With artificial intelligence threatening to upend workplaces throughout Silicon Valley, the area’s representative in Congress has an idea he hopes will reduce anxieties about the revolutionary technology: nudge tech companies to take a central role in educating the workforce of the future. The tense relationship between recent college graduates and AI has been on display...
South Bay data centers present environmental challenges
With more than a dozen data center projects taking shape in Santa Clara County, local leaders have offered assurances that potential environmental impacts will be thoroughly assessed before any new facility gets switched on. But when it comes to water usage, a group of Bay Area researchers is warning such environmental reviews have an alarming...
San Jose lawmaker at center of AI regulation fight
San Jose’s former mayor turned congressman finds himself at the center of a national battle over who can regulate artificial intelligence: the states or the federal government under President Donald Trump. A coalition of online child safety and tech watchdog groups is calling on Rep. Sam Liccardo, along with several other lawmakers, to reject an...
San Jose wants to spin off AI policy initiative
For many public officials, artificial intelligence holds the promise to massively boost government operations. But the emerging technology also faces serious questions about how it can be used without compromising data security and user privacy or displacing workers. For the past two years, San Jose has been helping government agencies across the globe navigate this...
San Jose workers want safeguards from AI
San Jose has been an early adopter of generative artificial intelligence tools. Now the city’s largest public sector union is demanding it also move quickly to embrace safeguards for workers. Amid ongoing contract renewal negotiations with the city, AFSCME Local 101 has introduced a package of proposals intended to give workers a greater say in...
UPDATE: Santa Clara County workers want guardrails for AI
Santa Clara County officials want to get ahead of artificial intelligence, and are exploring how to implement guardrails as the growing technology sparks displacement fears among public servants. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday, with Supervisor Susan Ellenberg absent, to move forward with a comprehensive study on how AI is used across its various...
Bernie Sanders warns about AI ‘tsunami’ at Stanford town hall
Workers, students and researchers in Silicon Valley are no strangers to the idea that artificial intelligence may be coming for their jobs. Many are under the impression that it’s not a matter of if, but when. But for Sen. Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of the billionaire class, the new technology has ramifications that go...
Santa Clara County may ditch camera vendor amid privacy issues
Cities across Silicon Valley may be on the cusp of cutting ties with a surveillance company linked to local police departments’ cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Santa Clara County officials this week signaled growing distrust with Flock Safety, a company that sells license plate reading cameras to cities across California, over concerns the...
San Jose adds AI tools to its disaster tactics
San Jose faces a wide array of disaster risks — everything from wildfires to floods and mass shootings — each of which poses its own difficult questions for emergency management officials tasked with leading the city’s evacuation efforts. But those emergency planners will soon get a high-tech assist in these life-or-death calls from a cutting-edge,...
California lawmakers torn on Trump ignoring Congress’ TikTok Law
More than a year after Congress passed a law to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or else be banned from U.S. markets, the app is still up and running — and the White House is actively promoting it. The White House’s official TikTok account, created just over two weeks ago, has posted more...