#Microsoft Partner Network

[seat-safety-switch]

All around you, businesses are suffering because they neglected the cybers. That's right. Cybersecurity is more important than ever, because Russians will send you an email attachment that you open, and then your whole network gets all fucked up. And the experts are run off their feet trying to clean all this mess up. In fact, they're so busy, that I decided to step into the breach and help them out a little.

First, some background: yes, before I went "freelance" by way of living a cash-heavy, odd-jobs, hand-to-mouth, criminal-record squatter lifestyle, I too had a regular office job. Perhaps you have one like it. Let me give you some keywords and you let me know if they trigger any deep-seated trauma: Microsoft Excel. Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft Project. Now that we've established our mutual bona fides, it's time for your employer to become my employer: by hiring me to clean up the next time that Bob Dipshit, CFO, decides he's going to double-click the wrong icon and hoses the entire Eastern Seaboard.

Do I have expertise in this kind of thing? No. Will I get your files back intact? Probably not. Will anyone else get your files back? About the same chance, if I'm honest. At least this way, we both – that's right, we're partners now – get to rack up some billable hours while we "study the problem" and "look for vulnerabilities" in the meantime. And you never know. Maybe once we send a photo of the car I used to get here, the Russians will realize you don't actually have any money and turn the whole thing off. Rust scares them, you see. Their cars are all made out of exotic compressed resins that goats occasionally eat if you park in the wrong place.

So the next time your office gets all screwed up, don't waste time calling the pros. Waste time calling a complete amateur, and together we can loot the company of a bunch of money before they resign themselves to having to restore from a backup. My rates are entirely reasonable, unless you're the one paying them.

[vague-humanoid]

To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what’s to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot’s ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.

“Balaji has the highest rate of output per minute of good new ideas of anybody I’ve ever met,” wrote Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the V.C. firm Andreessen-Horowitz, in a blurb for Balaji’s 2022 book, The Network State: How to Start a New Country. The book outlines a plan for tech plutocrats to exit democracy and establish new sovereign territories. I mentioned Balaji’s ideas in two previous stories about Network State–related efforts in California—a proposed tech colony called California Forever and the tech-funded campaign to capture San Francisco’s government.

Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly strident neo-reactionary tech political movement that sees American democracy as an enemy. In 2013, a New York Times story headlined “Silicon Valley Roused by Secession Call” described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations’: outdated and obsolescent.”

“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,” reported the Times. Balaji paints a bleak picture of a dystopian future in a U.S. in chaos and decline, but his prophecies sometimes fall short. Last year, he lost $1 million in a public bet after wrongly predicting a massive surge in the price of Bitcoin.

Still, his appetite for autocracy is bottomless. Last October, Balaji hosted the first-ever Network State Conference. Garry Tan—the current Y Combinator CEO who’s attempting to spearhead a political takeover of San Francisco—participated in an interview with Balaji and cast the effort as part of the Network State movement. Tan, who made headlines in January after tweeting “die slow motherfuckers” at local progressive politicians, frames his campaign as an experiment in “moderate” politics. But in a podcast interview one month before the conference, Balaji laid out a more disturbing and extreme vision.

“What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.”

The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over.

“Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.”

@karpad @quasi-normalcy @ubernegro

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Ingram at NBC News:

President-elect Donald Trump has surrounded himself with a tight-knit group of wealthy tech barons whose ideas will help define his second term in the White House. 

Three key allies — members of a group known as “the PayPal Mafia” for their involvement in the money-transfer company two decades ago — seem to be shaping policy and staffing decisions in Trump’s incoming administration, and they are part of an expansive right-wing tech network that will accompany Trump back into power.  The network is highly interconnected, sharing not only a political alliance but also social ties, investment opportunities, anti-regulatory ideas and geographic proximity in Austin, Texas, or Northern California. Some of their friendships and professional connections go back decades, and almost all the members of the network are men.  Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been called the “shadow president” or “first buddy,” and he wants to take a hatchet to the federal budget at Trump’s request as co-lead of the newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency” with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.  David Sacks, a tech investor and podcaster, will have the role of Trump’s tech “czar,” advising him on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. 

Peter Thiel, a longtime Trump supporter, has given the incoming Trump administration a staffing pipeline filled with at least 10 of his former co-workers, employees or investing partners — including Vice President-elect JD Vance.  And dozens of other tech figures are now orbiting in Trump’s gravity, as either informal advisers, government officials-in-waiting or supporters pushing Trump’s agenda from outside Washington. While some converted to his side only recently, many of the tech figures know one another very well.  “They’ve turned profits into power,” said Rob Lalka, author of the book “The Venture Alchemists,” which came out this year and profiled many of the figures who are headed into the administration.  Lalka, a professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business, said several characteristics define the technologists surrounding Trump, including their wealth and skepticism of institutions and the heavily online personas they’ve created. And he said they have a shared history, with many of them overlapping at Stanford University during and after Thiel’s time there.  “That contrarianism, it doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from real-life experiences they had as college students,” he said. 

In other words: A right-wing faction has coalesced within the usually progressive tech industry, and much of it is preparing to make Washington a second home for the next four years.  The Trump transition team describes it as a natural fit.  “President Trump’s agenda includes economic, energy and regulatory policies that will allow the US to reclaim its global dominance of innovation and technology,” Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the transition, said in a statement.   “President Trump is surrounding himself with industry leaders like Elon Musk as he works to restore innovation, reduce regulation, and celebrate free speech in his second term,” he said.  Musk, Sacks and Thiel didn’t respond to requests for comment on the transition.  Neil Malhotra, a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said it’s notable that many in the tech industry crowd that’s close to Trump don’t come from the biggest-name tech companies, such as Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft. 

“This specific group is unique because it’s coming a lot from venture,” he said, referring to venture capitalists who invest in startups. “Venture is very different from Big Seven incumbent tech. The Big Seven incumbent tech, those people are trying to be very neutral.” The Magnificent 7 collection of tech companies includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Tesla.   Venture capitalists often are less interested in corporate initiatives such as diversity programs, he said. Instead, they have a reputation for ruthless competition, focusing in their most extreme moments on growth at all costs and upending the existing order.  “The contrarian culture of Silicon Valley and venture has pushed back against big corporate ideas coming out of the professional managerial class,” he said.  Trump’s second term won’t be the first administration to have strong influence from the modern tech industry. The Obama administration was closely tied to tech, especially to Google and its executives, such as former CEO Eric Schmidt. 

But there’s little overlap between the tech figures who advised President Barack Obama and those working now for Trump. And there’s a different dynamic this time around, said Nathan Leamer, a Republican consultant in Washington and CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies. “Obama was following Big Tech’s lead in 2008, and there was an excitement that the Obama administration’s approach to tech mirrored the blogosphere and early Twitter and how these companies saw themselves as fitting into the world,” he said.  “The difference now is that, with Trump, it’s following the Republican Party’s lead,” he said. “Tech is watching Republican leaders and realizing that they have to get in the game. Otherwise, they’re going to be left out.” 

Previously Trump-skeptical tech companies such as Meta, Amazon and OpenAI are each giving at least $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, donations that Trump can use for whatever purpose he wants.  Setting a tone near the top of the new administration will be Vance, who worked for one of Thiel’s venture capital funds, Mithril Capital, after law school and has benefited ever since from the association. Thiel was one of the main backers of Vance’s run for the Senate in Ohio in 2022.  “From the top, you see that connection with Silicon Valley,” Leamer said. (He noted that Trump himself now qualifies as a tech investor, with a majority stake in the parent company of Truth Social, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp.)  Leamer said that while some industries rely on Washington-based trade and lobbying organizations to be the faces of their businesses, figures such as Musk, Sacks and Thiel pursue a different model: cutting out the trade groups as middlemen and speaking directly to large audiences through social media and podcasts. 

NBC News has a report on Donald Trump’s connections to right-wing wealthy tech kingpins such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Vivek Ramaswamy, and David Sacks, not to mention his ticketmate JD Vance.

Read the full story at NBC News.

[mariacallous]

The U.S. presidential election is less than 50 days away, and this week served up some grim reminders of how high the stakes are—and how intent Washington’s adversaries are on swaying or disrupting the vote. 

New details have emerged of cyberattacks and election interference efforts by China, Russia, and Iran, with U.S. officials and technology executives sounding the alarm about the countries’ intent to sow chaos in the weeks leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5. 

Russian cyber groups have pivoted in the last two months to attacking the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a new report Microsoft released Tuesday. The groups have spread several fake videos, including one purportedly showing a Harris supporter attacking an attendee at a rally for former President Donald Trump, another (through a fake San Francisco news site) that falsely claimed Harris was involved in a hit-and-run incident, and a third showing a fake billboard in New York City listing false claims about Harris’s policies. 

“As we inch closer to the election, we should expect Russian actors to continue to use cyber proxies and hacktivist groups to amplify their messages through media websites and social channels geared to spread divisive political content, staged videos, and AI-enhanced propaganda,” Microsoft wrote. 

President Joe Biden’s administration has stepped up its efforts to combat Russia’s disinformation and influence operations, imposing a series of sanctions earlier this month on state-run media outlets including Russia Today (RT) for acting on behalf of the Kremlin to “undermine confidence in the United States’ election processes and institutions.” RT has also developed cyber capabilities with direct ties to Russian intelligence services and is involved in a crowdfunding effort to procure military equipment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last week while announcing additional sanctions on the network. 

“We urge every ally, every partner to start by treating RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders,” Blinken said. Tech companies Meta and Google responded to the sanctions by restricting RT content and accounts from their social media platforms this week. 

On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that the agency had successfully hit back against another formidable cyber adversary: China. FBI teams took down a botnet—a network of compromised computers controlled by hackers who were “working at the direction of the Chinese government,” Wray told an audience at the Aspen Cyber Summit in Washington. Wray said the hackers allegedly took over hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices, including cameras and storage devices—half of which were in the United States—to conduct espionage and disrupt critical systems. “We think the bad guys finally realized it was the FBI and our partners that they were up against, and with that realization they essentially burned down their new infrastructure and abandoned their botnet,” he added.

The U.S. government takedown of the botnet, allegedly run by a hacking group called Flax Typhoon, is the second such offensive cyber operation against China in less than a year. It follows a December 2023 operation against another group known as Volt Typhoon. Officials expect it won’t be the last. 

“We’d like to see more of these and more frequently,” a senior administration official said of the takedown, speaking to reporters on Wednesday evening following Wray’s announcement. “What we’ve really been discussing here from the White House is what can be done to accelerate and do these regularly, so that we make it riskier, costlier, and harder for China to conduct their large-scale cyber operations.” 

And then there’s Washington’s third—and increasingly brazen—cyber adversary. On Wednesday, three U.S. agencies issued a joint statement on Iran’s efforts to target Trump’s 2024 campaign. Iranian hackers who breached the Trump campaign in recent months sent “stolen, non-public” material from the campaign via email to individuals associated with Biden’s reelection campaign before he dropped out and was replaced by Harris, according to the statement by the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “There is currently no information indicating those recipients replied,” the agencies added.

Iran has stepped up its efforts to interfere in the 2024 race amid an escalating proxy conflict with key U.S. ally Israel and has targeted the Trump campaign in particular in what experts see as retaliation for his administration’s 2020 assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani. 

Despite some key public victories this week, the consensus in the cyberdefense community is that the battle is only just beginning—and is only likely to get more intense as Election Day draws closer, with the United States facing three highly capable adversaries who, if not directly working together, share similar goals. 

“Arguably, the 2024 election cycle is facing the most complex threat landscape yet,” Cait Conley, a senior advisor for CISA, said at the Politico AI and Tech Summit this week. “We do see a growing and diverse array of foreign actors who are trying to influence our American democratic process. … Regardless of the actor, their objectives are the same—they want to undermine the American people’s confidence in our democratic institutions, and they want to sow partisan discord.”

Senior industry leaders visiting Washington this week echoed that sentiment. “We know that there is a presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, but this has also become an election of Iran versus Trump and Russia versus Harris,” Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing about election threats on Wednesday. “And it is an election where Russia, Iran, and China are united with a common interest in discrediting democracy in the eyes of our own voters and even more so in the eyes of the world.”

[darkmaga-returns]

Microsoft, NVIDIA, Amazon, OpenAi, and other US companies were caught exporting Ai technologies to the CCP and Chinese military through foreign businesses and an Amazon Web Services (AWS) loophole.

Karen Kingston

Jan 06, 2025

Unless otherwise noted, written content is copyright of Karen Kingston, Karen Kingston LLC.

January 6, 2025: On January 2, 2025, the leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent a letter urging US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, to close the commerce loopholes that enable US companies to provide the most advanced Ai systems and technologies to the Chinese military. Ironically, these ‘loopholes’ include the extreme lack of US laws (passed by Congress) that regulate the Ai industry.

Per the letter from Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the US Department of Commerce will soon be publishing new international Ai commerce guidance, “which will create a global licensing regime for the export of advanced Ai processors and potential restrictions on Ai self-learning neural networks.”

MicroSoft, Dell, OpenAi, and NVIDIA are Actively Exporting Ai Technologies to CCP Business Partners

While the urgent demand for the United States to regulate the Ai industry may not appear to be a ‘dire national security threat’ to the majority of Congress, in a similar letter sent last January from Mike Gallagher (former Chairman of House Oversight Committee on the CCP), Gallagher calls attention to two (2) United Arab Emirates (UAE) based companies, specifically G42 and Dark Matter, that have China-based business partners which support “the CCP’s surveillance state and human rights abuses.”

[jlshadows]

I am posting this for notes purposes, because we are going to be contacting many of these companies to pitch SIX Of Crows! ;)

The following companies are looking for new TV pitches for development & production.

Campaign - Production Companies

20th Century Fox Television

20th TV, Fox and MyNetworkTV

2C Media

3 BALL PRODUCTIONS

3 Ball Productions/Eyeworks USA

3 Ring Circus

360Production

40 Partners

720 PR

8790 Pictures,Inc.

ABC Cable Networks

ABC Entertainment

ABC Studios

Abrams Artists Agency

Adept Entertainment

Alan David Group

Alchemy Television

Alchemy Television Group

Alcon Entertainment

Allan McKeown Presents Ltd

Allan R. Smith Productions

Ambush Entertainment

American Media Television

Anne Carlucci Productions, Inc.

APA

Arclight Films

Arjay Entertainment Television

Artist International

Asylum Entertainment

AT IT Productions

Atlas Media Corp

Automatic Pictures

Avalon Television USA

Axelson-Weintraub Entertainment

Banner-Caswell Productions

BBC Worldwide

BCII

Beth Grossbard Productions

Big Cattle Productions

Big Hill Pictures

Boulevard Pictures

Boxing Cats Productions

Boz Productions

Brian Graden Media

Broken Lizard Industries

Buck Productions

Buck Productions Inc.

CAA

Cakehouse Media

Capestany Films

CartoonNetwork

Cataland Films

Cavelight Films

CBS

CBS Entertainment

CBS Films

CBS Interactive

CBS Paramount

CBS Paramount Network Television

CBS Studios International

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Studios

Central Artists

Champion Entertainment

Clear Pictures Entertainment

Codeblack Entertainment

Codeblack Films/Lionsgate

Collins Avenue

CoLours TV

cosmic pictures

Creative Chaos Inc.

Creative Convergence

DASH Networks

DatsEntertainment

De Line Pictures

Digital Alchemy Entertainment Inc.

Disney Channel

diverse talent group

Dragonfly Film and TV

E'lan Productions

Echelon Studios

Echo Lake Productions

Echo Production Company, Inc

Edmonds Entertainment

Edward Saxon Productions

Electric Entertainment

Elkins Entertainment

Ellman Entertainment

Enchanted Rock Pictures/MTS Entertainment

Endemol USA

Endgame Entertainment

Ensemble Entertainment

Entertainment Studios, Inc

Epic Level Entertainment

Epiphany Pictures

Espiritus Productions

Evatopia

Eventime Productions

Evolution Entertainment

Eyeworks Belgium NV

Fauci Productions, Inc.

Faultline Films ltd

Film 44

Film Garden Entertainment

Firehorse Pictures

Fireworks Enterprises

Fisher Entertainment Group

Forward Entertainment, llc

Fox Broadcasting

Fox Interactive Media

Fox International Channels

Fox Searchlight Pictures

FOX Sports

Fox Television Studios

Frontlot Productions

FX Network

Generate

Goliath

Grand Productions Inc

GRB Entertainment

Greene & Associates Talent Agency

Greenspan Kohan Mgt.

Handmade Films

Harper Winslow Productions

HBO

HDNet

Here Media

Homerun Entertainment

Honest Engine Films

Hope Enterprises, Inc.

Ideas Unlimited - TV (Denmark)

Idiomatic Entertainment

IKA Collective

Imbroglio Pictures Inc. / Scott & Cooper Entertainment Ventures

Innovative Artists

insomnia media group

Inspire Films and Television

International Creative Management

Intuitive Entertainment

IWV Media Group, Inc.

Jackamo Television Ltd

Jane Street Entertainment

Jeff Ross Entertainment

Jupiter Entertainment

Just SInger Entertainment

Kaplan-Stahler Agency

Ken Ehrlich Productions

Kickstart Productions, Inc.

Kingfish Productions

klasky csupo, inc.

KoldCast TV

Komixx Entertainment

Konigsberg Company

Kritzer Levine Wilkins Griffin Entertainment

Laika Entertainment

Legion Entertainment LLC

Lionsgate

Lionsgate Television

Little Dog Productions

LITTLE STUDIO FILMS

Litton TV

Lucky 8 TV

M Creative Group, Inc.

Madeline Films

Madhouse Entertainment

Madison Road Entertainment

Magical Elves

Magnet Management

Magnolia Entertainment

Mandeville Films Inc

Mandt Bros. Productions

Mango Tree Films

Manville Media

Mark Yellen Productions

Mashaal Media Corp.

Mass Hysteria Entertainment

Matrixx Prod.

Mayhem Pictures

Media 8 Entertainment

MGM

Michael Berk Productions

Michael Grais Prods.

Michael Levy Enterprises

Microsoft Corporation

Moniker Entertainment

Moxie Pictures

MPH Entertainment, Inc.

Mpower Pictures

Mt. Vernon Entertainment

myriad pictures

National Geographic Digital Media

National Lampoon/ Comedy Cocktail

NBC/Universal | Mun2

Neon Television

Network Entertainment Inc.

New Wave Entertainment

Noble Savages

Nu Image

Nu Image / Millennium Films

Nu Image/Millennium Films

Oceanside Entertainment

Ocular Production Inc.

One Entertainment

PalmStar Entertainment

Panic Productions, Inc.

Paradigm Agency

Paramount Digital Entertainment

Paramount Network

Paul Schiff Productions

Paulist Productions

Phoenix Pictures

Pie Town productions

Planet Grande Pictures

Planet Pictures

Playboy Entertainment Group

Plymouth Rock Entertainment, Inc.

Pogo Pictures

Popular Arts Entertainment

Porchlight Entertainment

Port Magee Pictures, Inc.

PorterGeller Entertainment

POW! Entertainment

preferred artists

Principal Entertainment

Principato Young

Principato-Young Entertainment

PrizmHead Pictures

Rain Management Group

Rainstorm Entertainment

RDF USA

RDS FILM

Red Baron Films

Reel Entertainment

Reid Media Group, Inc.

Revelations Entertainment

Reyes Entertainment

Right Brain Media

ROAR

Rob Gallagher Literary Management

ROBBINS ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

Rudolph Films Inc

S.L Entertainment

SB Productions Inc.

Scream Films (UK Based)

Shatner Universe

ShineReveille International

ShootersTV

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Sigh Griffin Management

Slate of Eight Productions

Smash Media

Smoke and Mirrors Creative / Pandemonium Films

Solar Films Inc

Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures International TV

Sony Pictures Television

Sony Pictures Television International

Sony Pictures TV

Sony Television

SPEED Channel

Sports Branded Media

Starz

Starz Media

State Street Pictures

Station3

Storytime Films

Stowaway Films

Telecast productions

Tell Tale Productions

test

The Corsa Agency

THE GERLER AGENCY

The Gersh Agency

The Gersh Agency, L.A.

THE MAK COMPANY

The Sterling/Winters Production Studios

The Televisionaries

The Terminal

The Wolper Organization

The Wolper Organization / WBTV

Thousand Hills Productions

ThunderBall Films, LLC

Touchdown Television

Trevino Enterprises

Trilogy Entertainment Group

TV Guide Network

Twentieth Century Fox Television

Twentieth Television

Underground Films

Underground Films and Management

Union Entertainment

United Talent Agency

Universal Studios

UTA

Valencia Corp

Venture IAB

ViacomCBS

VPR Media

Walt Disney Company

Walt Disney Studios

Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production

Washington Square Films

Wayans Brothers Prod.

Weller/Grossman Productions

Wide Angle Productions Group, Inc.

Wildbrain Entertainment

William Morris Endeavor

Wolf Moon Films

Zero gravity

Zero Gravity Management

Zilo Networks Inc.,

Zucker Productions

[frank-olivier]

Humanity Amplified: The Emerging Era of AI Integration

The transformative ascent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a narrative of sustained innovation, culminating in a technology that is redefining the boundaries of human capability. Unlike the oft-perceived notion of an overnight breakthrough, AI's evolution is the result of a fifteen-year journey of enhancing data analysis, computational power, and refining neural network architectures. Pivotal milestones, such as AlphaGo's triumph and the pioneering application of GPUs in deep learning, have illuminated AI's vast potential in navigating complex problems, thereby solidifying its position as a burgeoning partner in human progress.

AI's current state is marked by its emergence as a versatile predictive tool, adept at deciphering the intricacies of human decision-making with unprecedented accuracy. This predictive capability, underpinned by the governing scaling laws, promises to democratize access to knowledge and expertise, thereby empowering a diverse array of individuals. The forthcoming integration of AI as a personalized "co-pilot" – offering bespoke learning pathways, medical advisement, creative inspiration, and emotional support – heralds a future where technology is inextricably intertwined with the human experience.

A forthcoming critical juncture is the development of AI systems endowed with expansive memory capabilities, poised to transform interactions from ephemeral exchanges to profound, long-term relationships. Concurrently, the diminishing cost of computational power sets the stage for a global AI adoption, transcending linguistic and geographical divides. Notably, the anticipated support for a broader spectrum of languages underscores AI's potential to bridge cultural chasms and foster a more interconnected global community.

The future human-AI interface is characterized by the evolution of AI into a deeply empathetic and introspective conversational companion. Enhanced by its capacity for "Chain of Thought" processes, AI will engage in reflective and iterative response refinement, marking a significant leap towards crafting interactions that are both productive and profoundly personal. This novel plane of communication, facilitated by AI's real-time comprehension and response to human emotions and needs, will redefine the paradigms of creation, collaboration, and connection.

To fully leverage AI's transformative potential, embracing a multifaceted mindset is paramount. In an era where collective intelligence is amplified by ubiquitous connectivity, proficiency across a broad spectrum of technical and social disciplines will distinguish the most impactful individuals. This necessitates a balanced approach, combining specialized expertise with a breadth of knowledge, to innovate at the intersections of disparate disciplines.

As humanity embarks on this extraordinary journey, it is evident that AI's true potential lies in its capacity to elevate and enhance the human experience. By embracing this transformative power with a curious, adaptable, and multidisciplinary mindset, we can ensure that the dawn of the AI era illuminates a future marked by increased brightness, compassion, and wonder, ultimately enriching the lives of all individuals.

Mustafa Suleyman: An exclusive interaction with Microsoft's AI CEO (Times Techies, November 2024)

Sunday, November 17, 2024

[jcmarchi]

Generative AI, innovation, creativity & what the future might hold - CyberTalk

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/generative-ai-innovation-creativity-what-the-future-might-hold-cybertalk/

Generative AI, innovation, creativity & what the future might hold - CyberTalk

Stephen M. Walker II is CEO and Co-founder of Klu, an LLM App Platform. Prior to founding Klu, Stephen held product leadership roles Productboard, Amazon, and Capital One.

Are you excited about empowering organizations to leverage AI for innovative endeavors? So is Stephen M. Walker II, CEO and Co-Founder of the company Klu, whose cutting-edge LLM platform empowers users to customize generative AI systems in accordance with unique organizational needs, resulting in transformative opportunities and potential.

In this interview, Stephen not only discusses his innovative vertical SaaS platform, but also addresses artificial intelligence, generative AI, innovation, creativity and culture more broadly. Want to see where generative AI is headed? Get perspectives that can inform your viewpoint, and help you pave the way for a successful 2024. Stay current. Keep reading.

Please share a bit about the Klu story:

We started Klu after seeing how capable the early versions of OpenAI’s GPT-3 were when it came to common busy-work tasks related to HR and project management. We began building a vertical SaaS product, but needed tools to launch new AI-powered features, experiment with them, track changes, and optimize the functionality as new models became available. Today, Klu is actually our internal tools turned into an app platform for anyone building their own generative features.

What kinds of challenges can Klu help solve for users?

Building an AI-powered feature that connects to an API is pretty easy, but maintaining that over time and understanding what’s working for your users takes months of extra functionality to build out. We make it possible for our users to build their own version of ChatGPT, built on their internal documents or data, in minutes.

What is your vision for the company?

The founding insight that we have is that there’s a lot of busy work that happens in companies and software today. I believe that over the next few years, you will see each company form AI teams, responsible for the internal and external features that automate this busy work away.

I’ll give you a good example for managers: Today, if you’re a senior manager or director, you likely have two layers of employees. During performance management cycles, you have to read feedback for each employee and piece together their strengths and areas for improvement. What if, instead, you received a briefing for each employee with these already synthesized and direct quotes from their peers? Now think about all of the other tasks in business that take several hours and that most people dread. We are building the tools for every company to easily solve this and bring AI into their organization.

Please share a bit about the technology behind the product:

In many ways, Klu is not that different from most other modern digital products. We’re built on cloud providers, use open source frameworks like Nextjs for our app, and have a mix of Typescript and Python services. But with AI, what’s unique is the need to lower latency, manage vector data, and connect to different AI models for different tasks. We built on Supabase using Pgvector to build our own vector storage solution. We support all major LLM providers, but we partnered with Microsoft Azure to build a global network of embedding models (Ada) and generative models (GPT-4), and use Cloudflare edge workers to deliver the fastest experience.

What innovative features or approaches have you introduced to improve user experiences/address industry challenges?

One of the biggest challenges in building AI apps is managing changes to your LLM prompts over time. The smallest changes might break for some users or introduce new and problematic edge cases. We’ve created a system similar to Git in order to track version changes, and we use proprietary AI models to review the changes and alert our customers if they’re making breaking changes. This concept isn’t novel for traditional developers, but I believe we’re the first to bring these concepts to AI engineers.

How does Klu strive to keep LLMs secure?

Cyber security is paramount at Klu. From day one, we created our policies and system monitoring for SOC2 auditors. It’s crucial for us to be a trusted partner for our customers, but it’s also top of mind for many enterprise customers. We also have a data privacy agreement with Azure, which allows us to offer GDPR-compliant versions of the OpenAI models to our customers. And finally, we offer customers the ability to redact PII from prompts so that this data is never sent to third-party models.

Internally we have pentest hackathons to understand where things break and to proactively understand potential threats. We use classic tools like Metasploit and Nmap, but the most interesting results have been finding ways to mitigate unintentional denial of service attacks. We proactively test what happens when we hit endpoints with hundreds of parallel requests per second.

What are your perspectives on the future of LLMs (predictions for 2024)?

This (2024) will be the year for multi-modal frontier models. A frontier model is just a foundational model that is leading the state of the art for what is possible. OpenAI will roll out GPT-4 Vision API access later this year and we anticipate this exploding in usage next year, along with competitive offerings from other leading AI labs. If you want to preview what will be possible, ChatGPT Pro and Enterprise customers have access to this feature in the app today.

Early this year, I heard leaders worried about hallucinations, privacy, and cost. At Klu and across the LLM industry, we found solutions for this and we continue to see a trend of LLMs becoming cheaper and more capable each year. I always talk to our customers about not letting these stop your innovation today. Start small, and find the value you can bring to your customers. Find out if you have hallucination issues, and if you do, work on prompt engineering, retrieval, and fine-tuning with your data to reduce this. You can test these new innovations with engaged customers that are ok with beta features, but will greatly benefit from what you are offering them. Once you have found market fit, you have many options for improving privacy and reducing costs at scale – but I would not worry about that in the beginning, it’s premature optimization.

LLMs introduce a new capability into the product portfolio, but it’s also an additional system to manage, monitor, and secure. Unlike other software in your portfolio, LLMs are not deterministic, and this is a mindset shift for everyone. The most important thing for CSOs is to have a strategy for enabling their organization’s innovation. Just like any other software system, we are starting to see the equivalent of buffer exploits, and expect that these systems will need to be monitored and secured if connected to data that is more important than help documentation.

Your thoughts on LLMs, AI and creativity?

Personally, I’ve had so much fun with GenAI, including image, video, and audio models. I think the best way to think about this is that the models are better than the average person. For me, I’m below average at drawing or creating animations, but I’m above average when it comes to writing. This means I can have creative ideas for an image, the model will bring these to life in seconds, and I am very impressed. But for writing, I’m often frustrated with the boring ideas, although it helps me find blind spots in my overall narrative. The reason for this is that LLMs are just bundles of math finding the most probable answer to the prompt. Human creativity —from the arts, to business, to science— typically comes from the novel combinations of ideas, something that is very difficult for LLMs to do today. I believe the best way to think about this is that the employees who adopt AI will be more productive and creative— the LLM removes their potential weaknesses, and works like a sparring partner when brainstorming.

You and Sam Altman agree on the idea of rethinking the global economy. Say more?

Generative AI greatly changes worker productivity, including the full automation of many tasks that you would typically hire more people to handle as a business scales. The easiest way to think about this is to look at what tasks or jobs a company currently outsources to agencies or vendors, especially ones in developing nations where skill requirements and costs are lower. Over this coming decade you will see work that used to be outsourced to global labor markets move to AI and move under the supervision of employees at an organization’s HQ.

As the models improve, workers will become more productive, meaning that businesses will need fewer employees performing the same tasks. Solo entrepreneurs and small businesses have the most to gain from these technologies, as they will enable them to stay smaller and leaner for longer, while still growing revenue. For large, white-collar organizations, the idea of measuring management impact by the number of employees under a manager’s span of control will quickly become outdated.

While I remain optimistic about these changes and the new opportunities that generative AI will unlock, it does represent a large change to the global economy. Klu met with UK officials last week to discuss AI Safety and I believe the countries investing in education, immigration, and infrastructure policy today will be best suited to contend with these coming changes. This won’t happen overnight, but if we face these changes head on, we can help transition the economy smoothly.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with the CyberTalk.org audience?

Expect to see more security news regarding LLMs. These systems are like any other software and I anticipate both poorly built software and bad actors who want to exploit these systems. The two exploits that I track closely are very similar to buffer overflows. One enables an attacker to potentially bypass and hijack that prompt sent to an LLM, the other bypasses the model’s alignment tuning, which prevents it from answering questions like, “how can I build a bomb?” We’ve also seen projects like GPT4All leak API keys to give people free access to paid LLM APIs. These leaks typically come from the keys being stored in the front-end or local cache, which is a security risk completely unrelated to AI or LLMs.

[princess-josie-riki]

Halfway to Halloween Countdown (feat. The South Park Specter) Day 29

Day 29 of the Halfway to Halloween Countdown, where we'll be counting down until Halfway to Halloween (April 30 - May 1st). And I'm mixing South Park with Halloween Horror Nights too. And now, our ghost host for the Halfway to Halloween Countdown, the South Park Specter (the Halloween Horror Nights version/ghostly horror alter ego of Eric Cartman).

In this pic, Josie Sakura, Josie Kitty and the Multiverse Five (Cragsters Max, Werner Werman, Nightmare Fredbear, Usagi Tsukino/Salilor Moon and Madoka Kaname) are wandering in the Backrooms when they've encountered the South Park Specter, scaring all but one: Nightmare Fredbear, who is rather annoyed. This is for the 1st anniversary of the day I decided to like South Park again and the first time I did something involving The Backrooms.

Only 2 days left until Halfway to Halloween.

Made with Microsoft Paint and Photopea.

Halloween Horror Nights (c) Universal Studios South Park (c) Trey Parker, Matt Stone, South Park Studios, MTV Entertainment Studios and Comedy Partners (Comedy Central) Mixels (c) John Fang, David P. Smtih, Lego and Cartoon Network Cuphead (c) Chad and Jared Moldenhauer and StudioMDHR Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (c) Scott Cawthon and Steel Woll Studios Sailor Moon (c) Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha and Toei Animation Puella Magi Madoka Magica (c) Magica Quartet, Shaft and Aniplex The Backrooms (c) 4chan The South Park Specter, Multiverse Girl, Josie Sakura and Josie Kitty, idea and artwork (c) me

[ausetkmt]

The 2023 BET Awards began Sunday night with a bevy of rappers and artists set to honor the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.

Coco Jones, Doechii and GloRilla have been nominated for awards and are set to perform. Iconic rap groups and emcees including MC Lyte, Big Daddy Kane, Kid ’n Play, Master P, Remy Ma, Yo-Yo and the 69 Boyz will take the stage, too.

On Friday, BET announced Busta Rhymes as the recipient of the lifetime achievement award. Patti LaBelle told Rolling Stone she will perform a tribute to the late Tina Turner at the ceremony. Turner died in May; she was 83.

Though there will not be a host, DJs will cue performers and celebrities to take the stage throughout the ceremony. TV and film writers, including those who might normally work on the BET Awards, are currently on strike over pay and working conditions.

In May, the MTV Movie & TV Awards aired a pre-taped show without a host due to the writers strike. The Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, was also unscripted.

The 2023 BET Awards Pre-Show Gets Off To A Rocky Start

The 2023 BET Awards is having some absolutely horrific sound issues at its pre-show special. It sounds like a static-y mess as performers hop on the stage before the awards ceremony begins at 8 p.m. ET. JW Velly, the artist behind the viral TikTok song “Pretty Girls Walk,” performed to a crowd outside the Microsoft Center seemingly without a hitch to the audience, who cheered her on. But at home, several HuffPost reporters – who were watching through livestreams and on the BET Network itself — were struggling to understand anything. Unclear what exactly is happening — but at one point the sound completely went out.

AP

D-Nice Is A Rapper? How Late Are We?

D-Nice raps? Where I been at lol. A little hip-hop history for me. I just knew him as a DJ. Dope to know he had a whole rap career in the '80s. — Taryn

Getty Images

MC Lyte Steps From Backstage To Center Stage

THE VOICE IS ON THE MIC! MC Lyte has been the voice of the BET Awards for years, so it’s so good to see her onstage doing the damn thing. — Taryn

Yes, she’s always behind the scenes doing her thing so it’s great to see her take the stage. — Erin

Makes my heart so happy. Haven’t seen her o- screen since her “Half and Half” days on UPN! — Ruth

What’s wild is that she has a whole TV show! “Partners in Crime” on the streaming service allBlk. — Erin

The BET Awards Red Carpet Looks … I Am Closing My Eyes

In the words of the late, great André Leon Talley, it’s a famine of beauty. I did not anticipate struggling this much to assemble the 2023 BET Awards best-dressed list. — Ruth

Patti LaBelle Forgets Lyrics During Tina Turner Tribute

I was so excited when it was announced that Patti LaBelle was doing the tribute to Tina Turner. Well, it quickly took a turn for the worse when I could hear the background singer over her. And then she was stumbling over her words. My word. I’m surprised she took it in stride without that teleprompter. They shoulda had Angela Bassett get up there for all this. — Erin

“I’m trying, y’all!” —Patti LaBelle trying her damnedest to tribute Tina Turner.

This felt like when she sang at the 1996 White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony and was looking for her background singers. Because of how much I love that video, I was low-key getting my life. But then I remembered this was supposed to be THE Tina Turner tribute because it was Patti LaBelle signing it and on BET.

They did Tina dirty and I don’t like that. I know there have been sound issues all night, but damn! It’s almost as if there were no sound checks at all with all these blatant hiccups. Ms. Turner, I am so sorry. You deserved better. — Taryn

Christ on Earth. What is going ON?! Exactly that, Taryn! I couldn’t tell if the audio was tripping again, or if a background singer was doing too much. But I’m in disbelief. It makes me wonder if she was a last-minute selection for the tribute, or like you said, Taryn, there was maybe one rehearsal. And the way Patti just exited the stage and said, “Bye, y’all!” I need a meme or GIF of that. — Ruth

Getty Images

R.I.P. Biz Markie

I’m LOVING this tribute to Biz. Singing along with the TV and everything. I can tell BET is about to do hip-hop right with this tribute. — Taryn

I have a fun memory at a party deejayed by Biz Markie. He was the DJ at The Root's inaugural ball for President Barack Obama. My mom and I had a ball that night. — Erin

It Is Culture's Biggest Night On BET

The BET Awards begin at 8 p.m. ET, and HuffPost reporters and editors will be watching to keep you updated on all the biggest moments of the night. Stay tuned to see who stuns on the red carpet, who takes home an award and whose performances set the stage ablaze.

The night is set to include an epic tribute to the rappers and artists who made hip-hop culture what it is today to celebrate hip-hop's 50th anniversary.

[coolcatteacher]

Revolutionizing Classrooms: How Microsoft's AI is Changing Education

Artificial intelligence is the top conversation among educators everywhere. It was truly a thrill for me, as a classroom teacher, for Lydia Smyers, the Vice President of US Education for Microsoft, to sit down with me at ISTE. As educators, we're at the forefront of this exciting (and scary) change with unprecedented learning opportunities (and threats.) Whether you're new to AI or a seasoned AI-enthusiast, you'll gain invaluable insights into one of the companies on the forefront of AI in education. Brought to you by Microsoft, this podcast offers a glimpse into the future of education and an AI-infused landscape where possibilities are endless (and challenges abound.) Let's do this! 

Read the full transcript, show notes, and video here: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e808 

Sponsor: This show is sponsored by Microsoft. Check out their new AI Course. All opinions are my own. Once a year, I have a newsworthy topic that I accept that has advertorial content. This is the show for 2023 with Microsoft. 

Lydia Smyers, Vice President of US Education for Microsoft

Lydia Smyers is the Vice President of US Education for Microsoft. She leads the sales teams supporting the adoption and sales of Microsoft’s solutions across K-12 organizations and higher education customers in the United States.

Before joining Microsoft, Smyers was group vice president of Worldwide Alliances, Channels Programs and Communications at Oracle Corp. In this role, she had global responsibility for Oracle Partner Network (OPN) programs, strategy, marketing and communications. Her organization supported Oracle’s channel ecosystem with an emphasis on driving partner profitability and satisfaction.

Smyers is a member of the EDUCAUSE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board and has been named as one of CRN’s “Top 100 Women of the Channel” 2009–2013 and named to its advisory board. She is also committed to empowering the next generation of leaders and supporting her local community. She serves on the board of several community nonprofits including Friends of Marblehead Public Schools, MassCUE, and the Marblehead Family Fund.

Smyers holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Trinity College-Hartford. She is a sports enthusiast, an active triathlete in the summer and an alpine backcountry skier in the winter. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two sons.

New Podcast Episode

[ammg-old2]

It was a simpler time. A friend introduced us, pulling up a static yellow webpage using a shaky dial-up modem. A man stood forth, dressed in a dapper black pinstriped suit with a red-accented tie. He held one hand out, as if carrying an imaginary waiter’s tray. He looked regal and confident and eminently at my service. “Have a Question?” he beckoned. “Just type it in and click Ask!” And ask, I did. Over and over.

With his steady hand, Jeeves helped me make sense of the tangled mess of the early, pre-Google internet. He wasn’t perfect—plenty of context got lost between my inquiries and his responses. Still, my 11-year-old brain always delighted in the idea of a well-coiffed man chauffeuring me down the information superhighway. But things changed. Google arrived, with its clean design and almost magic ability to deliver exactly the answers I wanted. Jeeves and I grew apart. Eventually, in 2006, Ask Jeeves disappeared from the internet altogether and was replaced with the more generic Ask.com.

Many years later, it seems I owe Jeeves an apology: He had the right idea all along. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and the stunning popularity of generative-text tools such as ChatGPT, today’s search-engine giants are making huge bets on AI search chatbots. In February, Microsoft revealed its Bing Chatbot, which has thrilled and frightened early users for its ability to scour the internet and answer questions (not always correctly) with convincingly human-sounding language. The same week, Google demoed Bard, the company’s forthcoming attempt at an AI-powered chat-search product. But for all the hype, when I stare at these new chatbots, I can’t help but see the faint reflection of my former besuited internet manservant. In a sense, Bing and Bard are finishing what Ask Jeeves started. What people want when they ask a question is for an all-knowing, machine-powered guide to confidently present them with the right answer in plain language, just as a reliable friend would.

With this in mind, I decided to go back to the source. More than a decade after parting ways, I found myself on the phone with one of the men behind the machine, getting as close to Asking Jeeves as is humanly possible. These days, Garrett Gruener, Ask Jeeves’s co-creator, is a venture capitalist in the Bay Area. He and his former business partner David Warthen eventually sold Ask Jeeves to Barry Diller and IAC for just under $2 billion. Still, I wondered if Gruener had been unsettled by Jeeves’s demise. Did he, like me, see the new chatbots as the final form of his original idea? Did he feel vindicated or haunted by the fact that his creation may have simply been born far too early?

The original conception for Jeeves, Gruener told me, was remarkably similar to what Microsoft and Google are trying to build today. As a student at UC San Diego in the mid-1970s, Gruener—a sci-fi aficionado—got an early glimpse of ARPANET, the pre-browser predecessor to the commercial internet, and fell in love. Just over a decade later, as the web grew and the beginnings of the internet came into view, Gruener realized that people would need a way to find things in the morass of semiconnected servers and networks. “It became clear that the web needed search but that mere mortals without computer-science degrees needed something easy, even conversational,” he said. Inspired by Eliza, the famous chatbot designed by MIT’s Joseph Weizenbaum, Gruener dreamed of a search engine that could converse with people using natural-language processing. Unfortunately, the technology wasn’t sophisticated enough for Gruener to create his ideal conversational search bot.

So Gruener and Warthen tried a work-around. Their code allowed a user to write a statement in English, which was then matched to a preprogrammed vector, which Gruener explained to me as “a canonical snapshot of answers to what the engine thought you were trying to say.” Essentially, they taught the machine to recognize certain words and provide really broad categorical answers. “If you were looking for population stats for a country, the query would see all your words and associated variables and go, Well, this Boolean search seems close, so it’s probably this.” Jeeves would provide the answer, and then you could clarify whether it worked or not.

“We tried to discern what people were trying to say in search, but without actually doing the natural-recognition part of it,” Gruener said. After some brainstorming, they realized that they were essentially building a butler. One of Gruener’s friends mocked up a drawing of the friendly servant, and Jeeves was born.

Pre-Google, Ask Jeeves exploded in popularity, largely because it allowed people to talk with their search engine like a person. Within just two years, the site was handling more than 1 million queries a day. A massive Jeeves balloon floated down Central Park West during Macy’s 1999 Thanksgiving parade. But not long after the butler achieved buoyancy, the site started to lose ground in the search wars. Google’s web-crawling superiority led to hard times for Ask Jeeves. “None of us were very concerned about monetization in the beginning,” Gruener told me. “Everyone in search early on realized, if you got this right, you’d essentially be in the position of being the oracle. If you could be the company to go to in order to ask questions online, you’re going to be paid handsomely.”

Gruener isn’t bitter about losing out to Google. “If anything, I’m really proud of our Jeeves,” he told me. Listening to Gruener explain the history, it’s not hard to see why. In the mid-2000s, Google began to pivot search away from offering only 10 blue links to images, news, maps, and shopping. Eventually, the company began to fulfill parts of the Jeeves promise of answering questions with answer boxes. One way to look at the evolution of big search engines in the 21st century is that all companies are trying their best to create their own intuitive search butlers. Gruener told me that Ask Jeeves’s master plan had two phases, though the company was sold before it could tackle the second. Gruener had hoped that, eventually, Jeeves could act as a digital concierge for users. He’d hoped to employ the same vector technology to get people to ask questions and allow Jeeves to make educated guesses and help users complete all kinds of tasks. “If you look at Amazon’s Alexa, they’re essentially using the same approach we designed for Jeeves, just with voice,” Gruener said. Yesterday’s butler has been rebranded as today’s virtual assistant, and the technology is ubiquitous in many of our home devices and phones. “We were right for the consumer back then, and maybe we’d be right now. But at some point the consumer evolved,” he said.

I’ve been fixated on what might’ve been if Gruener’s vision had come about now. We might all be Jeevesing about the internet for answers to our mundane questions. Perhaps our Jeevesmail inboxes would be overflowing and we’d be getting turn-by-turn directions from an Oxford-educated man with a stiff English accent. Perhaps we’d all be much better off.

Gruener told me about an encounter he’d had during the search wars with one of Google’s founders at a TED conference (he wouldn’t specify which of the two). “I told him that we’re going to learn an enormous amount about the people who are using our platforms, especially as they become more conversational. And I said that it was a potentially dangerous position,” he said. “But he didn’t seem very receptive to my concerns.”

Near the end of our call, I offered an apology for deserting Jeeves like everyone else did. Gruener just laughed. “I find this future fascinating and, if I’m honest, a little validating,” he said. “It’s like, ultimately, as the tech has come around, the big guys have come around to what we were trying to do.”

[mariacallous]

When Microsoft named its new Windows feature Recall, the company intended the word to refer to a kind of perfect, AI-enabled memory for your device. Today, the other, unintended definition of “recall”—a company's admission that a product is too dangerous or defective to be left on the market in its current form—seems more appropriate.

On Friday, Microsoft announced that it would be making multiple dramatic changes to its rollout of its Recall feature, making it an opt-in feature in the Copilot+ compatible versions of Windows where it had previously been turned on by default, and introducing new security measures designed to better keep data encrypted and require authentication to access Recall's stored data.

“We are updating the set-up experience of Copilot+ PCs to give people a clearer choice to opt-in to saving snapshots using Recall,” reads a blog post from Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Windows and devices. “If you don’t proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default.”

The changes come amid a mounting barrage of criticism from the security and privacy community, which has described Recall—which silently stores a screenshot of the user's activity every five seconds as fodder for AI analysis—as a gift to hackers: essentially unrequested, preinstalled spyware built into new Windows computers.

In the preview versions of Recall, that screenshot data, complete with the user's every bank login, password, and porn site visit would have been indefinitely collected on the user's machine by default. And though that highly sensitive data is stored locally on the user's machine and not uploaded to the cloud, cybersecurity experts have warned that it all remains accessible to any hacker who so much as gains a temporary foothold on a user's Recall-enabled device, giving them a long-term panopticon view of the victim's digital life.

"It makes your security very fragile,” as Dave Aitel, a former NSA hacker and founder of security firm Immunity, described it—more charitably than some others—to WIRED earlier this week. “Anyone who penetrates your computer for even a second can get your whole history. Which is not something people want.”

In addition to making Recall an opt-in feature, Microsoft’s Davuluri also writes that the company will make changes to better safeguard the data Recall collects and more closely police who can turn it on, requiring that users prove their identity via its Microsoft Hello authentication function any time they either enable Recall or access its data, which can require a PIN or biometric check of the user’s face or thumbprint. Davuluri says Recall’s data will remain encrypted in storage until the user authenticates.

All of that is a “great improvement,” says Jake Williams, another former NSA hacker who now serves as VP of R&D at the cybersecurity consultancy Hunter Strategy, where he says he's been asked by some of the firm's clients to test Recall's security before they add Microsoft devices that use it to their networks. But Williams still sees serious risks in Recall, even in its latest form.

Many users will turn on Recall, he points out, partly due to Microsoft’s high-profile marketing of the feature. And when they do, they’ll still face plenty of unresolved privacy problems, from domestic abusers that often demand partners give up their PINs to subpoenas or lawsuits that compel them to turn over their historical data. “Satya Nadella has been out there talking about how this is a game changer and the solution to all problems,” Williams says, referring to Microsoft's CEO. “If customers turn it on, there’s still a huge threat of legal discovery. I can’t imagine a corporate legal team that’s ready to accept the risk of all of a user’s actions being turned over in discovery.”

For Microsoft, the Recall rollback comes in the midst of an embarrassing string of cybersecurity incidents and breaches—including a leak of terabytes of its customers' data and a shocking penetration of government email accounts enabled by a cascading series of Microsoft security slipups—that have grown so problematic as to become a sticking point given its uniquely close relationship with the US government.

Those scandals have escalated to the degree that Microsoft's Nadella issued a memo just last month declaring that Microsoft would make security its first priority in any business decision. “If you’re faced with the trade-off between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” Nadella's memo read (emphasis his). “In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems.”

By all appearances, Microsoft's rollout of Recall—even after today's announcement—displays the opposite approach, and one that seems more in line with business as usual in Redmond: Announce a feature, get pummeled for its glaring security failures, then belatedly scramble to control the damage.

[omniaverse-io]

OmniaVerse is very excited to share that we’ve partnered with Microsoft as part of their “Microsoft for Startups” program.

This partnership provides OmniaVerse with various business assets and developer tools; sales, marketing, and customer management support; training, mentorship, and guidance; and connections within Microsoft’s vast network. We look forward to further building our ecosystem and working with Microsoft to help realize our vision. 🤝

[jcmarchi]

French initiative for responsible AI leaders - AI News

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/french-initiative-for-responsible-ai-leaders-ai-news/

French initiative for responsible AI leaders - AI News

ESSEC Business School and Accenture have announced the launch of a new initiative, ‘AI for Responsible Leadership,’ which marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the role of Chair at ESSEC, titled the ESSEC Accenture Strategic Business Analytics Chair.

The initiative aims to encourage the use of artificial intelligence by leaders in ways that are responsible and ethical, and that lead to high levels of professional performance. It aims to provide current and future leaders with the skills they require when faced with challenges in the future; economic, environmental, or social.

Several organisations support the initiative, including institutions, businesses, and specialised groups, including ESSEC Metalab for Data, Technology & Society, and Accenture Research.

Executive Director of the ESSEC Metalab, Abdelmounaim Derraz, spoke of the collaboration, saying, “Technical subjects are continuing to shake up business schools, and AI has opened up opportunities for collaboration between partner companies, researchers, and other members of the ecosystem (students, think tanks, associations, [and] public service).”

ESSEC and Accenture aim to integrate perspectives from multiple fields of expertise, an approach that is a result of experimentation in the decade the Chair has existed.

The elements of the initiative include workshops and talks designed to promote the exchange of knowledge and methods. It will also include a ‘barometer’ to help track AI’s implementation and overall impact on responsible leadership.

The initiative will engage with a network of institutions and academic publications, and an annual Grand Prix will recognise projects that focus on and explore the subject of AI and leadership.

Fabrice Marque, founder of the initiative and the current ESSEC Accenture Strategics Business Analytics Chair, said, “For years, we have explored the potential of using data and artificial intelligence in organisations. The synergies we have developed with our partners (Accenture, Accor, Dataiku, Engie, Eurofins, MSD, Orange) allowed us to evaluate and test innovative solutions before deploying them.

“With this initiative, we’re taking a major step: bringing together an engaged ecosystem to sustainably transform how leaders think, decide, and act in the face of tomorrow’s challenges. Our ambition is clear: to make AI a lever for performance, innovation and responsibility for […] leaders.”

Managing Director at Accenture and sponsor of the ESSEC/Accenture Chair and initiative, Aurélien Bouriot, said, “The ecosystem will benefit from the resources that Accenture puts at its disposal, and will also benefit our employees who participate.”

Laetitia Cailleteau, Managing Director at Accenture and leader of Responsible AI & Generative AI for Europe, highlighted the importance of future leaders understanding all aspects of AI.

“AI is a pillar of the ongoing industrial transformation. Tomorrow’s leaders must understand the technical, ethical, and human aspects and risks – and know how to manage them. In this way, they will be able to maximise value creation and generate a positive impact for the organisation, its stakeholders and society as a whole.”

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

See also: Microsoft and OpenAI probe alleged data theft by DeepSeek

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

[nimilphilip]

MSc Data Science with Placement in UK 2025

Data science has established itself as a worldwide leader in industry change so students actively seek it as a leading higher education specialization. Students from India seeking an MSc in Data Science at British educational institutions can benefit from front-running academics, research state-of-the-art facilities, and industrial training experience. The University of the United Kingdom now leads as a worldwide center for data science education through placement-based degrees that carefully unite classroom knowledge with practical industry experience.

To study MSc Data Science with placement in UK universities during 2025 you need this information about your upcoming educational experience.

Why Pursue an MSc in Data Science in the UK?

1. World-Class Universities

A selection of institutions operating from the United Kingdom leads the world in data science educational standards. Universities such as the University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, and the University of Manchester rank high for their academic excellence, state-of-the-art facilities, and research contributions to the data science domain.

2. Industry-Focused Curriculum

MSc Data Science programs at UK universities partner with industry professionals to create their curricula. By uniting academic courses with industry requirements these programs teach students the modern work-relevant skills of data analysis and machine learning along with big data technologies and cloud computing.

3. Placement Opportunities

Many MSc Data Science programs in the UK through placement opportunities enable students to work directly with organizations from financial services to healthcare to technology and retail. The educational experiences provided by placements help students grow their future job prospects.

4. Post-Study Work Visa

The Graduate Route powered by the UK government enables overseas students to work and stay in Britain for two years after their degree completion period.

5. Cultural Diversity

Studying at UK institutions exposes students to diverse cultural influences in their academic experience. Through their educational pursuits, international students can establish professional connections with peers throughout different regions of the world.

Key Features of MSc Data Science with Placement

Real-World Experience

The MSc Data Science with Placement pathway equips students to solve actual problems through practical experiences that support theoretical understanding applications. When students work on real projects with top organizations they gain valuable problem-solving abilities and learn how to effectively collaborate and enhance their communication skills.

Networking Opportunities

Students earn access to industry experts during their placements because these experiences develop professional connections that advance career shifts and create direct job opportunities.

Employability Boost

When searching for job candidates employers look favorably upon candidates who have gained practical work experience. Your performance during a placement year establishes your capacity to support professional settings successfully.

Top Universities Offering MSc Data Science with Placement in 2025

1. University of Edinburgh

Program Highlights: Students completing the MSc Data Science program at Edinburgh participate in a placement year through which they integrate work with top tech firms.

Specialization Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Mining.

Placement Opportunities: Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM.

2. Imperial College London

Program Highlights: This program commences with an extensive theoretical curriculum but extends to cover practical aspects too.

Specialization Areas: Big Data Analytics, Statistical Modelling, and Predictive Analytics.

Placement Opportunities: The alumni of this program find employment at Google, Facebook and PwC.

3. University of Manchester

Program Highlights: At Manchester, the MSc Data Science program delivers studies about big data analysis and analytics and sophisticated machine learning methods.

Placement Opportunities: Partnerships with fintech and health tech companies.

4. University of Warwick

Program Highlights: Through the MSc Data Science program at Warwick University, students benefit from professional placement opportunities together with collaborative projects at top industry firms.

Specialization Areas: Data Engineering, Decision Sciences, and Cloud Computing.

Placement Opportunities: As part of their program University of Warwick creates partnership opportunities with Barclays and Deloitte.

5. University of Bristol

Program Highlights: This education tracks students through three academic disciplines of computer science statistics combined with artificial intelligence study.

Placement Opportunities: Links with startups and established corporations.

Key Modules in MSc Data Science Programs

Machine Learning Students study sophisticated machine learning methods together with predictive analytical modeling approaches.

Big Data Technologies A graduate student needs to develop specialized skills with Hadoop, Apache Spark, and NoSQL databases.

Data Visualization Develop skills to create insightful visual representations of data using Tableau, Power BI, or D3.js.

Statistical Analysis Students need to employ statistical techniques to understand complex information contained within data.

Programming for Data Science Students must learn to use Python programming with R programming along with SQL.

Ethics and Data Privacy Practicing students must master the moral principles and official requirements governing data handling practices.

Application Process for 2025 Intake

1. Research and Shortlist Programs

Identify universities offering MSc Data Science with placement and review their course structures, fees, and placement opportunities.

2. Check Eligibility

Academic Background: A bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, or related fields.

English Proficiency: IELTS score of 6.5 or equivalent.

3. Prepare Application Documents

Statement of Purpose (SOP)

Academic Transcripts

Letters of Recommendation

Updated Resume or CV

4. Submit Applications

Apply via the university’s online portal or through UCAS.

5. Secure Financial Aid

Look for scholarships offered by universities or external organizations.

6. Apply for Student Visa

Begin your UK student visa (Tier 4) application after receiving your offer letter.

Scholarships for International Students

Several scholarships are available to help offset the cost of studying in the UK:

Chevening Scholarships: Exceptional students can receive complete scholarships through Chevening Scholarships.

Commonwealth Scholarships: For students from Commonwealth countries.

University-Specific Scholarships: Academic excellence together with financial need qualifies international students to receive scholarships that multiple UK universities provide.

Cost of Studying MSc Data Science in the UK

Tuition Fees

£15,000–£30,000 per year, depending on the university.

Living Expenses

£10,000–£12,000 annually, covering accommodation, food, and transport.

Pro Tip: Students will find effective expense management by using their student discounts and working part-time jobs.

Career Opportunities After MSc Data Science

Graduates of MSc Data Science programs in the UK have access to a wide range of career opportunities, including:

Data Scientist

Salary: £45,000–£55,000 annually.

Role: Teams use statistical methods to examine extensive data and extract practical information that drives business decisions.

Machine Learning Engineer

Salary: £50,000–£65,000 annually.

Role: The integration of ML models with AI solution deployment development.

Data Engineer

Salary: £45,000–£60,000 annually.

Role: The development and continuous maintenance of scalable data infrastructure systems.

Business Analyst

Salary: £40,000–£50,000 annually.

Role: Business analysts exist to transform organizational requirements into technological framework implementations.

Advantages of the UK Graduate Route

Through the Graduate Route international students gain authorization to stay in Britain after finishing their studies for a maximum duration of two years. Benefits include:

Time to gain professional experience.

Opportunities to explore industries across the UK.

A pathway to permanent employment and visa sponsorship.

Conclusion

Students who want to construct a fulfilling career path in an essential field should consider studying for their MSc in Data Science with placement at a UK institution in 2025. The UK offers everything data professionals need for career success thanks to its first-rate educational institutions functions alongside dedicated industry programs and post-graduation placement services.

International students choose the United Kingdom because it offers sophisticated academic programs together with extended post-graduation employment advantages. The time to begin preparation for your January 2025 admission is now because data science offers you a promising future.

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