Huawei drives and dominates Thailand’s digital ascent | Uncovering Chinese academic espionage at Stanford | 80% of cyberattacks in the Middle East result in confidential data breaches

And, if it’s hard for allies to buy U.S. chips, will they get them from other suppliers?

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• Thailand’s rapid ascent as a 5G leader in Southeast Asia has, in part, been powered by Huawei. Huawei’s cost-effective solutions and deployment speed made it the preferred choice for major telecommunications operators especially as they rolled out 5G to 158 hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Strategist

• Under its Made in China 2025 plan, China aims to unseat the US as the dominant force in frontier technologies. Such a plan necessitates substantial technology transfers from America's research institutions. Given its dominance in AI, Stanford is academic target number one. Stanford Review

• One in three successful cyberattacks in the Middle East was carried out by APT groups that commonly target government institutions and critical infrastructure. While the rapid adoption of new IT solutions in the region boosts efficiency across industries, it also increases their exposure to cyberattacks. Intelligent CISO

ASPI

Huawei drives and dominates Thailand’s digital ascent
The Strategist
Angela Suriyasenee
Thailand’s rapid ascent as a 5G leader in Southeast Asia has, in part, been powered by Huawei. While many Western nations excluded Huawei from their 5G rollout over security concerns, Thailand—like several regional neighbours—embraced the technology giant to enable its digital transformation. Yet this decision hinders Thailand’s ‘bamboo strategy’—maintaining the strength and flexibility to adapt to shifting international dynamics—and carries significant long-term security implications. Huawei’s cost-effective solutions and deployment speed made it the preferred choice for major telecommunications operators AIS and True Corp, especially as they rolled out 5G to 158 hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic, boosting connectivity for healthcare and digital business. Huawei cemented its dominant position by aligning its offerings with government priorities and expanding local capacity.

World

The Artemis generation: Space diplomacy’s next giant leap
The Interpreter
Philip Citowicki
Today, few things manage to truly stop and change how we think and operate like happened with the original Apollo 11 moon landing. Yet one of the many clues that humanity's return to the Moon will again result in zeitgeist-shaping moment is visible in how space is gradually seeping to the forefront of the national consciousness. In Australia we’ve seen ABC interrupt live broadcasts to watch SpaceX launches. Airtime has been given to Gilmour Space Technologies’ impending first launch and Southern Launch’s successful return of the Varda Space Industries capsule. Yet as the backlash to pop-icon Katy Perry’s trip to space illustrated, space suffers from a communication problem.

OpenAI plans Stargate expansion outside US
Financial Times
George Hammond
OpenAI plans to expand Stargate, its $500bn US data centre project, by investing more overseas to promote the development of “democratic artificial intelligence”, though the group revealed few details of how the project would be financed and delivered. “This investment will be above and beyond what we’re looking at in the US,” said Chris Lehane, OpenAI global affairs vice-president. He framed the plan as a way to use America’s AI technology edge to provide a clear alternative to China, its only serious competitor around the world, and to promote democratic values — such as free speech, free markets and the prevention of mass government data collection.

OpenAI’s Stargate plans to sell ‘democratic AI’ to the world—while enhancing its soft global power. Will it work?
Fortune
Shaon Goldman
In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stood next to President Trump and the leaders of Softbank and Oracle to announce a $500 million plan to build data centres in the U.S. So far, the mega project, called Stargate, has yet to complete its first planned data center in Abilene, Tex. But that didn’t stop OpenAI from touting a new global initiative today—this time aimed at developing AI infrastructure globally. While the plan, called OpenAI for Countries, is short on details, it’s long on rhetoric casting both OpenAI and the U.S. as benevolent actors in the face of authoritarian regimes like China. The company said it wants to spread “democratic AI,” or “AI that protects and incorporates long-standing democratic principles.” That includes “the freedom for people to choose how they work with and direct AI, the prevention of government use of AI to amass control, and a free market that ensures free competition.”

Ransomware group Lockbit appears to have been hacked, analysts say
Reuters
Raphael Satter
The ransom-seeking cybercriminals behind the extortion group Lockbit appear to have suffered a breach of their own, according to a rogue post to one of the group's websites and security analysts who follow the gang. On Wednesday one of Lockbit's darkweb sites was replaced with a message saying, "Don't do crime CRIME IS BAD xoxo from Prague" and a link to an apparent cache of leaked data. Reuters could not immediately verify the data, which appeared to capture chats between the hackers and their victims, among other things. But others who sifted through the material told Reuters it appeared authentic.

Australia

‘Censorship’: United States government slams Australia for ‘coercing’ tech companies
news.com.au
Samuel Clench
The United States has accused Australia of “coercing” Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, into “censoring” free speech, as part of a broader complaint about foreign countries pressuring the tech giants. At issue is a decision taken by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to require that X remove a post by Chris Elston, a Canadian campaigner against “gender ideology”. Mr Elston is known online as “Billboard Chris”.The tweet in question, from February of 2024, took aim at an Australian transgender activist, Teddy Cook, who had been appointed to an advisory panel at the World Health Organisation. Mr Elston misgendered Mr Cook, who identifies as male, and suggested global guidelines for dealing with trans issues were being written by “people who belong in psychiatric wards”. He later acknowledged it was “not my nicest tweet ever”, but insisted it was accurate.

Beware scammers taking advantage of tariff impacts on superannuation funds
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
The Trump administration’s global tariff-led trade war has turned global economies on their heads, but locally, it’s had a sharp impact on the retirement savings of many Australians. And, like many times of upheaval, there are those looking to take advantage of the uncertainty – scammers and other fraudsters happy to profit from the downturn despite the impact on ordinary Australians. In fact, CPA Australia – Australia’s leading accounting body – has revealed it has already received reports of account holders receiving calls out of the blue offering unsolicited financial advice or some form of “super health check”.

Security fears are holding back AI in Australia
Australian Cyber Security Magazine
Katherine Boiciuc
In boardrooms across Australia, executives are asking “is it secure?” whenever artificial intelligence implementation comes up. While the rest of the world races ahead with artificial intelligence, Australians are tapping the brakes – and hard. Our recently released EY Global AI Sentiment Index shows cybersecurity fears and a lack of trust are two major reasons why we’re lagging behind the rest of the world. The consequences for our economic future could be severe if we don’t tackle this head-on. There is a trust breakdown. Australians are deeply sceptical about AI security, with 74% ranking security failures as their top concern – well above the global figure of 63%. This security anxiety has dragged our overall AI sentiment score down to a mere 54 out of 100, while the global average sits at a much healthier 70.

AI job recruitment tools could 'enable discrimination' against marginalised groups, research finds
ABC News
Lucia Stein and Damien Carrick
Australian employers are increasingly using artificial intelligence hiring systems to screen and shortlist job candidates, but new research has found the technology creates serious risks of discrimination. AI systems promise to save employers time and money in the recruitment process by using cutting-edge technology, such as CV scanners and vocal assessments, to "classify, rank and score" job applicants. This means a computer program could be assessing a jobseeker's application right now, and accepting or rejecting it based on its machine understanding before the person reaches an interview stage with a human. Yet new research from Dr Natalie Sheard, a lawyer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne, has found AI hiring systems may "enable, reinforce and amplify discrimination against historically marginalised groups."

Melbourne considers AI CCTV surveillance
ABC News
Bridget Fitzgerald
Melbourne City Council is considering the use of artificial intelligence to analyse CCTV footage as part of an expansion of its surveillance network. The proposal replicates a program already up and running in Logan, south of Brisbane, where police use AI to monitor CCTV. Melbourne City Council passed a motion to review the use of video analytics to help target crime and antisocial behaviour.

• Melbourne lord mayor speaks on potential use of new AI technology to identify criminals
  3aw
  Facial recognition with the support of artificial intelligence could be used in the near future, in Melbourne’s city centre CCTV network to identify criminals and trouble-makers. Lord mayor of Melbourne, Nicholas Reece, joined 3AW Breakfast to discuss the potential use of AI facial recognition security cameras. “The technology could be used to alert police and that could help to make an arrest,” Reece told Ross and Russ. “We are using the cameras now to stop crime in its tracks, this technology would help us do that more efficiently.”

Women’s sports are fighting an uphill battle against our social media algorithms
The Conversation
Hans Westerbeek
Women’s sport is more and more getting the attention it deserves. Stadiums are filling, television ratings for many sports are climbing and athletes such as the Matildas’ Mary Fowler, triple Olympic gold medallist Jess Fox and star cricketer Ellyse Perry are becoming household names. Despite this progress, an invisible threat looms, one that risks undoing years of advocacy and momentum. That threat is the algorithm. As more fans consume sport through digital platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and increasingly, AI-curated streaming services such as WSC Sports, the content they see is being selected not by editors but by artificial intelligence.

76% of Australian orgs hit by major cyber incidents disrupting core operations in past year
Tech Business News
Austech Media
Based on a global survey of 1,000 organisations in Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Singapore, the report reveals a sobering reality. For Australian and New Zealand organisations specifically, the report highlights: 97% of Australian organisations (and 98% of NZ) say they have a cyber crisis response plan. Yet 76% of Australian organisations experienced at least one high-impact cyber event that halted critical business functions – and 81% in NZ – the highest percentages of any countries surveyed. 38% of Australian and 45% of NZ organisations suffered multiple high-impact events (exceeding the global average).

China

Beijing pours tens of millions of dollars into fostering Nvidia-free AI ecosystem in China
South China Morning Post
Ben Jiang
Beijing is allocating tens of millions of US dollars in subsidies to stimulate growth in the city’s artificial intelligence supply chain, using entirely domestic technologies, as China invests heavily in its technological self-reliance drive. The Yizhuang Development Zone, also known as the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, said on Wednesday it aimed to establish a nationally leading AI industry ecosystem valued at 80 billion yuan (US$11 billion) by the end of this year, according to a plan shared on its official WeChat account. The ecosystem would rely only on Chinese semiconductors, operating systems and open-source software frameworks to ensure self-sufficiency and control, policymakers said.

USA

Investigation: Uncovering Chinese academic espionage at Stanford
Stanford Review
To investigate these concerns, we interviewed over a dozen individuals, including Stanford professors, current students, and China experts specializing in technology transfer and espionage. The majority of interviewees spoke under the condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation from both the Chinese Communist Party and Stanford's academic community. Their accounts, cross-referenced where possible, form the basis of our findings.

America’s self-defeating AI export controls
The Wall Street Journal
Aaron Ginn
If it’s hard for allies to buy U.S. chips, they will get them from other suppliers—including the Chinese. Exporting hardware isn’t the same as exporting capability. Cutting off China’s access to American chips might have slowed model development, but it also sharpened Beijing’s skill at diffusion in another way. China now leads the world in open-source AI, and that lead has emerged under constraints that U.S. policymakers imposed. What America blocks temporarily in outputs (models), it enables permanently in inputs (chips). The same pattern already played out in telecoms with ZTE and Huawei semiconductors: Cheaper alternatives undermined U.S. dominance. America should know how this ends. If AI is eating the world, we must ensure that it eats on American hardware and resources. The U.S. should be flooding the world with American GPUs in a concerted way.

DOGE-led software revamp to speed US job cuts even as Musk steps back
Reuters
Alexandra Alper
The federal human resources agency at the heart of billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to slash the federal workforce is poised to roll out software to speed layoffs across the U.S. government. The software could turbo-charge the rapid-fire effort to downsize the government at a time when a number of larger federal agencies are preparing to execute plans for mass layoffs of tens of thousands of workers. Some 260,000 government workers already have accepted buyouts, early retirement or been laid off since Republican President Donald Trump returned to the presidency in January, according to a Reuters tally. The process has been far from smooth. Some workers were mistakenly fired and had to be rehired. The software is an updated version of a decades-old Pentagon program, known as AutoRIF, that had been little used in recent years.

Southeast Asia

Singapore’s vision for AI Safety bridges the US-China divide
WIRED
Will Knight
The government of Singapore released a blueprint for global collaboration on artificial intelligence safety following a meeting of AI researchers from the US, China, and Europe. The document lays out a shared vision for working on AI safety through international cooperation rather than competition. The countries thought most likely to build AGI are, of course, the US and China—and yet those nations seem more intent on outmaneuvering each other than working together. The Singapore Consensus on Global AI Safety Research Priorities calls for researchers to collaborate in three key areas: studying the risks posed by frontier AI models, exploring safer ways to build those models, and developing methods for controlling the behavior of the most advanced AI systems.

South Asia

OpenAI starts data centre operations in India, to host data locally
Business Standard
Aashish Aryan
The data of Indian ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu, and the OpenAI API (application programming interface) Platform users will now be stored locally in the country to help companies using these products meet local data sovereignty requirements when using OpenAI products in their businesses and building new solutions with AI, the company said on Thursday. For ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu users in India, this will mean that their conversations with ChatGPT and custom GPTs in their respective Enterprise or Edu workspace—including user prompts, uploaded files, and content across text, vision, and image modalities—will all be stored in India.

Information war: Are India and Pakistan telling the truth about attacks?
Al Jazeera
Usaid Siddiqui
Madiha Afzal, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, said controlling the narrative has been a “fundamental element” on both sides in the 77-year-old conflict between India and Pakistan. That has become more difficult in an age of “easily accessible international as well as social media”, Afzal said. Nevertheless, she added: “If local media largely follows the state’s preferred narratives in both India and Pakistan, which it does, the state can easily control public perception to its advantage and rally public support in its favour.”

Will India’s new satellite internet rules impact Starlink’s ambitions? We asked five experts
Rest of World
Ananya Bhattacharya
India has just made it harder for Starlink to enter the market. Around two months after Starlink announced retail partnerships with the country’s leading telecom operators, India — home to the world’s second-largest internet user base — introduced a new set of rules that satellite internet providers must comply with for permission to operate. The 29-point directive issued on May 5 mandates that companies provide real-time location tracking, data localization, metadata sharing, and website blocking as well as set up surveillance zones near borders. The new rules come in the wake of a surge in tensions between India and neighbouring Pakistan.

Europe

Facial recognition tech to hit Irish streets by summer
Euro Weekly News
Marc Menendez-Roche
Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has announced that controversial facial recognition legislation will be introduced before the summer, after years of political wrangling, privacy fears and digital drama. The tech – already rolled out across parts of the UK – is being hailed as the Gardaí’s new secret weapon in crime-fighting. But critics say it’s a step too far into Big Brother territory. Are we gradually sliding into that dystopian future? All we can say is, it edges a little closer every day. The move resurrects a plan previously ditched by the last Irish Government after the Green Party kicked up a stink. Former Justice Minister Simon Harris had tried to sneak facial recognition into a bill on Garda bodycams, but the Greens called it “deeply uncomfortable” and blocked the last-minute plot twist.

UK

Concerns raised over AI trained on 57 million NHS medical records
New Scientist
Alex Wilkins
An artificial intelligence model trained on the medical data of 57 million people who have used the National Health Service in England could one day assist doctors in predicting disease or forecast hospitalisation rates, its creators have claimed. However, other researchers say there are still significant privacy and data protection concerns around such large-scale use of health data, while even the AI’s architects say they can’t guarantee that it won’t inadvertently reveal sensitive patient data. The model, called Foresight, was first developed in 2023. That initial version used OpenAI’s GPT-3, the large language model (LLM) behind the first version of ChatGPT, and trained on 1.5 million real patient records from two London hospitals.

Pro-Russian hackers claim to have targeted several UK websites
The Guardian
Daniel Boffey
A pro-Russian hacking group has claimed to have successfully targeted a range of UK websites, including local councils and the Association for Police and Crime Commissioners, during a three-day campaign. In a series of social media posts, the group calling itself NoName057(16) suggested it had made a number of websites temporarily inaccessible, although it is understood the attacks were not wholly successful. The hackers sought to flood a range of websites with internet traffic in what is known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The group wrote on X: “Britain is invested in the escalation of the [Ukraine] conflict, and we are disconnecting its resources.” Its success was limited, however, with councils in Blackburn and Darwen and Exeter among those reporting that their websites were unaffected despite the hacking group’s claims of success.

Co-op cyber attack leaves island shop shelves empty
BBC
Some Co-op stores across Scotland's islands have been running low on fresh food supplies following a cyber attack on the company. Co-op is the main retailer in Skye and pictures from its supermarket in Portree show row upon row of empty shelves. Shops in the Western Isles have also been affected. The disruption comes after the company told the BBC on Friday the attack on its systems had resulted in "significant" amounts of customer data being stolen. A Co-op spokesperson said deliveries to its stores were also impacted by the "sustained malicious attempts by hackers to access our systems", and staff were working around the clock to reduce disruption. Co-op is the main grocery shop in many of the affected areas, though there are several smaller independent retailers.

Middle East

80% of cyberattacks in the Middle East result in confidential data breaches
Intelligent CISO
Mark Bowen
Positive Technologies, has conducted a study on cyber threats facing countries in the Middle East. The study examines the impact of Digital Transformation, the rise of organised cybercrime, and the dynamics of the underground market in the region. One in three successful cyberattacks in the Middle East was carried out by APT groups that commonly target government institutions and critical infrastructure. While the rapid adoption of new IT solutions in the region boosts efficiency across industries, it also increases their exposure to cyberattacks. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Qatar – leaders in Digital Transformation – were the most frequently mentioned countries on the Dark Web. Experts point out that the frequent ads for selling stolen data from these countries highlight the challenges of securing expanding digital environments.

Don’t offshore American AI to the Middle East
Foreign Policy
Alasdair Phillips-Robins and Sam Winter-Levy
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to the Persian Gulf, his administration is considering approving the export of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of advanced artificial intelligence chips to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These chips are essential to training and deploying cutting-edge AI systems that may soon bring breakthroughs in fundamental science and transform the face of economic and military competition worldwide. Approving more limited chip sales—especially to Gulf data centres operated by U.S. tech companies—poses fewer risks. But when companies in the United States are struggling to source enough AI computing power for their operations at home, the chips are worth more than the Gulf seems to be offering. After freeing itself from a dependence on the region’s oil, the United States should not sign up for the same with AI.

How the Israeli army plans to turn its sci-fi dreams into reality
Haaretz
Oded Yaron
The Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), one of Israel's most crucial bodies shaping its security present and future, is behind some of the most advanced technologies in the IDF's arsenal. To maintain its technological edge, DDR&D periodically issues calls for proposals to companies and startups, inviting them to offer innovative solutions to the complex challenges facing modern militaries. One such call, recently published, feels more like the plot of a Marvel movie or a desert yoga retreat. Its title: "Sensory Enhancement."The explanations offered in the document sound like science fiction. "The human sensory system is limited to a narrow range of physical signals," the authors write. "Wavelengths outside the visible spectrum, sound frequencies we cannot hear and other physical phenomena are beyond our sensory perception. Technological developments that expand or improve these ranges – or enable new forms of communication that enhance human capabilities – could be disruptive in terms of situational awareness and enable new missions or superiority in existing ones."

Big Tech

Google cuts about 200 staff in global business unit, The Information reports
Reuters
Kanjyik Ghosh and Gnaneshwar Rajan
Google on Tuesday cut about 200 jobs across its global business unit, which is responsible for sales and partnerships, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing a person with knowledge of the situation. Big Tech players have been redirecting spending towards data centres and AI development while scaling back investments in other areas. In January 2023, Google-parent Alphabet announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs or 6% of its global workforce. It had 183,323 employees as of December 31, 2024, according to a filing in February. The company told Reuters in a statement that it was making a small number of changes across teams "to drive greater collaboration and expand our ability to quickly and effectively serve our customers."

AI execs used to beg for regulation. Not anymore.
The Washington Post
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, warned at a Senate hearing Thursday that requiring government approval to release powerful artificial intelligence software would be “disastrous” for the United States’ lead in the technology. It was a striking reversal after his comments at a Senate hearing two years ago, where he listed creating a new agency to license the technology as his “number one” recommendation for making sure AI was safe. Altman’s U-turn underscores a transformation in how tech companies and the U.S. government talk about AI technology. Widespread warnings about AI posing an “existential risk” to humanity and pleas from CEOs for speedy, preemptive regulation on the emerging technology are gone. Instead there is near-consensus among top tech execs and officials in the new Trump administration that the U.S. must free companies to move even faster to reap economic benefits from AI and keep the nation’s edge over China.

Apple eyes move to AI search, ending era defined by Google
Bloomberg
Mark Gurman, Leah Nylen, and Stephanie Lai
Apple Inc. is “actively looking at” revamping the Safari web browser on its devices to focus on AI-powered search engines, a seismic shift for the industry hastened by the potential end of a longtime partnership with Google. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, made the disclosure Wednesday during his testimony in the US Justice Department’s lawsuit against Alphabet Inc. The heart of the dispute is the two companies’ estimated $20 billion-a-year deal that makes Google the default offering for queries in Apple’s browser. The case could force the tech giants to unwind the pact, upending how the iPhone and other devices have long operated.

Meta’s new AI chatbot is yet another tool for harvesting data to potentially sell you stuff
The Conversation
Uri Gal
Consider this potential scenario: a recent university graduate confides in Meta AI about their struggle with anxiety during job interviews. Within days, their Instagram feed fills with advertisements for anxiety medications and self-help books – despite them having never publicly posted about these concerns. The cross-platform integration of Meta’s ecosystem of apps means your private conversations can seamlessly flow into their advertising machine to create user profiles with unprecedented detail and accuracy. This is not science fiction. Meta’s extensive history of data privacy scandals – from Cambridge Analytica to the revelation that Facebook tracks users across the internet without their knowledge – demonstrates the company’s consistent prioritisation of data collection over user privacy.

Capital intensity will reprogram Big Tech values
Reuters
Jeffrey Goldfarb
Big Tech is attempting the mother of all pivots. Although startups from Twitter to Instagram are renowned for remaking their businesses on the fly, none compares to the scale of the transformations underway at Microsoft and other software giants that historically steered clear of owning too much property or equipment. They are now pouring resources into physical assets, jeopardizing profitability and rich valuations in the process. The world’s biggest tech companies have broadened their focus, setting 11-figure capital expenditure budgets, largely for the chips and data centres used to develop artificial intelligence.

Meta reportedly wants to add facial recognition tech to AI glasses—will this be a privacy issue?
Tech Times
Isaiah Richard
A new report now reveals that Meta is planning on adding facial recognition technology to its AI-powered smart glasses. The report elaborates on the different wearables that the company is looking to deliver, including a future version of its smart glasses featuring AI technology and facial recognition. However, over the years, it has been apparent that the use of facial recognition amongst the public is a massive privacy and security issue, and historically, companies that offer this face significant scrutiny. The Information shared a report detailing Meta's latest plans to integrate facial recognition technology into its future development of an AI-powered smart glasses that features cameras. It was revealed that Meta's reported goal is to have the smart glasses scan the public and identify the faces of people they come across daily with the help of AI.

Microsoft to urge senators to speed permitting for AI, boost government data access
Reuters
David Shepardson
Microsoft President Brad Smith on Thursday will urge U.S. lawmakers to streamline federal permitting for artificial intelligence energy needs and open more government data sets for AI training, according to written testimony seen by Reuters. "America’s advanced economy relies on 50-year-old infrastructure that cannot meet the increasing electricity demands driven by AI, reshoring of manufacturing, and increased electrification," Smith's written testimony for the Senate Commerce Committee AI hearing says. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will tell the committee that "as AI systems become more capable, people will want to use them even more. Meeting that demand requires more chips, training data, energy, and supercomputers."

Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI and the FDA are holding talks about using AI in drug evaluation
WIRED
Zoë Schiffer, Emily Mullin, and Will Knight
The Food and Drug Administration has been meeting with OpenAI to discuss the agency’s use of AI, according to sources with knowledge of the meetings. The meetings appear to be part of a broader effort at the FDA to use this technology to speed up the drug approval process. An ex-FDA employee who has tested ChatGPT as a clinical tool says the propensity of AI models to fabricate convincing information raises questions about how reliable such a chatbot might be. “Who knows how robust the platform will be for these reviewers’ tasks,” the ex-staffer says.

‘It cannot provide nuance’: UK experts warn AI therapy chatbots are not safe
The Guardian
Blake Montgomery and Johana Bhuiyan
Having an issue with your romantic relationship? Need to talk through something? Mark Zuckerberg has a solution for that: a chatbot. Meta’s chief executive believes everyone should have a therapist and if they don’t – artificial intelligence can do that job. “I personally have the belief that everyone should probably have a therapist,” he said last week. “It’s like someone they can just talk to throughout the day, or not necessarily throughout the day, but about whatever issues they’re worried about and for people who don’t have a person who’s a therapist, I think everyone will have an AI.” The Guardian spoke to mental health clinicians who expressed concern about AI’s emerging role as a digital therapist.

Everyone is cheating their way through college
New York Magazine
James D. Walsh
Adolescents benefit from structured adversity, whether it’s algebra or chores. They build self-esteem and work ethic. It’s why the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued for the importance of children learning to do hard things, something that technology is making infinitely easier to avoid. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, has tended to brush off concerns about AI use in academia as shortsighted, describing ChatGPT as merely “a calculator for words” and saying the definition of cheating needs to evolve. “Writing a paper the old-fashioned way is not going to be the thing,” Altman, a Stanford dropout, said last year. But speaking before the Senate’s oversight committee on technology in 2023, he confessed his own reservations: “I worry that as the models get better and better, the users can have sort of less and less of their own discriminating process.”

AI therapy may help with mental health, but innovation should never outpace ethics
The Conversation
Ben Bond
Mental health services around the world are stretched thinner than ever. Long wait times, barriers to accessing care and rising rates of depression and anxiety have made it harder for people to get timely help. As a result, governments and healthcare providers are looking for new ways to address this problem. One emerging solution is the use of AI chatbots for mental health care. A recent study explored whether a new type of AI chatbot, named Therabot, could treat people with mental illness effectively. The findings were promising: not only did participants with clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety benefit, those at high-risk for eating disorders also showed improvement.

Businesses turn to quantum AI despite high costs & confusion
Channel Life Australia
Gerrit De Vynck and Nitasha Tiku
A global survey commissioned by SAS Institute, an American multinational developer of analytics and artificial intelligence software, has revealed that three out of five businesses are investigating or investing in quantum artificial intelligence for business applications. The survey, which gathered insights from 500 business leaders representing multiple industries across China, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States, highlighted a strong interest in quantum computing and quantum AI, identifying them as significant technological trends following the current wave of AI adoption. More than 60% of respondents reported that their organisations are either exploring or actively allocating resources to quantum AI initiatives.

Digital clones of real models are revolutionizing fashion advertising
The Conversation
Luana Carcano
Driven by advances in artificial intelligence and metaverse technologies, digital clones are transforming fast-fashion marketing. Always available, ageless and adaptable to any setting, these virtual figures enable brands to create immersive, cost-effective campaigns that resonate with today’s digital-first consumers. Hybrid influencers blend real and virtual components, allowing for brand-specific customization. These virtual influencers boost brand visibility, drive engagement and influence market performance. This trend is also reshaping the US$2.5 trillion modelling industry, according to The Business of Fashion.

Research

Can your facial features reveal your odds of surviving cancer? This AI tool offers a surprising diagnosis of your ‘biological age.’
The Boston Globe
Kay Lazar
The human face holds intriguing clues about how much a person has aged from the inside out, known as a person’s biological age, according to new research from scientists at Mass General Brigham. The researchers found that a simple photo, analysed by a computer trained to detect small, subtle differences in facial features, such as the amount of muscle around a person’s temples, can give doctors a more accurate assessment of a patient’s health; specifically, to determine if that patient is strong enough to endure more aggressive treatment. The new computer tool, called FaceAge, was designed to pinpoint a person’s biological age and to predict survival outcomes for patients with cancer.

Events & Podcasts

Special episode: Will India and Pakistan go nuclear? With Raji Rajagopalan
Stop the World, ASPI
Dr Raji Rajagopalan
After Pakistan-based militants murdered more than two dozen Indian tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir, India retaliated by striking nine sites it says housed “terrorist infrastructure”. Pakistan in turn says it shot down several Indian fighter planes. In this special snap episode, ASPI Resident Senior Fellow Raji Pillai Rajagopalan gives us her insights on whether the two nuclear armed arch rivals will bring the crisis temperature down and avoid the ultimate nightmare—escalation that goes nuclear.

Beyond the mirror: AI, social media, and the future of expression with Nikki Chowdhary
Spotify
Dr Zena Assaad and Nikki Chowdhary
In this episode of the Responsible Bytes podcast, Dr. Zena Assaad speaks with Nikki Chowdhury about the intersection of fashion and technology, particularly focusing on the role of AI in creativity and the implications of homogenisation in design. They discuss the impact of algorithms on individuality, the changing landscape of modeling due to AI, and the influence of social media on personal identity. The conversation emphasises the need for education around technology and the importance of navigating the 'walled garden' of social media, ultimately advocating for decentralised platforms as a more egalitarian alternative.

The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.

For more on China's pressure campaign against Taiwan—including military threats, interference and cyberwarfare, check out ASPI’s State of the Strait Weekly Digest.