Author name: Nikki Keith

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear appeals from ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, which were asking to block California state labor lawsuits that seek back pay for tens of thousands of drivers. Without comment, the justices turned down appeals from both companies. At issue, they said, was the scope of the arbitration agreements between […]

Heath Evans really needed his Sonos speakers to work. He and his wife counted on one of the three wireless devices he owned to play music to help put their baby daughter to sleep. So, in May, when Sonos released a new controller app that was so riddled with problems he couldn’t get the speakers

With deepfake video and audio making their way into political campaigns, California enacted its toughest restrictions yet in September: a law prohibiting political ads within 120 days of an election that include deceptive, digitally generated or altered content unless the ads are labeled as “manipulated.” On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law, saying

Using an AI-powered app to create fake nude pictures of people without their consent violates all sorts of norms, especially when those people are minors. It would not, however, violate California law — yet. But soon it will. A pair of bills newly signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom outlaw the creation, possession and distribution of

SAN FRANCISCO — Backstage at one of the largest artificial intelligence conferences in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom listened to two leaders in the field debate opposite views of a high-profile bill on his desk to protect Californians from the technology. “Honestly, I take advantage of opportunities like this,” Newsom said recounting the exchange later during an

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed SB 1047, an artificial intelligence safety bill that would have established requirements for developers of advanced AI models to create protocols aimed at preventing catastrophes. The bill, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), would have required developers to submit their safety plans to the state attorney general,

Climate change has been viewed almost universally as a burden, a hot potato to be passed from country to country at annual climate change conferences. Although it’s widely known that climate-friendly solar and wind energy have become cheaper and easier to produce, most don’t realize that they are very likely to get even less expensive

Where Wilshire Boulevard begins in downtown Los Angeles, thousands of miles of undersea fiber-optic cables disappear into an ordinary-looking office tower. One Wilshire is the mother of all data centers in the West, a discreet terminus for major digital links between Asia and North America that help sustain the world’s bottomless need for data storage