PARIJS (ANP) - Tennisster Demi Schuurs heeft op Roland Garros de tweede ronde bereikt in het vrouwendubbelspel. Met haar Australische dubbelpartner Ellen Perez won de 32-jarige Nederlandse op het gravel in Parijs in twee sets van de Britse Katie Boulter en de Kazachse Joelia Poetintseva: 6-1 7-6 (5).
Schuurs is met Perez als zevende geplaatst in Parijs. Ze nemen het in de tweede ronde op tegen de winnaars van de partij tussen het Amerikaanse duo Sofia Kenin/Ashlyn Krueger en de Italiaanse Sara Errani en de Oostenrijkse Lilli Tagger.
Robin Haase, Sem Verbeek en Jean-Julien Rojer slaagden er met hun dubbelpartners niet in de tweede ronde van het mannendubbel te halen.
GAZA-STAD (ANP/AFP) - Door Israëlische aanvallen in de Gazastrook zijn zeker zeven doden gevallen, melden lokale autoriteiten. Vijf van hen stierven bij een aanval in het oosten van het gebied.
Volgens een getuige vond die aanval plaats nadat een groep gewapende mannen een woning in het vluchtelingenkamp in Maghazi was binnengedrongen. De aanval gebeurde toen omwonenden hen confronteerden, aldus de getuige. De groep zou daarna richting gebied onder Israëlische controle zijn gevlucht. Een ziekenhuis in het zuidelijke Khan Younis meldt twee doden na een Israëlische luchtaanval op een voertuig.
Israël zegt een aanval te hebben uitgevoerd op Hamas-kopstuk Mohammed Odeh. Hij nam een week geleden de leiding over de gewapende tak over, nadat zijn voorganger Ezzedine al-Haddad gedood was door Israël. Volgens het Israëlische leger speelden Al-Haddad en Odeh beiden een grote rol bij de aanval van 7 oktober 2023.
Staakt-het-vuren
Het is niet bekend of Odeh de aanval heeft overleefd.
Het geweld komt ondanks een staakt-het-vuren tussen Israël en Hamas sinds oktober vorig jaar. De partijen beschuldigen elkaar herhaaldelijk van schendingen. Volgens de Gazaanse autoriteiten zijn sindsdien zeker 906 Palestijnen gedood. In dezelfde periode zijn volgens de Israëlische krijgsmacht vijf militairen omgekomen.
This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding "anti-American," "anti-Christian," and "anti-capitalism" beliefs. [...]
"The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City," the report reads. [...]
"These intelligence reports are part of a long tradition of agencies identifying protest or even simply having strong opinions as precursors to violence," Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, tells WIRED. "Suspicious activity reports are incredibly unreliable, often about vague or innocent behavior, issued under permissive standards. These reports, often received in large volumes, allow officers to inject their own biases and see what they want to see in the facts."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously. 
Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical letter yesterday; it’s entitled Magnifica Humanitas Of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV On Safeguarding the Human Person In the Time of Artificial Intelligence. It is very long and I haven’t been able to read the whole thing; here’s a taste:
It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth.
You can replace “AI”, “tools”, and “systems” in that paragraph with “a certain sort of amoral tech billionaire like Musk, Andreessen, and Thiel” or “a data-driven business focused solely on maximizing shareholder value” and it’s no less true. (“It’s just business.”)
Simon Willison’s notes on the encyclical are interesting; he calls it “some of the clearest writing I’ve seen on the ethics of integrating AI into modern society”. I noted this part as well while skimming through:
For individuals as well as for nations, development is both a duty and a right. Minimum conditions are required for enabling every person and people to flourish in accord with their dignity, without being kept in a state of dependence or excluded from access to necessary goods. Development is truly human when it places people at the center instead of the accumulation of wealth, and when it concerns peoples as well as individuals. Justice demands the recognition of the rights of society and the rights of peoples, and includes a responsibility toward future generations. Development is not truly human if it increases consumption for some while shifting costs and burdens onto others, or relegates entire regions to subordinate roles, preventing them from realizing their full potential.
And:
The use of AI is never a purely technical matter: when it enters processes that affect people’s lives, it touches on rights, opportunities, status and freedom. Important and sensitive decisions — concerning employment, credit, access to public services or even a person’s reputation — risk being fully delegated to automated systems that do not know “compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and above all, the hope that people are able to change,” and can therefore give rise to new forms of exclusion.
The Catholic Church is the Catholic Church, but plain language with some real thought and tradition behind it is welcome in the AI discussion. As Tim Carmody says:
I’ve said it before but it’s something else to watch a gifted author (with a team of talented researchers) discuss AI with the weight of a 2000-year intellectual and moral tradition behind them, both reckoning with that tradition and trying to project far into the future. Very different from “how will this affect Nvidia’s stock price”.
And Chris Xu:
Skimmed the encyclical and was repeatedly struck by how shocking (good) it feels to read a coherent institutional vision / strategy for how to maneuver through These Times rooted in common sense and firm principles. We have been intellectually failed and starved by so many other institutions.
You can read the whole thing in English (and nine other languages) on the Holy See’s website or read a summary.
Tags: artificial intelligence · Pope Leo XIV · religion
Even weer een ongandige posje via deze weg: De route naar Museum Het Loo gaat via mijn spreekwoordelijk ouderlijke achtertuin, de Veluwe, op steenworp afstand hiervan. En aangezien je op hardlopen alleen niet kan leven, [Meer...]
Nvidia is retiring its classic Control Panel for GeForce Game Ready and Studio Driver users after 20 years, as it pushes users to a newer, more unified "NVIDIA" app. Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM first shared the news, commenting: "Nvidia seems to no long want you to have control over your own video card that you paid your hard-earned money for? WTF!?" VideoCardz.com reports: Existing Control Panel installs will remain on users' systems. NVIDIA says the old panel will only disappear after a clean driver installation. Users who still need it can continue to download it from the Microsoft Store, but NVIDIA will no longer add new features, fixes, or other changes.
The retirement currently applies to Game Ready and Studio Drivers. NVIDIA RTX PRO users will continue to receive Control Panel support until the company moves professional features to the NVIDIA app. For GeForce users, NVIDIA says the app now includes the modern functionality previously available through Control Panel. [...] The classic panel is therefore not being removed from every system overnight. It is being moved into maintenance mode for GeForce users...
The retirement currently applies to Game Ready and Studio Drivers. NVIDIA RTX PRO users will continue to receive Control Panel support until the company moves professional features to the NVIDIA app. For GeForce users, NVIDIA says the app now includes the modern functionality previously available through Control Panel. [...] The classic panel is therefore not being removed from every system overnight. It is being moved into maintenance mode for GeForce users...
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The kids are alright. Open source operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD may soon be exempt from California’s app and OS age verification requirements. Last October, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) into law, which establishes age verification obligations for operating system providers, covered app stores, and application developers. Those distributing operating systems must provide "an accessible interface at account setup" for the user to indicate birth date, age, or both. The act, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Senator Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), aims to protect children from online risks such as cyberbullying, sextortion, and mental health harms. It takes effect January 1, 2027. After AB 1043 was signed, Wicks in February introduced AB 1856 as an amendment to the law. Several changes have been made to the bill since then, the most salient for open source projects being the version published on May 18, 2026. That version includes the following additional language that creates an open source carve-out: (2) "Operating system provider" does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software. So if the proposed amendment gets approved, Linux vendors should be off the hook for implementing age checks upon distro installation and launch. Whether that will apply to companies like Valve, which ships its proprietary Steam Client with its Linux-based SteamOS, isn't clear. MidnightBSD in February briefly included a clause in its license that banned California residents from using the operating system. But the following month, project developers set about exploring an age verification mechanism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been critical of AB 1043 for outsourcing censorship to app developers. Such rules harm "users' and developers' right to free expression, their digital liberties, privacy, and ability to create and use open platforms," the advocacy group said in March. "It also, perversely, entrenches the dominance of major operating system developers and device makers." At least 25 state age verification laws have already been enacted, and a West Virginia age verification law is scheduled to take effect next month. Colorado lawmakers have approved a state age verification bill that currently awaits approval from the governor. According to Carl Richell, founder and CEO of Linux laptop maker System76, it includes exemptions for open source operating systems, applications, code repos, and containers. In an SSRN paper released earlier this month, George S. Ford, chief economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a free-market think tank, expressed skepticism about the utility and cost of age verification laws. "The effectiveness of these laws at protecting minors is questionable, as motivated teenagers – who already use VPNs to bypass school filters – can easily circumvent age restrictions," he wrote, adding such laws will certainly impinge upon the First Amendment rights of adults by unduly burdening speech. Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman on Monday published a blog post looking at the impact age verification has on website traffic – the balk rate or refusal rate. The rate varies but for some sites like Pornhub, it can be as high as 99 percent. Citing the Supreme Court’s assertion in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton that “adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification,” Goldman argued that courts may not treat high balk rates as constitutionally significant, even if credential checks make online movement more constrained and costly. "[W]hoever is doing the centralized authentication won't do it for free," Goldman writes. "A small number of entities are poised to extract monopoly rents by taking a cut of this government mandated process." In 2021, the Age Verification Providers Association estimated that within the next 10-15 years, annual revenues from selling age verification services to OECD countries would reach about $11.4 billion (£9.8 billion). And that was before the US states began implementing age verification laws. ®
