Controversial California AI regulation bill finds unlikely ally in Elon Musk; The Mercury News, August 28, 2024

 RYAN MACASERO , The Mercury News; Controversial California AI regulation bill finds unlikely ally in Elon Musk

"With a make-or-break deadline just days away, a polarizing bill to regulate the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry from progressive state Sen. Scott Wiener has gained support from an unlikely source.

Elon Musk, the Donald Trump-supporting, often regulation-averse Tesla CEO and X owner, this week said he thinks “California should probably pass” the proposal, which would regulatethe development and deployment of advanced AI models, specifically large-scale AI products costing at least $100 million to build.

The surprising endorsement from a man who also owns an AI company comes as other political heavyweights typically much more aligned with Wiener’s views, including San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, join major tech companies in urging Sacramento to put on the brakes."

Microsoft’s “responsible AI” chief worries about the open web; The Washington Post, May 1, 2024

Will Oremus, The Washington Post ; Microsoft’s “responsible AI” chief worries about the open web

"As tech giants move toward a world in which chatbots supplement, and perhaps supplant, search engines, the Microsoft executive assigned to make sure AI is used responsibly said the industry has to be careful not to break the business model of the wider web. Search engines citing and linking to the websites they draw from is “part of the core bargain of search,” Natasha Crampton said in an interview Monday.

Crampton, Microsoft’s chief Responsible AI officer, spoke with The Technology 202 ahead of Microsoft’s release today of its first “Responsible AI Transparency Report.” The 39-page report, which the company is billing as the first of its kind from a major tech firm, details how Microsoft plans to keep its rapidly expanding stable of AI tools from wreaking havoc. 

It makes the case that the company has closely integrated Crampton’s Responsible AI team into its development of new AI products. It also details the progress the company has made toward meeting some of the Voluntary AI Commitments that Microsoft and other tech giants signed on to in September as part of the Biden administration’s push to regulate artificial intelligence. Those include developing safety evaluation systems for its AI cloud tools, expanding its internal AI “red teams,” and allowing users to mark images as AI-generated."