Roundup – Gates against pausing AI; International law enforcement seizes dark web market

Bill Gates says pausing AI development won’t ‘solve challenges’

Calls to pause the development of artificial intelligence will not “solve the challenges” ahead, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told Reuters, marking his first public comments since an open letter last week sparked a debate about the future of the technology. Gates said it would be better to focus on how best to use the developments in AI as it was hard to understand how a pause could work on a global scale.

“I don’t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges,” Gates said on Monday. “Clearly there’s huge benefits to these things… what we need to do is identify the tricky areas.”

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-04-04/bill-gates-says-calls-to-pause-ai-wont-solve-challenges

Britain’s digital tax risks becoming permanent, warns tax body

After concerns about low levels of tax paid by some major tech firms, in 2020 a levy was imposed by Britain on the revenues of big tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon as a stopgap measure pending an international tax agreement.

As it stands, the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT), representing tax professionals, said that without an agreement on how to allocate taxation rights there was a real risk that the tax could effectively become permanent.

“A revenue tax such as this is a blunt instrument that cannot accurately represent the tax on the profits generated in the UK,” the CIOT’s director of public policy, John Cullinane, said. “It will inevitably over-tax some companies and under-tax others.”

https://www.lse.co.uk/news/britains-digital-tax-risks-becoming-permanent-says-tax-body-bidx8qt5os563i0.html

International law enforcement seizes dark web market

Law enforcement agencies have seized dark web marketplace Genesis Market, claiming it is popular with cybercriminals. A banner plastered across its site said domains belonging to the organisation had been seized by the FBI, and logos of other European, Canadian, and Australian police organisations were present across the site as well, along with that of cybersecurity firm Qintel.

Britain’s National Crime Agency — whose logo was also on the site — confirmed it was “participating in an international law enforcement operation targeting cyber criminals”.

In its seizure notice, the FBI said that anyone who had been in touch with Genesis should “email us, we’re interested”.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/international-law-enforcement-seizes-dark-web-market

EU car data access rules delayed

The European Commission is working on rules to ensure fair access to valuable car data for companies and industry but does not know when they will be ready. The delay, alongside the huge potential of the connected car market, has triggered a battle between carmakers and industrial users on access to data.

A spokesperson for the EU told Reuters that “the Commission is working on the preparation of a sector-specific proposal on in-vehicle data. It will aim to complement the proposal for a Data Act, published in February 2022.”

“At this stage we cannot prejudge the content of the final impact assessment and subsequent timeline for adoption.”

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-04-03/eu-car-data-access-rules-in-progress-but-no-timeline