A rights-centred AI blueprint highlights the growing use of AI in analysing citizen submissions during public participation, promising efficiency but raising questions about fairness, transparency and human rights. Experts caution that poorly designed AI could silence minority voices, deepen inequalities and weaken trust in democratic decision-making.
The European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) provides detailed guidance for governments, civil society organisations and technology developers on how to implement AI responsibly. Recommendations include conducting human rights impact assessments, involving marginalised communities from the design stage, testing AI accuracy across demographics, and ensuring meaningful human oversight at every stage.
Transparency and accountability are key pillars of the framework, providing guidance on publishing assessments, documenting AI decision-making processes, and mitigating bias. Experts stress that efficiency gains should never come at the expense of inclusiveness, and that AI tools must be monitored and updated continually to reflect community feedback and rights considerations.
The blueprint also emphasises collaboration and sustainability, urging multistakeholder governance, civil society co-design, and ongoing training for public servants and developers. By prioritising rights, transparency and community engagement, AI in public participation can enhance citizen voices rather than undermining them, but only if implemented deliberately and inclusively.
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OpenAI chief Sam Altman has praised Future House’s new AI Scientist, Kosmos, calling it an exciting step toward automated discovery. The platform upgrades the earlier Robin system and is now operated by Edison Scientific, which plans a commercial tier alongside free access for academics.
Kosmos addresses a key limitation in traditional models: the inability to track long reasoning chains while processing scientific literature at scale. It uses structured world models to stay focused on a single research goal across tens of millions of tokens and hundreds of agent runs.
This is exciting; I expect we are going to see a lot more things like this and it will be one of the most important impacts of AI. Congrats to the Future House team.https://t.co/Cxeh8UlWdk
A single Kosmos run can analyse around 1,500 papers and more than 40,000 lines of code, with early users estimating that this replaces roughly six months of human work. Internal tests found that almost 80 per cent of its conclusions were correct.
Future House reported seven discoveries made during testing, including three that matched known results and four new hypotheses spanning genetics, ageing, and disease. Edison says several are now being validated in wet lab studies, reinforcing the system’s scientific utility.
Kosmos emphasises traceability, linking every conclusion to specific code or source passages to avoid black-box outputs. It is priced at $200 per run, with early pricing guarantees and free credits for academics, though multiple runs may still be required for complex questions.
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Research highlights that digital accessibility is now viewed as a driver of business growth rather than a compliance requirement.
A survey of over 1,600 professionals across the US, UK, and Europe found 75% of organisations linking accessibility improvements to revenue gains, while 91% reported enhanced user experience and 88% noted brand reputation benefits.
AI is playing an increasingly central role in accessibility initiatives. More than 80% of organisations now use AI tools to support accessibility, particularly in mature programmes with formal policies, accountability structures, and dedicated budgets.
Leaders in these organisations view AI as a force multiplier, complementing human expertise rather than replacing it. Despite progress, many organisations still implement accessibility late in digital development processes. Only around 28% address accessibility during planning, and 27% during design stages.
Leadership support and effective training emerged as key success factors. Organisations with engaged executives and strong accessibility training were far more likely to achieve revenue and operational benefits while reducing perceived legal risk.
As AI adoption accelerates and regulatory frameworks expand, companies treating accessibility strategically are better positioned to gain competitive advantage.
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AI workloads are driving unprecedented data growth, with enterprises projected to generate almost 400 zettabytes annually by 2028. NVIDIA says traditional storage models cannot match the speed and scale needed for modern training and inference systems.
The company is promoting RDMA for S3-compatible storage, which accelerates object data transfers by bypassing host CPUs and removing bottlenecks associated with TCP networking. The approach promises higher throughput per terabyte and reduced latency across AI factories and cloud deployments.
Key benefits include lower storage costs, workload portability across environments and faster access for training, inference and vector database workloads. NVIDIA says freeing CPU resources also improves overall GPU utilisation and project efficiency.
RDMA client libraries run directly on GPU compute nodes, enabling faster object retrieval during training. While initially optimised for NVIDIA hardware, the architecture is open and can be extended by other vendors and users seeking higher storage performance.
Cloudian, Dell and HPE are integrating the technology into products such as HyperStore, ObjectScale and Alletra Storage MP X10000. NVIDIA is working with partners to standardise the approach, arguing that accelerated object storage is now essential for large-scale AI systems.
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Eurofiber France has suffered a data breach affecting its internal ticket management system and ATE customer portal, reportedly discovered on 13 November. The incident allegedly involved unauthorised access via a software vulnerability, with the full extent still unclear.
Sources indicate that approximately 3,600 customers could be affected, including major French companies and public institutions. Reports suggest that some of the allegedly stolen data, ranging from documents to cloud configurations, may have appeared on the dark web for sale.
Eurofiber has emphasised that Dutch operations are not affected.
The company moved quickly to secure affected systems, increasing monitoring and collaborating with cybersecurity specialists to investigate the incident. The French privacy regulator, CNIL, has been informed, and Eurofiber states that it will continue to update customers as the investigation progresses.
Founded in 2000, Eurofiber provides fibre optic infrastructure across the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany. Primarily owned by Antin Infrastructure Partners and partially by Dutch pension fund PGGM, the company remains operational while assessing the impact of the breach.
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The European Commission has presented a plan to strengthen cooperation among the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the European Anti-Fraud Office, and member states as part of a broader effort to combat VAT fraud.
The proposal establishes a legal framework for the sharing of information. It grants the EU bodies immediate access to VAT data, which is expected to enhance the detection of cross-border tax evasion schemes.
Real-time reporting of cross-border trade, delivered through the VAT in the Digital Age package, provides national authorities with the information needed to identify suspicious activity, rather than relying on delayed or incomplete records.
Carousel fraud alone costs EU taxpayers billions each year and remains a significant element of the broader VAT compliance gap, which stood at over €89 billion in 2022.
The Commission argues that faster access to VAT information will help investigators uncover fraudulent networks, halt their activities and pursue prosecutions more effectively.
EPPO, OLAF and the Eurofisc network would gain direct communication channels, enabling closer coordination and rapid intelligence sharing throughout the Union.
A proposal that will now move to the Council for agreement and to the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee for consultation.
Once adopted and published, the changes will take effect and initiate the implementation phase across the EU.
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Disney faces intense criticism after CEO Bob Iger announced plans to allow AI-generated content on Disney+. The streaming service, known for its iconic hand-drawn animation, now risks alienating artists and fans who value traditional craftsmanship.
Iger said AI would offer Disney+ users more interactive experiences, including the creation and sharing of short-form content. The company plans to expand gaming on Disney+ by continuing its collaborations with Fortnite, as well as featuring characters from Star Wars and The Simpsons.
Artists and animators reacted sharply, warning that AI could lead to job losses and a flood of low-quality material. Social media users called for a boycott, emphasising that generative AI undermines the legacy of Disney’s animation and may drive subscribers away.
The backlash reflects broader industry concerns, as other studios, such as Illumination and DreamWorks, have also rejected the use of generative AI. Creators like Dana Terrace of The Owl House urged fans to support human artistry, backing the push to defend traditional animation from AI-generated content.
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In the UK and other countries, teenagers continue to encounter harmful social media content, including posts about bullying, suicide and weapons, despite the Online Safety Act coming into effect in July.
A BBC investigation using test profiles revealed that some platforms continue to expose young users to concerning material, particularly on TikTok and YouTube.
The experiment, conducted with six fictional accounts aged 13 to 15, revealed differences in exposure between boys and girls.
While Instagram showed marked improvement, with no harmful content displayed during the latest test, TikTok users were repeatedly served posts about self-harm and abuse, and one YouTube profile encountered videos featuring weapons and animal harm.
Experts warned that changes will take time and urged parents to monitor their children’s online activity actively. They also recommended open conversations about content, the use of parental controls, and vigilance rather than relying solely on the new regulatory codes.
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A new AI model capable of generating digital twins of patients is being hailed as a significant step forward for clinical research. Developed at the University of Melbourne, the system reviews health records to predict how a patient’s condition may change during treatment.
DT-GPT, the model in question, was trained on thousands of records covering Alzheimer’s disease, non-small cell lung cancer, and intensive care admissions. Researchers stated that the model accurately predicted shifts in key clinical indicators, utilising medical literature and patient histories.
Predictions were validated without giving DT-GPT access to actual outcomes, strengthening confidence in its performance.
Lead researcher Associate Professor Michael Menden said the tool not only replicated patient profiles but also outperformed fourteen advanced machine-learning systems.
The ability to simulate clinical trial outcomes could lower costs and accelerate drug development, while enabling clinicians to anticipate deterioration and tailor treatment plans more effectively.
Researchers also noted that DT-GPT’s zero-shot ability to predict medical values it had never been trained on. The team has formed a company with the Royal Melbourne Women’s Hospital to apply the technology to patients with endometriosis, demonstrating wider potential in healthcare.
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Uzbekistan has granted full legal validity to online personal data stored on the my.gov.uz Unified Interactive Public Services Portal, placing it on equal footing with traditional documents.
The measure, in force from 1 November, supports the country’s digital transformation by simplifying how citizens interact with state bodies.
Personal information can now be accessed, shared and managed entirely through the portal instead of relying on printed certificates.
State institutions are no longer permitted to request paper versions of records that are already available online, which is expected to reduce queues and alleviate the administrative burden faced by the public.
Officials in Uzbekistan anticipate that centralising personal data on one platform will save time and resources for both citizens and government agencies. The reform aims to streamline public services, remove redundant steps and improve overall efficiency across state procedures.
Government bodies have encouraged citizens to use the portal’s functions more actively and follow official channels for updates on new features and improvements.
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