As machine-learning applications move into the mainstream, a new era of cyber threat is emerging—one that uses offensive artificial intelligence (AI) to supercharge attack campaigns. Offensive AI allows attackers to automate reconnaissance, craft tailored impersonation attacks, and even self-propagate to avoid detection. Security teams can prepare by turning to defensive AI to fight back—using...
It’s no secret that predictive policing tools are racially biased. A number of studies have shown that racist feedback loops can arise if algorithms are trained on police data, such as arrests. But new research shows that training predictive tools in a way meant to lessen bias has little effect. Arrest data biases predictive tools because police are known to arrest more people in Black and...
On December 23, as part of a publicity push to encourage people to get vaccinated against covid-19, the University of Pennsylvania released footage of two researchers who developed the science behind the shots, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, getting their inoculations. The vaccines, icy concoctions of fatty spheres and genetic instructions, used a previously unproven…
In 1964, mathematician and computer scientist Woodrow Bledsoe first attempted the task of matching suspects’ faces to mugshots. He measured out the distances between different facial features in printed photographs and fed them into a computer program. His rudimentary successes would set off decades of research into teaching machines to recognize human faces. Now a…