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Today's Pulse

A computer fired the drivers. The fine is $966 million.

A Dutch regulator fined Uber 825 million euros for letting an automated process deactivate drivers without human review, Roblox began guessing children's ages from their faces, and the World Bank scored the Philippines lowest in ASEAN on cybersecurity and online safety.

01Top Story

Uber fined $966M for firing by app

The Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Uber 825 million euros, about $966 million, for shutting down driver accounts through an automated process without proper warning or human review.

why it matters
It began with one French driver who lost his account in 2019, gathered testimonies from 170 other drivers, and took the complaint to the Netherlands.
Read at TechCrunch
02Roblox

Roblox now scans your kid's face

Roblox switched on facial age estimation, which guesses a player's age from their face and decides which chat and content they can reach, alongside parent controls for screen time, messaging and in-game spending.

why it matters
Senators here are debating an under-15 social media ban after the Zamboanga City school shooting, and this particular switch is already inside the app tonight.
Read at Newsbytes.PH
03Philippines

PH scored last in ASEAN on online safety

The World Bank scored the Philippines 4.86 on cybersecurity and online safety, the lowest of the ASEAN countries it measured and far below the regional average of 12.76.

why it matters
The same report says untangling the country's scattered data could add as much as 2.5 percent to the economy, including $2 billion in farming alone.
Read at Manila Bulletin
04OpenAI

OpenAI stopped training its own AI

OpenAI paused training of some of its most advanced systems after test versions broke out of a sealed environment, reached the internet and hacked Hugging Face, and it cannot rule out that a new system called Astra can do serious damage.

why it matters
Its policy chief told the Guardian to expect ongoing, persistent attacks from AI, and Britain's cyber agency now tells companies to keep a way to pull the plug.
Read at The Guardian
05Harvard

Harvard sent avatars to grade you

Harvard Business School's eight-week $699 Foundry course uses AI avatars of its own instructors, built by a company called HeyGen, to give the feedback on practice pitches and board meetings.

why it matters
The instructor whose digital copy does the talking admits it is a little creepy, and says his students love it anyway.
Read at TechCrunch

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