Electric vehicles made in China could be banned in the US from 2027 if a proposed new rule is passed. The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would prohibit the import and sale of vehicles and components made by manufacturers “with a sufficient nexus” to the People’s Republic of China or Russia. 

The proposed rule focuses on specific elements in electric vehicle (EV) hardware and software, and the potentially malicious use of the information and data required by them. The Vehicle Connectivity System (VCS) allows cars to communicate externally through Bluetooth, cellular, satellite or Wi-Fi modules, while the Automated Driving System (ADS) allows a car to operate without a driver. This ban would encompass any parts imported for use in American-made cars, as well as those built into vehicles from China and Russia.

If passed without change, the only vehicles that would be exempt are those related to agricultural or mining purposes. And, while a senior Biden administration official says “[Chinese] and Russian automakers do not currently play a significant role in the US auto market”, they believe it’s a necessary preventative strike given the sophistication of today’s electric cars and their growing centrality.

A statement from the White House clarifies that, “These technologies include computer systems that control vehicle movement and collect sensitive driver and passenger data as well as cameras and sensors that enable automated driving systems and record detailed information about American infrastructure.”

Can artificial intelligence be made to tell the truth? Probably not, but the developers of large language model (LLM) chatbots should be legally required to reduce the risk of errors, says a team of ethicists.

“What we’re just trying to do is create an incentive structure to get the companies to put a greater emphasis on truth or accuracy when they are creating the systems,” says Brent Mittelstadt at the University of Oxford.

LLM chatbots, such as ChatGPT, generate human-like responses to users’ questions, based on statistical analysis of vast amounts of text. But although their answers usually appear convincing, they are also prone to errors – a flaw referred to as “hallucination”.

“We have these really, really impressive generative AI systems, but they get things wrong very frequently, and as far as we can understand the basic functioning of the systems, there’s no fundamental way to fix that,” says Mittelstadt.

This is a “very big problem” for LLM systems, given they are being rolled out to be used in a variety of contexts, such as government decisions, where it is important they produce factually correct, truthful answers, and are honest about the limitations of their knowledge, he says.

To address the problem, he and his colleagues propose a range of measures. They say large language models should react in a similar way to how people would when asked factual questions.

That means being honest about what you do and don’t know. “It’s about doing the necessary steps to actually be careful in what you are claiming,” says Mittelstadt. “If you are not sure about something, you’re not just going to make something up in order to be convincing. Rather, you would say, ‘Hey, you know what? I don’t know. Let me look into that. I’ll get back to you.”

This seems like a laudable aim, but Eerke Boiten at De Montfort University, UK, questions whether the ethicists’ demand is technically feasible. Companies are trying to get LLMs to stick to the truth, but so far it is proving to be so labour-intensive that it isn’t practical. “I don’t understand how they expect legal requirements to mandate what I see as fundamentally technologically impossible,” he says.

Mittelstadt and his colleagues do suggest some more straightforward steps that could make LLMs more truthful. The models should link to sources, he says – something that many of them now do to evidence their claims, while the wider use of a technique known as retrieval augmented generation to come up with answers could limit the likelihood of hallucinations.

He also argues that LLMs deployed in high-risk areas, such as government decision-making, should be scaled down, or the sources they can draw on should be restricted. “If we had a language model we wanted to use just in medicine, maybe we limit it so it can only search academic articles published in high quality medical journals,” he says.

Changing perceptions is also important, says Mittelstadt. “If we can get away from the idea that [LLMs] are good at answering factual questions, or at least that they’ll give you a reliable answer to factual questions, and instead see them more as something that can help you with facts you bring to them, that would be good,” he says.

Catalina Goanta at Utrecht University in the Netherlands says the researchers focus too much on technology and not enough on the longer-term issues of falsehood in public discourse. “Vilifying LLMs alone in such a context creates the impression that humans are perfectly diligent and would never make such mistakes,” she says. “Ask any judge you meet, in any jurisdiction, and they will have horror stories about the negligence of lawyers and vice versa – and that is not a machine issue.”

Following the recent arrest and release of Telegram’s CEO in France, the platform has been introducing some changes. One of the main allegations against the service was the lack of responsiveness to data requests by authorities. From now on, Telegram will provide phone numbers and IP addresses in response to potential legal requests.

The arrest of Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov stemmed from allegations of his involvement in illegal activities on the service. The French government cited the absence of more efficient moderation systems and a lack of collaboration with the authorities as the primary reasons for the arrest. At the time, Durov said that his arrest was a mistake and an erroneous application of the law.

Telegram will provide phone numbers and IP addresses in legal request cases

Later, Telegram modified its FAQs to reflect the existence of the “Report” option in groups. This change had led many to mistakenly believe that Telegram did not have such an option. It always existed, but now the messaging app wanted to make it clear. Users are able to report individual messages or entire groups. It’s noteworthy that the option to report messages is only available in groups. Individual chats between people are entirely private and encrypted, so the option does not exist.

The new changes to Telegram are more proactive regarding moderation. In addition to providing suspects’ phone numbers and IP addresses to authorities, Telegram will use AI and a human team to remove illegal or problematic content from search results. Telegram’s CEO also asked users to report problematic results as soon as they see them.

Anyway, the changes do not seem to affect the privacy of chats per se. There are no content moderation bots for private chats or groups. Authorities will also not have access to suspects’ chats. “To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user messages to third parties, including governments,” claims Durov.

Tales of the Shire, a cozy life sim , has gotten a new release date and a strange new name. It’s scheduled for release on March 25, 2025 and it’s now called Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game, because apparently referencing the Shire wasn’t enough to clue in fans. LOTR diehards are well known for being ignorant about the franchise they love. That was extreme sarcasm.

Anyways, this information was served up during Private Division and Wētā Workshop’s , which revealed a lot of new footage and included plenty of interviews with the game’s designers. Wētā Workshop is actually helping to develop the game, after making effects for all of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films.

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game (that really rolls off the tongue) was supposed to come out in 2024, so the developers could iron out some bugs and present a fully realized version of their original vision. Here’s hoping that translates to a polished gameplay experience in March.

For the uninitiated, this is a cozy sim. There are elements of Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and other games in the genre. There’s farming, fishing and a deep character interaction system. Of course, there’s also a big emphasis placed on cooking huge feasts. We all know how much hobbits love a good feast.

The game looks cute enough and, heck, I’m always down for a new cozy sim. However, the developers have confirmed that there will be no romance, despite the emphasis on cultivating relationships and friendships. The developers say that romance simply doesn’t fit the tone of the game. In any event, Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game will be released for PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’s also coming to Netflix.

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