researchers

“Man-Made Marvel: A Robot with Driving Capabilities”

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Is the key to autonomous cars that don’t run over pedestrians and crash into telephone poles a humanoid robot behind the wheel? The researchers, one of whom consults for Toyota, developed and trained a “musculoskeletal humanoid” called Musashi to drive a small electric car through a test track. With its mechanical hands, it can rotate the car’s key, pull the handbrake and switch on the turn signal. Musashi did use the accelerator in a separate experiment, the researchers say. Fortunately, the researchers say they’re up for the challenge, with plans to develop a next-gen robot and software.

AI Models Have Conflicting Opinions on Contentious Topics, Study Reveals

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Not all generative AI models are created equal, particularly when it comes to how they treat polarizing subject matter. They found that the models tended to answer questions inconsistently, which reflects biases embedded in the data used to train the models, they say. “Our research shows significant variation in the values conveyed by model responses, depending on culture and language.”Text-analyzing models, like all generative AI models, are statistical probability machines. Instrumental to an AI model’s training data are annotations, or labels that enable the model to associate specific concepts with specific data (e.g. Other studies have examined the deeply ingrained political, racial, ethnic, gender and ableist biases in generative AI models — many of which cut across languages, countries and dialects.

Security Breach: Microsoft’s Workforce Reveals Internal Passwords

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Microsoft has resolved a security lapse that exposed internal company files and credentials to the open internet. The Azure storage server housed code, scripts and configuration files containing passwords, keys and credentials used by the Microsoft employees for accessing other internal databases and systems. Yoleri told TechCrunch that the exposed data could potentially help malicious actors identify or access other places where Microsoft stores its internal files. The researchers notified Microsoft of the security lapse on February 6, and Microsoft secured the spilling files on March 5. Microsoft did not say if it had reset or changed any of the exposed internal credentials.

AI Ethics Worn Down by Persistent Interrogations from Anthropic Scholars

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The vulnerability is a new one, resulting from the increased “context window” of the latest generation of LLMs. But in an unexpected extension of this “in-context learning,” as it’s called, the models also get “better” at replying to inappropriate questions. So if you ask it to build a bomb right away, it will refuse. But if you ask it to answer 99 other questions of lesser harmfulness and then ask it to build a bomb… it’s a lot more likely to comply. If the user wants trivia, it seems to gradually activate more latent trivia power as you ask dozens of questions.

“Midjourney Takes on Copyright Police in Exciting AI Showdown”

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Generative AI models like Midjourney’s are trained on an enormous number of examples — e.g. Some vendors have taken a proactive approach, inking licensing agreements with content creators and establishing “opt-out” schemes for training data sets. The problem with benchmarks: Many, many AI vendors claim their models have the competition met or beat by some objective metric. Anthropic launches new models: AI startup Anthropic has launched a new family of models, Claude 3, that it claims rivals OpenAI’s GPT-4. AI models have been helpful in our understanding and prediction of molecular dynamics, conformation, and other aspects of the nanoscopic world that may otherwise take expensive, complex methods to test.

==== Researchers discover high vulnerability of commonly used video doorbells to hacking

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These doorbell cameras are, however, still available elsewhere. Consumer Reports says EKEN did not respond to their emails reporting these issues. Despite these flaws and Consumer Reports warning online marketplaces about them, the doorbells remain available for sale on Amazon, Sears, and Shein. But Consumer Reports claimed there are similar doorbells, likely whitelabels of EKEN doorbells, still available on Walmart. After TechCrunch shared five listings flagged by Consumer Reports with Walmart, Forrest said the company took down three of the five, while two had already been removed.

Experts Warn: ConnectWise Software Vulnerabilities Being Exploited in Large-Scale Cyber Attacks

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Security researchers say a pair of easy-to-exploit flaws in a popular remote access tool used by more than a million companies around the world are now being mass-exploited, with hackers abusing the vulnerabilities to deploy ransomware and steal sensitive data. ConnectWise first disclosed the flaws on February 19 and urged on-premise customers to install security patches immediately. Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure said in a blog post Monday that its researchers have also observed “en-mass exploitation” of the ScreenConnect flaws from multiple threat actors. It’s not yet known how many ConnectWise ScreenConnect customers or end users are affected by these vulnerabilities, and ConnectWise spokespeople did not respond to TechCrunch’s questions. The company’s website claims that the organization provides its remote access technology to more than a million small to medium-sized businesses that manage over 13 million devices.

Uncovering the Intriguing World of Chinese Government Hacking: Inside the Revolutionary Spyware Leak

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Over the weekend, someone posted a cache of files and documents apparently stolen from the Chinese government hacking contractor, I-Soon. This leak gives cybersecurity researchers and rival governments an unprecedented chance to look behind the curtain of Chinese government hacking operations facilitated by private contractors. Since then, observers of Chinese hacking operations have feverishly poured over the files. Also, an IP address found in the I-Soon leak hosted a phishing site that the digital rights organization Citizen Lab saw used against Tibetans in a hacking campaign in 2019. Cary highlighted the documents and chats that show how much — or how little — I-Soon employees are paid.

** Warning: High-Risk Exploit of ConnectWise Vulnerability Poses Harm, Researchers Claim

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Researchers warn high-risk ConnectWise flaw under attack is ’embarrassingly easy’ to exploit “I can’t sugarcoat it — this shit is bad," said Huntress' CEOSecurity experts are warning that a high-risk vulnerability in a widely used remote access tool is “trivial and embarrassingly easy” to exploit, as the software’s developer confirms malicious hackers are actively exploiting the flaw. The maximum severity-rated vulnerability affects ConnectWise ScreenConnect (formerly ConnectWise Control), a popular remote access software that allows managed IT providers and technicians to provide real-time remote technical support on customer systems. Cybersecurity company Huntress on Wednesday published an analysis of the actively exploited ConnectWise vulnerability. ConnectWise also released a fix for a separate vulnerability affecting its remote desktop software. The U.S. agencies also observed hackers abusing remote access software from AnyDesk, which was earlier this month forced to reset passwords and revoke certificates after finding evidence of compromised production systems.

The Academic Exodus of Artificial Intelligence Mindsets

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According to Stanford’s 2021 Artificial Intelligence Index Report, the number of new AI Ph.D. graduates in North America entering the AI industry post-graduation grew from 44.4% in 2010 to around 48% in 2019. By contrast, the share of new AI Ph.D.s entering academia dropped by 44% from 42.1% in 2010 to 23.7% in 2019. Private industry’s willingness to pay top dollar for AI talent is likely a contributing factor. While AI graduates are no doubt welcoming the trend — who wouldn’t kill for a starting salary that high? Between 2004 and 2019, Carnegie Mellon alone saw 16 AI faculty members depart, and the Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Washington lost roughly a dozen each, the study found.