United Nations — The U.N. General Assembly adopted by consensus Thursday a first-of-its-kind resolution addressing the potential of artificial intelligence to accelerate progress toward sustainable development, while emphasizing the need for safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems.

The initiative, led by the United States, seeks to manage AI’s risks while utilizing its benefits.

“Today as the U.N. and AI finally intersect, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to choose as one united global community to govern this technology rather than to let it govern us,” said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “So let us reaffirm that AI will be created and deployed through the lens of humanity and dignity, safety and security, human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The Biden administration said it took more than three months to negotiate what it characterized as a “baseline set of principles” around AI, engaging with 120 countries and incorporating feedback from many of them, including China, which was one of the 123 co-sponsors of the text.

While General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, they reflect the political consensus of the international community.

The resolution recognizes the disparities in technological development between developed and developing countries and stresses the need to bridge the digital divide so everyone can equitably access the benefits of AI.

It also outlines measures for responsible AI governance, including the development of regulatory frameworks, capacity building initiatives and support for research and innovation. The resolution encourages international collaboration to address the evolving challenges and opportunities AI technologies pose, with a focus on advancing sustainable development goals.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed adoption of the resolution, saying all nations must be guided by a common set of understandings on the use of AI systems.

“Too often, in past technological revolutions, the benefits have not been shared equitably, and the harms have been felt by a disproportionate few,” she said in a statement. “This resolution establishes a path forward on AI where every country can both seize the promise and manage the risks of AI.”

At the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzerland, in January, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern about the risk of unintended consequences with “every new iteration of generative AI.” He said it has “enormous potential” for sustainable development but also the potential to worsen inequality.

“And some powerful tech companies are already pursuing profits with a clear disregard for human rights, personal privacy and social impact,” he said at the time.

The U.N. chief created an AI advisory body last year, and it will publish its final report ahead of the U.N.’s Summit of the Future in September.
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NEW YORK — Reddit soared in its Wall Street debut as investors pushed the valued of the company close to $9 billion seconds after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reddit, which priced its IPO at $34 a share, debuted Thursday afternoon at $47 a share. The going price has climbed even higher since, with shares for the self-anointed “front page of the internet” soaring more than 55% as of around 1:20 p.m. ET.

The IPO will test the quirky company’s ability to overcome a nearly 20-year history colored by uninterrupted losses, management turmoil and occasional user backlashes to build a sustainable business.

“The supply is pretty limited and there’s strong demand, so my sense is that this is going to be a hot IPO,” Reena Aggarwal, director of Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, said ahead of Reddit’s trading Thursday. “The good news for Reddit is it’s a hot market.”

Still, she also anticipates Reddit’s IPO to be volatile. Even with a sizeable “pop,” it’s possible that some might sell their shares to reap their gains soon after, potentially causing prices to drift.

The interest surrounding Reddit stems largely from a large audience that religiously visits the service to discuss a potpourri of subjects that range from silly memes to existential worries, as well as get recommendations from like-minded people.

About 76 million users checked into one of Reddit’s roughly 100,000 communities in December, according to the regulatory disclosures required before the San Francisco company goes public. Reddit set aside up to 1.76 million of 15.3 million shares being offered in the IPO for users of its service.

Per the usual IPO custom, the remaining shares are expected to be bought primarily by mutual funds and other institutional investors betting Reddit is ready for prime time in finance.

Reddit’s moneymaking potential also has attracted some prominent supporters, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who accumulated a stake as an early investor that has made him one of the company’s biggest shareholders. Altman owns 12.2 million shares of Reddit stock, according to the company’s IPO disclosures.

Other early investors in Reddit have included PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Academy Award-winning actor Jared Leto and rapper Snoop Dogg. None of them are listed among Reddit’s largest shareholders heading into the IPO.

By the tech industry’s standards, Reddit remains extraordinarily small for a company that has been around as long as it has.

Reddit has never profited from its broad reach while piling up cumulative losses of $717 million. That number has swollen from cumulative losses of $467 million in December 2021 when the company first filed papers to go public before aborting that attempt.

In the recent documents filed for its revived IPO, Reddit attributed the losses to a fairly recent focus on finding new ways to boost revenue.

Not long after it was born, Reddit was sold to magazine publisher Conde Nast for $10 million in deal that meant the company didn’t need to run as a standalone business. Even after Conde Nast parent Advance Magazine Publishers spun off Reddit in 2011, the company said in its IPO filing that it didn’t begin to focus on generating revenue until 2018.

Those efforts, mostly centered around selling ads, have helped the social platform increase its annual revenue from $229 million in 2020 to $804 million last year. But the San Francisco-based company also posted combined losses of $436 million from 2020 through 2023.

Reddit outlined a strategy in its filing calling for even more ad sales on a service that it believes companies will be a powerful marketing magnet because so many people search for product recommendations there.

The company also is hoping to bring in more money by licensing access to its content in deals similar to the $60 million that Google recently struck to help train its artificial intelligence models. That ambition, though, faced an almost immediate challenge when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into the arrangement.

Since Thursday just marks Reddit’s first day on the public market, Aggarwal stresses that the first key measure of success will boil down to the company’s next earnings call.

“As a public company now they have to report a lot more … in the next earnings release,” she said. “I’m sure the market will watch that carefully.”

Reddit also experienced tumultuous bouts of instability in leadership that may scare off prospective investors. Company co-founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian — also the husband of tennis superstar Serena Williams — both left Reddit in 2009 while Conde Nast was still in control, only to return years later.

Huffman, 40, is now CEO, but how he got the job serves as a reminder of how messy things can get at Reddit. The change in command occurred in 2015 after Ellen Pao resigned as CEO amid a nasty user backlash to the banning of several communities and the firing of Reddit’s talent director. Even though Ohanian said he was primarily responsible for the firing and the bans, Pao was hit with most of the vitriol.

Although his founder’s letter leading up to this IPO didn’t mention it, Huffman touched upon the company’s past turmoil in another missive included in a December 2021 filing attempt that was subsequently canceled.

“We lived these challenges publicly and have the scars, learnings, and policy updates to prove it,” Huffman wrote in 2021. “Our history influences our future. There will undoubtedly be more challenges to come.”
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Washington — The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued Apple, the first major antitrust effort against the iPhone maker by the Biden administration, alleging it monopolized smartphone markets.  

Apple joins a list of major tech companies sued by U.S. regulators, including Alphabet’s  Google, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com across the administrations of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies violate the antitrust laws,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.”

The Justice Department alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants.

The civil lawsuit accuses Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers.

Apple has already been subject to antitrust probes and orders in Europe, Japan and Korea, as well as lawsuits from corporate rivals such as Epic Games.  

One of Apple’s most lucrative businesses – its App Store, which charges developers commissions of up to 30% – has already survived a lengthy legal challenge under U.S. law by Epic. While the lawsuit found that Apple did not violate antitrust laws, a federal judge ordered Apple to allow links and buttons to pay for apps without using Apple’s in-app payment commission.

In Europe, Apple’s App Store business model has been dismantled by a new law called the Digital Markets Act that went into effect earlier this month. Apple plans to let developers offer their own app stores – and, importantly, pay no commissions – but rivals such as Spotify and Epic argue Apple is still making it too hard to offer alternative app stores.

The rulings on Apple’s App Store forced the Justice Department to look at Apple’s other practices for the basis of a complaint, such as how Apple allows outside firms to access the chips and sensors in the iPhone.

Consumer hardware firms, such as smart-tracker maker Tile Inc, have long complained that Apple has restricted the ways in which they can work with the iPhone’s sensors while developing competing products that have greater access.  

Apple began selling AirTags – which can be attached to items like car keys to help users find them when they are lost – several years after Tile had been selling a similar product.

Similarly, Apple has restricted access to a chip in the iPhone that allows for contactless payments. Credit cards can only be added to the iPhone by using Apple’s own Apple Pay service.  

And Apple has also faced criticism over its iMessage service, which only works on Apple devices.

Apple has long argued that it restricts access to some user data and some of the iPhone’s hardware by third-party developers for privacy and security reasons.
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New York — President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday revised pollution standards for cars and trucks meant to accelerate the U.S. auto industry’s shift to electric to mitigate climate change.

The rules set ambitious emission reductions for 2032 but are moderated somewhat compared with preliminary standards unveiled last April. Following carmaker criticism, the final rules give manufacturers greater flexibility and ease the benchmarks in the first three years.

Those shifts were criticized as a sop to corporations from at least one environmental group, even as the final rule won praise from other leading NGOs focused on climate change.

The final rules — which were described by administration official as “the strongest ever” and would likely be undone if Republican Donald Trump defeats Biden in November — still require a nearly 50% drop in fleet-wide emissions in 2032 compared with 2026 through increased sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and low-emission autos.

The rules, which dovetail with other key Biden programs to build more EV charging stations and manufacturing facilities and incentivize EV sales, establish the environment as a significant point of difference in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump has mocked climate change as a problem and cast the transition to EVs as a job-killer that will benefit China at the expense of American workers.

Biden argues that U.S. auto builders need to take the lead in the expanding EV market.

“I brought together American automakers. I brought together American autoworkers,” said Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress.”

Alluding to his target set three years ago that 50% of new vehicles in 2030 would be EVs, Biden predicted “we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”

EVs accounted for 7.6% in 2023 sales, up from 5.9% in 2022, according to Cox Automotive.

The original proposal had envisioned the EV share surging to as much as 67% of new vehicle sales by 2032.

Carmakers, which are midway through sweeping, multi-billion-dollar investments to build more EV capacity, criticized the initial standards as overly-stringent. They cited the limited state of charging capacity in the United States that has dampened consumer demand, as well as difficulties in supply of metals and other raw materials for EV batteries.

Following input from the auto industry, organized labor and auto dealerships, Biden administration officials decided to allow manufacturers a “variety of pathways” to reaching the standard, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.

This path could include a mix of EVs, conventional but more fuel-efficient engines, and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which have seen a rise in demand of late.

Biden administration officials opted to soften year-to-year emissions improvements in the 2027-2030 period, while maintaining the same target in 2032.

Moderating the targets in these first three years “was the right call,” said John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a Washington lobby representing carmakers.

“These adjusted EV targets — still a stretch goal — should give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up,” said Bozzella, adding that the extra time will allow more EV charging stations to come on-line.

The final standards set a fleet-wide target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide in 2032, down from 170 in 2027, according to an administration fact sheet.

Wednesday’s initiative won praise from leading environmental groups including the Sierra Club and NRDC, which said the new rules “take us in the right direction,” according to a statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council chief Manish Bapna.

But Dan Becker, director of the climate transport campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, slammed the adjusted rules as “significantly weaker.”

“The EPA caved to pressure from Big Auto, Big Oil and car dealers and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” Becker said.

“The weaker rule means cars and pickups spew more pollution, oil companies keep socking consumers at the pump, and automakers keep wielding well-practiced delay tactics.”
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Washington — The initial backlash came quickly.

Within hours of last week’s vote in the House of Representatives approving legislation that could lead to a ban of the popular TikTok app in the United States, anger and outrage poured onto multiple social media platforms.

Some of the anger targeted U.S. lawmakers who supported the bill. Some focused on China.

And a number of social media accounts, some with large followings, put the blame on Israel and pro-Jewish groups in the United States.

“A foreign government is influencing the 2024 election,” Briahna Joy Gray posted on X.

“I’m not talking about China, but Israel,” added the former national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

Jake Shields, a former mixed martial arts fighter who has used social media in the past to share his views on transgender issues, blamed the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

“The ADL said Tiktok Is a threat to Israel,” Shields posted on X. “AIPAC the Israeli lobby gave Dan Crebsahaw [sic] millions of dollars Now Crenshaw fights to ban TikTok.”

And journalist Glenn Greenwald said on X that the TikTok legislation gained momentum only after “Bipartisan DC became enraged so many Americans were allowed to criticize Israel” using the TikTok app.

Other posts and videos were quickly shared across other major platforms, including TikTok and Facebook.

U.S. officials contacted by VOA said the rush by some social media users to blame Israel or Jewish groups was not a surprise.

“Unfortunately, there are antisemitic people in America who will blame Israel and the Jewish people for anything, even Congress banning a Chinese-controlled app,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement to VOA.

“Their love for TikTok is no coincidence; it’s a tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to sow division and weaken our nation,” said Rubio, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a supporter of the legislation. “We can debate Middle East policy, but we must not tolerate hate or allow Communist China to manipulate our discourse.”

The FBI, which has warned repeatedly over the last several months both about the danger of TikTok and about a rising tide of antisemitism across the country, declined to comment, pointing to comments made by Director Christopher Wray at congressional hearings earlier this month.

“Americans need to ask themselves whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control access to their data, whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control the information they get through their recommendation algorithm,” Wray told House lawmakers during the annual Worldwide Threats hearing last week.

“When it comes to the algorithm and the recommendation algorithm and the ability to conduct influence operations, that is extraordinarily difficult to detect,” Wray added.

Researchers who track influence operations on social media, while wary, tell VOA that they have yet to see evidence that the spread of conspiracy theories blaming Israel or Jewish groups for the TikTok legislation is part of a concerted campaign.

“The period after 10/7 [Hamas terror attack on Israel] made clear that antisemitic conspiracies can spread rapidly across TikTok just by the nature of the platform’s algorithm, so no external coordination would be required as an explanation,” said Ben Dubow, president of Washington-based Omelas, which uses a combination of data collection, artificial intelligence and experts to track and analyze online disinformation and influence operations.

Dubow did not rule out the possibility that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, could be giving the anti-Israel and antisemitic posts more play if the Chinese government thought it might be helpful.

“The scant research available on TikTok’s algorithm often suggests ByteDance privileges content favorable to CCP [Chinese Communist Party] policy goals,” he said.

Omelas also found the conspiracy theories received some attention from other media outlets, including Russia-controlled RT and Qatar-based Al Jazeera.

“We’re seeing a few posts from RT and Al Jazeera tying the renewed push for a ban to TikTok’s role in the spread of ‘anti-Zionism’ in response to October 7,” Dubow said. “But none tying it explicitly to AIPAC and ADL.”

Geoff Roth, a professor of practice and journalism at the University of Houston, agreed the surge of social media posts echoing the Israel-TikTok narrative appeared to be “more organic.”

“The Israel conspiracy theory, as I like to put it, just seems to be coming from people who in general post stuff that is anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian,” he told VOA.

“It comes from different sides of the political spectrum,” Roth said. “But I think there’s people on both sides of the political spectrum that have a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment because of what’s going on in Gaza.”

Roth also noted that the theory tying the TikTok legislation to Israel and Jewish groups, while possibly the most prominent, is not the only narrative that gained traction following the bill’s passage in the House.

“There’s the narrative of security and concerns about the [Chinese]Communist Party and whether or not that [the legislation] is justified,” he said. “And then sort of the more far out things out there like, this is a Republican plot to get younger voters to be against Biden because if Biden signed it into law, he’s going to lose votes from younger people.”

One account on X pushing the Republican plot theory called the TikTok legislation “another trick.”

A second X account added, “I’d wager Republicans who just voted for a TikTok Ban will rename it the ‘Biden Ban the moment he signs it and within weeks that will be the official name and all anyone remembers.”

 
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washington — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill March 13 that, if enacted into law, would give ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the TikTok social media app, 180 days to divest its U.S. assets or face a ban over concerns about national security, including Beijing’s ability to access Americans’ private information through the company

ByteDance denies it would provide such private data to the Chinese government, despite reports indicating such information could be at risk.

VOA sat down on the day the bill passed with Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs, and co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, to hear why he supported the bill and why he’s calling for faster military support for Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Congress’ enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, which outlines nondiplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in the wake of formal U.S. recognition of Beijing as the government of China. The act states that the U.S. must provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: The House just passed a bill that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok. Did you support this bill?

U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart: I absolutely did. … It has strong bipartisan support. And there’s also been a lot of misinformation about it. People say that it’s to ban TikTok. No, it’s basically saying you have to divest from, in essence, being controlled by the Communist Party of China.

We would have never allowed, during the Soviet empire, the Soviet Union to control, to own, one of the major networks in the United States – ABC, NBC, CBS. Why? Because it’s a threat to national security. In this case, it’s even more dramatic because they [the Chinese] have access not only to getting into people’s homes, but to actually get information from the American people. And they’ve been pretty good and very aggressive at doing that. And so TikTok needs to be divested. That’s the least that we should be requiring, and if so, then they can continue to function. But we cannot allow for this to function, getting information from the American people to an entity that is in essence a subsidiary of the Communist Party of China.

VOA: It is a consensus in Washington that if China invaded Taiwan, it would trigger a domino effect that could be catastrophic for the U.S. What are the most important actions the U.S. can take right now to prevent that from happening?

Diaz-Balart: The key is to avoid China doing something stupid, to avoid China being irresponsible in trying to intervene militarily with Taiwan. … And the way to do that is to make sure that Taiwan has the weaponry, everything it needs, so that China understands that trying to invade Taiwan is a very, very bad proposition.

VOA: The Biden administration last month approved a package of military equipment sales to Taiwan. Some analysts are worried this may not be sufficient to counter China’s aggression in the region. Do you think military sales to Taiwan are sufficient?

Diaz-Balart: I think military sales to Taiwan have to be done quicker. We have to be more aggressive … not only, obviously, directly, to help send the weaponry, sell the weaponry, and send the weaponry to Taiwan, but we also have to keep up with our defense spending domestically to keep the military industrial base alive and, well, with what we’ve seen, for example, going on Ukraine, [that] has demonstrated that we’re not where we need to be as far as our industrial base.

VOA: You visited Taiwan in January right after its election. What is your key takeaway from that trip?

Diaz-Balart: Taiwan is a very vigorous democracy. The press is very aggressive. That’s a good thing. … We made a point of obviously visiting with the president and the vice president-elect, also with the outgoing president. But we also met with the leadership of the other two parties, because it’s important to demonstrate that we cherish and that we love democracy and freedom. Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy.

VOA: It is the bipartisan consensus to see China as one of the biggest geopolitical challenges for the U.S. in the coming decades. What should be the top priority the U.S. should tackle right now with China?

Diaz-Balart: We have to be a little bit more serious about understanding that China is a very dangerous player in the world. It is the largest fascist dictatorship on the planet, and the wealthiest fascist dictatorship on the planet. It has very ambitious goals. It has, you know, we see the cyberattacks that have taken place in this country that we know have come from Communist China. We also know that there have been thousands upon thousands of men, military-age males, coming from China across the southern border, which should frankly frighten all of us. …

That means utilizing every diplomatic and economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is: a growing threat to the United States and to the world. And you see, for example, in the region, how countries are very concerned about China’s aggressiveness, whether it’s the Philippines or India or even Vietnam. So there’s a growing concern in the world about this aggressive attitude of China. But we need to take real steps to confront that in a way to avoid war.

VOA: You’re also the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs. What kind of role would you like to see U.S. international broadcasting agencies like Voice of America play in countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda?

Diaz-Balart: The Voice of America has been a key player for decades in that cause of freedom and in getting real news, real information to people who don’t have access to it because of censorship. And so I’ve always been a strong supporter of it because of that. I think information is key. The first thing that happens in a dictatorship is that they close the ability for people to get real information, to get real news. And if we can be helpful to have people around the world get real information, real news, not only about what happens around the world but also what even happens in their own country, I think that is a service to humanity.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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After the Apollo program ended, the US took a long hiatus from lunar exploration. What happened during this time, and what has NASA been doing? This documentary by the Voice of America’s Russian service explores the multiple attempts to return to the Moon, the space developments that laid the foundation for future concepts, and the birth of the Artemis lunar program.
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Washington — The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Monday in a social media case involving free speech rights and government efforts to curb misinformation online.

The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to get platforms to combat vaccine and election misinformation.

A lower court last year restricted some top officials and agencies of President Joe Biden’s administration from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content.

The ruling was a win for conservative advocates who allege that the government pressured or colluded with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor right-leaning content under the guise of fighting misinformation.

The order applied to a slew of agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and Justice Department as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The decision restricted agencies and officials from meeting with social media companies or flagging posts containing “free speech” protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry hailed the “historic injunction” at the time, saying it would prevent the Biden administration from “censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.

He accused federal officials of seeking to “dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”

The order could seriously limit top government agencies from notifying the platforms about false or hateful content that can lead to harmful consequences.

But the ruling said that the government could still inform them about posts involving criminal activity, national security threats and foreign attempts to influence elections.

In addition to communications with social media companies, the ruling also restricted agencies from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering” with groups such as the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of research institutions that tackle election-related falsehoods.

Some experts in misinformation and First Amendment law criticized the ruling, saying authorities needed to strike a balance between calling out falsehoods and veering towards censorship or curbing free speech.
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