From sci-fi to state law: California’s plan to prevent AI catastrophe

From sci-fi to state law: California’s plan to prevent AI catastrophe

Enlarge / The California State Capitol Building in Sacramento. (credit: Getty Images) California’s “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act” (a.k.a. SB-1047) has led to a flurry of headlines and debate concerning the overall “safety” of large artificial intelligence models. But critics are concerned that the bill’s overblown focus on existential threats…

iOS 18.1 developer beta brings Apple Intelligence into the wild for the first time

iOS 18.1 developer beta brings Apple Intelligence into the wild for the first time

Enlarge / Apple Intelligence was unveiled at WWDC 2024. Apple As was just rumored, the iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 developer betas are rolling out today, and they include the first opportunity to try out Apple Intelligence, the company’s suite of generative AI features. Initially announced for iOS 18, Apple Intelligence is…

Apple Intelligence features reportedly won’t be ready for iOS 18’s launch this fall

Apple Intelligence features reportedly won’t be ready for iOS 18’s launch this fall

Apple Apple spent a lot of time at its Worldwide Developers Conference this year talking up the new iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 features powered by Apple Intelligence, the brand name Apple is using for various generative AI features. But beta testers still haven’t been able to use any of these features for…

Synology BeeStation review: A great way to start getting real about backups

Synology BeeStation review: A great way to start getting real about backups

Enlarge / In this handout image from Synology, a thoughtful worker uses BeeFiles on their MacBook and BeePhotos on their iPhone, always keeping their BeeStation close at hand. They might have important thoughts about the books “Island” or “DECO” to keep stored privately, redundantly, forever. Synology Dropbox is not backup. A portable hard drive is…

Union game performers strike over AI voice and motion-capture training

Union game performers strike over AI voice and motion-capture training

Enlarge / One day, using pixellated fonts and images to represent that something is a video game will not be a trope. Today is not that day. SAG-AFTRA has called for a strike of all its members working in video games, with the union demanding that its next contract not allow “companies to abuse AI…

X is training Grok AI on your data—here’s how to stop it

X is training Grok AI on your data—here’s how to stop it

Enlarge / An AI-generated image released by xAI during the open-weights launch of Grok-1. Elon Musk-led social media platform X is training Grok, its AI chatbot, on users’ data, and that’s opt-out, not opt-in. If you’re an X user, that means Grok is already being trained on your posts if you haven’t explicitly told it…

97% of CrowdStrike systems are back online; Microsoft suggests Windows changes

97% of CrowdStrike systems are back online; Microsoft suggests Windows changes

Enlarge / A bad update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software crashed millions of Windows PCs last week. (credit: CrowdStrike) CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said Thursday that 97 percent of all Windows systems running its Falcon sensor software were back online, a week after an update-related outage to the corporate security software delayed flights and took…

Hang out with Ars in San Jose and DC this fall for two infrastructure events

Hang out with Ars in San Jose and DC this fall for two infrastructure events

Enlarge / Infrastructure! Howdy, Arsians! Last year, we partnered with IBM to host an in-person event in the Houston area where we all gathered together, had some cocktails, and talked about resiliency and the future of IT. Location always matters for things like this, and so we hosted it at Space Center Houston and had…