Hi-Tech Crime CRIM30375

AI image generation is advancing at astronomical speeds. Can we still tell if a picture is fake? Brendan Murphy , Author provided Brendan Paul Murphy , CQUniversity Australia Fake photography is nothing new. In the 1910s, British author Arthur Conan Doyle was famously deceived by two school-aged sisters who had produced photographs of elegant fairies cavorting in their garden. The first of the five ‘Cottingley Fairies’ photographs, taken by Elsie Wright in 1917. Wikipedia Today it is hard to believe these photos could have fooled anybody, but it was not until the 1980s an expert named Geoffrey Crawley had the nerve to directly apply his knowledge of film photography and deduce the obvious. The photographs were fake, as later admitted by one of the sisters themselves. In 1982 Geoffrey Crawley deduced the fairy ph...

The danger of advanced artificial intelligence controlling its own feedback DALL-E Michael K. Cohen , University of Oxford and Marcus Hutter , Australian National University How would an artificial intelligence (AI) decide what to do? One common approach in AI research is called “reinforcement learning”. Reinforcement learning gives the software a “reward” defined in some way, and lets the software figure out how to maximise the reward. This approach has produced some excellent results, such as building software agents that defeat humans at games like chess and Go, or creating new designs for nuclear fusion reactors . However, we might want to hold off on making reinforcement learning agents too flexible and effective. As we argue in a new paper in AI Magazine, deploying a sufficiently advanced reinforcement learning agent would likely be incompatible with the continued survival of humanity. The reinforcement learning problem...

The Sheep Look Up: cult 1970s sci-fi novel predicted today’s climate crisis Extreme flooding in Germany caused roads and railways to be cut off. Bear productions/Shutterstock Dan Taylor , The Open University Smog-ridden cities. Endless war. Water so polluted it cannot be drunk. Crop failure. Acid rain. A pandemic of antibiotic-resistant diseases. Declining life expectancy and human fertility. Endangered bees, collapsing agriculture. Mass extinctions have finished off most birds and fish. Only the wealthiest can afford quality organic food, while the poor subsist on lab-produced junk (with added tranquilisers). A celebrity president peddles misinformation in tweet-like slogans. A disillusioned academic tries in vain to bring about change, while his followers block roads and resort to terrorism. This is not a bad dream version of recent climate change headlines. This is the dark vision in the 50-year-old dystopian novel, The Sheep Look Up...

Who’s to blame when driverless cars have an accident? Raja Jurdak , CSIRO and Salil S. Kanhere , UNSW The news that an Uber self-driving vehicle has killed a pedestrian in the US has made headlines around the world. It’s a reminder that the era of self-driving cars is fast approaching. Decades of research into advanced sensors, mapping, navigation and control methods have now come to fruition and autonomous cars are starting to hit the roads in pilot trials . But partial or full autonomy raises the question of who is to blame in the case of an accident involving a self-driving car? In conventional (human-driven) cars, the answer is simple: the driver is responsible because they are in control. When it comes to autonomous vehicles, it isn’t so clear cut. We propose a blockchain-based framework that uses sensor data to ascertain liability in accidents involving self-driving cars. Read more: We must plan the driverless city to avoid being hostage to t...

Technology and regulation must work in concert to combat hate speech online Technology can help identify hate speech online, but it’s not a silver bullet solution. Shutterstock Andre Oboler , La Trobe University Online bullying, hate and incitement are on the rise , and new approaches are needed to tackle them. As the Australian Senate conducts hearings for its Inquiry into cyberbullying, it should consider a two-pronged approach to combating the problem. First, the government should follow the lead of Germany in imposing financial penalties on major social media companies if they fail to reduce the volume of abusive content on their platforms. Second, we must develop ways of correctly identifying and measuring the amount of abusive content being posted and removed to ensure that companies are complying. Given the volume of data on social media, artificial intelligence (AI) must be a part of the mix in supporting regulation, but ...

Do drones deserve their dire reputation? Depends who is flying them shutterstock Jonathan Aitken , University of Sheffield Whether they are dropping drugs into prison yards, narrowly avoiding passenger aircraft or invading the privacy of unsuspecting homeowners, drones have been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. There has been an explosion in the popularity of commercially available drones in recent years. Google Images and other photography sites are now flooded with high-contrast aerial shots and gleaming panoramas, all sourced from invariably high-resolution on-board cameras. But these spectacular views have come at a price. Drones have gained a poor reputation, especially in cities. As the name suggests, drones give off a distinctive and often unpleasant humming sound that can reverberate through densely populated areas. On a more sinister note, drones can furtively peep through the windows of any residence like a ...

Drones are more than killing machines, but what happens when they become intelligent? Look ma, no guns. Wildnrg , CC BY-SA Andy Miah , University of Salford You will be forgiven if you missed the Drones for Good competition held recently in Dubai, Despite drone technology really taking off commercially in the last year or so (the potential puns are endless) they remain a relatively niche interest. Drones – or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as they are increasingly known – have reached a mass-market tipping point. You can buy them on the high street for the price of a smartphone and, despite a large DIY Drone community, the out-of-the-box versions are pretty extraordinary, fitted with built-in cameras and “follow me” technology , where your drone will follow you as you walk, run, surf, or hang-glide. Their usefulness to professional filmmakers has led to the first New York Drone Film Festival to be held in March 2015. Technologicall...