Biden Warns of AI Risk President Joe Biden used a key portion of his final speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to warn the world about the danger of unchecked development of artificial intelligence. He warned of AI’s use in creating “profound risks, from deepfakes to disinformation, to novel pathogens, to bioweapons.”

“We’ll see more technological change, I argue, in the next two to 10 years [than] we have in the last 50 years,” Biden said. “Artificial intelligence is going to change our ways of life, our ways of work, and our ways of war,” he added.

Biden’s warning comes at a time of heightened international tension, with wars raging in eastern Europe and the Middle East and threatening to erupt in the Indo-Pacific. Authoritarian countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have all sought to leverage AI to augment their efforts to destabilize the United States and its allies in the cyber realm. Read the full story here›

Monopoly Charges The Justice Department sued Visa for allegedly stifling competition in the market for debit card payments. A complaint filed in the Southern District of New York on Sept. 24 alleged that the credit card giant violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The complaint quoted Visa’s former chief financial officer saying: “Everybody is a friend and partner. Nobody is a competitor.” It stated that “more than 60% of debit transactions run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge $7 billion in fees each year,” and alleged that Visa penalized disloyalty among merchants and incentivized cooperation from competitors.

Visa General Counsel Julie Rottenberg described the lawsuit as “meritless” in a statement provided to The Epoch Times. “Today’s lawsuit ignores the reality that Visa is just one of many competitors in a debit space that is growing, with entrants who are thriving,” Rottenberg said. Read the full story here›

Crypto Reckoning A federal judge sentenced former crypto executive Caroline Ellison to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit around $11 billion for her role in the FTX fraud scandal.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down the sentence to Ellison, who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research, FTX’s companion hedge fund operated by Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend. Ellison pleaded guilty in 2022 to seven counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, in connection with the collapse of FTX, one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Facing the prospect of up to 110 years behind bars, Ellison cooperated with prosecutors and was a key witness during the trial against Bankman-Fried, who was earlier found guilty of defrauding FTX customers out of some $8 billion and sentenced to 25 years in prison. In court on Friday, Ellison expressed contrition for her actions, saying she wanted to apologize to investors, lenders, and victims who lost money as a result of her actions. Read the full story here›

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