Weekly Roundup: TikTok Fights Back, Twitter Puts a President in His Place, and AI Becomes Ethical

In this weekly roundup, we discuss how TikTok is taking things to the next level by suing the Trump administration (or simply the United States), how a President is violating Twitter laws, how ethical Artificial Intelligence is an emerging trend, and that we are all on the verge of phishing attacks in the future—according to the FBI, anyhow. 

TikTok is ready for a battle against the States

ByteDance’s TikTok is not going away without a fight. In today’s news, the Chinese-based company is filing a legal lawsuit against Trump’s executive order on banning the popular video making app. Although the Trump administration faced a backlash from millions of TikTokers in the United States, there is no positive sign that anyone—US citizens or ByteDance or whoever else may try to save the day— will be able to successfully overturn the order. 

What’s going to happen anyway? 

Josh Gartner, ByteDance’s spokesperson, is hoping the Trump administration might delay the ban so they can buy some time to find the right investor or they’ll just have to wait for Joe Biden to win the November 2020 Presidential Elections as he’d be likely to overturn the executive order. ByteDance is exploring multiple possibilities to make sure TikTok doesn’t lose the biggest market and consumer reach in the US.  

Previously, Gartner hinted that Mark Zuckerberg orchestrated the TikTok ban and previously met a bunch of senators to keep the ball rolling against ByteDance. Zuckerberg has been in the spotlight for years now for his business ventures and making billions of dollars by investing in social media apps. ByteDance believes that Zuckerberg simply couldn’t make an offer to TikTok owners, and since he’s in a losing battle, he is now manipulating the US government to ban the video making app based on “national security” issues. 

What is Zuckerberg’s real motive behind the TikTok ban? We believe it’s the marketshare and consumer reach, which eclipses Facebook’s from a specific younger and more influential demographic. TikTok is gaining millions of followers as people find it “cooler” than Facebook and Instagram. This might be the reason why Zuckerberg is playing a long game and trying to defeat all the competitors—at least in the US where he has more influence. 

TikTok has some security concerns

It’s been suggested—and this is the crux of the reason for the TikTok ban in the United States—that employers and companies are bound to share customer’s data when requested, according to a new Chinese law. This law does not state which specific companies need to be in compliance, but it’s suspected that everyone has to oblige when (and if) the Chinese government would decide to gather data for intelligence. The fear of getting access to all of this information is primarily why the  US decided to make TikTok a matter of national security and is working tirelessly hard to ban this app. 

The question we have is: why is the US government not banning mobile apps from different countries, such as Russia, that steal data? Why is China an exception? Is the matter geographical or economical?… 

Trump Violating Twitter Laws

Celebrities and journalists are not the only ones spending most of their time on Twitter. Donald Trump is a Twitterati who tweets about everything that is going on inside the White House and how the administration is making “America great again.” 

As President Trump heads closer to the 2020 Presidential Elections, he consistently bashes the Democrats with his everyday tweets, and Twitter has warned him about his abusive behavior. 

So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020

This is the President’s modus operandi. He has a history of sending such tweets that borderline on policies or even violate them even while his own administration jumps in to support him. Here is a detailed review of all Twitter rules and policies that users have to follow, and Donald Trump is no exception here. 

Ethical AI and CogX efforts to bring automation in the world 

CogX, the biggest AI conference, is happening virtually in early September. At CogX, a group of visionary leaders will be joining together to discuss the implications of Artificial Intelligence and how we can integrate automation into our regular lives. 

And we’re off! CogX has gone virtual this year, tackling the big question of ‘How do we get the next 10 years right?’. It’s the biggest, most inclusive and forward-thinking gathering of leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, policy makers, academics and activists to date. #CogX2020 pic.twitter.com/LOfwMIQl0Q

— Matic Boh (@MaticBoh) June 8, 2020

(Cue I, Robot)

The CogX panel is a big believer in AI but they still face challenges, as they’re trying to tackle many emerging problems, like data privacy and human safety. This is the reason why AI think tanks are brainstorming during conferences, exchanging ideas, and thinking about how to mitigate these AI-related issues. Don’t expect to see this trend disappear; this is our future and our AI overlords are going to see to it that we are soon ruled by robots. (We kid. Or do we?)

Is AI a threat to humans? The most common question…

First, let’s get down to brass tacks and discuss the three Asimov’s laws: 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

And yes, we’ll bring up the I, Robot movie again here where the robots took over humans because there was a glitch in the system. The biggest challenge is ethical AI, and CogX is on a mission to create a plan on cutting down issues and predicting the right future so that we don’t actually need to revive Will Smith from the dead in 100 years to save the human species. 

We, the PureVengers, think that AI is a great tool especially when it is used in mobile apps, whether retail or entertainment. But if you are embracing AI technologies and systems then you are relying on the type of data and excluding human emotions from it. What if someone tampers with the data that allows AI-backed devices to behave abnormally wrong? What if AI-backed systems shut down during a delivery? What if a hacker penetrates AI-backed technologies and spreads malware? These are some of the tough questions that need to be answered. 

On the other hand, AI customer service might not be empathetic towards customers as compared to a human employee. AI-driven systems work on a very specific set of rules and policies. Therefore we cannot say this for certain whether or not ethical AI is possible in the next decade or not. 

Let the CogX attendees figure that out. We will be watching from the sidelines, hoping that our children and grandchildren survive the robot apocalypse.