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Saturday 18 November 2017 TECHNOLOGY
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Federal “extreme vetting” plan castigated by tech experts

By MATT O’BRIEN migrant from Uzbekistan
AP Technology Writer named Sayfullo Saipov,
Leading researchers casti- used to enter the country
gated a federal plan that in 2010.
would use artificial intel- Trump has made repeated
ligence methods to scru- attempts to restrict entry
tinize immigrants and visa into the U.S. through sever-
applicants, saying it is un- al iterations of a travel ban,
workable as written and all of which have received
likely to be “inaccurate a tough reception in the
and biased” if deployed. courts.
The experts, a group of VETTING EXTREME VETTING
more than 50 computer The technology experts,
and data scientists, math- who hail from both aca-
ematicians and other spe- demia and big tech firms
cialists in automated de- such as Google and Micro-
cision-making, urged the soft, warned that current AI
Department of Homeland methods aren’t capable
Security to abandon the of evaluating the traits that
project, dubbed the “Ex- the government seeks to
treme Vetting Initiative.” measure.
That plan has its roots in “Neither the federal gov-
President Donald Trump’s ernment nor anyone else
repeated pledge during has defined, much less at-
the 2016 campaign to sub- In this Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic tempted to quantify, these
ject immigrants seeking ad- Reception Room of the White House, in Washington. characteristics,” the tech-
mission to the United States Associated Press nologists wrote.
to more intense ideological of society.” to keep monitoring those information from industry “Algorithms designed to
scrutiny — or, as he put it, In a joint letter to DHS on sources. professionals and other predict these undefined
“extreme vetting .” Thursday, the dissenting re- This contractor would be government agencies on qualities could be used to
Over the summer, DHS pub- searchers called that ap- expected to generate at current technological ca- arbitrarily flag groups of im-
lished a “statement of ob- proach “neither appropri- least 10,000 investigative pabilities.” migrants under a veneer of
jectives “ for a system that ate nor feasible.” leads a year that would But there’s been pressure objectivity.”
would use computer algo- BACKGROUND OF THE be forwarded to federal from the White House to Among the problems is that
rithms to scan social media PLAN agents, according to the implement strict measures unlike algorithms that mine
and other material in order In the document, the of- document. quickly. the traditional criminal jus-
to automatically flag unde- fice of U.S. Immigration and ICE’s public presenta- Hours after the deadly Oct. tice system, where there’s
sirable entrants — and to Customs Enforcement said tions to interested vendors 31 truck attack in New York no shortage of cases, the
continuously scan the ac- it was seeking a contractor haven’t been updated City, Trump said on Twitter pool of data that could
tivities of those allowed into to automate background since August, raising the that he “ordered Home- help predict terrorist lean-
the U.S. checks of foreigners seek- possibility that the agency land Security to step up our ings is tiny.
The goal, that document ing temporary or perma- might have scrapped or already Extreme Vetting “In the national security
stated, was to let comput- nent entry to the U.S. It out- significantly altered the Program. context it’s much harder
ers help determine whether lined plans for mining Face- plan since then. ICE played Being politically correct is to investigate the problem
an immigrant “intends to book, Twitter, LinkedIn, ac- down the significance of fine, but not for this!” Trump because you have a cou-
commit criminal or terrorist ademic websites and other its summer outreach to also called for Congress ple cases a year,” said UC
acts,” as well as their likeli- publicly-available internet contractors in a statement to repeal the diversity visa Berkeley postdoctoral re-
hood of becoming a “posi- data, then using AI tech- Thursday, saying it was lottery program that the searcher Joshua Kroll, who
tively contributing member niques to analyze it and “an opportunity to gather suspected attacker, an im- signed the letter.q

Federal “extreme vetting” plan castigated by tech experts

By TOM KRISHER kets, closing down 14 cents market. electric vehicles. vehicles without a driver
AP Auto Writer to $42.86. — GM plans to reduce — The company expects is coming in “quarters not
DETROIT (AP) — General Here are more details from electric vehicle manufac- to spread costs over more years,” but gave no exact
Motors is telling investors its Barra’s presentation to in- turing and development electric vehicles. GM now time frame.
next generation of electric vestors: costs by integrating the sells fewer than 50,000 — Barra says GM generates
vehicles will cost the com- — She expects to cut bat- battery into the vehicle electric vehicles worldwide enough capital to finance
pany 30 percent less than tery cell cost from $145 structure and by building but predicts that will rise to electric and autonomous
current ones, making them per kilowatt hour of elec- multiple vehicles including near 1 million by 2026. vehicle research as well as
profitable after the new tricity to under $100 in four SUVs and luxury cars off the — Barra says GM, through traditional vehicles.q
version debuts in 2021. years, yet produce a range same electric underpin- its Cruise Automation unit,
CEO Mary Barra made the of over 300 miles because nings. is moving quickly to devel-
forecast at the Barclay’s batteries will store more en- — GM has pledged to roll op autonomous vehicles so
Global Automotive Con- ergy. Currently the Chev- out 20 new zero-emissions the company can capital-
ference in New York on rolet Bolt electric car can vehicles by 2023, with two ize on the “biggest business
Wednesday. Despite the go up to 238 miles on a new ones coming in 18 opportunity since the cre-
announcement, GM shares single charge, among the months. Currently most au- ation of the internet.”
fell with the broader mar- longest-range EVs on the tomakers lose money on — She says deployment of