Ex-Google engineer arrested for alleged theft of AI secrets for Chinese firms

A Chinese software engineer has been arrested for allegedly stealing artificial intelligence technology from Google while secretly working for two Chinese companies. Linwei Ding, 38, also known as Leon Ding, faces four counts of theft of trade secrets, US attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement. Ding, who was arrested Wednesday in Newark, California, allegedly transferred confidential information from Google’s network to his personal account while secretly affiliated with Chinese-based companies in the AI industry. “The justice department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced…

Hong Kong pressures Google to remove protest anthem from searches

Google has refused to change its search results to display China’s national anthem, rather than a protest song, when users search for Hong Kong’s national anthem, the city’s security chief has said, expressing “great regret” at the decision. Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The row comes after the police said they would investigate the playing of Glory to Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of the 2019 pro-democracy protests, at the men’s final of a sevens rugby tournament in South Korea in…

‘Extinction is on the table’: Jaron Lanier warns of tech’s existential threat to humanity

Jaron Lanier, the eminent American computer scientist, composer and artist, is no stranger to skepticism around social media, but his current interpretations of its effects are becoming darker and his warnings more trenchant. Lanier, a dreadlocked free-thinker credited with coining the term “virtual reality”, has long sounded dire sirens about the dangers of a world over-reliant on the internet and at the increasing mercy of tech lords, their social media platforms and those who work for them. Nothing about the last few weeks – of chaos on Twitter and the…