Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Soros Warns China Uses Algos to Find Threats to One-Party Rule THIS CONTENT WAS PUBLISHED JANUARY 25, 2019 6:02 AMJAN 25, 2019 - 06:02 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire George Soros warned of the “mortal danger” of China’s use of artificial intelligence to repress its citizens under the leadership of Xi Jinping, whom he called the most dangerous opponent of democracies. “The instruments of control developed by artificial intelligence give an inherent advantage of totalitarian regimes over open societies,” the 88-year-old said on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “China is not the only authoritarian regime in the world but it’s undoubtedly the wealthiest, strongest and most developed in machine learning and artificial intelligence.” The former hedge fund manager said China is developing a centralized database that will use algorithms to determine whether a person poses a threat to the one-party system. While the so-called social credit system is not yet full...

Madrid taxis block major road in biggest anti-Uber protest yet JANUARY 28, 2019 / 3:05 AM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO MADRID (Reuters) - Hundreds of taxis blocked a central traffic artery in Madrid during Monday’s morning rush hour, in their biggest show of strength yet as a protest seeking tighter regulation of Uber and other ride-hailing services entered its second week. Anti-riot police backed by a fleet of tow trucks took several hours to clear the vehicles from the capital’s Paseo de la Castellana. Stoppages are expected elsewhere as the protest drags on. The city’s taxi drivers started the protests last week against the private services, which offer rides that often undercut taxi prices and can be hailed via the internet rather than in the street. In September, Spain’s government gave ride-hailing companies four years to comply with regulation granting them just one new license for every 30 taxi licenses. The cab drivers are demanding stricter regulations now....

WATCHING OVER YOU Facebook and Twitter can still stalk you online even if you DELETE your account – by spying on your friends It's bad news for anyone who values their privacy By Sean Keach 22nd January 2019, 5:16 pm DELETING your social media won't stop tech firms from tracking your every move. That's the terrifying conclusion from a new study that investigated how apps like Facebook and Twitter can follow people who don't even use social media sites. Last year saw Facebook admit to a number of privacy blunders that left tens of millions of users exposed. Many users responded by simply deleting their Facebook accounts – their only hope of regaining control over privacy. But research published in Nature Human Behaviour shows that account deletion isn't enough. Data scientists were able to accurately predict a person's posts without ever looking at their social profile. "There's no place to hide on a social network,...

France hits Google with 50 million euro data consent fine       Joseph Schmid AFP • January 21, 2019 Paris (AFP) - France's data watchdog on Monday announced a fine of 50 million euros ($57 million) for US search giant Google, using the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the first time. Google was handed the record fine from the CNIL regulator for failing to provide transparent and easily accessible information on its data consent policies, a statement said. The CNIL said Google made it too difficult for users to understand and manage preferences on how their personal information is used, in particular with regards to targeted advertising. "People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We're deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "We're studying the decision to determine our next steps." ...

Reality Check Facebook, Inc    FB Download Report (PDF) By Aaron Greenspan January 24, 2019 Executive Summary On paper,  Facebook, Inc.  (NASDAQ: FB) is one of the most successful companies in history. With a market capitalization that peaked at over $600 billion, Facebook has been the envy of blue chip executives, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists since it exploded onto the global stage. Facebook claims to have over 2 billion Monthly Active Users (MAUs), to a large extent determines which media outlets live and die, connects friends and family members across continents, and is nearly its own sovereign nation. What seems too good to be true often is. The zeitgeist has changed markedly since 2007, when the company was the obsession of virtually every Silicon Valley investor, having built its Platform to make the world "more open and connected." Yet as bad as things have been of late for Facebook, with endless privacy breaches a...

Keep humans in good jobs in the robot era, ILO commission urges By Tom Miles JANUARY 22, 2019 / 6:38 AM / UPDATED 16 HOURS AGO GENEVA (Reuters) - Governments must ensure the global economy keeps providing decent jobs - and not just for robots, a global commission set up by the International Labour Organization said on Tuesday. The “Global Commission on the Future of Work”, co-chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, said in a report that governments, employers and unions needed to adapt to revolutionary changes in the world of work. “In short, the future of our societies depends on how we deal with the challenges and opportunities related to the world of work, we need to reorient policies as well as actions to deliver a human-centred agenda, which is what this report basically focuses on,” Ramaphosa told a news conference. Among the commission’s recommendations was the establishment of an international governance...

Chefs and truck drivers beware: AI is coming for your jobs By MATT O'BRIEN January 24, 2019 Robots aren’t replacing everyone, but a quarter of U.S. jobs will be severely disrupted as artificial intelligence accelerates the automation of existing work, according to a new Brookings Institution report. Thursday’s report from the Washington think tank says roughly 36 million Americans hold jobs with “high exposure” to automation — meaning at least 70 percent of their tasks could soon be performed by machines using current technology. Among those most likely to be affected are cooks, waiters and others in food services; short-haul truck drivers; and clerical office workers. “That population is going to need to upskill, reskill or change jobs fast,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings and lead author of the report. Muro said the timeline for the changes could be “a few years or it could be two decades.” But it’s likely that automation will happen more swift...