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Google has announced that its apps and services will now be “passwordless by default” in an effort to make all users switch to passkeys. The move is part of a broader consensus among the tech industry to ditch passwords, which have been around since the 1960s, and switch to a safer and more efficient format to verify a person’s identity. Passkeys combine a code with biometric information like a fingerprint or facial recognition, making them easier to remember and harder to be stolen. Google apps like YouTube, Search and Maps all support the new format after it was first introduced earlier this year, though take up has been slower than expected. The tech giant said the push to get users to adopt passkeys coincided with Cybersecurity Awareness Month, claiming that the new technology is faster and more secure. “They are 40 per cent faster than passwords – and rely on a type of cryptography that makes them more secure,” Google product managers Sriram Karra and Christiaan Brand wrote in a blog post explaining the move. “We’ll continue encouraging the industry to make the pivot to passkeys – making passwords a rarity, and eventually obsolete.” Google users who do not already use passkeys will receive a prompt to set one up the next time they sign into their account. Passkeys have already been enabled by other online platforms, including eBay and Uber, as the tech industry looks to completely transition away from traditional passwords. “We’ve seen great results from launching passkeys across our apps and encourage all users to adopt passkeys,” said Ramsin Betyyousef, a senior director of engineering at Uber. “Ultimately this is a win-win for Uber and Uber’s customers.” Google, which counts billions of users across all of its platforms, acknowledged that “new technologies take time to catch on”, and have therefore given people the option to temporarily opt out of passkeys and use passwords wherever possible. The company did not set a date for when passwords will be phased out entirely, but some security experts contend that their death is inevitable while hackers continue to exploit their vulnerability. Helping implement the transition is the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) Alliance, which has been working with Apple, Google, Microsoft and hundreds of tech companies to develop the new login standard. “The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives,” said Alex Simons, who heads Microsof’s Identity Program Management team. “By working together as a community across platforms, we can at last achieve this vision and make significant progress toward eliminating passwords.” Read More Pixel 8: Google unveils ‘AI-centred’ iPhone rival Google to trial AI in UK traffic light systems to reduce stop-and-go emissions Pixel 8: Google unveils DeepMind-powered iPhone rival China’s discovery of never-before-seen ore could propel battery technology

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OpenAI, the AI firm behind ChatGPT, has warned that the arrival of artificial intelligence that surpasses humans is unavoidable. Artificial general intelligence, also known as superintelligence, has been theorised by philosophers and academics for decades, though rapid advances in recent years mean we may now be on the cusp of it, senior figures within OpenAI warned. In a blog post published on Wednesday, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever said that AI superintelligence will be unprecedented in its power – both positive and negative. “Given the picture as we see it now, it’s conceivable that within the next ten years, AI systems will exceed expert skill level in most domains, and carry out as much productive activity as one of today’s largest corporations,” the post stated. “In terms of both potential upsides and downsides, superintelligence will be more powerful than other technologies humanity has had to contend with in the past.” OpenAI laid out three ways humanity can navigate the arrival of superintelligence, though warned lawmakers and regulators against trying to stop it. “We believe it would unintuitively risky and difficult to stop the creation of superintelligence,” the post warned. “Because the upsides are so tremendous, the cost to build it decreases each year, the number of actors building it is rapidly increasing, and it’s inherently part of the technological path we are on, stopping it would require something like a global surveillance regime, and even that isn’t guaranteed to work. So we have to get it right.” Mr Altman appeared before a congressional hearing last week to face questions from US senators about the risks that advanced artificial intelligence poses. The 38-year-old told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law that he believed AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT were a “significant area of concern” and required rules and guidelines to prevent misuse. “There’s no way to put this genie in the bottle. Globally, this is exploding,” Democratic Senator Cory Booker acknowledged. One potential way to prevent AI harms like election manipulation would be by introducing licensing and testing requirements for the development of AI, Mr Altman said. One possibility, according to OpenAI, is through the creation of a US licensing agency for AI called the Office for AI Safety and Infrastructure Security (Oasis). Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity

More than a half-dozen leading tech CEOs will be among those attending a highly anticipated artificial intelligence event hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer next month, according to the senator's office.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 25, 2023--