Washington — Aleksander Dugin, a Russian nationalist ideologue and strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin, has been bombarded with attacks on Chinese social media, where netizens criticized and mocked his Russian expansionist views that had once included the dismembering of China.

Two years after Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine, pro-Russia sentiment has been prevalent on Chinese internet.

But the backlash against Dugin has revealed a less mentioned side of what has so far appeared to be a cozy alliance between Beijing and Moscow — hostility between Chinese nationalists and their Russian counterparts, the result of centuries of territorial disputes and political confrontations that Beijing has been reticent about displaying publicly in recent decades.

On May 6, Dugin opened an account on two of the most popular Chinese social media apps Weibo, China’s X, formerly known as Twitter, and Bilibili, a YouTube-like video site.

In the first video posted on both Weibo and Bilibili, Dugin greeted the Chinese audience and praised Beijing’s economic and political achievements in recent decades.

In the same video, he also criticized an article published in April in The Economist by Feng Yujun, director of Russian and Central Asian studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. Feng said in the article that Russia will inevitably lose the Ukraine war.

Dugin countered that Feng and some Chinese people underestimated Russia’s “tenacity and perseverance.”

The video was quickly condemned by Chinese citizens, who posted comments such as “Russia must lose,” which received thousands of likes.

“This is an extremist who is extremely unfriendly to China and has made plans to dismember China,” another message posted by a Weibo user named “Zhixingbenyiti” said.

Dugin, 62, was born in Moscow. In the 1980s, he became an anti-communist dissident.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he began to promote Russian expansionism. He believes that Moscow’s territorial expansion in Eurasia will allow it to counter Western forces led by the United States.

In his 1997 book, Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin wrote that dismembering China was a necessary step for Russia to become strong. People within Putin’s inner circle have reportedly shown interest in Dugin’s writing, which gave rise to his nickname “Putin’s brain.”

However, Dugin’s attitude toward China has changed significantly in recent years. In 2018, he visited China for the first time. In a speech at Fudan University, he praised China’s economy, culture and leadership in the fight against colonialism.

He also changed his previous support for containing China and said in a speech that China and Russia could work together to “form a very important and non-negligible containment/pull effect” on Western powers.

Dugin is now a senior fellow at Fudan University’s China Institute and one of the columnists for China’s nationalist news organization, Guancha.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Dugin said in a column that the alliance between China and Russia would “mean the irreversible end of Western hegemony.”

Philipp Ivanov, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told VOA that “Dugin is an opportunist. As the Ukraine war dramatically accelerated the alignment between China and Russia, his position started to change, resulting in his current attempt to engage with China’s intellectual and broader community.”

Ivanov also thinks Dugin’s influence on the Kremlin has been exaggerated.

Since joining Chinese social media, Dugin has gained more than 100,000 followers on Weibo and 25,000 followers on BiliBili. He has published fewer than five posts on Weibo, but nearly every one of them has more than 1,000 comments, most of which criticized him.

Under a post in which Dugin supported Putin on his fifth presidential term, people responded with comments such as “Russia is about to lose the war” and “The gates of hell are waiting for you.”

Wang Xiaodong, China’s most influential nationalist scholar, shared a Weibo post he made two years ago criticizing Dugin and Chinese pro-Russian groups.

“Introducing Dugin’s ideas is not because I worry that the Kremlin will implement his ideas; He has the intention but not the strength! I just want to tell the Chinese people how some Russians, including elites in the powerful departments, view China. Do we Chinese need to risk our lives for them?” the post read.

Ivanov was not surprised by the attacks on Dugin on the Chinese internet.

“While Chinese netizens may support Putin’s anti-Western/anti-US agenda, they are skeptical or outright negative about Russia’s assault on an independent country’s sovereignty and Russian expansionism, nationalism and chauvinism (which Dugin represents),” he told VOA in an email.

He said the history of China-Russia relations is predominantly about confrontation, competition and mistrust.

Among the attacks on Dugin, many netizens also brought up former Chinese territories that Russia occupied in the past 200 years.

“For the sake of ever-lasting friendship between China and Russia, please return Sakhalin and Vladivostok,” one Weibo comment posted by “lovejxcecil” read.

Although China has not been involved in the war, the Russia-Ukraine war has been a hot topic on the Chinese internet.

According to Eric Liu, a former Weibo censor, Dugin’s joining the platform undoubtedly brought more traffic to Weibo. However, it also means that Weibo needs to invest more resources in censorship to prevent him from making remarks that Beijing considers sensitive.

“He is a foreigner. He has no idea about China’s ‘political correctness’ or where the boundaries are,” Liu said. “This risk will have to be taken care of by Weibo, which brought him in.”

On Thursday, Dugin posted on Weibo that China and Russia could achieve “anything” together. His comment section has been turned off. 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. prosecutors on Thursday announced the arrests of an American woman and a Ukrainian man they say helped North Korea-linked IT workers posing as Americans to obtain remote-work jobs at hundreds of U.S. companies.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said the elaborate scheme, aimed at generating revenue for North Korea in contravention of international sanctions, involved the infiltration of more than 300 U.S. firms, including Fortune 500 companies and banks, and the theft of the identities of more than 60 Americans.

A DoJ statement said the overseas IT workers also attempted to gain employment and access to information at two U.S. government agencies, although these efforts were “generally unsuccessful.”

An earlier State Department statement said the scheme had generated at least $6.8 million for North Korea. It said the North Koreans involved were linked to North Korea’s Munitions Industry Department, which oversees development of the country’s ballistic missiles, weapons production, and research and development programs.

An indictment filed in federal court in Washington last week and unsealed on Thursday said charges had been filed against Christina Marie Chapman, 49, of Litchfield Park, Arizona; Ukrainian Oleksandr Didenko, 27, of Kyiv; and three other foreign nationals.

A Justice Department statement said Chapman was arrested on Wednesday, while Didenko was arrested on May 7 by Polish authorities at the request of the United States, which is seeking his extradition.

The State Department announced a reward of up to $5 million for information related to Chapman’s alleged co-conspirators, who used the aliases Jiho Han, Haoran Xu and Chunji Jin, and another unindicted individual using the aliases Zhonghua and Venechor S.

Court records did not list lawyers for those arrested and it was not immediately clear whether they had legal representation.

The head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Nicole Argentieri, said the alleged crimes “benefited the North Korean government, giving it a revenue stream and, in some instances, proprietary information stolen by the co-conspirators.”

The charges “should be a wakeup call for American companies and government agencies that employ remote IT workers,” she said in the statement.

It said the scheme “defrauded U.S. companies across myriad industries, including multiple well-known Fortune 500 companies, U.S. banks, and other financial service providers.”

The DoJ said Didenko was accused of creating fake accounts at U.S. IT job search platforms, selling them to overseas IT workers, some of whom he believed were North Korean. It said overseas IT workers using Didenko’s services were also working with Chapman.

Didenko’s online domain, upworksell.com, was seized Thursday by the Justice Department, the statement said.

The DOJ statement said the FBI executed search warrants for U.S.-based “laptop farms” – residences that hosted multiple laptops for overseas IT workers.

It said that through these farms, including one Chapman hosted from her home, U.S.-based facilitators logged onto U.S. company computer networks and allowed the overseas IT workers to remotely access the laptops, using U.S. IP addresses to make it appear they were in the United States.

The statement said search warrants for four U.S. residences associated with laptop farms controlled by Didenko were issued in the Southern District of California, the Eastern District of Tennessee, and Eastern District of Virginia, and executed between May 8 and May 10.

North Korea is under U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting funding for its missile and nuclear weapons programs and experts say it has sought to generate income illicitly, including through IT workers.

Confidential research by a now-disbanded U.N. sanctions monitoring panel seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed they had been investigating 97 suspected North Korean cyberattacks on cryptocurrency companies between 2017 and 2024, valued at some $3.6 billion.

The U.N. sanctions monitors were disbanded at the end of April after Russia vetoed renewal of their mandate.

A research report from a Washington think tank in April said North Korean animators may have helped create popular television cartoons for big Western firms despite international sanctions. 
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In Africa, about 15% of the population faces disability challenges despite advancements in technology. Limited infrastructure and high cost of assistive tech create barriers to digital access, leading to exclusion. A conference in Nairobi this week aims to help change that. Mohammed Yusuf reports.
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Наразі через «Рені» проходить до 50 вантажівок на добу, у Мінінфраструктури хочуть збільшити цю цифру вдвічі
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Протягом наступних 5 років буде виділено 500 мільйонів євро на підтримку компаній та розвиток нового бізнесу в Україні.
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HONG KONG — Shares of Chinese property developers rallied on Thursday after a report that China was considering a plan for local governments across the country to buy millions of unsold homes from distressed companies to ease a protracted property crisis. 

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index closed up 4.9% to the highest since November 24. The sub-index has gained around 30% since mid-April, when the market started speculation that more supportive measures would be rolled out to stabilize the ailing sector after months of disappointing home sales. 

Defaulted private developer Fantasia and KWG Group jumped 63% and 40%, respectively, while state-backed Sino-Ocean Group surged 46%. 

Hong Kong’s markets were closed on Wednesday for a public holiday. They have been catching up to gains in mainland property shares since the previous day. 

China’s CSI 300 Real Estate index firmed 3.5% on Thursday, following a 2.2% rise on Wednesday.  

Bloomberg News said on Wednesday the State Council was gathering feedback on the preliminary plan from various provinces and government bodies after a meeting of the ruling Communist Party leaders in late April called for efforts to clear mounting housing inventory. 

Local state-owned enterprises would be asked to help purchase unsold homes from distressed developers at steep discounts using loans provided by state banks, according to the report, which added that many of these homes would be converted into affordable housing. 

China’s housing ministry, central bank, the National Financial Regulatory Administration and the Ministry of Natural Resources scheduled a news briefing Friday afternoon about the supporting policies to ensure housing delivery, according to a notice on Thursday. 

Bloomberg News said in a separate report on Thursday that the State Council plans to hold a meeting with key officials from the housing ministry, financial regulators, local governments and state banks on Friday morning to discuss the property market, including a proposal to clear excess housing inventory. 

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.  

China’s property sector slipped into a debt crisis in mid-2021. Since 2022, waves of policy measures have failed to turn around the sector, which represents about a fifth of the economy and remains a major drag on consumer spending and confidence. 

Over the past years, some local governments already announced plans to buy unfinished or unsold homes from developers and turn them into social housing, but the scale has been small. 

Authorities also in recent weeks ramped up policies intended to clear the stock of unsold housing. Large cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen have eased home purchase restrictions, with some allowing homebuyers to “swap” to a new home from an old one. 

“We believe this could be a game changer in the sense that property sales may at least stabilize rather than turn worse,” JPMorgan said in a report, referring to the reported plan in consideration. 

The bank, however, added it is skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to trigger a market recovery unless the funding would come from the central government. 

Nomura said if local governments could acquire a meaningful volume of unsold homes from developers, it would help resolve the inventory issue and channel fund flows to the credit-trapped private companies, said Nomura.  

This, in turn, would support construction activities and alleviate the sector’s downward spiral, it said. 

However, some have been concerned about the lack of housing demand in smaller cities, with worries surfacing that such a plan would further weigh on the financial health of local governments.  

Local governments are already more than $9 trillion in debt and pose a major risk to China’s economy and financial stability. 

“It would only work in higher-tier cities but not lower-tier ones; where would the buyers come from?” said an analyst from another Asian bank, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media. “Telling local governments in those cities to buy inventory would just burn their balance sheet.” 
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«Поліпшення економічних умов в Україні майже напевно дозволить НБУ поступово знижувати базову процентну ставку»
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TAIPAI, TAIWAN — Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said Thursday there was no damage to its facilities after an incident at its Arizona factory construction site where

a waste disposal truck driver was transported to a hospital.

Firefighters responded to a reported explosion Wednesday afternoon at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported, citing the local fire department.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker whose clients include Apple and Nvidia, said in a statement none of its employees or onsite construction workers had reported any related injuries.

“This is an active investigation with no additional details that can be shared at this time,” it added.

TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares pared earlier gains after the news and were last up around 0.8% on Thursday morning. TSMC last month agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona plant by 2030.

The company will produce the world’s most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona facility expected to begin production in 2028.
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SYDNEY — Researchers in New Zealand say that artificial intelligence, or AI, can help solve problems for patients and doctors.  

A new study from the University of Auckland says that an emerging area is the use of AI during operations using so-called “computer vision.”

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, says that artificial intelligence has the potential to identify abnormalities during operations and to unburden overloaded hospitals by enhancing the monitoring of patients to help them recover after surgery at home.

The New Zealand research details how AI “tools are rapidly maturing for medical applications.”  It asserts that “medicine is entering an exciting phase of digital innovation.”

The New Zealand team is investigating computer vision, which describes a machine’s understanding of videos and images. 

Dr. Chris Varghese, a doctoral researcher in the Department of Surgery at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, led the AI research team.

He told VOA the technology has great potential.

“The use of AI in surgery is a really emerging field. We are seeing a lot of exciting research looking at what we call computer vision, where AI is trying to learn what surgeons see, what the surgical instruments look like, what the different organs look like, and the potential there is to identify abnormal anatomy or what the safest approach to an operation might be using virtual reality and augmented reality to plan ahead of surgeries, which could be really useful in cutting out cancers and things like that.”

Varghese said doctors in New Zealand are already using AI to help sort through patient backlogs.

“We are using automated algorithms to triage really long waiting lists,” he said. “So, getting people prioritized and into clinics ahead of time, based on need, so the right patients are seen at the right time.”

The researchers said there are limitations to the use of artificial intelligence because of concerns about data privacy and ethics.

The report concludes that “numerous apprehensions remain with regard to the integration of AI into surgical practice, with many clinicians perceiving limited scope in a field dominated by experiential” technology.

The study also says that “autonomous robotic surgeons…. is the most distant of the realizable goals of surgical AI systems.”
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WASHINGTON — In a bid to revive domestic manufacturing, President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he is imposing a drastic tariff increase on Chinese electric vehicles and new levies on computer chips, solar cells and lithium-ion batteries.      

“We’re not going to let China flood our market making it impossible for American auto – auto manufacturers to compete fairly,” Biden said. “I will do it by following international trade laws.”  

Tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, also known as EVs, will be quadrupled to a 100% rate. Solar cell and semiconductor imports from China will be subject to a 50% tariff, double the current rate. The rate on certain steel and aluminum imports will increase to 25%, more than triple the current level.  

The tariff increase will cover $18 billion in Chinese products. Tariffs on EVs, steel and aluminum, and solar cells will take effect this year, and next year for chips.   

United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the administration has provided pre-notification to Beijing.     

“We have made clear this is not about escalation,” she said. “This is about the consequences of decades of economic policy and the need for the United States to defend our rights.”   

The move is designed to offset “China’s unfair practices and subsidies and level the playing field for U.S. automakers and auto workers,” National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard told reporters Monday ahead of the announcement.  

“China is simply too big to play by its own rules,” she said. “China is using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others by continuing to invest, despite excess Chinese capacity, and flooding global markets with exports that are underpriced due to unfair practices.”     

China’s “forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft” have contributed to its control of the majority of global production for the critical inputs “creating unacceptable risks to America’s supply chains and economic security,” the White House said.

Responding to the U.S. announcement, China said Tuesday the move “will seriously affect the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation.”    

“The U.S. is essentially using the ‘overcapacity’ narrative to kneecap other countries’ strong industries and practice protectionism and trample on market principles and international trade rules in the name of ‘fair competition.’ This is nothing but bullying,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Tuesday in Beijing.

Tough on China    

The move follows a three-year review of the policies of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who is the Republican presumptive presidential nominee. Both candidates have used their campaign events to compete in showing who is tougher on China ahead of the November election.  

“My predecessor promised to increase American exports and boost manufacturing, but he did neither. He failed,” Biden said.   

The former president said Tuesday that the Biden administration’s new tariffs will not be enough to compete against Beijing.  

“China’s eating our lunch right now,” Trump said, adding that Biden should slap tariffs on “much more than electric vehicles.”     

“They’ve also got to do it on other vehicles, and they have to do it on a lot of other products,” Trump told reporters as he entered court for his hush money trial in New York.   

Asked by reporters on Trump’s comment about China eating America’s lunch (unfairly taking advantage of the U.S.), Biden responded, “He’s been feeding them a long time.”  

The Trump campaign hit back, calling Biden’s action a “weak and futile attempt to distract from the grievous harm his insane Electric Vehicle mandate is doing to the U.S. auto industry.”    

“The fact that these tariffs do not apply to gas-powered cars and trucks but only to Chinese EVs shows that this has nothing to do with protecting American Workers,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “It’s all about Crooked Joe’s agenda of killing gas-powered automobiles while forcing Americans into ultra-expensive Electric Vehicles they don’t want and can’t afford.”  

Asked by VOA to respond to such criticism, Tai said the tariffs are “designed to be strategic and not chaotic. They are designed to be effective and not emotional.”   

Preempting future increases  

Currently, the U.S. imports almost no EVs from China, but the Biden administration is trying to preempt potential future increases, said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, or CNAS.  

The tariffs hit sectors where the administration has been investing with industrial policy tools, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, Ziemba told VOA, referring to Biden’s climate and energy legislation, and legislation to boost domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing.  

“In a sense, these tariffs are part of a policy initiative to make sure that Chinese companies can’t benefit from that U.S. government subsidy,” he said.  

The move is likely to increase friction between the world’s two largest economies and is not likely to change Beijing’s behavior.    

“China opposes unilateral tariffs that violate WTO rules and will take all measures necessary to defend our legitimate rights and interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang said.      

Biden reiterated he wants “fair competition with China, not conflict.” He said the U.S. is in a stronger position to win because of the investments his administration has made to revive domestic manufacturing.  

According to a 2022 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China spent more on industrial policy ($248 billion) than it did on its defense spending ($240 billion) in 2019.  

China spends far more supporting its industries than any other economy in the CSIS study, and more than twice as much as the U.S.  

Circumventing through Mexico 

On the same day Biden announced the new tariffs, Chinese automaker BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer, unveiled the Shark, a midsize hybrid-electric pickup truck, in Mexico. In February, BYD said it was looking for a location in Mexico for its factory.   

A Mexico-made EV with sufficient North America-sourced parts could qualify for tariff-free entry into the U.S. market under the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. 

The administration said Beijing’s move to circumvent tariffs via a U.S. free trade partner is “a pattern” of “serious concern” that it’s investigating. 

With Chinese EV production moving out of China, taking action against Chinese EVs in third country markets is something that the administration should deeply explore, said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who is now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. 

Blocking Beijing’s circumvention effort can be done by amending the USMCA or through supplemental agreements, or an investment screening mechanism separate from the USMCA, she told VOA. “I’m sure there are other alternatives as well that are being explored.”  

Tai would only reveal that addressing the issue will “require a separate pathway,” without providing details. “I would just ask you to stay tuned,” she said. 

Anita Powell contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a bundle of steep tariff increases on an array of Chinese imports including electric vehicles, computer chips and medical products, risking an election-year standoff with Beijing in a bid to woo voters who give his economic policies low marks.

Biden will keep tariffs put in place by his Republican predecessor Donald Trump while ratcheting up others, including a quadrupling of EV duties to over 100%, the White House said in a statement. It cited “unacceptable risks” to U.S. economic security posed by what it considers unfair Chinese practices that are flooding global markets with cheap goods.

The new measures impact $18 billion in Chinese imported goods including steel and aluminum, semiconductors, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells and cranes, the White House said. The announcement confirmed earlier Reuters reporting.

The United States imported $427 billion in goods from China in 2023 and exported $148 billion to the world’s No. 2 economy, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a trade gap that has persisted for decades and become an ever more sensitive subject in Washington.

“China’s using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others by continuing to invest, despite excess Chinese capacity and flooding global markets with exports that are underpriced due to unfair practices,” White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard told reporters on a conference call.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the revised tariffs were justified because China was continuing to steal U.S. intellectual property and in some cases had become “more aggressive” in cyber intrusions targeting American technology.

She said prior “Section 301” tariffs had minimal impact on U.S. economy-wide prices and employment, but had been effective in reducing U.S. imports of Chinese goods, while increasing imports from other countries.

But Tai recommended tariff exclusions for dozens of industrial machinery import categories from China, including 19 for solar product manufacturing equipment.

Even as Biden’s steps fell in line with Trump’s premise that tougher trade measures are warranted, the Democrat took aim at his opponent in November’s election.

The White House said Trump’s 2020 trade deal with China did not increase American exports or boost American manufacturing jobs, and it said the 10% across-the-board tariffs on goods from all points of origin that Trump has proposed would frustrate U.S. allies and raise prices. Trump has floated tariffs of 60% or higher on all Chinese goods.

Administration officials said their measures are “carefully targeted,” combined with domestic investment, plotted with close allies and unlikely to worsen a bout of inflation that has already angered U.S. voters and imperiled Biden’s re-election bid. They also downplayed the risk of retaliation from Beijing.

Biden has struggled to convince voters of the efficacy of his economic policies despite a backdrop of low unemployment and above-trend economic growth. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed Trump had a 7 percentage-point edge over Biden on the economy.

Analysts have warned that a trade tiff could raise costs for EVs overall, hurting Biden’s climate goals and his aim to create manufacturing jobs.

Biden has said he wants to win this era of competition with China but not to launch a trade war that could hurt the mutually dependent economies. He has worked in recent months to ease tensions in one-on-one talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both 2024 U.S. presidential candidates have sharply departed from the free-trade consensus that once reigned in Washington, a period capped by China’s joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

China has said the tariffs are counterproductive and risk inflaming tensions. Trump’s broader imposition of tariffs during his 2017-2021 presidency kicked off a tariff war with China.

As part of the long-awaited tariff update, Biden will increase tariffs this year under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 from 25% to 100% on EVs, bringing total duties to 102.5%, from 7.5% to 25% on lithium-ion EV batteries and other battery parts and from 25% to 50% on photovoltaic cells used to make solar panels. “Certain” critical minerals will have their tariffs raised from nothing to 25%.

The tariffs on ship-to-shore cranes will rise to 25% from zero, those on syringes and needles will rise to 50% from nothing now and some personal protective equipment (PPE) used in medical facilities will rise to 25% from as little as 0% now. Shortages in PPE made largely in China hampered the United States’ COVID-19 response.

More tariffs will follow in 2025 and 2026 on semiconductors, whose tariff rate will double to 50%, as well as lithium-ion batteries that are not used in elective vehicles, graphite and permanent magnets as well as rubber medical and surgical gloves.

A step Biden previously announced to raise tariffs on some steel and aluminum products will take effect this year, the White House said.  

A number of lawmakers have called for massive hikes on Chinese vehicle tariffs. There are relatively few Chinese-made light-duty vehicles being imported now. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown wants the Biden administration to ban Chinese EVs outright, over concerns they pose risks to Americans’ personal data.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned China in April that its excess production of EVs and solar products was unacceptable, said that such concerns were widely shared by U.S. allies and the actions were “motivated not by anti-China policy but by a desire to prevent damaging economic dislocation from unfair economic practices.” 
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Міністерства фінансів США запровадило санкції проти причетних до спроби обійти санкції
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Seafaring robots are increasingly used for tasks ranging from ocean exploration to rescue missions. Matt Dibble has the latest in this week’s episode of LogOn.
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У Єврокомісії зазначають, що «це буде рятівним колом для економіки країни»
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As generative AI technologies like ChatGPT rapidly gain popularity, they are beginning to change the future of the job market. Some fear mass unemployment, but others see a bright future for human-AI cooperation. Maxim Adams has the story.
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Washington — Two Air Force fighter jets recently squared off in a dogfight in California. One was flown by a pilot. The other wasn’t.

That second jet was piloted by artificial intelligence, with the Air Force’s highest-ranking civilian riding along in the front seat. It was the ultimate display of how far the Air Force has come in developing a technology with its roots in the 1950s. But it’s only a hint of the technology yet to come.

The United States is competing to stay ahead of China on AI and its use in weapon systems. The focus on AI has generated public concern that future wars will be fought by machines that select and strike targets without direct human intervention. Officials say this will never happen, at least not on the U.S. side. But there are questions about what a potential adversary would allow, and the military sees no alternative but to get U.S. capabilities fielded fast.

“Whether you want to call it a race or not, it certainly is,” said Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Both of us have recognized that this will be a very critical element of the future battlefield. China’s working on it as hard as we are.”

A look at the history of military development of AI, what technologies are on the horizon and how they will be kept under control:

From machine learning to autonomy

AI’s military roots are a hybrid of machine learning and autonomy. Machine learning occurs when a computer analyzes data and rule sets to reach conclusions. Autonomy occurs when those conclusions are applied to act without further human input.

This took an early form in the 1960s and 1970s with the development of the Navy’s Aegis missile defense system. Aegis was trained through a series of human-programmed if/then rule sets to be able to detect and intercept incoming missiles autonomously, and more rapidly than a human could. But the Aegis system was not designed to learn from its decisions and its reactions were limited to the rule set it had.

“If a system uses ‘if/then’ it is probably not machine learning, which is a field of AI that involves creating systems that learn from data,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Christopher Berardi, who is assigned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to assist with the Air Force’s AI development.

AI took a major step forward in 2012 when the combination of big data and advanced computing power enabled computers to begin analyzing the information and writing the rule sets themselves. It is what AI experts have called AI’s “big bang.”

The new data created by a computer writing the rules is artificial intelligence. Systems can be programmed to act autonomously from the conclusions reached from machine-written rules, which is a form of AI-enabled autonomy.

Testing an AI alternative to GPS navigation

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall got a taste of that advanced warfighting this month when he flew on Vista, the first F-16 fighter jet to be controlled by AI, in a dogfighting exercise over California’s Edwards Air Force Base.

While that jet is the most visible sign of the AI work underway, there are hundreds of ongoing AI projects across the Pentagon.

At MIT, service members worked to clear thousands of hours of recorded pilot conversations to create a data set from the flood of messages exchanged between crews and air operations centers during flights, so the AI could learn the difference between critical messages like a runway being closed and mundane cockpit chatter. The goal was to have the AI learn which messages are critical to elevate to ensure controllers see them faster.

In another significant project, the military is working on an AI alternative to GPS satellite-dependent navigation.

In a future war high-value GPS satellites would likely be hit or interfered with. The loss of GPS could blind U.S. communication, navigation and banking systems and make the U.S. military’s fleet of aircraft and warships less able to coordinate a response.

So last year the Air Force flew an AI program — loaded onto a laptop that was strapped to the floor of a C-17 military cargo plane — to work on an alternative solution using the Earth’s magnetic fields.

It has been known that aircraft could navigate by following the Earth’s magnetic fields, but so far that hasn’t been practical because each aircraft generates so much of its own electromagnetic noise that there has been no good way to filter for just the Earth’s emissions.

“Magnetometers are very sensitive,” said Col. Garry Floyd, director for the Department of Air Force-MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator program. “If you turn on the strobe lights on a C-17 we would see it.”

The AI learned through the flights and reams of data which signals to ignore and which to follow and the results “were very, very impressive,” Floyd said. “We’re talking tactical airdrop quality.”

“We think we may have added an arrow to the quiver in the things we can do, should we end up operating in a GPS-denied environment. Which we will,” Floyd said.

The AI so far has been tested only on the C-17. Other aircraft will also be tested, and if it works it could give the military another way to operate if GPS goes down.

Safety rails and pilot speak

Vista, the AI-controlled F-16, has considerable safety rails as the Air Force trains it. There are mechanical limits that keep the still-learning AI from executing maneuvers that would put the plane in danger. There is a safety pilot, too, who can take over control from the AI with the push of a button.

The algorithm cannot learn during a flight, so each time up it has only the data and rule sets it has created from previous flights. When a new flight is over, the algorithm is transferred back onto a simulator where it is fed new data gathered in-flight to learn from, create new rule sets and improve its performance.

But the AI is learning fast. Because of the supercomputing speed AI uses to analyze data, and then flying those new rule sets in the simulator, its pace in finding the most efficient way to fly and maneuver has already led it to beat some human pilots in dogfighting exercises.

But safety is still a critical concern, and officials said the most important way to take safety into account is to control what data is reinserted into the simulator for the AI to learn from.
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sacramento, california — California could soon deploy generative artificial intelligence tools to help reduce traffic jams, make roads safer and provide tax guidance, among other things, under new agreements announced Thursday as part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s efforts to harness the power of new technologies for public services. 

The state is partnering with five companies to create generative AI tools using technologies developed by tech giants such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google- and Amazon-backed Anthropic that would ultimately help the state provide better services to the public, administration officials said. 

“It is a very good sign that a lot of these companies are putting their focus on using GenAI for governmental service delivery,” said Amy Tong, secretary of government operations for California. 

The companies will start a six-month internal trial in which state workers test and evaluate the tools. The companies will be paid $1 for their proposals. The state, which faces a significant budget deficit, can then reassess whether any tools could be fully implemented under new contracts. All the tools are considered low risk, meaning they don’t interact with confidential data or personal information, an administration spokesperson said. 

Newsom, a Democrat, touts California as a global hub for AI technology, noting 35 of the world’s top 50 AI companies are located in the state. He signed an executive order last year requiring the state to start exploring responsible ways to incorporate generative AI by this summer, with a goal of positioning California as an AI leader.

In January, the state started asking technology companies to come up with generative AI tools for public services. Last month, California was one of the first states to roll out guidelines on when and how state agencies could buy such tools. 

Generative AI, a branch of AI that can create new content such as text, audio and photos, has significant potential to help government agencies become more efficient, but there’s also an urgent need for safeguards to limit risks, state officials and experts said. In New York City, an AI-powered chatbot created by the city to help small businesses was found to dole out false guidance and advise companies to violate the law. The rapidly growing technology has also raised concerns about job losses, misinformation, privacy and automation bias. 

While state governments are struggling to regulate AI in the private sector, many are exploring how public agencies can leverage the powerful technology for public good. California’s approach, which also requires companies to disclose what large language models they use to develop AI tools, is meant to build public trust, officials said. 

The state’s testing of the tools and collecting of feedback from state workers are some of the best practices to limit potential risks, said Meredith Lee, chief technical adviser for the University of California-Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science and Society. The challenge is determining how to assure continued testing and learning about the tools’ potential risks after deployment. 

“This is not something where you just work on testing for some small amount of time and that’s it,” Lee said. “Putting in the structures for people to be able to revisit and better understand the deployments further down the line is really crucial.” 

The California Department of Transportation is looking for tools that would analyze traffic data and come up with solutions to reduce highway traffic and make roads safer. The state’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which administers more than 40 programs, wants an AI tool to help its call center cut wait times and call length. The state is also seeking technologies to provide non-English speakers information about health and social services benefits in their languages and to streamline the inspection process for health care facilities. 

The tools are to be designed to assist state workers, not replace them, said Nick Maduros, director of the Department of Tax and Fee Administration. 

Call center workers there took more than 660,000 calls last year. The state envisions the AI technology listening along to those calls and pulling up specific tax code information associated with the problems callers describe. Workers  could decide whether to use the information.

Currently, call center workers have to simultaneously listen to the call and manually look up the code, Maduros said. 

“If it turns out it doesn’t serve the public better, then we’re out $1,” Maduros said. “And I think that’s a pretty good deal for the citizens of California.” 

Tong wouldn’t say when a successfully vetted tool would be deployed, but added that the state was moving as fast as it can. 

“The whole essence of using GenAI is it doesn’t take years,” Tong said. “GenAI doesn’t wait for you.”
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NEW YORK — A newly released ad promoting Apple’s new iPad Pro has struck quite a nerve online.

The ad, which was released by the tech giant Tuesday, shows a hydraulic press crushing just about every creative instrument artists and consumers have used over the years — from a piano and record player, to piles of paint, books, cameras and relics of arcade games. Resulting from the destruction? A pristine new iPad Pro.

“The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest,” a narrator says at the end of the commercial.

Apple’s intention seems straightforward: Look at all the things this new product can do. But critics have called it tone-deaf — with several marketing experts noting the campaign’s execution didn’t land.

“I had a really disturbing reaction to the ad,” said Americus Reed II, professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “I understood conceptually what they were trying to do, but … I think the way it came across is, here is technology crushing the life of that nostalgic sort of joy (from former times).”

The ad also arrives during a time many feel uncertain or fearful about seeing their work or everyday routines “replaced” by technological advances — particularly amid the rapid commercialization of generative artificial intelligence. And watching beloved items get smashed into oblivion doesn’t help curb those fears, Reed and others note.

Several celebrities were also among the voices critical of Apple’s “Crush!” commercial on social media this week.

“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” actor Hugh Grant wrote on the social media platform X, in a repost of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s sharing of the ad.

Some found the ad to be a telling metaphor of the industry today — particularly concerns about big tech negatively impacting creatives. Filmmaker Justine Bateman wrote on X that the commercial “crushes the arts.”

Experts added that the commercial marked a notable difference to marketing seen from Apple in the past — which has often taken more positive or uplifting approaches.

“My initial thought was that Apple has become exactly what it never wanted to be,” Vann Graves, executive director of the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Brandcenter, said.

Graves pointed to Apple’s famous 1984 ad introducing the Macintosh computer, which he said focused more on uplifting creativity and thinking outside of the box as a unique individual. In contrast, Graves added, “this (new iPad) commercial says, ‘No, we’re going to take all the creativity in the world and use a hydraulic press to push it down into one device that everyone uses.'”

In a statement shared with Ad Age on Thursday, Apple apologized for the ad. The outlet also reported that Apple no longer plans to run the spot on TV.

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Tor Myhren, the company’s vice president of marketing communications, told Ad Age. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Cupertino, California-based Apple unveiled its latest generation of iPad Pros and Airs earlier this week in a showcase that lauded new features for both lines. The Pro sports a new thinner design, a new M4 processor for added processing power, slightly upgraded storage and incorporates dual OLED panels for a brighter, crisper display.

Apple is trying to juice demand for iPads after its sales of the tablets plunged 17% from last year during the January-March period. After its 2010 debut helped redefine the tablet market, the iPad has become a minor contributor to Apple’s success. It currently accounts for just 6% of the company’s sales.
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HONG KONG — Eight Chinese cities have joined a program allowing their residents to travel to Hong Kong on their own, rather than as part of a tour group, as part of efforts to boost Hong Kong’s economy. 

Hong Kong is battling to revive its economy following a national security crackdown and COVID-related controls, which led to many locals and expats leaving the city and caused tourist numbers to dwindle to a fraction of prepandemic levels. 

The Individual Visit Scheme began in 2003 as part of a cooperation agreement between mainland China and Hong Kong to boost the city’s economy by allowing Chinese residents to apply for individual travel, rather than in a tour group. 

Fifty-one cities have already joined the program and will be joined by Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Lanzhou in Gansu Province, Xining in Qinghai Province, Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. 

Hong Kong city leader John Lee said, “These eight cities are all provincial capital cities with large populations, significant economic growth and high spending power.” 

Although recent official figures showed the territory growing 2.7% in the first quarter compared with the year before, local businesses have described shopping malls as “dead,” with low foot traffic and shops covered with “for lease” or “coming up soon” signs. 

One lawmaker recently told the city’s legislature that more than 20,000 companies had deregistered in the first quarter of 2024, up more than 70% from the same period last year. 

China imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020 after months of pro-democracy protests in 2019. In March, authorities enacted another set of security laws that some foreign governments say further undermine rights and freedoms. 

The Hong Kong and Chinese governments have repeatedly said the security laws have brought stability.
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