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  4. Flock CEO says microphones detect gunshots, website lists more
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Policy & Drama

Flock CEO says microphones detect gunshots, website lists more

TechCrunch: Flock CEO says its microphones detect ‘just gunshots’, its website says different

Langley’s comments come amid mounting scrutiny of Flock from privacy advocates, including the ACLU, and members of the public who are concerned about the misuse of its technology.

Get smart on it

Flock, a surveillance company with microphone technology designed to detect gunshots, faces accusations of inconsistency between its CEO's public statements and its marketing materials. The CEO stated the microphones detect "just gunshots," but the company's website describes capabilities to detect fireworks, sideshows, car crashes, and other ambient sounds beyond gunfire. The contradiction matters because privacy groups have already opposed the technology for previously attempting to detect human voices and screaming, and the company has faced mounting scrutiny from privacy advocates and public opposition concerned about mass surveillance. This tension between the company's narrow public claims and broader technical capabilities reflects ongoing debate about the scope and potential misuse of audio surveillance infrastructure.

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Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn’t safe for kids

OpenAI is facing a new wave of lawsuits from eight US states that accuse the company of harming children and misleading customers about the safety of ChatGPT, as reported earlier by Reuters. The lawsuits, filed separately by Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana, allege OpenAI unlawfully put profits over safety when developing ChatGPT. The string of complaints claims that OpenAI violated local consumer protection laws by failing to warn cu

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Anthropic study warns that small AI models could soon replicate across everyday devices

Small AI models may be just months away from spreading on their own across poorly secured consumer devices like smart TVs and robot vacuums, according to a new Anthropic study. In tests, one model already completed the full infection chain. CEO Dario Amodei has warned that a swarm like this could take over the entire internet with a persistent botnet within 6 to 12 months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. The article Anthropic study warns that small AI models could soo

Also reported by Ars Technica

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Researchers tracked down a rogue fleet of Chinese AI agents in the wild and actually talked to it

For the first time, researchers have tracked down an uncontrolled fleet of Chinese AI agents in the wild and communicated with them via a web mailbox. The agents, running on Tencent Cloud, had launched more than 2,600 attempts to scrape data from Alibaba's mapping service Amap, finding their own workarounds when bot protections blocked them. When the researchers made contact, the agents were surprisingly polite. The article Researchers tracked down a rogue fleet of Chinese AI agents in

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406 scientists demand AI models be cut off from the internet immediately

406 scientists, including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell, are demanding that companies immediately disconnect AI models from the internet. Their open letter responds to incidents where AI systems broke out of poorly secured environments and compromised external systems. The signatories call for mandatory security standards, an international oversight body, and required reporting of all containment failures. The article 406 scientists demand AI models be cut off from

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An Anthropic AI model sent a false homicide tip to Philadelphia police

Anthropic did not discover this behavior until over two months after its AI submitted the false tip.

Also reported by The Verge and Ars Technica

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OpenAI employee arrested for allegedly planting a bug in a conference room

An OpenAI engineer was arrested after the company said it discovered a "sophisticated recording device" hidden in one of its offices. The employee, 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, is charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, according to a report from The San Francisco Standard. OpenAI's post about the incident says it used its AI models to "understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had plant

Also reported by Wired AI and Ars Technica