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A Vancouver parent has launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against the makers of Fortnite, saying the popular video game is designed to be “as addictive as possible” for children.
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Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite saves two Canadians stuck in the snow
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Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite feature has saved lives on more than one occasion in the U.S.
And now, the feature has worked in favour of two women in B.C. The feature connects the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro with satellites if the device is outside a cellular network, allowing people to call for help in case of emergencies.
According to the Prince George Citizen, the two women got lost while making their way to Alberta. An accident on their original route caused them to take a detour through the Holmes Forest Service Road, where they got stuck in the snow.
Dwight Yochim, a senior manager with B.C. Search and Rescue, told the publication an Apple call centre center relayed the information to Northen 911. The local call center notified emergency services in the province and shared the subject’s GPS location.
“This technology has the potential of really helping us save lives and reducing the amount of time it takes to do that.”
Source: Prince George Citizen
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At the March 14th Council meeting, the City of Pointe-Claire signed a partnership agreement with Sport’Aide. The independent non-profit organization was created in 2014 by a team of 3 people concerned by the phenomenon of violence in sports.
The organization aims to offer support and guidance services to young athletes, as well as to the various actors in the Quebec sports world (parents, coaches, sports organizations, officials and volunteers) who may have witnessed violence against young athletes.
This agreement will allow the City and the para-municipal sport clubs, the Aquatic Club and the Canoe Kayak Club, to obtain personalized consulting services and to be assisted in the development and adaptation of sport safety policies and procedures.
“Pointe-Claire is the first city to sign an agreement with Sport’Aide, positioning it as a leader and further demonstrating our City’s commitment to maintaining a healthy, safe, harmonious and inclusive sports and recreation environment. I would like to thank our dynamic Sports and Recreation team and its director Mr. Gilles Girouard. This partnership demonstrates our proactivity and our concern for the quality of services offered to our community.” Said Tim Thomas, Mayor of Pointe-Claire
From left to right: Tim Thomas, Mayor of Pointe-Claire and Sylvain Croteau, Instigator and General Manager of Sport’Aide
Information : 514 630-1200, communications@pointe-claire.ca
The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges the game is designed to be “as addictive as possible” for children.
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In the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday, the plaintiff identified only as A.B. says her son downloaded Fortnite in 2018 and “developed an adverse dependence on the game.”
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The statement of claim says the game incorporates a number of intentional design choices such as offering rewards for completing challenges and making frequent updates, which encourages players to return repeatedly.
The statement says Fortnite creator Epic Games enriches itself by making content and customization options purchasable via an in-game currency, which are purchased with real cash.
The class-action lawsuit would still need approval from a judge and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
The plaintiff is seeking damages alleging the game breaches the B.C. Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, as well as for “unjust enrichment” and medical expenses for psychological or physical injuries, among other claims.
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“Video games have been around for decades, but Fortnite is unique in that the science and psychology of addiction and cognitive development are at the core of the game’s design,” the court statement says.
It describes the game as “predatory and exploitative,” given its popularity among minors.
In a written statement, Epic Games communications director Natalie Munoz said the company will “fight these inflammatory allegations.”
“These claims do not reflect how Fortnite operates and ignore all the ways parents can control their child’s experience through Epic’s Parental Controls,” she said.
As examples, Munoz said parental controls “enable guardians to supervise their child’s experience, including limiting purchases and receiving playtime reports.”
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Social settings can also “default to the highest privacy option for minors” and Cabined Accounts “provide a tailored experience for younger players.”
Also, Munoz said the company has a daily spending limit for players under 13.
In the statement, A.B. says her son began playing Fortnite: Battle Royale on a Sony PlayStation 4 game console when he was nine years old. The boy, she said, soon began buying various Fortnite products while adding the game to different platforms at home, including on mobile phone and computer.
Since that time, A.B. says Epic Games “received payment for numerous charges” made to her credit card without her authorization. The statement says A.B.’s son spent “thousands of dollars” on in-game purchases.
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“If Epic Games had warned A.B. that playing Fortnite could lead to psychological harm and financial expense, A.B. would not have allowed (her son) to download Fortnite,” the statement says.
The lawsuit, if approved by the court, would cover three classes of plaintiffs: an “Addiction Class” of people who suffered after developing a dependence on Fortnite, a “Minor Purchaser Class” that includes gamers who made purchases in the game while under the age of majority, and an “Accidental Purchaser Class” of users who mistakenly bought items due to the game’s design.
The lawsuit would cover all persons affected by Fortnite in Canada except Quebec, where Epic lost its attempt last month to appeal a court decision there to authorize a similar class-action suit.
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In the Quebec class-action appeal attempt, Epic lawyers argued the claims that children were becoming addicted to Fortnite were “based purely on speculation,” and no scientific consensus exists on cyberaddiction.
Epic Games also said in the Quebec case that it was not given a chance to argue against the claim that minors who bought Fortnite’s in-game currency were taken advantage of.
Quebec Appeal Court Justice Guy Cournoyer said in his decision that Epic did not demonstrate any significant error on the lower court judge’s decision to authorize the class-action lawsuit in that case.
Epic said in documents made public in a separate legal battle with Apple in the United States that Fortnite made more than US$9 billion combined in 2018 and 2019.
The legal claim against the video maker in Quebec still needs to be argued in court.
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B.C. judge says claim in video game ‘loot boxes’ class-action lawsuit may proceed
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Comment: Is Atomic Heart a sloppy bit of pro-Russia propaganda against Ukraine?
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The rise of artificial general intelligence — now seen as inevitable in Silicon Valley — will bring change that is “orders of magnitude” greater than anything the world has yet seen, observers say. But are we ready?
AGI — defined as artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities, as opposed to more narrow artificial intelligence, such as the headline-grabbing ChatGPT — could free people from menial tasks and usher in a new era of creativity.
But such a historic paradigm shift could also threaten jobs and raise insurmountable social issues, experts warn.
Previous technological advances from electricity to the internet ignited powerful social change, says Siqi Chen, chief executive of San Francisco startup Runway.
“But what we’re looking at now is intelligence itself… This is the first time we’re able to create intelligence itself and increase its amount in the universe,” he told AFP.
Change, as a result, will be “orders of magnitude greater than every other technological change we’ve ever had in history.”
And such an exciting, frightening shift is a “double-edged sword,” Chen said, envisioning using AGI to tackle climate change, for example, but also warning that it is a tool that we want to be as “steerable as possible.”
It was the release of ChatGPT late last year that brought the long dreamt of idea of AGI one giant leap closer to reality.
OpenAI, the company behind the generative software that churns out essays, poems and computing code on command, this week released an even more powerful version of the tech that operates it — GPT-4.
It says the technology will not only be able to process text but also images, and produce more complex content such as legal complaints or video games.
As such it “exhibits human-level performance” on some benchmarks, the company said.
Goodbye to ‘drudgery’
The success of OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, has ignited an arms race of sorts in Silicon Valley as tech giants seek to push their generative AI tools to the next level — though they remain wary of chatbots going off the rails.
Already, AI-infused digital assistants from Microsoft and Google can summarize meetings, draft emails, create websites, craft ad campaigns and more — giving us a glimpse of what AGI will be capable of in the future.
“We spend too much time consumed by the drudgery,” said Jared Spataro, Microsoft corporate vice president.
With artificial intelligence Spataro wants to “rediscover the soul of work,” he said during a Microsoft presentation on Thursday.
Artificial intelligence can also cut costs, some suggest.
British landscape architect Joe Perkins tweeted that he used GPT-4 for a coding project, which a “very good” developer had told him would cost 5,000 pounds ($6,000) and take two weeks.
“GPT-4 delivered the same in 3 hours, for $0.11,” he tweeted. “Genuinely mind boggling.”
But that raises the question of the threat to human jobs, with entrepreneur Chen acknowledging that the technology could one day build a startup like his — or an even better version.
“How am I going to make a living and not be homeless?” he asked, adding that he was counting on solutions to emerge.
Existential questions
Ubiquitous artificial intelligence also puts a question mark over creative authenticity as songs, images, art and more are cranked out by software instead of people.
Will humans shun education, relying instead on software to do the thinking for them?
And, who is to be trusted to make the AI unbiased, accurate, and adaptable to different countries and cultures?
AGI is “probably coming at us faster than we can process,” says Sharon Zhou, co-founder of a generative AI company.
The technology raises an existential question for humanity, she told AFP.
“If there is going to be something more powerful than us and more intelligent than us, what does that mean for us?” Zhou asked.
“And do we harness it? Or does it harness us?”
OpenAI says it plans to build AGI gradually with the aim of benefitting all of humanity, but it has conceded that the software has safety flaws.
Safety is a “process,” OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever said in an interview with the MIT Technology Review, adding that it would be “highly desirable” for companies to “come up with some kind of process that allows for slower releases of models with these completely unprecedented capabilities.”
But for now, says Zhou, slowing down is just not part of the ethos.
“The power is concentrated around those who can build this stuff. And they make the decisions around this, and they are inclined to move fast,” she says.
The international order itself could be at stake, she suggests.
“The pressure between US and China has been immense,” Zhou says, adding that the artificial intelligence race invokes the Cold War era.
“There is definitely the risk with AGI that if one country figures that out faster, will they dominate?” she asks.
“And so I think the fear is, don’t stop because we can’t lose.”
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