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An Ai face looks down on a human.

As AI continues to dominate the conversation in just about every space you can think of, a repeated question has emerged: How do we go about controlling this new technology? According to a paper from the University of Cambridge the answer may lie in numerous methods, including built in kill switches and remote lockouts built into the hardware that runs it.

The paper features contributions from several academic institutions including the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre, the Oxford Internet Institute and Georgetown University, alongside voices from ChatGPT creators OpenAI (viaThe Register). Among proposals that include stricter government regulations on the sale of AI processing hardware and other potential regulation methods is the suggestion that modified AI chips could “remotely attest to a regulator that they are operating legitimately, and cease to operate if not.”

This would effectively make the hardware used to compute AI tasks accountable to some degree for the legitimacy of its usage and providing a method of “killing” or subduing the process if certain qualifications were found to be lacking.

Later on the paper also suggests a proposal involving the sign off of several outside regulators before certain AI training tasks could be performed, noting that “Nuclear weapons use similar mechanisms called permissive action links”.

As things currently stand AI development seems to be advancing at an ever rapid pace, and current AI models are already finding usage in a whole host of arenas that seem like they should lend pause for thought. Frompower plant infrastructure projectstomilitary applications, AI seems to be finding a place in every major industry, and regulation has become a hotly discussed topic in recent years, with manyleading voicesin the tech industry and government institutions repeatedly calling for more discussion and better methods for dealing with the technology when issues may arise.

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At ameeting of the House of Lordscommunications and digital committee late last year, Microsoft and Meta bosses were asked outright as to whether an unsafe AI model could be recalled, and simply avoided the questioning, suggesting that as things stand the answer is currently no.

We all like a fictional story of a machine intelligence gone wrong, but when it comes to the real world, putting some safeguards in play seems like the sensible thing to do. Not this time, Skynet. I prefer you with a bowl of popcorn on the sofa, and that’s very much where you should stay.

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Square Enix launches new anti-harassment policy to protect its employees and partners from abusive fans

The Sims begins its 25th anniversary celebration next week with a Behind The Sims episode of news and announcements

Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot

Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba

Piranha Games will lay off employees after Mechwarrior 5: Clans ‘performed below projections’

Marvel Rivals’ latest update quietly killed the game’s burgeoning mod scene

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