In a recent address delivered in Washington, Microsoft President Brad Smith raised concerns about the rise of deep fakes and emphasized the need for measures to distinguish between real and AI-generated content. Smith’s speech, aimed at addressing the growing demand for AI regulation in the wake of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, shed light on the potential risks associated with the nefarious use of AI technology.

Foremost among Smith’s concerns were deep fakes, which refer to convincingly fabricated media that can mislead and deceive viewers. He stressed the urgency of tackling this issue, particularly with regard to foreign cyber-influence operations already being conducted by nations such as Russia, China, and Iran. Smith called for steps to safeguard against the manipulation of genuine content with the intention to deceive or defraud individuals, utilizing the capabilities of AI.

The Microsoft President further advocated for licensing critical AI applications, accompanied by obligations to uphold security, including physical security, cybersecurity, and national security. His proposal aimed to ensure that the deployment of AI technologies would be governed by strict regulations, mitigating potential risks to individuals, organizations, and national interests.

Highlighting the need for enhanced export controls, Smith offers a five-point blueprint for Governing AI that includes implementing new government-led AI safety frameworks, requiring safety brakes for AI systems, developing broad legal and regulatory frameworks, promoting transparency and access to AI, and pursuing public-private partnerships to address societal changes.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington have been grappling with the challenge of legislating AI control while technology companies of all sizes are racing to bring forth increasingly versatile AI solutions. The urgency to strike a balance between fostering innovation and addressing the potential risks associated with unregulated AI development has created a pressing need for comprehensive and effective regulatory frameworks.

As the debate surrounding AI regulation intensifies, Brad Smith’s speech resonates with the growing concerns over deep fakes and the responsible use of AI. His call for greater transparency and accountability and the need to protect against malicious activities provides an impetus for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers to collaborate in establishing a regulatory framework that balances technological progress with societal well-being.

Via: Ars Technica

Microsoft faces an uphill battle as it looks to appeal the UK’s Competition and Markets Authorities blockage of its bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. However, recently surface background on a CMA director’s prior work experience may be just the reprieve the two companies need to save their deal.

According to a post from Windows Central’s Jez Corden who cites patent lawyer Florian Meuller @FOSSPatents as a source, Microsoft may be able to point to a possible conflict of interest as it pleads its case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

Meuller unearthed a connection between the CMA’s now-serving senior director of Merger Reviews and Sony through the law firm Cleary Gottlieb, which currently represents the company as it protests the Microsoft and Activision deal.

The @CMAgovUK's Senior Director of Merger Reviews–who used to work for #Sony's law firm–will speak now at a @CompetitionLaws (@Concurrences) event on "Merger Remedies in a Post-Brexit Context":https://t.co/IahZWThxXr

Another speaker has current Sony/Google ties.

????1/3

— Florian Mueller (@FOSSpatents) May 25, 2023

Mueller ironically points to a LinkedIn profile as evidence of Cleary Gottlieb and Sony connection as well as senior director at the CMA, Colin Raftery’s involvement with the two.

Furthermore, it’s being reported that Raferty may have also been the person who championed the rejection of Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard, despite his historical ties to an opposing party in the whole process.

Unabashedly, Raftery spoke earlier this week at the Merger Remedies in a post Brexit Context conference this week where he was joined by another speaker who shares a vested negative interest in the Microsoft and Activision acquisition as a representative of the legal firm RBB which represents both Sony and Google.

While it has been historically fruitless to get a CMA decision overturned through appeal as the process must prove the body acted irrationally, illegally or with procedural impropriety, it would seem that Microsoft may be able to lean specifically on Raferty’s historical conflict of interest-based decisions.

As Corden highlights in his write up about this new discovery, Raftery was not only central in the decision to block the Microsoft and Activision deal despite his history with Sony, he has also pulled a similar move in blocking the merging of supermarket chains ASDA and Sainsbury’s.

The block, in and of itself is less newsworthy than the fact Raftery served as legal advisory to Tesco, which happens to be the UK’s predominant supermarket chain, and who would have had a vested interest in keeping the chains separate.

As it stands, Microsoft has continued to rack up approvals from other major regulatory bodies in both the EU, China and Japan, since the UKs decision has come out.

Whether or not Microsoft knows of, or leverages Raftery’s potential conflict of interest in its appeal is unknown at the moment, but the company seemed confident going into the process that it could present something worthwhile to the CAT that would keep the acquisition train on the rails and headed towards an ultimate close.

Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build 2023, came and went. The company made a ton of announcements, mostly affirming its commitment to enhancing the user experience across its products and services as well as the incorporation of generative AI. You can catch up on everything that was announced via the Build 2023 tag on our website, be sure to also check out our recap on the same.

Alongside the host of announcements made during the event, Microsoft also announced a nifty shipping to Windows 11 users later this year that will finally let them disable the Microsoft News feed (MSN) on Windows 11’s Widget Board.

If you’ve interacted with the Widget Board on your Windows PC, then you must be aware of the current layout. The current Widget Board layout features news posts as well as videos pulled from the MSN feed.

@thurrott Small passing comment in the keynote but a widget only option may be coming for the widget board in the future. https://t.co/vbnNomwSOV

— Chris (@lindhartsen) May 25, 2023

But as per the announcement made during the Build 2023 event, Windows 11 users will soon have the option to curate a unique experience in the Widgets Board, one that only features widgets. Previously, we had reported on major changes and improvements that Microsoft was planning to ship to widgets on Windows 11.

This is a step in the right direction for Microsoft as users will now be able to disable the MSN feed from their Widgets Board completely. It should be noted that users can already hide stories and videos that they don’t like, but this new addition will completely block them out from the Widgets Board.

What’s more, Microsoft just shipped the Moment 3 feature drop to Windows 11 users as an optional update. It’s expected to roll out to everyone next month via the Patch Tuesday update.

And aside from the capability to have a Widgets Board layout that’s free of the MSN feed, Microsoft also announced that users will be able to change the orientation of the widgets and arrange them based on their own preferences vertically. Additionally, Microsoft will also be enhancing the pinning experience for widgets such that it will now be easier for users to pin installed widgets on the board.

via Windows Central

Microsoft has recently acknowledged an issue impacting certain 32-bit applications when it comes to saving and copying files across various versions of the Windows operating system. The problem primarily arises during file transfers to network shares, particularly on Windows 11 21H2 and 22H2 (after installing KB5023774 or later updates) or Windows 10 21H2 and 22H2 (after installing KB5023773 or newer updates).

The intermittent nature of this issue means that only apps that are both large address aware and utilize the CopyFile API are affected. Microsoft has clarified that Windows devices are more susceptible to this problem when using certain commercial or enterprise security software that employs extended file attributes.

The issue does not impact the file-copying functionality of File Explorer itself. Instead, it affects the CopyFile API, which is utilized by specific applications. Microsoft has identified Microsoft Office apps such as Word and Excel as potentially being susceptible to this problem, but only when using 32-bit versions. Users may encounter “Document not saved” error messages as a result.

It is worth mentioning that this known issue is unlikely to be encountered by consumers using Windows devices in personal or non-managed commercial settings. The problem primarily affects enterprise-managed devices that utilize specific software and configurations.

While Microsoft has addressed the file copying and saving failures on Windows 10 and Windows 11 21H2, the latest Windows 11 release, version 22H2, is still awaiting a fix. However, Microsoft advises affected customers to employ a temporary workaround by attempting to save or copy the files again until an official solution becomes available. The availability of a workaround and a solution for other affected versions offer some relief to users and administrators dealing with these file transfer and saving failures.

A day removed from Microsoft’s developer conference where it plastered its artificially intelligent Copilot platform across almost all facets of its business portfolio, company vice chair and president Brad Smith talks about how to govern AI going forward.

Starting off his latest Microsoft On the Issues post, Smith posits, “Don’t ask what computers can do, ask what they should do.”

Smith’s statement opens his discussion on what he and Microsoft believe are the best ways to interact with this new resurgence of artificially intelligent-led platforms and services, namely, the best way to make sure AI doesn’t spiral out of control like previously lauded technologies such as social media.

As part of constructing guardrails for the use of AI in the future, Smith and company focus on the accountability aspect of their six adopted ethical principles for AI, which he sums up as, “we must always ensure that AI remains under human control.”

To maintain “human control”, Smith offers the following Five-point blueprint for Governing AI that includes, implementing new government-led AI safety frameworks, requiring safety brakes for AI systems, developing broad legal and regulatory frameworks, promoting transparency and access to AI, and the pursuit of public-private partnerships to address societal changes.

Details of the blueprint include, a need to develop new laws and regulations for “highly capable” AI systems, and Smith suggest these be implemented by a new governing agency that understands and traffics in the knowledge of licensing AI models and AI infrastructures.

Another standout details in Smith’s blueprint plan are calls for “safety brakes” for AI systems tasked with operating critical infrastructure such as electrical grids, water systems, city traffic, and domestic travel among others. Following this point, governments would require operators to build in and regularly test the thresholds of these systems that would be siloed in licensed AI datacenters for an added layer of protection.

Perhaps the most consequential point of the plan is the ambitious plan to avoid the quicksand-like mistakes of social media by using AI to protect democracy and rights of people by providing broad access to AI skills. While most people have access to social media as platform, AI presents an opportunity for most people (with adequate AI skills) to create their own platforms to create technologies that affect sustainability, protections, and democratized economies of scale.

Smith goes on to highlight a few more key points of he and Microsoft’s blueprint to governing AI, and I suggest you take a read if you’re interested in the high-minded and nuanced future of all of the technologies the company showcased at BUILD 2023 this week.