technocrit

Also Inc., the micromobility startup spun out of Rivian earlier this year, has raised $200 million from Greenoaks Capital, according to a new report from Bloomberg News...

Now established as its own company, Also plans to make micro-EVs of all shapes and sizes, and is supposed to reveal the first designs at some point later this year.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32913752

This time with the "prompts"

Despite felony convictions in fatal crashes, several local drivers have regained licenses under a system that operates with no public tracking, few safeguards and rising calls for reform.

California government agencies are going all-in on generative artificial intelligence tools under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2023 executive order to improve government efficiency with AI. One of the first to roll out is a chatbot from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the primary agency tasked with coordinating the state’s wildfire response.

The chatbot is meant to give Californians better access to “critical fire prevention resources and near-real-time emergency information,” according to a May release from Newsom’s office. But CalMatters found that it fails to accurately describe the containment of a given wildfire, doesn’t reliably provide information such as a list for evacuation supplies and can’t tell users about evacuation orders.

Newsom has announced AI applications for traffic, housing and customer service to be implemented in the coming months and years. But Cal Fire’s chatbot issues raise questions about whether agencies are following best practices.

President Donald Trump appointed conspiracy-obsessed MAGA media favorites to the highest levels of federal law enforcement, and now those figures are coming under fire from the right-wing fever swamp for failing to confirm their bullshit.

You know what is says on his cape? MS-13.

The Instagram account of a well known anti-Zionist Jewish comedian was deleted after Meta’s Public Policy Director for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora viewed one of his stories. This is just one example of the anti-Palestinian bias across Big Tech.

• Michael Schirtzer
• Tadhg Hickey

The Senate has passed a bill making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the U.S.'s largest interior law enforcement agency with funding for Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda higher than most of the world's militaries, including Israel's.

Pending its passage in the House of Representatives, Trump's bill could mean a massive increase in ICE funding as part of an immigration enforcement agenda worth $150 billion over four years.

This figure is more than the annual military budget of Italy, which at $30.8 billion, is the world's 16th highest defense spender for this year according to tracker Global Fire Power.

It is also higher than military spending for Israel, ($30 billion), the Netherlands ($27 billion) and Brazil ($26.1 billion).

Immigrant advocates and civil rights lawyers say evidence is mounting that immigration agents carrying out the Trump administration's deportation crackdown in southern California are engaging in widespread racial profiling.

They've raided known hubs for Latino workers almost daily – hardware store parking lots, car washes, and street vendor corners. Videos of many of those operations, filmed by bystanders and posted to social media, have shown agents arresting people who appear to be Latino as they stand on sidewalks or wait at bus stops.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups filed a federal class action lawsuit alleging that immigration agents roving the streets are targeting people based on the color of their skin or their apparent occupation. They want a judge to declare the raids unconstitutional.

The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.

“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of detainees or when they arrived.

“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal.

“Stood up in record time under @GovRonDeSantis ’ leadership & in coordination with @DHSgov & @ICEgov, Florida is proud to help facilitate @realDonaldTrump ’s mission to enforce immigration law,” the account for the Florida Division of Emergency Management posted to the social media site X on Thursday. Requests for additional information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and FDEM, which is building the site, were not returned early Thursday afternoon.

The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 security personnel

A Los Angeles school district is demanding an investigation of an incident last month, during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents gathered at a local high school before a raid and were seen publicly urinating on school grounds, not far from where elementary school students were attending summer classes.

According to a statement from El Rancho unified school district, which also released video evidence in the form of surveillance-camera footage, the incident took place on the morning of 17 June at Ruben Salazar high school in Pico Rivera, in south-eastern LA county.

The school has since written to Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, to request an inquiry. “At no time was a legal or legitimate reason offered or provided as to why ICE agents entered and remained on school grounds, nor did they provide any judicial warrant,” the school district said in the statement.