Latest news with #bombing
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Godfather of AI' believes it's unsafe - but here's how he plans to fix the tech
This week the US Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed two men suspected of bombing a fertility clinic in California last month allegedly used artificial intelligence (AI) to obtain bomb-making instructions. The FBI did not disclose the name of the AI program in question. This brings into sharp focus the urgent need to make AI safer. Currently we are living in the 'wild west' era of AI, where companies are fiercely competing to develop the fastest and most entertaining AI systems. Each company wants to outdo competitors and claim the top spot. This intense competition often leads to intentional or unintentional shortcuts – especially when it comes to safety. Coincidentally, at around the same time of the FBI's revelation, one of the godfathers of modern AI, Canadian computer science professor Yoshua Bengio, launched a new nonprofit organisation dedicated to developing a new AI model specifically designed to be safer than other AI models – and target those that cause social harm. So what is Bengio's new AI model? And will it actually protect the world from AI-faciliated harm? In 2018, Bengio, alongside his colleagues Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton, won the Turing Award for groundbreaking research they had published three years earlier on deep learning. A branch of machine learning, deep learning attempts to mimic the processes of the human brain by using artificial neural networks to learn from computational data and make predictions. Bengio's new nonprofit organisation, LawZero, is developing 'Scientist AI'. Bengio has said this model will be 'honest and not deceptive', and incorporate safety-by-design principles. According to a preprint paper released online earlier this year, Scientist AI will differ from current AI systems in two key ways. First, it can assess and communicate its confidence level in its answers, helping to reduce the problem of AI giving overly confident and incorrect responses. Second, it can explain its reasoning to humans, allowing its conclusions to be evaluated and tested for accuracy. Interestingly, older AI systems had this feature. But in the rush for speed and new approaches, many modern AI models can't explain their decisions. Their developers have sacrificed explainability for speed. Bengio also intends 'Scientist AI' to act as a guardrail against unsafe AI. It could monitor other, less reliable and harmful AI systems — essentially fighting fire with fire. This may be the only viable solution to improve AI safety. Humans cannot properly monitor systems such as ChatGPT, which handle over a billion queries daily. Only another AI can manage this scale. Using an AI system against other AI systems is not just a sci-fi concept – it's a common practice in research to compare and test different level of intelligence in AI systems. Large language models and machine learning are just small parts of today's AI landscape. Another key addition Bengio's team are adding to Scientist AI is the 'world model' which brings certainty and explainability. Just as humans make decisions based on their understanding of the world, AI needs a similar model to function effectively. The absence of a world model in current AI models is clear. One well-known example is the 'hand problem': most of today's AI models can imitate the appearance of hands but cannot replicate natural hand movements, because they lack an understanding of the physics — a world model — behind them. Another example is how models such as ChatGPT struggle with chess, failing to win and even making illegal moves. This is despite simpler AI systems, which do contain a model of the 'world' of chess, beating even the best human players. These issues stem from the lack of a foundational world model in these systems, which are not inherently designed to model the dynamics of the real world. Bengio is on the right track, aiming to build safer, more trustworthy AI by combining large language models with other AI technologies. However, his journey isn't going to be easy. LawZero's US$30 million in funding is small compared to efforts such as the US$500 billion project announced by US President Donald Trump earlier this year to accelerate the development of AI. Making LawZero's task harder is the fact that Scientist AI – like any other AI project – needs huge amounts of data to be powerful, and most data are controlled by major tech companies. There's also an outstanding question. Even if Bengio can build an AI system that does everything he says it can, how is it going to be able to control other systems that might be causing harm? Still, this project, with talented researchers behind it, could spark a movement toward a future where AI truly helps humans thrive. If successful, it could set new expectations for safe AI, motivating researchers, developers, and policymakers to prioritise safety. Perhaps if we had taken similar action when social media first emerged, we would have a safer online environment for young people's mental health. And maybe, if Scientist AI had already been in place, it could have prevented people with harmful intentions from accessing dangerous information with the help of AI systems. Armin Chitizadeh is a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article
CTV News
a day ago
- General
- CTV News
Decades after Air India 182 bombing, families fear memories of tragedy are fading
A drifting piece of wreckage is seen floating in the water about 200 kilometres off the Irish coast on Monday, June 24, 1985, following the Air India Boeing 747 bombing which killed all 329 people on board on Sunday, June 23, 1985. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Caulkin and Redman
The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Israel sows panic with Tehran eviction orders that echo Gaza and Lebanon
On Tuesday, around 2am local time in Iran, the Israeli military issued an order for residents of Tehran's District 18, one of the capital's most densely populated and poorest neighbourhoods, to leave. 'In the coming hours, the Israeli army will operate in this area against military targets belonging to the Iranian regime,' army spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X. 'Your presence in this area exposes your lives to danger.' Hundreds of thousands of people live in this sprawling area of Tehran. It was the middle of the night, and Iranian authorities have restricted internet access since Israel launched its attacks on Friday. The X platform is officially banned in Iran, and not accessible without a VPN. Around 30 minutes later, the Israeli army said they were carrying out a series of strikes on Tehran. Civilians have borne the brunt of the aerial war that began on Friday when Israel started bombing Iran. Israel described it as an operation to prevent its archenemy from acquiring nuclear weapons. Since then, the two countries have engaged in their most intense exchange of attacks. In Iran, the Health Ministry said at least 224 people were killed and 1,277 admitted to hospital as a result of Israel's bombardment, and 90 per cent of the casualties were civilians. Iranian strikes on Israel have killed at least 24 civilians, according to Israeliauthorities. Human rights groups and Iranian activists have denounced Israeli bombing warnings as unlawful, ineffective and terror-inducing for the civilian population. In a press release on Wednesday calling for the protection of civilians amid the rising hostilities, Amnesty International criticised the 'alarming threats and overly broad, ineffective evacuation warnings' issued by Israel. 'Evacuation warnings, even if detailed and effective, do not release Israel from its other obligations under international humanitarian law,' the rights group said. "They must not treat as open-fire zones areas for which they have issued warnings." US President Donald Trump, who is reportedly considering military intervention to support Israel, Washington's long-time ally, added to the alarm on Monday when he said, 'Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!' in a post on his Truth Social platform. 'Making an entire city panic over a warning that is not even accurate – when people have nowhere to go and no logistical means to evacuate is a violation of international law,' said Bahar Ghandehari, from the Centre for Human Rights in Iran, a US-based organisation. 'Tehran has a population of nearly 10 million. Where would they even go?' she added. The Israeli bombing threat has also raised concern for political prisoners. On Monday, Israel warned residents of Tehran's District 3 to leave. Evin Prison, which holds scores of political activists, including many arrested during the 2022-23 Women, Life, Freedom protests, stands on the edge of the district. 'It is dangerously close to whatever Israel is planning to do there,' Ms Ghandehari said. The centre has been monitoring prison conditions closely, she said. 'So far, we haven't heard anything alarming happening inside the prisons. But prisoners are very panicked and stressed.' The prisoners' families also feel helpless. 'My dad is in prison, how is he supposed to evacuate?' said Mehraveh Khadan, daughter of Iranian rights activist Reza Khadan who is being held in Evin. Unlike Israel, Tehran has no public bomb shelters or air raid warning system, and its air defences are limited. 'There are no alarms, no shelters, and all the information is coming from social media, which many people can't even access due to internet restrictions,' said Ms Ghandehari. Iranian authorities have said that metro stations, schools and mosques would be used as shelters, but it is not clear whether these structures above ground can offer meaningful protection. Familiar tactics The Israel military's warnings to civilians, with maps shaded in red to show the areas under threat, are the same as those used in its wars in Gaza and Lebanon. In Lebanon and Gaza, human rights groups have already denounced these maps as inadequate and misleading, saying they do not provide safe or effective evacuation options for civilians. Israel first used disproportionate force against civilians as a military strategy during the 2006 war in Lebanon. This became known as the Dahieh doctrine, named after the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital. The doctrine legitimises the use of maximum force against civilians and civilian infrastructure, erasing the line between military and civilian targets in a violation of international humanitarian law, as means of collective punishment to pressure the local population to distance itself from the enemy force. 'They're targeting entire residential areas, putting civilians at risk and making them collateral damage for a single military target,' Ms Ghandehari said. Amnesty noted a recent warning issued by the Israeli army told people across Iran to 'immediately leave areas … [housing] military weapons manufacturing facilities and their support institutions', spreading panic within the population. 'The locations of military facilities are not known to the general public and no clear guidance was provided on where civilians should or should not go to ensure their safety,' the rights group said. While the tactics may be similar to those used in Lebanon and Gaza, the scale is different in Iran – a much larger country with a population of more than 85 million. The panic sparked by Israel's warnings and bombings in Tehran led to massive traffic jams across the city as people tried to leave. 'People were stuck in traffic for hours, and some even ended up turning back and going home,' Ms Ghandehari said. 'Others couldn't leave at all because of fuel shortages.' The current momentum seems to favour escalation. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said his country would not surrender and warned that any US military intervention would have serious consequences. 'That's the most terrifying thing: the uncertainty,' Ms Ghandehari said.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
The risks and benefits of bombing Fordow. Spoiler alert: It's a close call.
To bomb or not to bomb? That is the question which, quite unexpectedly, has come to dominate U.S. politics in the past day or so. For months, President Donald Trump was urging Israel not to attack Iran and to give his diplomatic efforts a chance to work. When Israel unleashed its bombing campaign late Thursday night, the immediate administration response was a noncommittal statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio did not offer any support for the Israeli action and stressed: 'We are not involved in strikes against Iran.'
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Inside Tehran: a city choked in gridlock and dread
Israel gave little notice in its order to evacuate District 3, the area of central Tehran that houses state television studios and other government buildings. Within seconds of the Israeli military posting its warning to civilians, many locals fielded a deluge of calls from loved ones checking they had heard the news. 'Let's shut off the gas and water before evacuating!' one woman shouted as she ran, suitcase in hand, down the stairs of her building. 'Hurry up, Mum, we don't have time,' another urged her elderly mother. READ MORE An hour later, fighter jets were seen over Tehran's suburbs; within minutes, the Iranian state broadcaster was hit. Smoke rises from the rubble of an Iranian state media building in Tehran on Monday. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images After four days of bombing, many of Tehran's 10 million people were already trying to flee the capital. Main roads out of the city were at a standstill. Queues for petrol stretched for miles. The stock exchange and historic Grand Bazaar had shut. Mina tried to escape to her daughter's house east of Tehran, but had to return home after some seven hours of gridlock. Hassan, a driver trying to ferry someone to safety out of the city, said it took nearly two hours 'to cover a road that normally takes five minutes'. Authorities have been urging people to stay put. They slowed internet speeds to control the information flow, encouraging people to follow official news channels and to ignore messages about evacuation, which they said were part of the enemy's 'psychological warfare'. The strikes have so far killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds more, according to the health ministry, and photos of civilian casualties circulate widely on social media. Many have fled to metro stations used as makeshift bomb shelters. Workers in banks, hospitals, and police and military stations have been directly ordered to stay in the city. 'We're stuck here,' said Farhad, a taxi driver whose wife, a bank employee, was told to stay around on high alert for potential cyber attacks. Food shelves are well stocked, but petrol and diesel shortages are a major concern. Authorities are restricting vehicles to a maximum of 30 litres of fuel. Officials say supply has not been cut and insist it will not be in the future. Several of the city's neighbourhoods lost water supply on Sunday after an Israeli strike hit a major water pipeline, flooding a key thoroughfare and killing two civilians. Even government officials have criticised the information lockdown, which has caused panic among people unable to contact their families or find routes out of the capital. Deputy communications minister Ehsan Chitsaz said on X that he wished internet access had not been restricted but seemed to imply that was down to the security services. 'It is not up to the ministry,' he said. Despite many streets being orderly, some Tehranis are calling for troops to be deployed as government warnings about Israel's collaborators fuel paranoia. 'It scares me that there is no strong police presence in the city,' said one resident. 'At this time, there should be checkpoints everywhere in Tehran for us to feel secure.' Many locals have no idea how to respond to the attacks. Tehran was targeted in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, but since then it has grown into a modern megacity with high-rises, shopping malls and a vibrant food culture – not a city accustomed to sirens and shelters. For children and young adults like Maryam's 26-year-old daughter, the reality of war is new and hard to comprehend. 'She just can't understand the concept of war and is so scared,' Maryam said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
