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Tag: domestic-health and science

  • AC is hard on the planet. This building has a sustainable solution | CNN Business

    AC is hard on the planet. This building has a sustainable solution | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    In mid-July at the construction site at 1 Java Street in Brooklyn, New York, the outside temperatures can reach sweltering highs in the 90s. But 500-feet underground, it’s 55 degrees all year round.

    That stable, underground temperature will be key to making life comfortable in the residential building that will soon sit on the site, a scenic spot in the Greenpoint neighborhood along Brooklyn’s waterfront.

    With 834 rental apartments plus commercial space, 1 Java Street is set to be the largest multifamily, residential building with “geothermal” heating and cooling system in New York State — and potentially the country — when it’s completed in late 2025, according to developer Lendlease.

    Geothermal technology is essentially a more eco-friendly version of an HVAC system, allowing the building spaces and water to be cooled and heated more efficiently, without traditional window AC units and natural gas. Lendlease says the technology will make it possible for the nearly 790,000-square foot building to release around 55% less carbon and achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

    With summer temperatures reaching record highs around the world, experts say finding ways to cool buildings that are less taxing on the environment could be crucial in fighting climate change. Even back in 2018, air conditioning and electric fans accounted for around 20% of total global electricity use, according to a report cpublished that year by the International Energy Agency. Now, energy and urban development experts are urging cities and developers to implement new solutions to keep buildings cooler. And both New York City and the Biden administration have identified geothermal systems as one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    “Whenever we look at a site, we consider how we can make it more sustainable,” Layth Madi, Lendlease’s senior vice president and director of development, told CNN, adding that the development firm is aiming to reach net zero by 2025 and be fully decarbonized by 2040.

    “I think many residents will choose to live in this building because of its green credentials,” Madi said. “We know a lot of people are thinking about climate change and our impact on the planet.”

    Geothermal plumbing works by sending water from a building deep into the ground below it to take advantage of the earth’s naturally stable internal temperature — on hot days, the underground temperature will reduce the temperature of warm water from the building to help with cooling; on cold days, it will warm up cold water to help with heating.

    At 1 Java Street, construction crews are drilling 320 holes, each around 4 inches in diameter and 499-feet deep, to create the building’s geothermal piping system through which the water will be pumped.

    “Your thermostat turns on and it tells your building, ‘I need heating or cooling.’ And it energizes pumps, and those pumps flow fluid through the [geothermal] circuit that we’ve established here on site,” said Adam Alaica, director of engineering and development at Geosource Energy, the Canadian firm that’s installing and drilling the vertical geothermal piping at 1 Java Street.

    For now, the process doesn’t come cheap. Installing the building’s geothermal system increased construction costs by around 6%, according to Madi, and required securing equipment and trained manpower that remains relatively scarce.

    “We’re seeing rapid growth — I would say approaching that of exponential growth year over year in interest in the technology, which is very exciting for the industry as a whole,” Alacia said. “The bottlenecks to that growth have always been, and will continue to be in the years to come, specialty machinery to implement this infrastructure and the people resources it takes to do this.”

    Eventually, though, as more developers invest in geothermal and more companies provide the specialty training needed to install the technology — Geosource operates its own training program — Madi said he expects the costs to come down. And once the building is up and running, it should be more cost efficient to heat and cool.

    Lendlease didn’t specify whether residents of 1 Java Street will experience any cost savings on utilities thanks to the geothermal system (the units themselves will be priced at market rate, with 30% of them set aside as affordable housing). “Ultimately, it will be up to tenants to manage their power consumption and work with the utility company on billing,” the company told CNN.

    While 1 Java Street will be one of relatively few geothermal buildings in the state, the companies behind its development say New York — and the world — could use more buildings like it.

    “Geothermal is not a new technology … there’s kind of a primitive component to it, using the earth as a heat source and heat sink,” Alacia said. “In general, geothermal can really be used anywhere you have ground under your feet … The cost and the business case can vary, but technically it has strong credentials really anywhere in the country.”

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  • 300 million jobs could be affected by latest wave of AI, says Goldman Sachs | CNN Business

    300 million jobs could be affected by latest wave of AI, says Goldman Sachs | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    As many as 300 million full-time jobs around the world could be automated in some way by the newest wave of artificial intelligence that has spawned platforms like ChatGPT, according to Goldman Sachs economists.

    They predicted in a report Sunday that 18% of work globally could be computerized, with the effects felt more deeply in advanced economies than emerging markets.

    That’s partly because white-collar workers are seen to be more at risk than manual laborers. Administrative workers and lawyers are expected to be most affected, the economists said, compared to the “little effect” seen on physically demanding or outdoor occupations, such as construction and repair work.

    In the United States and Europe, approximately two-thirds of current jobs “are exposed to some degree of AI automation,” and up to a quarter of all work could be done by AI completely, the bank estimates.

    If generative artificial intelligence “delivers on its promised capabilities, the labor market could face significant disruption,” the economists wrote. The term refers to the technology behind ChatGPT, the chatbot sensation that has taken the world by storm.

    ChatGPT, which can answer prompts and write essays, has already prompted many businesses to rethink how people should work every day.

    This month, its developer unveiled the latest version of the software behind the bot, GPT-4. The platform has quickly impressed early users with its ability to simplify coding, rapidly create a website from a simple sketch and pass exams with high marks.

    Further use of such AI will likely lead to job losses, the Goldman Sachs economists wrote. But they noted that technological innovation that initially displaces workers has historically also created employment growth over the long haul.

    While workplaces may shift, widespread adoption of AI could ultimately increase labor productivity — and boost global GDP by 7% annually over a 10-year period, according to Goldman Sachs.

    “Although the impact of AI on the labor market is likely to be significant, most jobs and industries are only partially exposed to automation and are thus more likely to be complemented rather than substituted by AI,” the economists added.

    “Most workers are employed in occupations that are partially exposed to AI automation and, following AI adoption, will likely apply at least some of their freed-up capacity toward productive activities that increase output.”

    Of US workers expected to be affected, for instance, 25% to 50% of their workload “can be replaced,” the researchers added.

    “The combination of significant labor cost savings, new job creation, and a productivity boost for non-displaced workers raises the possibility of a labor productivity boom like those that followed the emergence of earlier general-purpose technologies like the electric motor and personal computer.”

    — CNN’s Nicole Goodkind contributed to this report.

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  • Arkansas sues TikTok, ByteDance and Meta over mental health claims | CNN Business

    Arkansas sues TikTok, ByteDance and Meta over mental health claims | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The state of Arkansas has sued TikTok, its parent ByteDance, and Facebook-parent Meta over claims the companies’ products are harmful to users, in the latest effort by public officials to take social media companies to court over mental-health and privacy concerns.

    All three lawsuits claim the companies have violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and seek millions, if not billions, in potential fines. The suits were filed in Arkansas state court.

    The complaints come amid mounting pressure in Washington on TikTok for its ties to China and as states have grown more aggressive in suing tech companies broadly, particularly on mental health claims. Suits by school districts or county officials in California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington state have targeted multiple social media platforms over addiction allegations.

    The suit against Meta particularly zeroes in on the company’s impact to young users’ mental health, alleging that Meta’s implementation of like buttons, photo tagging, an unending news feed and other features are addictive and “intended to manipulate users’ brains by triggering the release of dopamine.”

    In a statement, Meta’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, said the company has invested in “technology that finds and removes content related to suicide, self-injury or eating disorders before anyone reports it to us.”

    “We want to reassure every parent that we have their interests at heart in the work we’re doing to provide teens with safe, supportive experiences online,” Davis said in the statement. “These are complex issues, but we will continue working with parents, experts and regulators such as the state attorneys general to develop new tools, features and policies that meet the needs of teens and their families.”

    The remaining two suits, both naming ByteDance and TikTok as defendants, target TikTok’s alleged shortcomings in content moderation and also reiterate claims about TikTok’s alleged threat to US national security.

    The first suit alleges that TikTok has misled users by identifying its app as suitable for teens on app stores because of the “abundant” presence of content showing profanity, substance use and nudity. The suit further alleges that TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, does not make such content available within China.

    “TikTok poses known risks to young teens that TikTok’s parent company itself finds inappropriate for Chinese users who are the same age,” the complaint said. “Yet TikTok pushes salacious and other mature content to all young U.S. users age 13 and up.”

    The second suit against ByteDance and TikTok accuse the companies of having made misleading statements about the reach of Chinese government officials and their purported inability to access TikTok user data. TikTok has migrated US user data to servers operated by the American tech giant Oracle and has established organizational controls intended to prevent unauthorized data access. But, the suit alleges, that does not mean the data is necessarily protected.

    “Neither TikTok’s data storage practices, nor its data security practices, negate the applicability of Chinese law to that data or to the individuals and entities who are subject to Chinese law and have access to that data, or the risk of access by the Chinese Government or Communist Party,” the complaint said.

    The suit also claims TikTok has misrepresented its approach to privacy and security by omitting the potential risks of Chinese government access from its privacy policies and in its statements to app store operators.

    TikTok and ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In a statement announcing the lawsuits, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the suits reflect a “failed status quo.”

    “We have to hold Big Tech companies accountable for pushing addictive platforms on our kids and exposing them to a world of inappropriate, damaging content,” Sanders said. “These actions are a long time coming. We have watched over the past decade as one social media company after another has exploited our kids for profit and escaped government oversight.”

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  • YouTube rolls out new policies for eating disorder content | CNN Business

    YouTube rolls out new policies for eating disorder content | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    YouTube on Tuesday announced a series of changes to how it deals with content related to eating disorders.

    The platform has long removed content that glorifies or promotes eating disorders, and YouTube’s Community Guidelines will now also prohibit content that features behaviors such as purging after eating or extreme calorie counting that at-risk users could be inspired to imitate. For videos that feature such “imitable behaviors” in the context of recovery, YouTube will allow the content to remain on the site but restrict it to users who are logged into the site and are over the age of 18.

    The policy changes, developed in consultation with the National Eating Disorder Association and other nonprofit organizations, aim to ensure “that YouTube creates space for community recovery and resources, while continuing to protect our viewers,” YouTube’s Global Head of Healthcare Garth Graham told CNN in an interview.

    “We’re thinking about how to thread the needle in terms of essential conversations and information that people might have,” Graham said, “allowing people to hear stories about recovery and allowing people to hear educational information but also realizing that the display of that information … can serve as a trigger as well.”

    The changes come as social media platforms have faced increased scrutiny for their effects on the mental health of users, especially young people. In 2021, lawmakers called out Instagram and YouTube for promoting accounts featuring content depicting extreme weight loss and dieting to young users. And TikTok has faced criticism from an online safety group that claimed the app served eating disorder related content to teens (although the platform pushed back against the research). They also follow several updates by YouTube in recent years to how it handles misinformation about medical issues such as abortion and vaccines.

    In addition to removing or age restricting some videos, YouTube plans to add panels pointing viewers to crisis resources under eating disorder-related content in nine countries, with plans to expand to more areas. And when a creators’ video is removed for violating its eating disorder policy, Graham said YouTube will send them resources about how to create content that’s less likely to harm other viewers.

    As with many social media policies, however, the challenge often isn’t introducing it but enforcing it, a challenge YouTube could face in discerning which videos are, for example, pro-recovery. YouTube said it will be rolling out enforcement of the policy globally in the coming weeks, and plans to use both human and automated moderation to review videos and their context.

    “These are complicated, societal public health [issues],” Graham said, “I want never to profess perfection, but to understand that we have to be proactive, we have to be thoughtful … it’s taken a while to get here because we wanted to articulate a process that had different layers and understood the challenges.”

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  • Elizabeth Holmes delays start of prison sentence with last-minute appeal | CNN Business

    Elizabeth Holmes delays start of prison sentence with last-minute appeal | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Elizabeth Holmes won’t be starting her 11-year prison sentence just yet.

    The disgraced Theranos founder was previously expected to report to prison on Thursday, but she will remain free a little longer while the court considers a last-minute appeal, according to a filing Tuesday night.

    Holmes was sentenced last November after she was convicted months earlier on multiple charges of defrauding investors while running the now-defunct blood testing startup. Earlier this month, her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction was denied by a judge, setting her up to report to prison on April 27.

    On Tuesday, however, Holmes’ legal team filed an appeal of the judge’s decision. As a result, Holmes can remain free on bail while the latest appeal is considered by the court, as per the court’s rules.

    Holmes dropped out of Stanford at the age of 19 to focus full-time on Theranos, the health tech startup which claimed to have invented technology that could accurately test for a range of conditions using just a few drops of blood. Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors and was valued at some $9 billion at its peak – making Holmes a paper billionaire.

    Her company began to unravel after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 reported that Theranos had only ever performed roughly a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary technology, and with questionable accuracy. It also came to light that Theranos was relying on third-party manufactured devices from traditional blood testing companies rather than its own technology.

    Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and former COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was indicted alongside Holmes and convicted of fraud in a separate trial. Like Holmes, Balwani’s legal team delayed the start of his prison sentence by roughly a month with an appeal.

    Balwani reported to prison last week to serve out his nearly 13-year sentence.

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  • Three GOP appointees, including 2 from Trump, will hear the next phase of major abortion pill case | CNN Politics

    Three GOP appointees, including 2 from Trump, will hear the next phase of major abortion pill case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The New Orleans-based appeals court panel that will oversee the next stage in the blockbuster legal challenge to the availability of medication abortion drugs is made up of three Republican appointees, including one Trump nominee who has called abortion a “moral tragedy.”

    Circuit Judges James Ho and Cory Wilson, both Trump nominees, will hear the oral arguments on May 17, alongside Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, an appointee of George W. Bush.

    The lawsuit was brought by anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations who allege the US Food and Drug Administration broke the law when it approved the medication abortion drug mifepristone more than two decades ago.

    Last month, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk agreed with their arguments and ruled that the approval of the drug should be suspended. 

    However, his ruling was put on hold by the Supreme Court on April 21 and it will remain on hold until the case goes back to the high court, regardless of how the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the merits.

    Ho, a former Texas solicitor general, is considered one of the most conservative and strident members of the 5th Circuit, having described abortion as a “moral tragedy” in a 2018 concurring opinion.

    In a 2019 concurring opinion, Ho also said that a trial judge’s ruling – which struck down a 15-week abortion ban and which was affirmed by the 5th Circuit under the then-standing Roe precedent – displayed “an alarming disrespect for the millions of Americans who believe that babies deserve legal protection during pregnancy as well as after birth, and that abortion is the immoral, tragic, and violent taking of innocent human life.”

    The 5th Circuit is considered one of the most conservative in the country has consistently ruled against the Biden Justice Department.

    Wilson earlier this year wrote a majority circuit opinion that said that a federal law that bars gun ownership by people under domestic violence was unconstitutional.

    Elrod penned an opinion last month that struck down the federal ban on bump stocks, which are attachments that essentially allow shooters to fire semiautomatic rifles continuously with one pull of the trigger.

    The medication abortion case is another hugely consequential case to go through the circuit. Mifepristone – the drug being targeted in the lawsuit – is the first pill in the two-pill regimen for terminating a pregnancy. Medication abortion makes up more than half of all abortions obtained in the United States.

    In filings last week, the Justice Department told the 5th Circuit that Kacsmaryk’s conclusions that the drug was unsafe rested “on a series of fundamental errors.”

    “While FDA justified its scientific conclusions in multiple detailed reviews, including a medical review spanning more than 100 pages and assessing dozens of studies and other scientific information, the district court swept the agency’s judgments aside by substituting its own lay understanding of purportedly contrary studies, offering demonstrably erroneous characterizations of the record,” the DOJ’s filing said. 

    The department’s opponents in the case will file a response later on Monday.

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  • AI industry and researchers sign statement warning of ‘extinction’ risk | CNN Business

    AI industry and researchers sign statement warning of ‘extinction’ risk | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Dozens of AI industry leaders, academics and even some celebrities on Tuesday called for reducing the risk of global annihilation due to artificial intelligence, arguing in a brief statement that the threat of an AI extinction event should be a top global priority.

    “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” read the statement published by the Center for AI Safety.

    The statement was signed by leading industry officials including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; the so-called “godfather” of AI, Geoffrey Hinton; top executives and researchers from Google DeepMind and Anthropic; Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer; Bruce Schneier, the internet security and cryptography pioneer; climate advocate Bill McKibben; and the musician Grimes, among others.

    The statement highlights wide-ranging concerns about the ultimate danger of unchecked artificial intelligence. AI experts have said society is still a long way from developing the kind of artificial general intelligence that is the stuff of science fiction; today’s cutting-edge chatbots largely reproduce patterns based on training data they’ve been fed and do not think for themselves.

    Still, the flood of hype and investment into the AI industry has led to calls for regulation at the outset of the AI age, before any major mishaps occur.

    The statement follows the viral success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has helped heighten an arms race in the tech industry over artificial intelligence. In response, a growing number of lawmakers, advocacy groups and tech insiders have raised alarms about the potential for a new crop of AI-powered chatbots to spread misinformation and displace jobs.

    Hinton, whose pioneering work helped shape today’s AI systems, previously told CNN he decided to leave his role at Google and “blow the whistle” on the technology after “suddenly” realizing “that these things are getting smarter than us.”

    Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, said in a tweet Tuesday that the statement first proposed by David Kreuger, an AI professor at the University of Cambridge, does not preclude society from addressing other types of AI risk, such as algorithmic bias or misinformation.

    Hendrycks compared Tuesday’s statement to warnings by atomic scientists “issuing warnings about the very technologies they’ve created.”

    “Societies can manage multiple risks at once; it’s not ‘either/or’ but ‘yes/and,’” Hendrycks tweeted. “From a risk management perspective, just as it would be reckless to exclusively prioritize present harms, it would also be reckless to ignore them as well.”

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  • GOP battle brews over defense bill as McCarthy under pressure to appease the right on social issues | CNN Politics

    GOP battle brews over defense bill as McCarthy under pressure to appease the right on social issues | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House GOP leaders are confronting a legislative landmine over a massive defense bill as right-wing lawmakers are pushing for a slew of hot button amendments that could put moderate Republicans in a complicated position and threaten Democratic support for the must-pass bill.

    The lawmakers are demanding amendment votes this week on a wide-range of controversial issues – everything ranging from abortion to transgender rights to diversity programs at the Pentagon – and are even privately warning that they could scuttle the defense bill on the first procedural vote if they don’t get their way.

    The move has once again put the focus on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he tries to navigate the unyielding demands from members on his far-right while pushing legislation that many of his most vulnerable members are eager to tout back home. If he caters to the whims of members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, he could win over more far-right Republicans but could jeopardize support from Democrats and moderate Republicans, both of which will be essential to getting the bill through the chamber.

    Yet the votes could even put the White House in a jam as a group of lawmakers from both parties are pushing to halt President Joe Biden’s move to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine.

    Even though the House Armed Services Committee sent its bill to the floor on a bipartisan vote, the top Democrat on that panel warned that his support would be in jeopardy if the final bill includes some of these controversial amendments, particularly around abortion.

    “The committee did a good job of presenting a bipartisan bill,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the committee’s top Democrat, told CNN. “But I am worried that the full House Republicans are not going to do that, that they’re going to push this bill too far into an extreme anti-inclusion direction that makes it difficult to support.”

    The House Rules Committee will meet Tuesday afternoon to decide which of the over 1,500 amendments that have been submitted will actually be made in order, with the GOP leaders hoping to pass the final bill by the end of this week.

    But even the House Rules Committee has become a wild card for the National Defense Authorization Act. Republicans can only afford to lose two votes on the committee on a party-line vote, and McCarthy placed three far-right members on the panel in exchange for becoming speaker. At least one of the conservative lawmakers on the panel, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN he plans to oppose the rule, citing concerns that the bill does not go far enough to target “woke” Pentagon policies, and won’t receive the amendment votes to change that.

    GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the other far-right members on the panel said in a statement to CNN, “While this NDAA makes some improvements, there are still glaring issues at the DOD that it needs to address in order to receive my support” when asked how he plans to vote on the rule.

    “The Department of Defense’s transformation into a social engineering experiment wrapped in a uniform is the single greatest threat to this nation’s ability to defend itself – and Republicans are complicit,” Roy added. “Year after year, Republicans pass an NDAA that propagates the cultural rot at DOD while massive defense contractors get rich.”

    Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the other conservative on the committee, has not returned a request for comment about how he plans to vote, though a Republican source said they’re not as worried about Massie breaking ranks.

    While drama isn’t new in fights over the NDAA, which has been passed by Congress every year for the last six decades, this level of acrimony is something of a departure for what is a typically bipartisan affair. After receiving heat for the debt ceiling deal, McCarthy is under increasing pressure to cater to his right flank, ratcheting up concerns about the ability for lawmakers to reach a compromise that both chambers can agree on.

    GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who represents a swing district and has long been pushing her Republican colleagues to soften their stance on abortion, told CNN, “I don’t anticipate the NDAA not passing but the GOP has an opportunity to show it can be compassionate and pro-woman, and I hope they don’t drop the ball.”

    Aside from amendments that target culture war issues, Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California and GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, are also planning to offer an amendment aimed at stopping President Joe Biden’s cluster munition transfer to Ukraine. If it comes to the floor, the vote would reveal how much support Biden’s move has in the House.

    “Cluster munitions are unpredictable weapons that maim and kill indiscriminately, wreaking havoc on civilian populations and undermining economic rebuilding and recovery for decades,” Jacobs told CNN. “This amendment sends a strong message to the world that we will stand by our values and our commitment to protect civilians.”

    Gaetz voiced a similar refrain on Twitter.

    “These cluster bombs will not end the war in Ukraine and will not build a more stable country. Children will be left without limbs and without parents because of this decision if we do not work together in a bipartisan fashion to stop it,” Gaetz tweeted Monday.

    And while the version of the NDAA that passed out of the Armed Services Committee included more funding for the war in Ukraine, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and others are pushing to roll that funding back.

    The NDAA, which outlines the policy agenda for the Department of Defense and the US military and authorizes spending in line with the Pentagon’s priorities, passed out of the House Armed Services committee with overwhelming bipartisan support, even though some controversial GOP amendments – including on banning drag shows on military bases and reinstating troops who refused to comply with the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate – were adopted.

    Some of the amendments that will take center stage on the floor this week include prohibiting gender transition surgeries and treatments from Gaetz, eliminating any offices of diversity, equity and inclusion within the armed forces and Department of Defense from a number of members including Norman, and prohibiting the Department of Defense from “purchasing and having pornographic and radical gender ideology books in their libraries” from GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

    While a handful of Republicans do not believe those amendments go far enough, others warned their colleagues not to jeopardize the future of this crucial legislation as the $858 billion defense package boasts measures that modernize the US military, increase its readiness to counter foreign adversaries like Russia and China, and increase support for servicemembers and their families.

    “We need to get the NDAA passed. … It’s not something to ever put at risk and national security needs to be a priority for each and every one of us. If we don’t have world peace, we have nothing,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, a freshman Republican from a Virginia swing district, told CNN. “And we do that through providing the budget that the military needs. … So, it’s a responsibility.”

    GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who serves on the Armed Services committee and represents a district Biden won in 2020, told CNN, “I hope smart, common sense amendments are passed.”

    “The committee passed a bill near unanimously with only one dissenting vote, and it will take bipartisanship to get it also through the Senate,” Bacon told CNN.

    While the markup process of the NDAA touched on hot button issues, ultimately members on the committee came together to pass a package that most could support.

    Reflecting on the markup process, one GOP staffer told CNN, “People were pushing for DoD funds to be used for supporting war fighters over wokeness.”

    Those clashes, however, have only seemed to foreshadow the floor flights to come.

    “I think in committee, we tried to craft a bipartisan bill that would be able to get through the Senate and I’m hopeful that’s what everyone will try and do on the floor as well,” Jacobs told CNN. “But I think we’re already seeing the extreme Republicans try and put some poison pills in there that will make it very hard for Democrats to vote for the bill.”

    Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who told CNN he was “proud” to be the only member to vote against NDAA in committee because he needed to see “greater investment” in the Pacific region, called out the amendments that “hurt diversity and inclusion, education, and do nothing to strengthen our national security.”

    “I plan to vote no when it comes to the floor and encourage my colleagues to do the same,” Khanna added.

    One Democratic aide claimed, “Republicans are trying to hijack NDAA to make it a culture war battle.”

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  • RFK Jr. hearing encapsulates a political era when truth is upside down | CNN Politics

    RFK Jr. hearing encapsulates a political era when truth is upside down | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In a Donald Trump-influenced era of through-the-looking-glass politics, everything seems upside down, traditional loyalties are scrambled, history can be rewritten and truth is just what anyone wants it to be.

    A Republican-run House hearing Thursday encapsulated the current political circus ahead of another tense election. In a head-spinning spectacle, a Kennedy family scion and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination was greeted as a hero by Republicans. But he was slammed by Democrats, including by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as “a living, breathing, false flag operation.”

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was given a platform by pro-Trump Republicans because his conspiracies about vaccine and Covid-19, and claims that the government has tried to censor him gel with their efforts to shield Trump by claiming that the political weaponization of government is a Democratic and not a GOP transgression.

    The marriage of convenience in a fiery hearing underscored how populism and the bending of truth pioneered on the right by Trump also has significant currency on the left. It illustrated how the character of mainstream American politics is under siege from fringe voices and extremist positions that once struggled to be heard but in recent years found a footing on social media, the campaign trail and even in Congress and the White House.

    As an example of his creation of alternative realities – a tactic frequently used by Trump – Kennedy forcibly denied that he had ever been anti-vaccine, racist or antisemitic. Yet CNN fact checks show he has repeatedly shared unfounded conspiracy theories with a false link between autism and childhood vaccines. He has also claimed that man-made chemicals could be making children gay or transgender. And just last week, he was hit by new claims of conspiracy mongering, racism and antisemitism over remarks at a dinner in New York City in which he claimed that “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

    Despite this controversy, Kennedy brazenly appeared to be inventing new truths even during the hearing. He said, for instance, “In my entire life, and while I’m under oath I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic.” At another moment he said: “I’ve never been anti-vaccine,” then added: “But everybody in this room probably believes that I have been because that’s the prevailing narrative.”

    Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, criticized his relative in a social media video Friday, calling his candidacy an “embarrassment.”

    “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is, his candidacy is an embarrassment. Let’s not be distracted, again, by somebody’s vanity project.” Schlossberg said.

    In an odd flipping of the normal political order, Democrats in the hearing effectively sought to undermine the candidacy of the son and nephew of assassinated party heroes, former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy. The top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett, for instance, condemned committee chair Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for letting Kennedy air what Democrats regard as extreme views. “It’s a free country. You absolutely have a right to say what you believe,” she said, adding: “But you don’t have the right to a platform, public or private.”

    Plaskett’s comments did raise serious questions about whether there are limits – if any – on a prominent personality’s right to free speech even if they are saying things that are not true, as well as the extent to which misinformation has swamped politics and elections. But most of the hearing stayed away from such topics and was dominated by Republican attempts to score points and shield Trump and Democratic attacks on Kennedy.

    One of the ex-President’s top allies, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the fourth ranking House Republican, revived conservative claims that the Democratic-leaning officials in the federal government suppressed a story about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden before the last election, a move she argued had been instrumental in his father beating Trump for the presidency. She cited this theory when asking Kennedy whether he believed there was censorship amounting to government interference in the 2020 election.

    Former Twitter executives admitted under oath this year that the social media network temporarily suppressed a story about the laptop but said there was no government interference in the decision. CNN has previously reported that allegations the FBI told Twitter to suppress the story are unsupported, and a half-dozen tech executives and senior staff, along with multiple federal officials familiar with the matter, denied any such directive was given.

    But the specific truth in this case isn’t necessarily important to Republicans who were using Kennedy to further create the impression of government interference to prevent Trump retaining the White House. The more public confusion there is the better it is for the ex-president politically. Of course, claims that Democrats are the ones really guilty of election interference are a direct attempt to whitewash Trump’s own behavior – since he used the tools of his office to try to subvert the 2020 election and to stay in power.

    Thursday’s hearing is not the first time political reality has seemed mixed up or traditional loyalties subverted. Just last week for instance, Republicans subjected FBI Director Christopher Wray to a fearsome grilling in a hearing while Democrats unusually defended the bureau – long regarded as one of the most conservative organs of the US government. The GOP storm was whipped up by allies of Trump who want to discredit investigations into his effort to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents in his Florida resort. Trump has already been indicted in the latter case and there are growing signs he will be charged in the former. He denies any wrongdoing and claims the investigations are politically motivated.

    It’s not that Republicans don’t have genuine ground for oversight. Independent government watchdog reports and internal investigations for instance have found deficiencies and mistakes in some investigations involving Trump. In the Russia probe, there were mistakes in the use of a dossier complied by a former British spy and in applications for surveillance warrants. More recently, an agreement with the Justice Department under which Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two tax misdemeanors and struck a deal to resolve a felony gun charge is within the right of Congress to investigate. But neither case so far supports the wild claims that a corrupt liberal deep state is conducting schemes designed to suppress conservatives that are often made by Trump and his fellow Republicans.

    There is plentiful evidence that the ex-president is the one who weaponized government to go after his political enemies and to evade accountability. For instance he sacked former FBI chief James Comey and told NBC News it was because of the Russia investigation. He used his position as president and the prospect of military aid to seek to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son in a phone call that later led to his first impeachment. And Trump, by pressuring multiple officials in key swing states and by lambasting poll workers and making claims of widespread voter fraud, apparently used executive power to try to defy the will of voters in 2020.

    Voters also risked being misled by Washington’s hall of mirrors on another occasion this week. In a more frivolous, but still misleading example of the way it’s often hard to work out what is true, the Biden campaign debuted a campaign video that appeared to show one of Trump’s most fervent allies, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene praising Biden as fulfilling the historic mission of great Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The words were those of Greene but they were selectively edited from a speech in a video that disguised her true intent, which was to condemn historic government spending by Democrats on education, health care, and social safety net programs that Republicans claim are akin to socialism.

    This example of things being not quite what they seem was more of a cheeky case of campaign trolling than the wholesale refashioning of truth evident Thursday. The hearing at one point degenerated into both Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of trying to censor their questions and witnesses.

    One veteran Democrat, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, summed up how the session had in itself warped reality. “I never thought we’d descend to this level of Orwellian dystopia. Suddenly, the tools of the trade are not to get at the truth but to distract, distort, to deflect and dissemble,” Connolly said.

    Oddly, several members on the Republican side of the committee nodded their heads in agreement – apparently convinced the Orwellian behavior in question was on the part of what they see as a tyrannical, censoring government rather than in the obvious truths turned upside down.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

    Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans’ views of the disease’s impact have stagnated into a complex set of mixed feelings, recent polling suggests, with few believing that the pandemic has ended but most also saying that their lives had returned mostly – if not entirely – to normal.

    The US Senate passed a bill last week that would end the national Covid-19 emergency declared in March 2020. The US House approved the measure earlier this year, and the White House has said President Joe Biden will sign it despite “strongly” opposing the bill. The administration had already planned to wind down the emergency by May 11.

    In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey about the Biden administration’s original plan to end the public health emergency by May, 59% of Americans said they expected the decision to have no impact on them or their family, with the remainder about evenly split between the 20% who thought it would have a positive effect and the 21% who thought the impact would be negative.

    Only 24% of Americans personally feel that the pandemic is over, a recent Monmouth University poll found, with 20% saying it will end eventually and 53% saying that it’ll never be over. Those numbers were very similar to Monmouth’s polling last fall, suggesting that a sense of some lingering abnormalcy may well be the new normal.

    Relatively few Americans say either that their lives have completely returned to a pre-pandemic normal or that their lives are still completely upended by it. The Monmouth poll found a 69% majority saying that their daily routine was at least mostly back to what it was pre-pandemic – but only about a third, 34%, say that things were completely the same as they were three years ago. Another 20% said things were partially back to normal, and 11% that they were still not normal at all.

    Declaring to pollsters that the pandemic is over may be something of a political statement for ordinary Americans as well. Republicans were 17 points likelier than Democrats to say that their own routines were mostly back to normal, the Monmouth poll found, and 28 points likelier to say that the pandemic had completely ended.

    The results of the Monmouth survey echo a February Gallup poll that found 33% of Americans saying that their life was completely back to pre-pandemic normal, 20% saying that they expected it would eventually return to normal and nearly half that their life would never fully return to the way it was pre-pandemic. Gallup also found that views about the pandemic’s trajectory were nearly unchanged from their polling in October, when 31% thought normalcy had completely returned.

    “The 47% who don’t foresee a return to normalcy may be getting used to a ‘new normal’ that, for some, means occasional mask use, regular COVID-19 vaccines and avoidance of some situations that may put them at greater risk of infection, particularly at times when COVID-19 infections are spiking,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan wrote.

    About half of Americans, 48%, are continuing to mask up in public on at least some occasions, the Monmouth poll found, though only about 21% said they do so most or all of the time. In KFF polling from earlier this year, 46% of Americans said they’d taken some form of precautions – including mask-wearing or avoiding large gatherings, travel or indoor dining – over the winter due to news about the triple threat of Covid-19, the flu and RSV.

    In KFF’s latest poll, just over half the American public said they’d been boosted against Covid-19, but only 23% reported receiving the latest bivalent version of the booster vaccine.

    At the broader societal level, in a CNN poll last fall, more than 6 in 10 Americans said they believed the pandemic had permanently reshaped multiple aspects of the American landscape, from healthcare (66%) and education (63%) to the economy (61%) and the way most people do their jobs (69%).

    But while the public sees the pandemic’s effects as far-reaching and ongoing, they’re also not top of mind. In a Quinnipiac University survey released last week, fewer than 1% of Americans picked Covid-19 as “the most urgent issue facing the country.”

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  • How the CEO behind ChatGPT won over Congress | CNN Business

    How the CEO behind ChatGPT won over Congress | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seems to have achieved in a matter of hours what other tech execs have been struggling to do for years: He charmed the socks off Congress.

    Despite wide-ranging concerns that artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT could disrupt democracy, national security, and the economy, Altman’s appearance Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee went so smoothly that viewers could have been forgiven for thinking the year was closer to 2013 than 2023.

    It was a pivotal moment for the AI industry. Altman’s testimony on Tuesday alongside Christina Montgomery, IBM’s chief privacy officer, promised to set the tone for how Washington regulates a technology that many fear could eliminate jobs or destabilize elections.

    But where lawmakers could have followed a familiar pattern, blasting the tech industry with hostile questioning and leveling withering allegations of reckless innovation, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee instead heaped praise on the companies — and often, on Altman in particular.

    The difference seemed to come down to OpenAI calling for proactive government regulation — and persuading lawmakers it was serious. Unlike the long list of social media hearings in recent years, this AI hearing came earlier in OpenAI’s lifecycle and, crucially, before the company or its technology had suffered any high-profile mishaps.

    Altman, more than any other figure in tech, has emerged as the face of a new crop of powerful and disruptive AI tools that can generate compelling written work and images in response to user prompts. Much of the federal government is now racing to figure out how to regulate the cutting-edge technology.

    But after his performance on Tuesday, the CEO whose company helped spark the new AI arms race may have maneuvered himself into a privileged position of influence over the rules that may soon govern the tools he’s developing.

    Altman’s easy-going, plain-spoken demeanor helped disarm skeptical lawmakers and appeared to win over Democrats and Republicans alike. His approach contrasted with the wooden, lawyerly performances that have afflicted some other tech CEOs in the past during their time in the hotseat.

    “I sense there is a willingness to participate here that is genuine and authentic,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the committee’s technology panel.

    New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, adopting an unusual level of familiarity with a witness, found himself repeatedly addressing Altman as “Sam,” even as he referred to other panelists by their last names.

    Even Altman’s fellow witnesses couldn’t resist gushing about his style.

    “His sincerity in talking about those [AI] fears is very apparent, physically, in a way that just doesn’t communicate on the television screen,” Gary Marcus, a former New York University professor and a self-described critic of AI “hype,” told lawmakers.

    With a relaxed yet serious tone, Altman did not deflect or shy away from lawmakers’ concerns. He agreed that large-scale manipulation and deception using AI tools are among the technology’s biggest potential flaws. And he validated fears about AI’s impact on workers, acknowledging that it may “entirely automate away some jobs.”

    “If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong, and we want to be vocal about that,” Altman said. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”

    Altman’s candor and openness has captivated many in Washington.

    On Monday evening, Altman spoke to a dinner audience of roughly 60 House lawmakers from both parties. One person in the room, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting, described members of Congress as “riveted” by the conversation, which also saw Altman demonstrating ChatGPT’s capabilities “to much amusement” from the audience.

    Lawmakers have spent years railing against social media companies, attacking them for everything from their content moderation decisions to their economic dominance. On Tuesday, they seemed ready — or even relieved — to be dealing with another area of the technology industry.

    Whether this time is truly different remains unclear, though. The AI industry’s biggest players and aspirants include some of the same tech giants Congress has sharply criticized, including Google and Meta. OpenAI is receiving billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft in a multi-year partnership. And with his remarks on Tuesday, Altman appeared to draw from a familiar playbook for Silicon Valley: Referring to technology as merely a neutral tool, acknowledging his industry’s imperfections and inviting regulation.

    Some AI ethicists and experts questioned the value of asking a leading industry spokesperson how he would like to be regulated. Marcus, the New York University professor, cautioned that creating a new federal agency to police AI could lead to “regulatory capture” by the tech industry, but the warning could have applied just as easily to Congress itself.

    “It seems very very bad that ahead of a hearing meant to inform how this sector gets regulated, the CEO of one of the corporations that would be subject to that regulation gets to present a magic show to the regulators,” Emily Bender, a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Washington, said of Altman’s dinner with House lawmakers.

    She added: “Politicians, like journalists, must resist the urge to be impressed.”

    After years of fidgety evasiveness from other tech CEOs, however, lawmakers this week seemed easily wowed by Altman and his seemingly straight-shooting answers.

    Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy, after expressing frustration with IBM’s Montgomery for providing a nuanced answer he couldn’t comprehend, visibly brightened when Altman quickly and smoothly outlined his regulatory proposals in a bulleted list. Kennedy began joking with Altman and even asked whether Altman might consider heading up a hypothetical federal agency charged with regulating the AI industry.

    “I love my current job,” Altman deadpanned, to audience laughter, before offering to send Kennedy’s office some potential candidates.

    Compounding lawmakers’ attraction to Altman is a belief on Capitol Hill that Congress erred in extending broad liability protections to online platforms at the dawn of the internet. That decision, which allowed for an explosion of blogs, e-commerce sites, streaming media and more, has become an object of regret for many lawmakers in the face of alleged mental health harms stemming from social media.

    “I don’t want to repeat that mistake again,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.

    Here too, Altman deftly seized an opportunity to curry favor with lawmakers by emphasizing distinctions between his industry and the social media industry.

    “We try to design systems that do not maximize for engagement,” Altman said, alluding to the common criticism that social media algorithms tend to prioritize outrage and negativity to boost usage. “We’re not an advertising-based model; we’re not trying to get people to use it more and more, and I think that’s a different shape than ad-supported social media.”

    In providing simple-sounding solutions with a smile, Altman is doing much more than shaping policy: He is offering members of Congress a shot at redemption, one they seem grateful to accept. Despite the many pitfalls of AI they identified on Tuesday, lawmakers appeared to thoroughly welcome Altman as a partner, not a potential adversary needing oversight and scrutiny.

    “We need to be mindful,” Blumenthal said, “of ways that rules can enable the big guys to get bigger and exclude innovation, and competition, and responsible good guys such as our representative in this industry right now.”

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  • AI chip boom sends Nvidia’s stock surging after whopper of a quarter | CNN Business

    AI chip boom sends Nvidia’s stock surging after whopper of a quarter | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The AI boom is here, and Nvidia is reaping all the benefits.

    Shares of Nvidia

    (NVDA)     exploded 28% higher Thursday after reporting earnings and sales that surged well above Wall Street’s already lofty expectations. That was enough to make investors temporarily forget about America’s dangerous debt ceiling standoff, sending the broader stock market higher — even after credit rating agency Fitch warned late Wednesday that America could soon lose its sterling AAA debt rating.

    Nvidia makes chips that power generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text and images, in response to user prompts. That’s the kind of AI underlying ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Dall-E and many of the other new AI technologies.

    “The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, in a statement. “A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process.”

    Huang said Nvidia is increasing supply of its entire suite of data center products to meet “surging demand” for them.

    Last quarter, Nvidia’s profit surged 26% to $2 billion, and sales rose 19% to $7.2 billion, each easily surpassing Wall Street analysts’ forecasts. Nvidia’s outlook for the current quarter was also significantly — about 50% — higher than analysts’ predictions.

    Nvidia’s stock is up nearly 110% this year.

    “There is not one better indicator around underlying AI demand going on … than the foundational Nvidia story,” said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush. “We view Nvidia at the core hearts and lungs of the AI revolution.”

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  • The US Senate is working to get up to speed on AI basics ahead of any legislation | CNN Business

    The US Senate is working to get up to speed on AI basics ahead of any legislation | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US Senate is inching forward on a plan to regulate artificial intelligence, after months of seeing how ChatGPT and similar tools stand to supercharge — or disrupt— wide swaths of society.

    But despite outlining broad contours of the plan, senators are still likely months away from introducing a comprehensive bill setting guardrails for the industry, let alone passing legislation and getting it signed into law. The deliberate pace of progress contrasts with the blistering speed with which companies and organizations have embraced generative AI, and the flood of investment into the industry.

    The Senate’s plan calls for briefing lawmakers on the basic facts of artificial intelligence over the summer, before beginning to consider legislation in the following months, even as some senators have begun to pitch proposals.

    The efforts reflect how, despite urgent calls by civil society groups and industry for guardrails on the technology, many lawmakers are still getting up to speed.

    To help educate members, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday announced a series of three senators-only information sessions to take place in the coming weeks.

    The closed-door briefings will cover topics ranging from AI’s current capabilities and competition in AI development to how US national security and defense agencies are already putting the technology to use. The latter session, Schumer said, will be the first-ever classified senators’ briefing on AI.

    “The Senate must deepen our expertise in this pressing topic,” Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues announcing the briefings. “AI is already changing our world, and experts have repeatedly told us that it will have a profound impact on everything from our national security to our classrooms to our workforce, including potentially significant job displacement.”

    Schumer had earlier kicked off a high-level push for AI legislation in April, when he proposed shaping any eventual bill around four principles promoting transparency and democratic values.

    The information sessions are expected to wrap up by the time Congress breaks for August recess, according to South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, one of three other senators Schumer has tapped to lead on a comprehensive AI bill.

    By that point, Rounds told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of a Washington conference, there may be “lots of different ideas floating” but not necessarily a bill to speak of.

    Schumer, Rounds and the other leading lawmakers on the AI working group — New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich and Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young — haven’t settled on how to coordinate various legislative proposals yet.

    Options include forming a select committee to craft a comprehensive AI bill, or “splitting out and having lots of different committees come up with different pieces of legislation,” Rounds said.

    The AI hype has produced high-profile hearings and scattershot policy proposals. Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, wowing lawmakers by asking for regulation and by giving a technical demonstration to enthralled members of the House the evening before.

    Sen. Michael Bennet has introduced legislation to create a new federal agency with authority to regulate AI, for example. And on Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley unveiled his own framework for AI legislation that called for letting Americans sue companies for harms created by AI models.

    Rounds told reporters Schumer has not set a timeframe for coming up with AI legislation, adding that the current goal is to allow ideas to “melt for a while.”

    But he predicted that with AI’s expected impact on many agencies and industries, it would be impossible not to foresee a wide-ranging and open legislative process reflecting input from many sources, akin to how the Senate crafts the annual spending package known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

    “You bring in all of these ideas, and then you very quietly start to meld this bill together, kind of behind the scenes in a way,” he said. “You go through a committee process in which you deliver a bill that says this could pass, and then you allow other members to come in and offer their amendments to it as well. That has worked well year-in and year-out for the NDAA.”

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  • New US Army regulation could result in more soldiers failing body fat assessments | CNN Politics

    New US Army regulation could result in more soldiers failing body fat assessments | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As the US Army moves to a new way to measure soldiers’ body fat, officials acknowledged Wednesday that some soldiers who had previously passed under the old regulations may now fail under the new.

    The Army is changing its tape test – a method to measure soldiers’ body fat by taking the circumference of various parts of a soldier’s body with a measuring tape. The tape test, an often-dreaded practice among soldiers, is used when soldiers’ weights do not fall within the mandated body mass index screening table.

    Previously, men were taped around their neck and abdomen, while women were taped around their neck, waist, and hips. Now, all soldiers regardless of gender will be taped in one area – around the navel – to calculate their body fat.

    Many soldiers had cheered the Army’s efforts to update its Body Composition Program when the study started in 2021.

    But Holly McClung, a lead researcher on the Army’s Body Composition Study that resulted in the change, told reporters Wednesday that more soldiers will fail the new test.

    Army data provided to CNN showed that 34% of people were passing the previous version of the tape test when they should have failed. The new test is expected to align with the regulations and lead to more failures, the data said.

    The change is a potential concern considering that soldiers who fail to meet the weight standards can be separated from the service, after several months of attempting to get within their weight standard.

    Asked about concerns over more soldiers potentially failing because of the updated body composition study, Sgt. Maj. Christopher Stevens, the senior enlisted leader of the Army’s personnel office, told reporters on Wednesday that the Army is “putting everything on the table to really look at how we can ensure that we continue to assess and retain quality.”

    The tape test practice has long been criticized as outdated and inaccurate, particularly as the Army shifted to a new fitness test that introduced more weightlifting than the old test, sparking concerns that the body assessment wouldn’t account for gaining muscle mass.

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the measurement of waist circumference can help predict who may be at higher risk of developing obesity-related health problems like diabetes and heart disease, but it is not a diagnostic tool to determine body fatness or health.

    Indeed, the Army said in March that soldiers “with a high volume of lean muscle mass were still at risk of failing the body fat assessment.” So the Army made an exemption for soldiers who scored a 540 out of 600 total points on the Army Combat Fitness Test, saying that those soldiers would not need to be taped. The exemption requires a minimum of 80 out of 100 points earned in each of the six fitness tests.

    “As soldiers leverage all domains of Holistic Health and Fitness and strive to reach their maximum potential, our policies should encourage their progress, not constrain It,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston said at the time.

    McClung said Wednesday that efforts by the Army to link data of body composition to soldiers’ performance is “kind of groundbreaking.”

    “And what we hope is that over years to come, maybe the bar will get heightened and that it won’t be a 540 it’ll be a 550, it’ll be a continuous moving benchmark because the soldiers will become more fit,” she said.

    For the next year, soldiers will have the option of using the previous measuring methods if they fail the tape test under the new regulations. If a soldier fails both, they have the option of requesting another assessment using specific machines that use X-ray or other methods to measure body fat.

    Soldiers who still weigh outside the required standard for their gender and height are enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program, which is meant to help them lose weight and get back within standards. Army regulations say they will be provided “exercise guidance” by a fitness trainer in the unit and meet with a registered dietitian.

    Soldiers who fail to get within standards after six months can be separated from the service.

    McClung said Wednesday that those who had been inaccurately passing would not be “necessarily separated from the Army.”

    “We want to help them,” she said, “we want to put them on a health promotion track, work with some dietitians and some trainers, and bring them up to standards.”

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  • OpenAI’s head of trust and safety is stepping down | CNN Business

    OpenAI’s head of trust and safety is stepping down | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    OpenAI’s head of trust and safety announced on Thursday plans to step down from the job.

    Dave Willner, who has led the artificial intelligence firm’s trust and safety team since February 2022, said in a LinkedIn post that he is “leaving OpenAI as an employee and transitioning into an advisory role” to spend more time with his family.

    Willner’s exit comes at a crucial moment for OpenAI. Since the viral success of the company’s AI chatbot ChatGPT late last year, OpenAI has faced growing scrutiny from lawmakers, regulators and the public over the safety of its products and their potential implications for society.

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for AI regulation during a Senate panel hearing in March. He told lawmakers that the potential for AI to be used to manipulate voters and target disinformation are among “my areas of greatest concern,” especially because “we’re going to face an election next year and these models are getting better.”

    In his Thursday post, Willner — whose resume includes stops at Facebook and Airbnb — noted that “OpenAI is going through a high-intensity phase in its development” and that his role had “grown dramatically in its scope and scale since I first joined.”

    A statement from OpenAI about Willner’s exit said that “his work has been foundational in operationalizing our commitment to the safe and responsible use of our technology, and has paved the way for future progress in this field.” OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati will become the trust and safety team’s interim manager and Willner will advise the team through the end of this year, according to the company.

    “We are seeking a technically-skilled lead to advance our mission, focusing on the design, development, and implementation of systems that ensure the safe use and scalable growth of our technology,” the company said in the statement.

    Willner’s exit comes as OpenAI continues to work with regulators in the United States and elsewhere to develop guardrails around fast-advancing AI technology. OpenAI was among seven leading AI companies that on Friday made voluntary commitments agreed to by the White House meant to make AI systems and products safer and more trustworthy. As part of the pledge, the companies agreed to put new AI systems through outside testing before they are publicly released, and to clearly label AI-generated content, the White House announced.

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  • FDA requires medical devices be secured against cyberattacks | CNN Business

    FDA requires medical devices be secured against cyberattacks | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Food and Drug Administration will now require medical devices meet specific cybersecurity guidelines after years of concerns that a growing number of internet-connected products used by hospitals and healthcare providers could be hit by hacks and ransomware attacks.

    Under FDA guidance issued this week, all new medical device applicants must now submit a plan on how to “monitor, identify, and address” cybersecurity issues, as well as create a process that provides “reasonable assurance” that the device in question is protected. Applicants will also need to make security updates and patches available on a regular schedule and in critical situations, and provide the FDA with “a software bill of materials,” including any open-source or other software their devices use.

    The new security requirements came into effect as part of the sweeping $1.7 trillion federal omnibus spending bill signed by President Joe Biden in December. As part of the new law, the FDA must also update its medical device cybersecurity guidance at least every two years.

    A 2022 report released by the FBI cited research finding 53% of digital medical devices and other internet-connected products in hospitals had known critical vulnerabilities. The report listed a number of medical devices that are susceptible to cyber attacks, including insulin pumps, intracardiac defibrillators, mobile cardiac telemetry and pacemakers.

    “Malign actors who compromise these devices can direct them to give inaccurate readings, administer drug overdoses, or otherwise endanger patient health,” according to the FBI report.

    In 2021, a group of researchers investigating software used in medical devices and machinery used in other industries found over a dozen vulnerabilities that, if exploited by a hacker, could cause critical equipment such as patient monitors to crash.

    The FDA has faced criticisms over the years for not doing enough.

    A 2018 report from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General said the FDA was not adequately protecting devices from getting hacked.

    “FDA had plans and processes for addressing certain medical device problems in the postmarket phase, but its plans and processes were deficient for addressing medical device cybersecurity compromises,” the report said.

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  • Social Security will not be able to pay full benefits in 2034 if Congress doesn’t act | CNN Politics

    Social Security will not be able to pay full benefits in 2034 if Congress doesn’t act | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Americans’ Social Security checks will get a lot smaller in 2034 if lawmakers don’t act to address the pending shortfall, according to an annual report released Friday by the Social Security trustees.

    That’s because the combined Social Security trust funds – which help support payouts for the elderly, survivors and disabled – are projected to run dry that year. At that time, the funds’ reserves will be depleted, and the program’s continuing income will only cover 80% of benefits owed.

    The estimate is one year earlier than the trustees projected last year. About 66 million Americans received Social Security benefits in 2022.

    Medicare, meanwhile, is in a more critical financial condition. Its hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part A, will only be able to pay scheduled benefits in full until 2031, according to its trustees’ annual report, which was also released Friday.

    At that time, Medicare, which covered 65 million senior citizens and people with disabilities in 2022, will only be able to cover 89% of total scheduled benefits. Last year, Medicare’s trustees projected that the hospital trust fund’s reserves would be depleted in 2028.

    Immensely popular but long troubled, Social Security and Medicare are on shaky financial ground in large part because of the aging of the American population. Fewer workers are paying into the program and supporting the ballooning number of beneficiaries, who are also living longer. Also, health care is becoming increasingly expensive.

    Social Security has two trust funds – one for retirees and survivors and another for Americans with disabilities.

    Looking at them separately, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is projected to run dry in 2033, at which time Social Security could pay only 77% of benefits, primarily using income from payroll taxes. The date is one year earlier than estimated last year.

    The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is expected to be able to pay full benefits through at least 2097, the last year of the trustees’ projection period.

    Merging the two trust funds would require Congress to act, but the combined projection is often used to show the overall status of the entitlement.

    Social Security’s projected long-term health worsened over the past year because the trustees revised downward their expectations for the economy and labor productivity, taking into account updated data on inflation and economic output.

    However, the long-term projection for Medicare’s hospital trust fund’s finances improved, mainly due to lowered estimates for health care spending after the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the program is projected to take in more income because the trustees estimate the number of covered workers and average wages will be higher.

    Regardless, the bottom line remains that Medicare is not bringing in enough money to pay the costs it is expected to incur, said Cori Uccello, senior health fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries.

    “It’s still not a time to become complacent,” she said. Insolvency “is still less than a decade away.”

    The trustees’ reports are the latest warnings to Congress that they will have to deal with the massive entitlement programs’ fiscal problems at some point soon. But addressing their issues is politically challenging. Elected officials are hesitant to suggest any changes that could lead to benefit cuts, even though that could reduce their options in the future.

    “With each year that lawmakers do not act, the public has less time to prepare for the changes,” the trustees warned in a fact sheet.

    The programs’ shortfalls are back in the spotlight this year as President Joe Biden and House Republicans battle over how to address the nation’s debt ceiling drama and mounting budget deficits. GOP lawmakers want to cut spending in exchange for resolving the borrowing limit, while the White House has said it will not negotiate.

    In a memorable moment in his State of the Union address in February, Biden garnered public acknowledgment from congressional Republicans about keeping Social Security and Medicare out of the debt discussions.

    But “not touching” Social Security means a hefty cut in benefits within a decade or so.

    “Change is inevitable because without changes to current law, both Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance would go insolvent, subjecting program participants to sudden and severe payment cuts,” said Charles Blahous, senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and former Social Security and Medicare trustee. “The outstanding question is whether change will be tolerably gradual, or instead highly damaging because it is too long delayed.”

    Though Biden has repeatedly vowed to protect Social Security, his latest budget proposal did not include a plan to stabilize its finances.

    However, his proposal did call for extending Medicare’s solvency by 25 years or more by raising taxes on those earning more than $400,000 a year and by allowing the program to negotiate prices for even more drugs.

    Spending on the entitlement programs is also projected to soar and exert increased pressure on the federal budget in coming years.

    Mandatory spending – driven by Social Security and Medicare – and interest costs are expected to outpace the growth of revenue and the economy, according to a Congressional Budget Office outlook released in mid-February.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Amazon is ‘investing heavily’ in the technology behind ChatGPT | CNN Business

    Amazon is ‘investing heavily’ in the technology behind ChatGPT | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Amazon wants investors to know it won’t be left behind in the latest Big Tech arms race over artificial intelligence.

    In a letter to shareholders Thursday, Amazon

    (AMZN)     CEO Andy Jassy said the company is “investing heavily” in large language models (LLMs) and generative AI, the same technology that underpins ChatGPT and other similar AI chatbots.

    “We have been working on our own LLMs for a while now, believe it will transform and improve virtually every customer experience, and will continue to invest substantially in these models across all of our consumer, seller, brand, and creator experiences,” Jassy wrote in his letter to shareholders.

    The remarks, which were part of Jassy’s second annual letter to shareholder since taking over as CEO, hint at the pressure that many tech companies feel to explain how they can tap into the rapidly evolving marketplace for AI products. Since ChatGPT was released to the public in late November, Google

    (GOOG)    , Facebook

    (FB)     and Microsoft

    (MSFT)     have all talked up their growing focus on generative AI technology, which can create compelling essays, stories and visuals in response to user prompts.

    Amazon’s goal, according to Jassy, is to offer less costly machine learning chips so that “small and large companies can afford to train and run their LLMs in production.” Large language models are trained on vast troves of data in order to generate responses to user prompts.

    “Most companies want to use these large language models, but the really good ones take billions of dollars to train and many years, most companies don’t want to go through that,” Jassy said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday morning.

    “What they want to do is they want to work off of a foundational model that’s big and great already, and then have the ability to customize it for their own purposes,” Jassy told CNBC.

    With that in mind, Amazon on Thursday unveiled a new service called Bedrock. It essentially makes foundation models (large models that are pre-trained on vast amounts of data) from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Stability AI and Amazon accessible to clients via an API, Amazon said in a blog post.

    Jassy told CNBC he thinks Bedrock “will change the game for people.”

    In his letter to shareholders, Jassy also touted AWS’s CodeWhisperer, another AI-powered tool which he said “revolutionizes developer productivity by generating code suggestions in real time.”

    “I could write an entire letter on LLMs and Generative AI as I think they will be that transformative, but I’ll leave that for a future letter,” Jassy wrote. “Let’s just say that LLMs and Generative AI are going to be a big deal for customers, our shareholders, and Amazon.”

    In the letter, Jassy also reflected on leading Amazon through “one of the harder macroeconomic years in recent memory,” as the e-commerce giant cut some 27,000 jobs as part of a major bid to rein in costs in recent months.

    “There were an unusual number of simultaneous challenges this past year,” Jassy said in the letter, before outlining steps Amazon took to rethink certain free shipping options, abandon some of its physical store concepts and significantly reduce overall headcount.

    Amazon disclosed in a securities filing Thursday that Jassy’s pay package last year was valued at some $1.3 million, and that the CEO did not receive any new stock awards in 2022. (When Jassy took over as CEO in 2021, he was awarded a pay package mostly comprised of stock awards that valued his total compensation package at some $212 million.)

    Despite the challenges at Amazon, however, Jassy said in his letter that he finds himself “optimistic and energized by what lies ahead.” Jassy added: “I strongly believe that our best days are in front of us.”

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  • Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

    Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Universal Music Group — the music company representing superstars including Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande — has a new Goliath to contend with: artificial intelligence.

    The music group sent urgent letters in April to streaming platforms, including Spotify

    (SPOT)     and Apple Music, asking them to block artificial intelligence platforms from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs.

    The company has “a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators,” a spokesperson from Universal Music Group, or UMG, told CNN. “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”

    The move by UMG, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to stop artificial intelligence from creating an existential threat to the industry.

    Artificial intelligence, and specifically AI music, learns by either training on existing works on the internet or through a library of music given to the AI by humans.

    UMG says it is not against the technology itself, but rather AI that is so advanced it can recreate melodies and even musicians’ voices in seconds. That could possibly threaten UMG’s deep library of music and artists that generate billions of dollars in revenue.

    “UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists — as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already,” UMG said in a statement Monday. “However, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music … begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on.”

    The company said AI that uses artists’ music violates UMG’s agreements and copyright law. UMG has been sending requests to streamers asking them to take down AI-generated songs.

    “I understand the intent behind the move, but I’m not sure how effective this will be as AI services will likely still be able to access the copyrighted material one way or another,” said Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm.

    No regulations exist that dictate on what AI can and cannot train. But last month, in response to individuals looking to seek copyright for AI-generated works, the US Copyright Office released new guidance around how to register literary, musical, and artistic works made with AI.

    “In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or instead of an author’s ‘own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form,’” the new guidance says.

    The copyright will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the guidance continued, based on how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final piece or work.

    The US Copyright Office announced it will also be seeking public input on how the law should apply to copywritten works the AI trains on, and how the office should treat those works.

    “AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is exactly the type of behavior the copyright office and courts should explicitly ban. Original art is meant to be protected by law, not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work,” said Fowlkes.

    But according to AI experts, it’s not that simple.

    “You can flag your site not to be searched. But that’s a request — you can’t prevent it. You can just request that someone not do it,” said Shelly Palmer, Professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University.

    For example, a website can apply a robots.txt file that works like a guardrail to control which URL’s “search engine crawlers” can access a given site, according to Google. But it is not a full stop, keep-out option.

    Grammy-winning DJ and producer David Guetta proved in February just how easy it is to create new music using AI. Using ChatGPT for lyrics and Uberduck for vocals, Guetta was able to create a new song in an hour.

    The result was a rap with a voice that sounded exactly like Eminem. He played the song at one of his shows in February, but said he would never release it commercially.

    “What I think is very interesting about AI is that it’s raising a question of what is it to be an artist,” Guetta told CNN last month.

    Guetta believes AI is going to have a significant impact on the music industry, so he’s embracing it instead of fighting it. But he admits there are still questions about copyright.

    “That is an ethical problem that needs to be addressed because it sounds crazy to me that today I can type lyrics and it’s going to sound like Drake is rapping it, or Eminem,” he said.

    And that is exactly what UMG wants to avoid. The music group likens AI music to “deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation.”

    “These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists,” the UMG statement said.

    Music streamers Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora did not return request for comment.

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  • North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

    North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota signed a near-total abortion ban bill into law Monday.

    Senate Bill 2150, which passed in the state’s legislature last week, defines abortion as “the act of using, selling, or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman.”

    The law is one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the US and only allows exceptions for rape or incest within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

    Exceptions are permitted in the case that the procedure is “deemed necessary based on reasonable medical judgment which was intended to prevent the death or a serious health risk to the pregnant female.”

    Efforts to treat an ectopic or molar pregnancy would also be permissible at any stage of pregnancy under the law.

    Abortion rights activists have furiously objected to similar bans, saying most women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks.

    The bill joins other GOP-led legislation aimed at restricting abortion access that has become law in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Texas have also passed six-week abortion bans, sparking legal challenges.

    North Dakota’s new law follows a legal battle over a 2007 trigger law that was blocked by a district judge last year.

    The state’s Supreme Court upheld that ruling in March.

    The trigger abortion ban was set to take effect last August and would have made it a felony to perform an abortion in the state but it did allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

    With the trigger ban on pause, North Dakota law had allowed abortion up until 20 weeks or more post-fertilization.

    In a statement to CNN, Burgum said SB 2150 “clarifies and refines existing state law which was triggered into effect by the Dobbs decision and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”

    Physicians who violate the new law could be charged with a felony. In addition, an abortion can’t be performed until a woman is offered the opportunity to see an “active ultrasound” at least 24 hours before the scheduled procedure.

    Any physician who fails to comply could face a misdemeanor charge.

    Last week, Burgum signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for most minors with the possibility of a felony for health care professionals who provide it.

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