Gavin Newsom pushes back on Trump AI executive order preempting state laws

The ink was barely dry on Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence executive order when Gavin Newsom came out swinging. Just hours after the order went public Thursday evening, the California governor issued a statement saying the presidential dictum, which seeks to block states from regulating AI of their own accord, advances “grift and corruption” instead of innovation.“President Trump and David Sacks aren’t making policy – they’re running a con,” Newsom said, referencing Trump’s AI adviser and crypto “czar”. “Every day, they push the limits to see how far they can take it.”Trump’s executive order is a major victory for tech companies that have campaigned against legislative barriers to developing and deploying their AI products

Disney wants you to AI-generate yourself into your favorite Marvel movie

Users of OpenAI’s video generation app will soon be able to see their own faces alongside characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney’s animated films, according to a joint announcement from the startup and Disney on Thursday. Perhaps you, Lightning McQueen and Iron Man are all dancing together in the Mos Eisley Cantina.Sora is an app made by OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, which allows users to generate videos of up to 20 seconds through short text prompts. The startup previously attempted to steer Sora’s output away from unlicensed copyrighted material, though with little success, which prompted threats of lawsuits by rights holders.Disney announced that it would invest $1bn in OpenAI and, under a three-year deal perhaps worth even more than that large sum, that it would license about 200 of its iconic characters – from R2-D2 to Stitch – for users to play with in OpenAI’s video generation app

ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women, even during labor: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’

Pregnant immigrants in ICE monitoring programs are avoiding care, fearing detention during labor and deliveryIn early September, a woman, nine months pregnant, walked into the emergency obstetrics unit of a Colorado hospital. Though the labor and delivery staff caring for her expected her to have a smooth delivery, her case presented complications almost immediately.The woman, who was born in central Asia, checked into the hospital with a smartwatch on her wrist, said two hospital workers who cared for her during her labor, and whom the Guardian is not identifying to avoid exposing their hospital or patients to retaliation.The device was not an ordinary smartwatch made by Apple or Samsung, but a special type that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had mandated the woman wear at all times, allowing the agency to track her. The device was beeping when she entered the hospital, indicating she needed to charge it, and she worried that if the battery died, ICE agents would think she was trying to disappear, the hospital workers recalled

UK police forces lobbied to use biased facial recognition technology

Police forces successfully lobbied to use a facial recognition system known to be biased against women, young people, and members of ethnic minority groups, after complaining that another version produced fewer potential suspects.UK forces use the police national database (PND) to conduct retrospective facial recognition searches, whereby a “probe image” of a suspect is compared to a database of more than 19 million custody photos for potential matches.The Home Office admitted last week that the technology was biased, after a review by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) found it misidentified Black and Asian people and women at significantly higher rates than white men, and said it “had acted on the findings”.Documents seen by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates reveal that the bias has been known about for more than a year – and that police forces argued to overturn an initial decision designed to address it.Police bosses were told the system was biased in September 2024, after a Home Office-commissioned review by the NPL found the system was more likely to suggest incorrect matches for probe images depicting women, Black people, and those aged 40 and under

Trump clears way for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China

Donald Trump has cleared the way for Nvidia to begin selling its powerful AI computer chips to China, marking a win for the chip maker and its CEO, Jensen Huang, who has spent months lobbying the White House to open up sales in the country.Before Monday’s announcement, the US had prohibited sales of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China over national security concerns.Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday: “I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively!”Trump said the Department of Commerce was finalising the details and that he was planning to make the same offer to other chip companies, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel. Nvidia’s H200 chips are the company’s second most powerful, and far more advanced than the H20, which was originally designed as a lower-powered model for the Chinese market that would not breach restrictions, but which the US banned anyway in April

Australia launches a social media ban – and is AI a bubble about to pop?

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, writing to you from a New York City that feels much colder than last December. 🥶In a world first, Australia implemented a ban on social media use for people under 16. It’s the first country to take such a far-reaching measure. Starting on 10 December, children and teens under 16 will not be allowed to use social media in Australia