Tag Archives: Society & Culture

Video game performers will strike over AI concerns

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The SAG-AFTRA union today called for a strike against several major video game publishers after failing to reach an accord over AI use. The action will take effect at 12:01 am on July 26.

"We're not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members," SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said."Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live – and work – with, we will be here, ready to negotiate."

SAG-AFTRA performers working in games "deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the A.I. use of their faces, voices, and bodies," said the union's National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.

The union has been lobbying the video game industry to agree to protections against its members' likenesses and voices being recreated with AI. SAG-AFTRA entered negotiations with the companies for the Interactive Media Agreement in October 2022. Other studios, such as Replica Games, have agreed to the union's contract. The union also secured a similar deal for animated TV shows earlier this year.

A spokesperson for the gaming companies included in the Interactive Media Agreement, Audrey Cooling, provided a statement on behalf of the businesses. ​​“We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said. "We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry."

The strike includes the following studios:

  • Activision Productions Inc.

  • Blindlight LLC

  • Disney Character Voices Inc.

  • Electronic Arts Productions Inc.

  • Formosa Interactive LLC

  • Insomniac Games Inc.

  • Llama Productions LLC

  • Take 2 Productions Inc.

  • VoiceWorks Productions Inc.

  • WB Games Inc.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/video-game-performers-will-strike-over-ai-concerns-201733660.html?src=rss

World of Warcraft workers unlock ‘form a union’ achievement

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World of Warcraft (WoW) artists, designers, engineers, producers, quality assurance (QA) testers and other game developers have unionized. The staff of more than 500 workers voted to unionize the Blizzard Entertainment studio with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) creating the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild, according to an X post from the union’s official account.

The Blizzard studio is the latest major game studio to form a union during uncertain times of layoffs and studio closures across the gaming industry. Bethesda Game Studios, the studio behind the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, formed its union with the help of CWA last weekend that includes 241 workers.

“What we’ve accomplished at World of Warcraft is just the beginning,” said Eric Lanham, a test analyst and Wow Gamemakers Guild member, in a statement released by the CWA. “My colleagues and I are embarking on a quest to secure better pay, benefits, and job security through a strong union contract. We know that when workers have a protected voice, it’s a win-win for employee standards, the studio, and World of Warcraft fans looking for the best gaming experience.”

The World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild is the largest wall-to-wall union currently under Microsoft’s umbrella. Activision unionized around 600 QA workers with the CWA in March. ZeniMax Studios also voted to unionize around 300 staffers back in January.

Microsoft also made an agreement with Activision Blizzard two years ago to respect the right of its workers to form a union. The agreement was part of Microsoft’s deal to takeover Activision Blizzard.

The CWA cites the start of the WoW Gamemakers Guild formation to a protest conducted by Activision Blizzard workers in 2021. The crew staged a walkout at its Irvine, California headquarters over a lawsuit filed by the state’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) alleging the company was a “breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women.” The CRD later withdrew all allegations of systemic sexual harassment, and Activision Blizzard reached a settlement of $54.8 million relating to pay and promotion disparities. The WoW studio also agreed to remove “references that are not appropriate for [its] world” from the game.

“What seemed impossible six years ago is now a reality, and this is just the beginning,” said CWA’s Senior Director of Organizing Tom Smith in a written statement. “Together, workers are redefining their industry.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/world-of-warcraft-workers-unlock-form-a-union-achievement-220148151.html?src=rss

The US Senate unanimously passes a bill to empower victims of intimate deepfakes

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The US Senate unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday designed to hold accountable those who make or share deepfake porn. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act) would allow victims to sue those who create, share or possess AI-generated sexual images or videos using their likeness. The issue took root in the public consciousness after the infamous Taylor Swift deepfake that circulated among online lowlifes early this year.

The bill would let victims sue for up to $150,000 in damages. That number grows to $250,000 if it’s related to attempted sexual assault, stalking or harassment.

It now moves to the House, where a companion bill awaits. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) sponsors the sister bill. If it passes there (which sounds likely, given the unanimous nature of the Senate’s vote), it will move to President Biden’s desk for final passage.

“There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” Ocasio-Cortez told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. It parallels the same exact intention of physical rape and sexual assault, [which] is about power, domination, and humiliation. Deepfakes are absolutely a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.”

The bill, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), lets the victims of intimate digital forgeries (deepfakes) sue for damages. It would give victims a 10-year statute of limitations, beginning either from the discovery of the content or when they turn 18 in the (even more disturbing) case of minors.

“As we know, AI plays a bigger role in our lives than ever before, and while it has many benefits, it’s also easier than ever to create sexually explicit deep fakes without a person’s consent,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the Senate floor late Tuesday. “It is a horrible attack on someone’s privacy and dignity to have these fake images of them circulating online without recourse.”

Schumer cited Swift and Megan Thee Stallion in his floor speech as two celebrity examples who have fallen victim to the types of content the bill targets. However, The Verge notes online sexual deepfakes have affected those with much less clout (and money for lawyers) than A-list pop stars, like high school girls, some of whom have found out about contrived sexual images of them being passed around among their peers.

Fortunately, the bill stipulates that victims would have privacy protections during court proceedings and that they could recover legal costs. “It’s a grotesque practice and victims of these deep fakes deserve justice,” Schumer said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-us-senate-unanimously-passes-a-bill-to-empower-victims-of-intimate-deepfakes-201343557.html?src=rss

The workers at Bethesda Game Studios have fully unionized

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The workers at Bethesda Game Studios have joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and they say they're the first Microsoft video game studio to form a wall-to-wall union. A total of 241 workers have either signed an authorization card or have indicated that they wanted to join a union through an online portal. The "wall-to-wall" nature of their organization means the CWA will be representing workers across job descriptions and divisions — and not just one type — including artists, engineers, programmers and designers. Bethesda is the developer behind Starfield and the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.

Microsoft has already recognized the union, so workers at the studio's Maryland office have officially joined CWA Locals 2108, while those in its Texas office have become members of CWA Locals 6215. "We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry," Mandi Parker, Bethesda Senior System Designer, said. "It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole."

Bethesda's workers join the growing number of unionized personnel in video games. In January 2023, quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios, the parent company of Bethesda, banded together to form what was then the largest union in the industry with 300 members. It lost the distinction as the largest union in video games when 600 quality assurance workers at Activision, which is also owned by Microsoft, joined the CWA this year. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-workers-at-bethesda-game-studios-have-fully-unionized-163024914.html?src=rss

Police arrest a teenage boy in connection with the MGM Resorts ransomware attack

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A teenage boy may be responsible for a ransomware attack that shut down MGM Resorts in Las Vegas last year. The West Midlands Police Department in England confirmed that they arrested an unidentified 17-year-old on Thursday from the town of Walsall who allegedly shut down the resort and casino on the Las Vegas strip last year.

The teenager was arrested on suspicion of blackmail and violating the UK’s Computer Misuse Act. He was released on bail, according to a statement from the police department.

Police officials tracked the teenage suspect as part of a joint investigation with the UK’s National Crime Agency and the FBI. The police department said they recovered evidence at the teenager’s address including “a number of digital devices which will undergo forensic examination.”

The statement also said the teenager was part of a “global cyber online crime group” but did not specify which group. The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group announced their responsibility for the MGM Resorts cyber outage. The attack happened on Sep. 12, 2023 allegedly with a simple 10 minute phone call to a Help desk employee using information obtained from LinkedIn. The group has also claimed responsibility for a similar ransomware attack on the beauty brand Esteé Lauder.

"All ALPHV ransomware group did to compromise MGM Resorts was hop on LinkedIn, find an employee, then call the Help Desk," the organization wrote in a post on X.

MGM Resorts’ system shutdown lasted for nine days and created a massive outage across all of its casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. News later surfaced that other casinos like Caesars were also targeted by a different group but chose to pay the hackers tens of millions of dollars to prevent private company data from being released.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/police-arrest-a-teenage-boy-in-connection-with-the-mgm-resorts-ransomware-attack-223906246.html?src=rss

Senate probe: Bernie Sanders claims nearly half of Amazon warehouse workers were injured during Prime Day 2019

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A US Senate Committee led by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has issued a report claiming nearly half of Amazon warehouse workers were injured during the week of Prime Day 2019. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman described the company’s behavior from five years ago as “incredibly dangerous.” For its part, Amazon claims Sen. Sanders is distorting and cherry-picking facts while ignoring others to fit a narrative.

The report cites internal company data, including injuries Amazon isn’t required to document for OSHA, allegedly showing warehouse workers suffered nearly 45 injuries per 100 workers during the week of Prime Day 2019. Meanwhile, of the “recordable” injuries serious enough that the company has to report them to OSHA, the report claims Amazon’s were more than double the industry average — over 10 per 100 workers.

“The incredibly dangerous working conditions at Amazon revealed in this investigation are a perfect example of the type of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” Sanders wrote Tuesday in a HELP Committee announcement. The Senator said Amazon treats its workers as “disposable” and “with complete contempt for their safety and wellbeing.”

Meanwhile, an Amazon spokesperson’s statement, shared with Engadget, claims the committee’s findings paint a misleading picture. The company says the committee’s conclusions drew from unverified anecdotes, misrepresented years-old documents and included factual errors and misguided analysis.

“For example, one of the false claims in the report implies that we’re not adequately staffed for busy shopping periods,” company spokesperson Kelly Nantel wrote in Amazon’s statement. “This is just not true, as we carefully plan and staff up for major events, ensure that we have excess capacity across our network, and design our network so that orders are automatically routed to sites that can handle unexpected spikes in volume.”

Amazon says it’s made “significant progress” in the five years since the data the report cited, including reducing its recordable incident rate (those requiring OSHA reports by law) by 28 percent in the US. The company says it also lowered its “lost time incident rate” (workers who suffer more significant injuries that require time off) by 75 percent.

No matter whose framing you prefer, this isn’t the first time Amazon has been criticized for its warehouse working conditions. Last year, a coalition of labor unions, citing OSHA data, claimed the company was responsible for 53 percent of all serious warehouse injuries recorded in the US in 2022. That report claimed Amazon’s warehouse workers were injured more frequently (and often more severely) than their non-Amazon counterparts.

Last month, the California Labor Commissioner’s office fined Amazon nearly $6 million for violating a state law requiring large companies to notify warehouse and distribution workers in writing about their expected quotas, how often they’re expected to perform certain tasks and what consequences they would face for failing to meet their quotas. That law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, was drafted in reaction to Amazon workers claiming they would skip bathroom breaks or risk injury to optimize their output.

That followed a 2021 report by The Washington Post (ironically, owned by Jeff Bezos), claiming data shows Amazon's warehouse workers "suffer serious injuries at higher rates than other firms.” The company, still helmed by Bezos at the time, quickly changed its “Time Off Task” policy in response.

In addition, as CNBC notes, OSHA and the US Attorney’s Office are investigating conditions at some Amazon warehouses. The Department of Justice is also investigating whether the company underreports injuries — an accusation echoed by Sanders in the HELP Committee’s findings.

Perhaps The Coalition for Workplace Safety (CWS), an organization that tries to balance corporate and regulatory priorities (good luck with that), found a spin we can all agree on. “If [Sanders] wants to improve safety for delivery workers, he should start with the US Postal Service, as OSHA’s own data shows the USPS by far has the highest percentage of investigations resulting in citations compared to other large employers in the industry.”

The moral of the story? No matter what a company is accused of, there’s a good chance the US Postal Service sucks even more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/senate-probe-bernie-sanders-claims-nearly-half-of-amazon-warehouse-workers-were-injured-during-prime-day-2019-204028410.html?src=rss

OpenAI whistleblowers call for SEC probe into NDAs that kept employees from speaking out on safety risks

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OpenAI’s NDAs are once again under scrutiny after whistleblowers penned a letter to the SEC alleging that employees were made to sign “illegally restrictive” agreements preventing them from speaking out on the potential harms of the company’s technology. The letter, which was obtained and published online by The Washington Post, accuses OpenAI of violating SEC rules meant to protect employees’ rights to report their concerns to federal authorities and prevent retaliation. It follows an official complaint that was filed with the SEC in June.

In the letter, the whistleblowers ask the SEC to “take swift and aggressive steps” to enforce the rules they say OpenAI has violated. The alleged violations include making employees sign agreements “that failed to exempt disclosures of securities violations to the SEC” and requiring employees obtain consent from the company before disclosing confidential information to the authorities. The letter also says OpenAI’s agreements required employees to “waive compensation that was intended by Congress to incentivize reporting and provide financial relief to whistleblowers.”

In a statement to the Post, OpenAI spokesperson Hannah Wong said, “Our whistleblower policy protects employees’ rights to make protected disclosures,” and added that the company has made “important changes” to its off-boarding papers to do away with nondisparagement terms. OpenAI previously said it was fixing these agreements after it was accused this spring of threatening to claw back exiting employees’ vested equity if they didn’t sign NDAs on their way out.

According to The Washington Post, the SEC has responded to the complaint, but no details have yet been released regarding any action it is or isn’t going to take. But the whistleblowers say enforcement is of utmost importance “even if OpenAI is making reforms in light of the public disclosures of their illegal contracts.” The letter says it is necessary “not as an attack on OpenAI or to hinder the advancement of AI technology, but to send the message to others in the AI space, and to the tech industry at large, that violations on the right of employees or investors to report wrongdoing will not be tolerated.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-whistleblowers-call-for-sec-probe-into-ndas-that-kept-employees-from-speaking-out-on-safety-risks-171604829.html?src=rss

Detroit police can no longer use facial recognition results as the sole basis for arrests

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The Detroit Police Department has to adopt new rules curbing its reliance on facial recognition technology after the city reached a settlement this week with Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongfully arrested in 2020 due to a false face match. It’s not an all-out ban on the technology, though, and the court’s jurisdiction to enforce the agreement only extends four years. Under the new restrictions, which the ACLU is calling the strongest such policies for law enforcement in the country, police cannot make arrests based solely on facial recognition results or conduct a lineup based only on facial recognition leads.

Williams was arrested after facial recognition technology flagged his expired driver’s license photo as a possible match for the identity of an alleged shoplifter, which police then used to construct a photo lineup. He was arrested at his home, in front of his family, which he says “completely upended my life.” Detroit PD is known to have made at least two other wrongful arrests based on the results of facial recognition technology (FRT), and in both cases, the victims were Black, the ACLU noted in its announcement of the settlement. Studies have shown that facial recognition is more likely to misidentify people of color.

The new rules stipulate that “[a]n FRT lead, combined with a lineup identification, may never be a sufficient basis for seeking an arrest warrant,” according to a summary of the agreement. There must also be “further independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.” Police in Detroit will have to undergo training on the technology that addresses the racial bias in its accuracy rates, and all cases going back to 2017 in which facial recognition was used to obtain an arrest warrant will be audited.

In an op-ed for TIME published today, Williams wrote that the agreement means, essentially, that “DPD can no longer substitute facial recognition for basic investigative police work.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/detroit-police-can-no-longer-use-facial-recognition-results-as-the-sole-basis-for-arrests-204454537.html?src=rss

Julian Assange pleads guilty to espionage but defends himself in court

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Julian Assange has formally pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act at a federal courthouse in Saipan, the capital of Northern Mariana Islands. The WikiLeaks founder was released from prison on June 24 after reaching a plea deal with the US government and quickly boarded a plane at Stansted Airport to make his way to Saipan. While the deal required Assange to plead guilty to "conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States," he still defended himself in court. 

According to The Washington Post, Assange argued that he should've been protected by the First Amendment as a journalist. "Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information," he said. "I believe the First Amendment protected that." He also said that he believes the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction of each other, but he accepts that his actions were in "violation of an espionage statute" and that it would be "difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances." 

A lawyer for the US government, however, accused him of encouraging personnel with high security clearances to expose classified military information and threaten national security. If you'll recall, WikiLeaks published classified information related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was obtained by whistleblower and former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, under his leadership. 

Lawyers from both sides argued about the time Assange served in prison, but around three hours after the proceeding started, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona declared that the 62 months he spent in Belmarsh Prison was reasonable and on par with the time served by Manning. Assange will not spend any time in US custody, but he has to leave the US Northern Mariana Islands immediately. The same private jet that flew him from London to Saipan flew him back to Canberra, Australia, because he wasn't allowed to fly commercial, according to his wife Stella Assange. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/julian-assange-pleads-guilty-to-espionage-but-defends-himself-in-court-030516412.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Apple may face another huge EU fine

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The European Union isn’t entirely happy with Apple’s approach to its Digital Markets Act and there could be financial consequences. In preliminary findings of its investigation, the European Commission says the company breached Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules by failing to let App Store developers freely tell users about alternate payment options outside of Apple’s ecosystem, what it calls anti-steering rules.

It has been investigating Apple’s behavior since March. Regulators added that although Apple is entitled to receive a payment for helping developers find new customers through the App Store, “the fees charged by Apple go beyond what is strictly necessary for such remuneration.”

Apple told Engadget in a statement, “We are confident our plan complies with the law and estimate more than 99 percent of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created.”

There are wider repercussions: Apple is reportedly planning to withhold those intriguing new AI features in Europe due to regulations and the possibility that they could affect privacy rules.

— Mat Smith

Paramount+ is raising prices again for all of the Tulsa King fans out there

Google is reportedly building AI chatbots based on celebrities and influencers

Uber is locking New York drivers out of its apps and blaming a city pay rule

New difficulty mod in Stardew Valley will purge your saves if you use a guide

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The US government has issued a warning to employees with Pixel phones, mandating a security update by July 4. It’s a high-severity firmware vulnerability in the Android operating system that could open up devices to “limited, targeted exploitation.” Government employees who do not install the security update by July 4 must “discontinue use of the product.” However, patch notes and comments aren’t specific about how it works.

Continue reading.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison and has agreed to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act. According to a letter from the US Department of Justice obtained by The Washington Post, Assange is specifically pleading guilty to “conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States.”

He will return to Australia, his country of citizenship, right after the proceedings. The Justice Department prosecutors are reportedly recommending a sentence of 62 months, and as Assange already spent more than five years in a UK prison, he won’t be spending any time behind bars in the US.

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TMA
FromSoftware

Elden Ring’s giant Shadow of the Erdtree expansion dropped on Friday, and the first big bad you’ll face is the Divine Beast Dancing Lion, a fearsome creature that uses wind, lightning and ice attacks. But it’s not really a lion. It’s two giants in a costume, a la traditional Chinese dance lions. That information, however, probably won’t help you beat it. The DLC is even more punishing than the base game.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-apple-may-face-another-huge-eu-fine-114236055.html?src=rss