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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (RISKS List Owner)
Fri Jul 11 18:08:07 2025
From: RISKS List Owner <risko@csl.sri.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 15:10:35 PDT
To: risks@mit.edu
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Subject: Risks Digest 34.71
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 11 July 2025 Volume 34 : Issue 71
ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator
***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. *****
This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34.71>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>
Contents:
Why Can't Americans Buy the Best Electric Vehicle? (Michael Dunn)
The Domestic Policy Law Brings Shame Upon Our Democracy (Lawrence H. Summers)
Heat Waves Endanger Data Centers That Power AI (Scientific American)
As the Texas Floodwaters Rise. One Key Voice Was Silent (Lauren Weinstein)
Marco Rubio Impostor Using AI to Contact High-Level Officials (WashPost)
Can AI Replace Air Traffic Controllers? (Scientific American)
AI is here to help (car rental companies via Gabe Goldberg)
Media Consortium Launches Euro Chatbot to Counter Fake News (Penny Horwood)
AI coders think they're 20% faster -- but they're actually 19% slower
(Pivot to AI)
Ford Breaks Annual Record for Safety Recalls Within First Six Months of Year
(WSJ via Monty Solomon)
Interesting Quirky Japanese research result (MDPI)
At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid UK Post Office Scandal, Report
Says (The New York Times)
AI: The second most dangerous tech ever created (Lauren Weinsten)
Bodyguards Using Fitness App Revealed Locations of Swedish Leaders (NY Times)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 7:16:52 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Why Can't Americans Buy the Best Electric Vehicle? (Michael Dunn)
Michael Dunn, *The New York Times* opinion, 9 Jun 2025
Chine's BYD (Build Your Dreams) embodies an industrial model that the
U.S. cannot compete with. The model combines govt financial support,
methodological long-term planning, and aggressive innovation.
Not the previous item that China now has 70% of the EV market and
Tesla only 5%. Tariffs can only make it worse.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:37:22 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: The Domestic Policy Law Brings Shame Upon Our Democracy
(Lawrence H. Summers)
Lawrence H. Summers, *The New York Times*, opinion, 9 Jul 2025
The human brutality in the most problematic aspect of Trump's new
legislation:
* Seriously disabled with no Medicare to cover rides to medical appts
* Relatives caring for patients with no coverage for home care
* Hospital patients who cannot afford rehab and nursing
* What about lonely, poor, and elderly
* Patients who will be evicted
The cruelty of these cuts is matched only by their stupidity.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:46:18 +0000
From: Richard Marlon Stein <rmstein@protonmail.com>
Subject: Heat Waves Endanger Data Centers That Power AI (Scientific American)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-heat-endangers-ai-data-centers/
"A new analysis warns that AI facilities could be forced to stop operating
because of water shortages and blackouts."
Best to maintain carbon-based employees, and paper records, to sustain
business continuity.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:40:56 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: As the Texas Floodwaters RIse. One Key Voice Was Silent
The National Weather Service makes forecasts, but coordination is critical.
LW
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 11:09:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Marco Rubio Impostor Using AI to Contact High-Level Officials
(WashPost)
John Hudson and Hannah Natanson, *The Washington Post( (07/08/25),
via ACM TechNews
An impostor used AI-powered software to impersonate U.S. Secretary of State
Marco Rubio in calls and texts with foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and
a member of the U.S. Congress. The culprit was probably attempting to
manipulate officials "with the goal of gaining access to information or
accounts," according to a cable sent by Rubio's office to State Department
employees. The State Department said it would "carry out a thorough
investigation and continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from
happening in the future."
Also:
* More Than 70% of UK Parents Say Kids Aren't Taught Coding at School
* Tennis Players Criticize AI Technology Used by Wimbledon
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:41:07 +0000
From: Richard Marlon Stein <rmstein@protonmail.com>
Subject: Can AI Replace Air Traffic Controllers? (Scientific American)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-ai-replace-air-traffic-controllers-to-reduce-airline-accidents/
"Most airline accidents occur while planes are taxiing, taking off or
landing. Controllers have to constantly plan ahead: they must balance
flights in airspaces that can range from just a few cubic miles at the
busiest airports, where planes must be lined up only minutes apart, to
mid-flight (high-altitude) sectors spanning more than 30,000 cubic miles.
Intense workload increases the risk a controller will fail to anticipate
events."
Unsupervised ATC workload allocated to AI, a platform prone to hallucinate, constitutes reckless impunity for public safety.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 01:05:06 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: AI is here to help (car rental companies)
AI Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car. Hertz and other
agencies are increasingly relying on scanners that use high-res imaging and
AI to flag even tiny blemishes, and customers aren’t happy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/travel/rental-car-ai-scanner-hertz.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:22:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Media Consortium Launches Euro Chatbot to Counter Fake News
(Penny Horwood)
Penny Horwood, *Computing* (UK) (07/09/25), via ACM TechNews
A consortium of 15 leading European media organizations has rolled out
ChatEurope, a chatbot trained on news articles from verified and trusted
sources with the goal of combating online disinformation by providing
responses that are bias-free and factually correct. Developed by Romania's
DRUID AI, ChatEurope uses a large language model from France's Mistral and
is hosted on infrastructure from French open-source software provider XWiki
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:25:55 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: AI coders think they're 20% faster -- but they're actually 19% slower
(Pivot to AI)
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/11/ai-coders-think-theyre-20-faster-but-theyre-actually-19-slower/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:03:57 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Ford Breaks Annual Record for Safety Recalls Within First Six
Months of Year
Automaker says it takes an aggressive approach to recalls and expects its
number to drop over time
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ford-safety-recall-record-df03416d
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 9:50:20 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Interesting Quirky Japanese research result
Japanese researchers have shown that survival rates for pancreatic cancer
have *decreased* at their hospital since mRNA Covid vaccines were rolled
out. <https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/17/12/2006#B28-cancers-17-02006>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 01:14:07 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid UK Post Office Scandal,
Report Says (The New York Times)
A public inquiry into the wrongful prosecutions of about 1,000 postal
workers has uncovered more victims than previously known, according to a
report.
Horizon, the information technology program at fault for the accounting
errors, was created by Fujitsu, a Japanese company, under a contract with
the British government. The report alleges that even before the program was
rolled out in 1999, some Fujitsu employees knew that Horizon could produce
false data. Fujitsu did not immediately respond to a request for comment
submitted through the company's website.
Postal workers reported issues almost immediately after the rollout,
according to the report.
“As the years went by the complaints grew louder and more persistent,” the
report said. “Members of Parliament became involved and provided substantial
support to postmasters. Still the Post Office trenchantly resisted the
contention that on occasions Horizon produced false data.”
Prosecutors relied on data from Horizon to bring criminal cases against the
postal workers. Further reports from the inquiry are likely to detail the
role of Fujitsu and the postal service’s top officials in the scandal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/world/europe/uk-post-office-scandal-report.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 09:43:41 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: AI: The second most dangerous tech ever created
Arguably, generative AI is the penultimately most dangerous technology ever
developed, just below nuclear weapons. Rather than having the potential to
destroy the physical world directly, LLM generative AI, as deployed by the
Big Tech billionaires, not only steals from people's existing creativity by
sucking up individuals' work of years or decades on websites and
regurgitating it as their own, often in a chaotic fashion replete with
errors and sometimes dangerous misunderstandings and misinformation that
result from AI's own flawed models and implementations, but it seduces users
into total dependence on those Big Tech systems, while gradually converting
their brains to compliant zombie status. At least the purveyors of nuclear
weapons have generally been straightforward about their destructive
capabilities. By comparison, Big Tech's promotions of generative AI makes
the agents of the nuclear weapons complex seem like ethical angels. -L
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:24:00 -0400
From: Jan Wolitzky <jan.wolitzky@gmail.com>
Subject: Bodyguards Using Fitness App Revealed Locations of Swedish Leaders
(NY Times)
Trying to keep fit with runs through Central Park, a jog around a tropical
island and a bicycle ride around Stockholm, bodyguards in Sweden
inadvertently revealed the secret locations of the Swedish leaders they were
assigned to protect.
An investigation by a Swedish newspaper revealed that bodyguards for
Sweden's royal family and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson uploaded their
workout routes to Strava, a fitness app that allows users to map and share
their movements. The popular app has built a global social media community,
but its users' enthusiastic uploads have also raised questions about data
privacy, especially among security and military personnel.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/world/europe/strava-sweden-bodyguards-pr=
ime-minister.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2023 11:11:11 -0800
From: RISKS-request@csl.sri.com
Subject: Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)
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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 34.71
************************
