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TOKYO — After a brief awakening, Japan’s Moon lander is out of action again but will resume its mission if it survives the two-week lunar night, the space agency said Thursday.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

As the sun’s angle shifted, it came back to life for two days this week and carried out scientific observations of a crater with its high-spec camera.

“After completing operation from 1/30 (to) 1/31, #SLIM entered a two-week dormancy period during the long lunar night,” space agency JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter.

“Although SLIM was not designed for the harsh lunar nights, we plan to try to operate again from mid-February, when the Sun will shine again on SLIM’s solar cells.”

JAXA said SLIM was able to “successfully complete observations… as originally planned” with its multiband spectroscopic camera and could study more target areas than initially expected.

The space agency also on Thursday posted a black-and-white photo of the rocky surface taken by the spacecraft.

It followed other grainy images sent back from the mission to investigate an exposed area of the moon’s mantle, the inner layer usually deep beneath its crust.

SLIM, dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on Jan. 20.

The feat was a boon for Japan’s space program after a string of recent failures, making the nation only the fifth to achieve a “soft landing” on the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

But during its descent, the craft suffered engine problems and ended up on its side, meaning the solar panels were facing west instead of up.

Russia, China and other countries from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates are also trying their luck to reach the moon.

U.S. firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began leaking fuel after takeoff in January, dooming its mission. It likely burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere on its return.

NASA has also postponed plans for crewed lunar missions under its Artemis program.
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From counting machines to neural networks, the development of artificial intelligence has paralleled emerging brain science. Writer, Matt Dibble; graphic designer, Kateryna Stepchenko; motion designer, Valeryia Rusak; narrator, Hayde Fitzpatrick.
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The Biden administration’s push for clean energy solutions has turned a rural Washington state town into a hub for electric vehicle battery production. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Moses Lake.
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Moses Lake, Washington — It’s mid-winter in east Washington state, yet despite the chilly fog, two construction sites in the town of Moses Lake are brimming with activity. Several hundred workers are on an ambitious timeline to complete two new factories slanted to begin production of the next-generation components for electric vehicle batteries later this year.

Two American start-ups, backed by $100 million in federal grants each, in addition to commercial partnerships, are racing to secure the domestic supply chain with the next-generation battery materials for EV automakers.

“That’s going to go into everything from electric vehicles to IoT [Internet of Things] devices to smartphones and wearables and a lot of battery-based applications that we don’t even know exist yet,” explains Nik Anderson, director of program management with Group 14 Technologies, as he walks through the company’s vast construction site.

Washington is one of the American states planning to ban sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles starting in 2035.

For now, electric cars account for 8.6% of new vehicle sales in the United States. Affordable electric vehicles would require a significant scaling of domestic battery production, experts say. According to the Biden administration, affordable electric vehicles and reliable supply chain would require a significant scaling of domestic battery production and the national charging infrastructure.

Once fully operational, the two companies’ factories in Moses Lake will be able to annually produce enough material to make batteries for about 400,000 electric vehicles.

They also promise to produce a better battery, reducing the ‘charge anxiety’ of electric cars by replacing the graphite in conventional lithium-ion batteries with silicon-based components, which will allow for a faster charge.

“The thing that makes our battery better, that uses our SCC55 [silicon-carbon composite] versus traditional graphite, is that it can have up to 50% more energy density, it can allow for extremely fast charging,” said Grant Ray, vice president for global market strategy with Group 14.

“When we think about charge times, you know, right now we’re hearing 10% to 80% in ten minutes. Well, what if that changes and it comes down to five minutes? What if it starts to get closer to what it really is for, you know, the way we think about refueling a car?” he said.

One of the challenges for U.S. EV production with traditional lithium-ion batteries is the need to rely on imports. Daniel Schwartz, director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington, says the silicon-based component provides solutions for several challenges.

“The primary mineral for what’s going in Moses Lake is sand, silica — the most widely distributed mineral in the crust of the earth. Graphite is lower performance, and we are trade-exposed as a nation,” he said.

The Biden administration invested in domestic EV battery production as part of its ambitious clean energy agenda. Among the Republican presidential candidates, most reject the urgency surrounding EV adoption, with former President Donald Trump calling it an “all-electric car hoax.”

Last September, speaking in front of hundreds of people attending a rally in Clinton Township, Michigan, Trump called prioritizing EVs a “transition to hell,” telling auto workers that Democrats “want to go all electric and put you all out of business.”

Gene Berdichevsky, CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies, the second startup planning to start EV battery components production in Moses Lake, says the transition to electric vehicles is going to happen regardless of whether the U.S. is taking the lead in the process.

“Renewables and batteries are really going to form the basis of 21st-century energy,” he said. “It’s critical for the U.S. to build the capacity to be able to have battery production. Catching up to the world leaders in Asia is quite challenging. And so, the way to do that is not to build the same thing, it’s to build the next generation of battery technologies.”

In Moses Lake, a town of about 25,000 an hour and-a-half drive from the nearest city, all-electric cars are not a common sight. Berdichevsky is convinced that EV adoption in the area is just a matter of time.

“We have to recognize that consumers want choice, and some consumers are going to want electric cars with 500 miles (range),” he says. “What we need to do is increase the choices for folks, and the way you do that is through better batteries.”

Rosendo Alvarado, a Moses Lake native who took a job as a plant manager for Sila Nanotechnologies, says the remote town became an attractive spot for EV production thanks to the combination of several factors: cheap hydro power provided by local dams; existing manufacturing infrastructure and legacy companies, such as REC Silicon that could become a partner in the EV batteries production; and Washington state policies embracing clean energy initiatives.

The cutting-edge industry promises to bring hundreds of new jobs to Moses Lake. Alvarado says he saw the town transforming over time from traditional farming to an industrial community — and expects further change.

“We worked in the fields that this building is sitting on today,” he recalls. “It’s been fast paced, but super exciting — the opportunities that we are able to bring here for the community and for the EV market.”

He says the companies partnered with the local Columbia Basin Technical School and Big Bend Community College to start developing a new workforce as early as during high school classes.

“It’s a small, tight community. Kind of like everyone knows everyone type thing,” shrugs Nicholas Cruz, a young man out of school walking with his friend down the main street of Moses Lake, when asked about the EV projects coming to town.

“It’s gonna be exciting in the sense, like, there’s more job opportunities and new opportunities to go here because Moses Lake is small, there’s not much to it. I am not sure if it will impact me personally — I guess time will tell,” he said.
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The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ranks Africa as the region with the lowest amount of e-commerce investment. UNCTAD says e-commerce is currently accessible to very few urban areas. An AI solution, however, aims to solve the problem. Senanu Tord reports from Accra, Ghana.
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LOS ANGELES — The estate of George Carlin has filed a lawsuit against the media company behind a fake hour-long comedy special that purportedly uses artificial intelligence to recreate the late standup comic’s style and material. 

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday asks that a judge order the podcast outlet, Dudesy, to immediately take down the audio special, “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” in which a synthesis of Carlin, who died in 2008, delivers commentary on current events.

Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, said in a statement that the work is “a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fanbase.” 

The Carlin estate and its executor, Jerold Hamza, are named as plaintiffs in the suit, which alleges violations of Carlin’s right of publicity and copyright. The named defendants are Dudesy and podcast hosts Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen. 

“None of the Defendants had permission to use Carlin’s likeness for the AI-generated ‘George Carlin Special,’ nor did they have a license to use any of the late comedian’s copyrighted materials,” the lawsuit says. 

The defendants have not filed a response to the lawsuit and it was not clear whether they have retained an attorney. They could not immediately be reached for comment. 

At the beginning of the special posted on YouTube on January 9, a voiceover identifying itself as the AI engine used by Dudesy says it listened to the comic’s 50 years of material and “did my best to imitate his voice, cadence and attitude as well as the subject matter I think would have interested him today.” 

The plaintiffs say if that was in fact how it was created — and some listeners have doubted its stated origins — it means Carlin’s copyright was violated. 

The company, as it often does on similar projects, also released a podcast episode with Sasso and Kultgen introducing and commenting on the mock Carlin. 

“What we just listened to, was that passable,” Kultgen says in a section of the episode cited in the lawsuit. 

“Yeah, that sounded exactly like George Carlin,” Sasso responds. 

The lawsuit is among the first in what is likely to be an increasing number of major legal moves made to fight the regenerated use of celebrity images and likenesses. 

The AI issue was a major sticking point in the resolution of last year’s Hollywood writers and actors strikes. 

Josh Schiller, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the “case is not just about AI, it’s about the humans that use AI to violate the law, infringe on intellectual property rights, and flout common decency.” 
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Chinese-made drones dominate the global market and are used widely by government agencies inside the United States. As Matt Dibble reports, US cybersecurity watchdogs warn that using those drones come with risks.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. officials hoping to break China’s near monopoly on the production of rare earth elements needed for many cutting-edge technologies should engage the governments of Central Asia to develop high concentrations of REEs found in the region, says a new report. 

The study by the U.S.-based International Tax and Investment Center warns that a failure to act could leave China with a “decisive advantage” in the sector, which is crucial to green energy, many new weapons systems and other advanced technologies. 

“As the uses for these minerals has expanded, so too has global competition for them in a time of sharply increasing geostrategic and geo-economic tension,” the report says. 

“Advanced economies with secure, reliable access to REEs enjoy economic advantages in manufacturing, and corresponding economic disadvantages accrue for those without this access.” 

China, which accounts for most of the world’s rare earth mining within its own borders, has not yet had to seek additional supplies from Central Asia, which enjoys plentiful reserves of minerals ranging from iron and nonferrous metals to uranium. 

But, the report says, “the massive size of the Chinese economy and the Chinese Communist Party’s conscious efforts to dominate the REE sector globally mean such increases are a matter of time.”  

Oil-rich Kazakhstan, the region’s economic giant, holds the world’s largest chromium reserves and the second-largest stocks of uranium, while also possessing other critical elements.  

Report co-author Ariel Cohen says it is up to the governments of Central Asia to create the investment climate for development of these resources.   

“They may be the next big thing in Central Asia as the engine of economic growth,” Cohen said this week during a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.  

Across Central Asia, experts note, REEs are found in substantial volumes in the Kazakh steppe and uplands as well as in the Tien Shan mountains across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan.  

Monazite, zircon, apatite, xenotime, pyrochlore, allanite and columbite are among Central Asia’s most abundant rare metals and minerals.  

In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey listed 384 REE occurrences in the region: 160 in Kazakhstan, 87 in Uzbekistan, 75 in Kyrgyzstan, 60 in Tajikistan, and two in Turkmenistan.

Wesley Hill, another expert on Central Asia’s mineral reserves, says production of rare earths at present “is almost wholly monopolized by China.”  

“Depending on how you count, between 80 to 90% of REE refining is controlled by China and done directly inside of China,” Hill said.   

But, he argued, despite China’s heavy involvement in Central Asia, it has yet to fully take over the region’s rare earth sector. “So, this means that Central Asia is very much at a crossroads,” he said. “Central Asia has the opportunity to expand its REE production without being wholly dependent on China.” 

Central Asia is currently in a position where it can develop its REE refining capacities both for its national development strategies and to break the Chinese monopoly, Hill said.  

“But this is only going to happen with good policy, both from the American side and the Central Asian side.”  

Ambassador John Herbst, Washington’s former top diplomat in Uzbekistan and Ukraine, says the region’s REE assets are “simply another reason for enhanced engagement by the West.” 

He said he is not sure that Central Asian governments appreciate how important rare earths can be to their development. “But I do know that the countries of Central Asia want a closer relationship with the United States, and that is one important part of their maintaining their hard-won independence.” 

Herbst added that the United States and Central Asia have a common interest in working together to develop the region’s rare earths “for the economy of the future.” 

“We have an ability to innovate that far exceeds [China’s]. Their innovation is based largely on taking our technology.”

Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti, who serves as energy transition counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, says the region is eager for investment. 

“It is a development opportunity. Particularly with the geostrategic energy realignment after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also, because of the energy transition. Lithium and other REE are necessary for different parts of that transition. So that’s primarily an economic incentive,” she said. 

She pointed to the Mineral Strategic Partnership Initiative run by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau on Energy Resources, which is able to promote foreign direct investment in the region while providing technical assistance in the mining sector. 

Cohen said the Central Asian countries cannot wait long to develop their rare earths. “There is a competition, and the African countries, Latin American countries and others will compete increasingly.”  

Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, who heads a consultancy called Second Floor Strategies, says Central Asia needs a rare earth research center that can provide timely information to prospective customers and investors.  

Transportation is key, Sanchez said. “It’s not just about finding and mining them. You have to get them to the international market.”  

Access from the landlocked region at present is limited to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure or routes through Russia. Sanchez and others recommend using the Middle Corridor, also called the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, which can carry goods to Europe across the Caspian and Black seas.  

These experts also say progress will depend on regional governments overcoming their traditional secretiveness regarding natural resources. They emphasize the importance of transparency, the rule of law, adherence to best practices and compliance with international norms if they hope to attract Western investment.
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Turkey makes space history. Plus, the 20th anniversary of twin rovers on Mars, and a flood of news for future missions to the Red Planet. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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TOKYO — Japan’s “Moon Sniper” craft landed around 55 meters from its target, the country’s space agency said Thursday as it released the first images from the mission.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its pin-point technology, had the goal of touching down within 100 meters of a specific landing spot.

That is much more precise than the usual landing zone of several kilometers.

“SLIM succeeded in a pin-point soft landing … the landing point is confirmed to be 55 meters away from the target point,” space agency JAXA said.

Saturday’s soft lunar landing made Japan the fifth nation to achieve the feat, after the United States, Soviet Union, China and India.

But celebrations were muted because of a problem with the lightweight spacecraft’s solar batteries, which were not generating power.

JAXA decided to switch the craft off with 12% of its power remaining, to allow for a possible recovery when the sun’s angle changes.

“If sunlight hits the moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” JAXA said earlier this week.

Before switching SLIM off, mission control was able to download technical and image data from the craft’s descent and the lunar surface.

On Thursday, JAXA published the first color images from the mission, showing the SLIM craft sitting intact at a slight angle on the rocky, gray surface, lunar slopes rising in the distance.

The mission was aiming for a crater where the moon’s mantle, the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust, is believed to be exposed on the surface.

By analyzing the rocks there, JAXA hopes to shed light on the mystery of the moon’s possible water resources, key to building bases there one day as possible stopovers on the way to Mars.

Two probes detached successfully from SLIM on Saturday: one with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.

This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the firm behind the Transformer toys and took the picture released by JAXA on Thursday.

SLIM is one of several recent lunar missions by governments and private firms, 50 years after the first human moon landing.

But technical problems are rife, and the United States faced two setbacks this month in its ambitious moon programs.

Two previous Japanese lunar missions, one public and one private, have also failed.

In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission.

In April, Japanese startup ispace tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the Moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.”
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BRUSSELS — The European Union on Wednesday unveiled plans to strengthen the bloc’s economic security, including measures to protect sensitive technology from falling into the hands of geopolitical rivals such as China. 

Brussels has bolstered its armory of trade restrictions to tackle what it deems to be risks to European economic security, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and global trade tensions. 

The fallout from the war in Ukraine hit Europe particularly hard, forcing the bloc to find alternative energy sources. Now, it wants to avoid a similar over-reliance on China, which dominates in green technology production and critical raw materials. 

On Wednesday, EU officials outlined an economic security package containing five initiatives, including toughening rules on the screening of foreign direct investment and launching discussions on coordination around export controls. 

The EU has already proposed new rules that it says are necessary to keep the bloc competitive during the global transition to clean technology and to bring more production to Europe. 

“In this competition, Europe cannot just be the playground for bigger players, we need to be able to play ourselves,” said the EU’s most senior competition official, Margrethe Vestager. 

“By doing what we are proposing to do, we can de-risk our economic interdependencies,” she told reporters in Brussels. 

Wednesday’s package is part of the EU’s focus on de-risking but not decoupling from China, pushed strongly by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

“The change in EU-China relations has been the driving force of this embrace of economic security, which is something extremely new for the EU,” said Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Institut Montaigne think tank. 

“Focus on riskier transactions” 

EU officials also pushed back on claims that the package had been watered down and that some of the initiatives would kick in too late. 

One of the initiatives is to revise the EU’s regulation on screening foreign direct investment, but others recommend further discussions, raising concerns that action could come too late. 

For example, the commission said it wanted to promote further discussions on how to better support research and development of technologies that can be used for civil and defense purposes. 

The EU also wants all member states to establish screening mechanisms, which could later lead to investments being blocked if they are believed to pose a risk. 

“I would not agree that the package is watered down,” the EU’s trade commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said. 

He later said the EU wanted “to focus on riskier transactions and spend less time and resources on low-risk ones.” 

The negotiations are likely to prove a delicate balancing act for the commission. Investment and export control decisions are up to national governments; therefore, it must avoid overstepping its mark. 
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With the growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for climate change, a Kenyan-Dutch company is introducing electric bikes in sub-Saharan Africa for deliveries in urban areas to help reduce emissions. The transport sector plays a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of global warming. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa     
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Paris — Power generated from low-emissions sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, will be adequate to meet growth in global demand for the next three years, the International Energy Agency said, adding that emissions from the power sector are on the decline.

Following record growth, electricity generation from low-emissions sources will account for almost half of the world’s power by 2026, up from less than 40% in 2023, the IEA said in report on Wednesday.

Renewables are expected to overtake coal by early 2025, accounting for more than a third of total electricity generation, the report said.

Nuclear power is also forecast to reach a record globally as French output continues to recover from lows in 2022, several plants in Japan come back online and new reactors begin operations in markets including China, India, Korea and Europe.

Electricity demand is expected to rise on average by 3.4% from 2024 through 2026 with about 85% of demand growth seen coming from China, India and southeast Asia, after growth eased slightly to 2.2% in 2023, IEA data showed.

Over this period, China is expected to account for the largest share of the global increase in electricity demand in terms of volume, despite a forecast for slower economic growth and a lower reliance on heavy industry, the report said.

Meanwhile, global emissions are expected to decrease by 2.4% in 2024, followed by smaller declines in 2025 and 2026, the report said.

“The decoupling of global electricity demand and emissions would be significant given the energy sector’s increasing electrification, with more consumers using technologies such as electric vehicles and heat pumps,” the report said.

Electricity accounted for 2% more of final energy consumption in 2023 from 2015 levels, though reaching climate goals would require electrification to advance significantly faster in coming years, the IEA said.
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Park City, Utah — An audience member was ejected from a Sundance festival event Tuesday in a spat over artificial intelligence, triggering a walkout that illustrates the divisions the technology has rapidly wrought in the film industry.

AI — a key driver of the recent and devastating Hollywood strikes — has been debated extensively at this year’s indie movie festival in Utah.

Filmmakers have experimented with using the technology as a creative tool, while also cautioning about its potential to erase jobs and stifle human expression and connection.

At a Tuesday screening of “Being (The Digital Griot),” in which audience members were encouraged to approach the screen and discuss issues like racism and the patriarchy with an AI bot, an audience member appeared to shout profanity about AI.

“I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either,” responded the film’s creator, artist Rashaad Newsome, refusing to participate in a post-screening Q&A until action was taken.

Festival staff forced the woman who had apparently yelled to leave the auditorium, prompting jeers.

Roughly a quarter of the auditorium walked out in solidarity, with some complaining that debate was being shut down and others insisting the lady expelled had not been the actual culprit.

Sundance organizers told AFP they were “looking into” the incident and “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”

But the incident highlighted long-brewing and sharply escalating tensions triggered by the issue of AI in the film world — something that this year’s Sundance lineup was specifically programmed to address.

‘Scary’

In addition to “Being,” the Sundance indie festival has hosted “Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death.

Another film, “Eno,” explored musician Brian Eno’s career and creative process, using a “generative engine” to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.

AI was also addressed on the fiction side by films like “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart, which imagined a romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite in a post-human world.

“Love Machina” director Peter Sillen told AFP that AI could soon mean that making a film will be a similar process to writing a novel.

“You’re going to be able to have somebody who’s sitting in their room create a masterpiece of filmmaking, probably,” he said. 

The idea was “hard and scary” but “interesting,” Sillen said, concluding: “I think you have to be open to it.”

“Eternal You” director Hans Block pointed out that AI is already widely used in movies — indeed, the Adobe software he used to edit the film is “full of AI” and “helped us as a tool a lot.”

“It’s so much more easy to make a film nowadays,” he said.

But Block said that while AI can help as a tool, it is important to debate what harm could be caused if the technology is not regulated.

“That’s why we are so happy to present the film right now, because it’s a perfect time to open the debate about these discussions,” he said. 

‘Human touch’

The danger that AI could replace screenwriters, actors and other professions was a key sticking point in last year’s Hollywood strikes, with unions holding out for guarantees from studios that they would not be replaced.

The encroachment of AI has sparked resolutely negative reactions from many filmmakers at Sundance.

Anirban Dutta, co-director of “Nocturnes,” an experiential documentary about scientists studying moths in the eastern Himalayas, said his movie is “a response to what’s happening to this world where all our human instincts are being mechanized.”

“Our film is a love letter to invite people to come back to what we are losing… human touch,” he said.

The woman who was thrown out of the “Being” screening, who has not been identified, was making a similar point before chaos erupted.

“As interesting as this (film) is… all of the knowledge it has comes from people,” she said.
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria’s tech startups are facing reluctance from investors, stemming from the shutdown of some prominent young companies last year.

Kingsley Eze co-runs Nairaxi, an e-Commerce, on-demand logistics startup in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Despite its record of handling tens of thousands of successful requests, the firm has been largely funded by Eze, as well as family and friends.

Eze told VOA that even though he is ready for expansion, it has been difficult to secure financing amid the tales of failing startups in the country.

“It’s been very difficult to raise funds. Investors are cautious, the interest rate hikes in the Western economy is also a contributing factor to that, coupled with a lot of disappointing or not-so-good outings for a few startups that were like a beacon of hope for the Nigerian startup ecosystem,” said Eze.

Nigeria has been leading growth in African startups. Nevertheless, the sector faced a significant blow in 2023. Prominent startups such as 54Gene, Lazerpay, Vibra, Payday and Hytch went out of business — largely over their inability to raise more capital to keep the companies running — losing more than $70 million of foreign investors’ funds.

Abuja-based economist and investment expert Paul Alaje told VOA he blames the collapses on neglect of business principles.

“Assumption is the major bane to startup development in Africa, especially Nigeria,” said Alaje. “That the idea worked at first and is technology-driven does not mean the fundamentals of traditional business or a growing business, economic principles behind traditional business, should be neglected when it comes to startups.”

A recent report by Briter Bridges, a London-based business intelligence and research firm, showed a 54% drop in funding for startups between January and October of last year in Africa compared to the same period in 2022.

Eze said he believes this will make it even harder to navigate the funding terrain.

“The last statistics we had projected a 60% failure rate for Nigerian startup companies which is not a good bet for most investors,” said Eze. “When everyone is succeeding in the market, it encourages more investors.”

Alaje said Nigeria’s business ecosystem needs an overhaul.

“Change policy, bring new policies that make it difficult for people who don’t have an idea regarding how business should be properly run,” said Alaje. “Two, show examples of people who got it correctly, including Paystack. We need to become more deliberate at all levels.”

Paystack, a successful Nigerian payment processing company, was acquired by an Irish-American company for $200 million in 2020.

According to venture capitalists in Nigeria, poor infrastructure, lack of accountability by business owners, and the foreign exchange crisis aided the collapse of many startups.

For his part, Eze said he will continue to build his business from the revenues it generates.
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Washington — Artificial intelligence represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published Sunday, urging “caution and humility” as the evolving technology transforms how judges and lawyers go about their work.

Roberts struck an ambivalent tone in his 13-page report. He said AI had potential to increase access to justice for indigent litigants, revolutionize legal research and assist courts in resolving cases more quickly and cheaply while also pointing to privacy concerns and the current technology’s inability to replicate human discretion.

“I predict that human judges will be around for a while,” Roberts wrote. “But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work – particularly at the trial level – will be significantly affected by AI.”

The chief justice’s commentary is his most significant discussion to date of the influence of AI on the law — and coincides with several lower courts contending with how best to adapt to a new technology capable of passing the bar exam but also prone to generating fictitious content, known as “hallucinations.”

Roberts emphasized that “any use of AI requires caution and humility.” He mentioned an instance where AI hallucinations had led lawyers to cite nonexistent cases in court papers, which the chief justice said is “always a bad idea.” Roberts did not elaborate beyond saying the phenomenon “made headlines this year.”  

For instance, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer, said in court papers unsealed last week that he mistakenly gave his attorney fake case citations generated by an AI program that made their way into an official court filing. Other instances of lawyers including AI-hallucinated cases in legal briefs have also been documented.  

A federal appeals court in New Orleans last month drew headlines by unveiling what appeared to be the first proposed rule by any of the 13 U.S. appeals courts aimed at regulating the use of generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by lawyers appearing before it.

The proposed rule by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would require lawyers to certify that they either did not rely on artificial intelligence programs to draft briefs or that humans reviewed the accuracy of any text generated by AI in their court filings.
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san francisco, california — Google has agreed to settle a consumer privacy lawsuit seeking at least $5 billion in damages over allegations it tracked the data of users who thought they were browsing the internet privately. 

The object of the lawsuit was the “incognito mode” on Google’s Chrome browser that the plaintiffs said gave users a false sense that what they were surfing online was not being tracked by the Silicon Valley tech firm. 

But internal Google emails brought forward in the lawsuit demonstrated that users using incognito mode were being followed by the search and advertising behemoth for measuring web traffic and selling ads. 

In a court filing, the judge confirmed that lawyers for Google reached a preliminary agreement to settle the class action lawsuit, originally filed in 2020, which claimed that “millions of individuals” had likely been affected.  

Lawyers for the plaintiffs were seeking at least $5,000 for each user it said had been tracked by the firm’s Google Analytics or Ad Manager services even when in the private browsing mode and not logged into their Google account. 

This would have amounted to at least $5 billion, though the settlement amount will likely not reach that figure, and no amount was given for the preliminary settlement between the parties.  

Google and lawyers for the consumers did not respond to an AFP request for comment. 

The settlement came just weeks after Google was denied a request that the case be decided by a judge. A jury trial was set to begin next year. 

The lawsuit, filed in a California court, claimed Google’s practices had infringed on users’ privacy by intentionally deceiving them with the incognito option.  

The original complaint alleged that Google and its employees had been given the “power to learn intimate details about individuals’ lives, interests, and internet usage.” 

“Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it,” it added.  

A formal settlement is expected for court approval by February 24, 2024. 

Class action lawsuits have become the main venue to challenge big tech companies on data privacy matters in the United States, which lacks a comprehensive law on the handling of personal data. 

In August, Google paid $23 million to settle a long-running case over giving third-parties access to user search data. 

In 2022, Facebook parent company Meta settled a similar case, agreeing to pay $725 million over the handling of user data. 
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NEW YORK — The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Wednesday, accusing them of using millions of the newspaper’s articles without permission to help train artificial intelligence technologies. 

The Times said it is the first major U.S. media organization to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, which created ChatGPT and other AI platforms, over copyright issues. 

“Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. 

The Times is not seeking a specific amount of damages but said it believes OpenAI and Microsoft have caused “billions of dollars” in damages for illegally copying and using its works. 

OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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