections
POLITICO
Mathieu Pollet & Giovanna Coi
Thawing ice in the Arctic may open up new routes for internet cables that lie at the bottom of the ocean and carry most international data traffic. And more routes matter when underwater infrastructure is at risk of attack. Red Sea data cables were cut last month after a Yemeni government warning of attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Over 90 percent of all Europe-Asia traffic flows through the Red Sea route. The problem of critical data relying on only one path is clear.
Australia
Labor ministers warned over expanded use of AI in immigration and biosecurity decisions
The Guardian
Karen Middleton
The federal government’s increasing use of computers to make decisions is raising alarm – including from its own ranks – with a bipartisan committee warning automation could jeopardise important safeguards that human discretion provides.
Publishers are concerned news could be permanently dumped from Facebook
The Australian
Sophie Elsworth & Cameron England
Publishers say Meta’s decision to switch off its hidden news tab will have little impact on how Facebook users consume news and instead they remain worried about their future as the tech company refuses to rule out banning news from its platform. Many publishers are concerned about the long-term accessibility of news on the social media platform and whether Meta will repeat what it has done in Canada and ban it altogether.
New global frictions drive push to AI world
The Australian
Sian Powell
Australian defence experts have been hard at work developing responsible artificial intelligence defence systems, galvanised by increasing geopolitical friction during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. AI has enormous defence potential. Last year, defence experts from the three AUKUS nations got together for an advanced capabilities AI and autonomy working group trial in the UK.
Read more on emerging defence technologies in The Australian's series here.
China
China quietly making progress on new techniques to cut reliance on advanced ASML lithography machines
South China Morning Post
Che Pan
Beijing-based Naura Technology Group started research on lithography systems last month, according to people familiar with the matter, as China’s home-grown semiconductor tool makers try workarounds to produce advanced chips without the latest equipment from Dutch giant ASML, a breakthrough that could potentially thwart US attempts to contain China’s chip-making capabilities.
Updated US semiconductor export restrictions raise demand in China for Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics card
South China Morning Post
Iris Deng
The latest restrictions imposed by the United States on the export of artificial intelligence semiconductors to mainland China have turned graphic cards into some of the most sought-after items in Huaqiangbei, the world’s biggest wholesale electronics marketplace. The Biden administration last Friday revised sweeping export controls it implemented last October, making it harder for the mainland to have access to advanced AI processors, semiconductor-manufacturing equipment and even laptop computers built with those chips, according to a Reuters report. The revised rules will take effect on April 4.
USA
US and UK sign landmark agreement on testing safety of AI
Financial Times
Madhumita Murgia
The US and UK have signed a landmark agreement on artificial intelligence, as the allies become the first countries to formally co-operate on how to test and assess risks from emerging AI models. The deal represents the first bilateral arrangement on AI safety in the world and comes as governments push for greater regulation of the existential risks from new technology, such as its use in damaging cyber attacks or designing bioweapons.
Biden and Xi discuss TikTok, South China Sea and de-risking in call
Nikkei Asia
Ken Moriyasu
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping for nearly two hours Tuesday on a range of topics including TikTok ownership, tensions in the South China Sea and whether American sanctions against China amounted to de-risking or decoupling. Kirby acknowledged that social media app TikTok was discussed in the roughly one hour and 45 minute call. Biden "reiterated our concerns about the ownership of TikTok," he said.
Biden’s agenda for call with Xi included election meddling, cyberattacks
POLITICO
Phelim Kine
President Joe Biden planned to warn China’s leader Xi Jinping against interfering in the November U.S. presidential election in a call between the two leaders Tuesday, a senior administration official told reporters before their talks. Washington and Beijing are also finalising plans for a bilateral dialogue in the coming weeks “aimed at managing the risk and safety challenges posed by advanced forms of AI,” the official said. Another key issue on Biden’s call agenda was cyberattacks by China-linked hackers. The U.S. and allies including Canada and Australia issued a joint warning in February that the Chinese state-sponsored hacking crew Volt Typhoon has launched attacks on U.S. communications, water and transportation infrastructure.
New York City payroll website has been down for a week, following phishing attack
POLITICO
Jeff Coltin
The administration of Mayor Eric Adams took its payroll website partially offline for the last nine days in response to a recent phishing scheme targeting city employees — leaving the city’s roughly 300,000 full time workers with limited access to essential forms as Tax Day nears. Last month, the city’s cybersecurity team was made aware of a text message phishing campaign in which hackers tried to steal NYCAPS users’ personal information, a spokesperson for the Office of Technology & Innovation said in a statement.
North Asia
US Asks South Korea to Toughen Up Export Controls on China Chips
Bloomberg
Mackenzie Hawkins & Sam Kim
The US is asking South Korea to adopt restrictions on semiconductor technology exports to China similar to those Washington has already implemented, another sign the Biden administration is stepping up efforts to thwart Beijing’s chip ambitions. American officials want South Korea to restrict the flow of equipment and technologies for making high-end logic and memory chips to China, according to people familiar with the matter.
Japan chipmaker Rapidus to receive $3.9bn more in government aid
Nikkei Asia
Riho Nagao, Ryo Mukano & Ryohtaroh Satoh
Japanese chipmaker Rapidus said it aims to deliver semiconductors to customers more than twice as quickly as rivals, as Tokyo bets on the startup with an additional 590 billion yen ($3.89 billion) in subsidies.
Defense Ministry investigates 'drone video' showing destroyer at MSDF base
NHK World Japan
Japan's Defense Ministry is investigating a video on social media that claims to have been shot by a drone flying over a destroyer at a Maritime Self-Defense Force base near Tokyo. Flying drones over SDF bases without authorisation is prohibited by law. The Defense Ministry is investigating how the video was posted and if the images were faked or edited.
Southeast Asia
Singapore tightens anti-money laundering rules for crypto players
Nikkei Asia
Dylan Loh
Singapore's financial regulator is tightening rules on anti-money laundering measures covering cryptocurrency players, as the city-state extends its reach to mitigate the risk of ill-gotten gains flowing through the country after a recent large criminal bust. These changes affect digital payment token service providers, or crypto players, which the MAS had already targeted, amid the fall of high-profile virtual currency platforms and related businesses following the crash of digital coin prices in 2022.
South & Central Asia
YouTube failed to block disinformation about Indian elections, researchers find
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
YouTube failed to detect manipulation and disinformation in dozens of fake political advertisements uploaded by researchers to test the platform’s moderation of election-related content in India. According to a new investigation by the human rights groups Access Now and Global Witness, YouTube approved each of 48 ads in English, Hindi, and Telugu, which contained baseless allegations of electoral fraud, falsehoods around voting procedures, and attacks on the integrity of the process. The advertisements didn’t run online but were submitted by the researchers on YouTube for an initial review. Once they were checked and approved, they removed them from the platform so they were not seen by anyone using the site.
Europe
Poland launches inquiry into previous government’s spyware use
The Guardian
Shaun Walker
Poland has launched an investigation into its previous government’s use of the controversial spyware Pegasus, with a parliamentary inquiry under way and the possibility of criminal charges being brought against former government officials in future. Pegasus is a powerful tool designed by Israeli company NSO Group. It is capable of taking control of a target’s mobile phone, accessing data from secure messaging apps and even turning the device into a recorder. In 2021, a consortium of media outlets, including the Guardian, accessed a data leak that showed thousands of phone numbers that were targeted by Pegasus in various countries.
Gender & Women in Tech
Disinterest in AI poses pay gap risk for Gen Z women: KPMG
The Australian
Matt Bell
Women could miss out on promotions or pay rises if more isn’t done to promote artificial intelligence to young Australian women, KPMG says. The consulting firm said Generation Z women, those aged in their teens to mid 20s, were not engaging with AI as much as their male counterparts at a time when the technology was a priority for business.
Big Tech
Review board faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors in China hack
The Washington Post
Ellen Nakashima & Joseph Menn
A review board, mandated by President Biden, is expected to issue a scathing report detailing lapses by the tech giant Microsoft that led to a targeted Chinese hack last year of top U.S. government officials’ emails, including those of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The Cyber Safety Review Board’s report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, takes aim at shoddy cybersecurity practices, lax corporate culture and a deliberate lack of transparency over what Microsoft knew about the origins of the breach. It is a blistering indictment of a tech titan whose cloud infrastructure is widely used by consumers and governments around the world.
Open source foundations unite on common standards for EU’s Cyber Resilience Act
TechCrunch
Paul Sawers
Seven open source foundations are coming together to create common specifications and standards for Europe’s Cyber Resilience Act, regulation adopted by the European Parliament last month. The Apache Software Foundation, Blender Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, OpenSSL Software Foundation, PHP Foundation, Python Software Foundation, and Rust Foundation revealed their intentions to pool their collective resources and connect the dots between existing security best practices in open source software development — and ensure that the much-maligned software supply chain is up to the task when the new legislation comes into force in three years.
Artificial Intelligence
Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Stevie Wonder and more musicians demand protection against AI
The Guardian
Nick Robins-Early
A group of over 200 high-profile musicians have signed an open letter calling for protections against the predatory use of artificial intelligence that mimics human artists’ likenesses, voices and sound. The letter, which was issued by the Artist Rights Alliance advocacy group, makes the broad demand that technology companies pledge not to develop AI tools that undermine or replace human songwriters and artists.
Anthropic researchers wear down AI ethics with repeated questions
TechCrunch
Devin Coldewey
How do you get an AI to answer a question it’s not supposed to? There are many such “jailbreak” techniques, and Anthropic researchers just found a new one, in which a large language model can be convinced to tell you how to build a bomb if you prime it with a few dozen less-harmful questions first. They call the approach “many-shot jailbreaking,” and have both written a paper about it and also informed their peers in the AI community about it so it can be mitigated. The vulnerability is a new one, resulting from the increased “context window” of the latest generation of LLMs. This is the amount of data they can hold in what you might call short-term memory, once only a few sentences but now thousands of words and even entire books.
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.
AI Expo
SCSP
On May 7th and 8th, SCSP will host its first-ever AI Expo for National Competitiveness. The AI Expo is meant to serve as a forum for industry, government, and academic research entities to exhibit some of the latest technological breakthroughs — in AI, biotech, energy, networks, compute, microelectronics, manufacturing, augmented reality, and beyond — and discuss their implications for U.S. and allied competitiveness.
Jobs
Data Scientist
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an inquisitive and problem-solving open-source data scientist who will be responsible for developing and implementing automated techniques for a variety of open-source data collection requirements. We are open to experienced data scientists and those beginning their career. Role equivalency would be between levels 3 – 7 of Data Science category of SFIA 8. The closing date for applications is 15 April 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
Director of Cyber, Technology & Security (CTS)
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an exceptional and experienced leader to lead our largest team focused on emerging security challenges, particularly in cyberspace and the information domain. Director CTS leads ASPI’s largest team to develop and deliver a range of applied research projects on existing and emerging security challenges. CTS’ projects range across cyber and critical infrastructure security, critical and emerging technologies, national resilience and social cohesion, and hybrid threats. The closing date for applications is 22 April 2024 – an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
China Analyst or Senior Analyst
ASPI
ASPI has an exciting opportunity for an analyst or senior analyst to explore China's evolving foreign and security policy, political economy and impact on the Indo-Pacific and the world. ASPI’s China analysts conduct rigorous data-driven research, publish impactful reports that shape the public policy discourse and contribute to the wide catalogue of influential China work published by ASPI. The difference between the analyst and senior analyst levels will depend on experience level and demonstration of past work. The closing date for applications is 10 May 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.