Plus: What was your first computer room like? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

February 03, 2025 | Read online
# 2262. Too risky AI banned in Europe, open source’s sanction headache, and teach your kids not to make AI porn Plus: What was your first computer room like?
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Issue 2262 - Monday 3 February, 2025
# In Today’s Issue
Unacceptably risky AI officially banned in EU Open source’s sanction headaches Tell your kids not to make AI porn What was your first computer room like? Deals including SanDisk SDXC card, Logitech G502 gaming mouse, Razer microphone, Nokia G11 Plus, Brother printer, LG 31.5K 4K monitor, and Eufy security camera 4-cam kit system.
# The News
### Unacceptably risky AI is now banned in Europe
Using AI to scrape facial data from the internet, predict whether someone is a criminal based on their appearance, or engage in other “unacceptably risky” practices is now banned in the EU with the passing of the first deadline of its relatively new AI Act (TechCrunch). While the US is going let-’er-rip, the EU is fascinating counterfactual with its expansive, risk-based AI regulation that requires AI makers to report and mitigate risks on their AI products, depending on how risky it is (here’s the EU’s easy-to-read summary if you want to know more). Obviously, AI makers don’t love it, although the penalties for breaking the law — like fines of up to 7% of their annual revenue — can’t be handed out until later this year. Meanwhile how’s AI policy in Australia? Well, as pointed out by InnovationAus’ James Riley, the federal government has a “plan for a National AI Capability Plan” (here’s the media release) that will start to advise government on this stuff in … December 2025 (InnovationAus, $). No rush, guys!
### Open source’s sanction headache
Folks, the official position of the Sizzle on open source is: hell yeah, brother. So I was interested to read how open source developers are impacted by government sanctions (The New Stack). Last week, the Linux Foundation put out its guide to dealing with US sanctions (Linux Foundation) which penalise people for working with listed people, organisations and countries and work on strict liability i.e. you’re in trouble whether you knew about it or not. This obviously presents a problem for developers who may be breaking sanctions if their project has contributors who’ve been designated/blocked, like when the Russian Linux maintainers who were kicked out last year (ZDNet). Also, Sam Altman says he wants to make OpenAI open again (TechCrunch) although I did hear the argument that the company — while not dropping open weight models like DeepSeek — has been more open than the computers working on transformer models before. (This argument was made on the most recent episode of a good tech podcast Sharp Tech hosted by excellent tech analyst Stratechery’s Ben Thompson).
### Teach your kids not to make AI porn
You should tell your kids to not use AI to create child sexual exploitation material of others, Australian police say (Information Age). This, err, might seem weak and obvious but I actually think it’s probably a good reminder to parents, many who might not know this is a problem. The Australian Federal Police made the warning off the back of its Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation seeing more cases of students use AI-generated sexual deepfake software. Personally, I’d like to see police focus their efforts on cracking down on the people and groups who are making money and who make it possible to make money from non-consensual explicit deepfakes. Relatedly, the UK is criminalising the AI tools “designed to create child sexual abuse material” (BBC). Good.
# Oh, Also
### What was your first computer room like?
This popped up on Slashdot and I thought it’s super cute:
Bill Gates' blog has been updated with short videos about his upcoming book, including one about how his school ended up with an ASR-33 teletype that could connect their Seattle classroom to a computer in California. "The teachers faded away pretty quickly," Gates adds, "But about six of us stayed hardcore. One was Paul Allen..." — the future co-founder of Microsoft. And the experience clearly meant a lot to Gates. "Microsoft just never would've happened without Paul — and this teletype room."
Slashdot
I remember my first computer room was in the centre of my primary school, next to the administration office. It had carpet the same colour as Windows 95’s default background. It was always freezing cold and had four long desks stuffed with desktop computers. While the teacher was at the front, the screens were arranged so they faced to the side of the classroom which meant only the first few rows’ screens could be used. Naturally, we took advantage of that and played Minesweeper, extremely basic online flash games and even Typequick. We definitely learned a lot, but not necessarily what we were supposed to be learning.
Do you remember yours?
# Bargains
Anko 5000mAh Dual USB-A Output Power Bank - $5 at Kmart TP-Link LiteWave Gigabit Switch 5-Port - $14 at Amazon Mercusys MS105G 5-Port Gigabit Switch MS105G - $14 at Scorptec Moose Mobile 5G 40GB Post-Paid Mobile Plan - $14.80/Month for 6 Months at Moose Mobile SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I Memory Card - $29.12 at Amazon 20000mAh Wireless Power Bank, PD 20W & QC 22.5W, 15W QI Wireless - $36.79 at Amazon Logitech G502 HERO RGB Gaming Mouse - $59 at Umart Bauhn Travel Adaptor Power Bank with Wireless Charging (10000mAh) - $59.99 at Aldi (instore) Edifier G2000 Gaming 2.0 Speakers System - $75 at Amazon Razer Seiren V2 Pro USB Dynamic Microphone - $88.80 at eBay Logitech MK950 Signature Slim Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo - $109.01 at Amazon WiiM Mini AirPlay2 Wireless Audio Streamer - $118.14 at Amazon Nokia G11 Plus 4G 64GB - $139 at JB Hi-Fi ASUS ROG Strix Scope NX Wireless Deluxe Mechanical Keyboard NX Brown Key - $139 at Scorptec Optus X Pro 5G 4GB/128GB With Free $35 Optus Prepaid SIM - $149 at Optus EPOMAKER Galaxy100 1800 Aluminum Mechanical Keyboard with Numpad (USB-C/BT5.0/2.4G) $154.69 at Amazon AU Crucial T700 1TB PCIe Gen 5 NVMe M.2 SSD with Heatsink - $177.24 at Amazon Vodafone $320 Prepaid Mobile Starter Kit 12 Months 320GB - $180 at Vodafone Brother MFC-J6940DW Colour Multi-Function Printer - $369.75 at Amazon Minisforum UM760 Slim Mini PC with AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS CPU, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD - $479.99 at Amazon LG UltraFine 31.5'' 4K UHD 60hz 5ms Ergonomic Monitor 32UN88A - $577 at Officeworks Eufy S3 PRO 4-CAM KIT - $1699 at goodbuyz.com.au
# The End
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