AI Art Legality

AI Art Legality — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Symbol level

    Symbol level

    In knowledge-based systems, agents choose actions based on the principle of rationality to move closer to a desired goal. The agent is able to make decisions based on knowledge it has about the world (see knowledge level). But for the agent to actually change its state, it must use whatever means it has available. This level of description for the agent's behavior is the symbol level. The term was coined by Allen Newell in 1982. For example, in a computer program, the knowledge level consists of the information contained in its data structures that it uses to perform certain actions. The symbol level consists of the program's algorithms, the data structures themselves, and so on.

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  • User profile

    User profile

    A user profile is a collection of settings and information associated with a user. It contains critical information that is used to identify an individual, such as their name, age, portrait photograph and individual characteristics such as knowledge or expertise. User profiles are most commonly present on social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn; and serve as voluntary digital identity of an individual, highlighting their key features and traits. In personal computing and operating systems, user profiles serve to categorise files, settings, and documents by individual user environments, known as 'accounts', allowing the operating system to be more friendly and catered to the user. Physical user profiles serve as identity documents such as passports, driving licenses and legal documents that are used to identify an individual under the legal system. A user profile can also be considered as the computer representation of a user model. A user model is a (data) structure that is used to capture certain characteristics about an individual user, and the process of obtaining the user profile is called user modeling or profiling. == Origin == The origin of user profiles can be traced to the origin of the passport, an identity document (ID) made mandatory in 1920, after World War I following negotiations at the League of Nations. The passport served as an official government record of an individual. Consequently, Immigration Act of 1924 was established to identify an individual's country of origin. In the 21st century, passports have now become a highly sought-after commodity as it is widely accepted as a source of verifying an individual's identity under the legal system. With the advent of digital revolution and social media websites, user profiles have transitioned to an organised group of data describing the interaction between a user and a system. Social media sites like Instagram allow individuals to create profiles that are representative of their desired personality and image. Filling all fields of profile information may not be necessary to create a meaningful self-presentation, which grants individual more control over of the identity they wish to present by displaying the most meaningful attributes. A personal user profile is a key aspect of an individual's social networking experience, around which his/her public identity is built. == Types of user profiles == A user profile can be of any format if it contains information, settings and/or characteristics specific to an individual. Most popular user profiles include those on photo and video sharing websites such as Facebook and Instagram, accounts on operating systems, such as those on Windows and MacOS and physical documents such as passports and driving licenses. === Social media === Effectively structured user profiles on social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook offer a way for people to form impressions about someone that is predictive or similarly meeting them offline. The condensed format of social media profiles allows for quick filtering of millions of profiles by matching individuals by similar characteristics and interests; information provided upon sign up. A research conducted highlights that only a "thin slice" of information is required to form an impression about an individual online (Stecher and Counts 2008). Online user profiles eliminate the complexity of interaction that is present in 'face-to-face' meetings such as behavioural, facial, and environmental information, resulting in increased predictiveness of user personality. Dating apps and websites solely rely on an individual's user profile and the information provided to form interactions and communication with others on the platform. Despite having control over presented information, lying is minimal in online dating contexts (Hancock, Toma and Ellison, 2007). Apps such as Bumble allow users to 'match' with other individuals based on their characteristics and selected filters that allow users to narrow the spectrum of search to their preference. Information for a user's profile is voluntarily specified by the user and includes information such as height, interests, photographs, gender or education. The requirement of information varies respective to each platform, and there surrounds little consensus to an appropriate amount of information for a condensed user profile. Universally, all social networking platforms display an individual's profile picture and an "about me" page that allows for self-expression. === Influencers === Influencer user profiles are third party endorsers who shape audience attitudes and decisions through social media content such as photos, blogs and tweets. Social Media Influencers (SMI) often hold a significant following on a social media platform which enables them to be recognised as opinion leaders to shape an information influence to their audience. 'Influencer marketing' industry gained prominence in 2018, when the photo sharing app Instagram crossed 1 billion users, subsequently with approximately 60,000 google search queries for 'influencer marketing' the same year. Influencer user profiles hold a unique selling point, or public personality that is unique and charismatic to the needs and wants of their target audience. SMI profiles advertise product information, latest promotions and regularly engage with their followers to maintain their online persona. Messages endorsed by social media influencers are often perceived as reliable and compelling, as a study conducted found 82% of followers were more inclined to follow the suggestions of their favorite influencer. This allows advertisers to leverage online user profiles and their audience rapport to target younger and niche audiences. According to a market survey, influencer marketing through social media profiles yields a return 11 times higher than traditional marketing, as they are more capable of communicating to a niche segment. Most popular influencers include sport starts such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Hollywood personalities such as Dwayne Johnson and Kylie Jenner each with over 200 million followers respectively. === Ecommerce === Online shopping or Ecommerce websites such as Amazon use information from a customer's user profile and interests to generate a list of recommended items to shop. Recommendation algorithms analyse user demographic data, history, and favourite artists to compile suggestions. The store rapidly adapts to changing user needs and preferences, with generation of real time results required within half of a second. New profiles naturally have limited information for algorithms to analyse, and customer data of each interaction provides valuable information which is stored as a database linked with each individual profile. User profiles on ecommerce websites also serve to improve sales of sellers as individuals are recommend products that other "customers who bought this item also bought" to widen the selection of the buyer. A study conducted found that user profiles and recommendation algorithms have significant impact on related product sales and overall spending of an individual. A process known as "collaborative filtering" tries to analyse common products of interest for an individual on the basis of views expressed by other similar behaving profiles. Features such as product ratings, seller ratings and comments allow individual user profiles to contribute to recommendation algorithms, eliminate adverse selection and contribute to shaping an online marketplace adhering to Amazons zero tolerance policy for misleading products. == Digital user profiles == Modern software and applications account for user profiles as a foundation on which a usable application is built. The structure and layout of an application such as its menus, features and controls are often derived from user's selected settings and preferences. The origin of digital user profiles in computer systems was first initiated by Windows NT that held user settings and information in a separate environment variable named %USERPROFILE% and held the framework to a user's profile root. Consequently, operating systems such as MacOS further accelerated prominence of user profiles in Mac OS X 10.0. Iterations since have been made with each operating system release with the aim to maximise user friendliness with the system. Features such as keyboard layouts, time zones, measurement units, synchronisation of different services and privacy preferences are made available during the setup of a user account on the computer === Types of accounts === ==== Administrator ==== Administrator user profiles have complete access to the system and its permissions. It is often the first user profile on a system by design, and is what allows other accounts to be created. However, since the administrator account has no restrictions, they are highly vulnerable to malware and viruses, with potential to impact all other accounts.

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  • Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act

    Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act

    The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act is a piece of legislation introduced by California Representative Adam Schiff in the United States Congress on April 9, 2024. It concerns the transparency of companies regarding their use of copyrighted work to train their generative artificial intelligence (AI) models. The legislation requires the submission of a notice regarding the identity and the uniform resource locator (URL) address of the copyrighted works used in the training data to the Register of Copyrights at least 30 days before the public release of the new or updated version of the AI model; it does not ban the use of copyrighted works for AI training. The bill's requirements would apply retroactively to prior AI models. Violation penalties would start at US$5,000. The legislation does not have a maximum penalty assessment that can be charged. The bill by Schiff was introduced a few days after The New York Times published an article regarding the business activities of major tech firms, including Google and Meta, in the training of their generative AI platforms on April 6, 2024. The legislation is supported by the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and others.

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  • Resource Description Framework

    Resource Description Framework

    The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a method to describe and exchange graph data. It was originally designed as a data model for metadata by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It provides a variety of syntax notations and formats, of which the most widely used is Turtle (Terse RDF Triple Language). RDF is a directed graph composed of triple statements. An RDF graph statement is represented by: (1) a node for the subject, (2) an arc from subject to object, representing a predicate, and (3) a node for the object. Each of these parts can be identified by a Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI). An object can also be a literal value. This simple, flexible data model has a lot of expressive power to represent complex situations, relationships, and other things of interest, while also being appropriately abstract. RDF was adopted as a W3C recommendation in 1999. The RDF 1.0 specification was published in 2004, and the RDF 1.1 specification in 2014. SPARQL is a standard query language for RDF graphs. RDF Schema (RDFS), Web Ontology Language (OWL) and SHACL (Shapes Constraint Language) are ontology languages that are used to describe RDF data. == Overview == The RDF data model is similar to classical conceptual modeling approaches (such as entity–relationship or class diagrams). It is based on the idea of making statements about resources (in particular web resources) in expressions of the form subject–predicate–object, known as triples. The subject denotes the resource; the predicate denotes traits or aspects of the resource, and expresses a relationship between the subject and the object. For example, one way to represent the notion "The sky has the color blue" in RDF is as the triple: a subject denoting "the sky", a predicate denoting "has the color", and an object denoting "blue". Therefore, RDF uses subject instead of object (or entity) in contrast to the typical approach of an entity–attribute–value model in object-oriented design: entity (sky), attribute (color), and value (blue). RDF is an abstract model with several serialization formats (being essentially specialized file formats). In addition the particular encoding for resources or triples can vary from format to format. This mechanism for describing resources is a major component in the W3C's Semantic Web activity: an evolutionary stage of the World Wide Web in which automated software can store, exchange, and use machine-readable information distributed throughout the Web, in turn enabling users to deal with the information with greater efficiency and certainty. RDF's simple data model and ability to model disparate, abstract concepts has also led to its increasing use in knowledge management applications unrelated to Semantic Web activity. A collection of RDF statements intrinsically represents a labeled, directed multigraph. This makes an RDF data model better suited to certain kinds of knowledge representation than other relational or ontological models. As RDFS, OWL and SHACL demonstrate, one can build additional ontology languages upon RDF. == History == The initial RDF design, intended to "build a vendor-neutral and operating system- independent system of metadata", derived from the W3C's Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), an early web content labelling system, but the project was also shaped by ideas from Dublin Core, and from the Meta Content Framework (MCF), which had been developed during 1995 to 1997 by Ramanathan V. Guha at Apple and Tim Bray at Netscape. A first public draft of RDF appeared in October 1997, issued by a W3C working group that included representatives from IBM, Microsoft, Netscape, Nokia, Reuters, SoftQuad, and the University of Michigan. In 1999, the W3C published the first recommended RDF specification, the Model and Syntax Specification ("RDF M&S"). This described RDF's data model and an XML serialization. Two persistent misunderstandings about RDF developed at this time: firstly, due to the MCF influence and the RDF "Resource Description" initialism, the idea that RDF was specifically for use in representing metadata; secondly that RDF was an XML format rather than a data model, and only the RDF/XML serialisation being XML-based. RDF saw little take-up in this period, but there was significant work done in Bristol, around ILRT at Bristol University and HP Labs, and in Boston at MIT. RSS 1.0 and FOAF became exemplar applications for RDF in this period. The recommendation of 1999 was replaced in 2004 by a set of six specifications: "The RDF Primer", "RDF Concepts and Abstract", "RDF/XML Syntax Specification (revised)", "RDF Semantics", "RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0", and "The RDF Test Cases". This series was superseded in 2014 by the following six "RDF 1.1" documents: "RDF 1.1 Primer", "RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax", "RDF 1.1 XML Syntax", "RDF 1.1 Semantics", "RDF Schema 1.1", and "RDF 1.1 Test Cases". == RDF topics == === Vocabulary === The vocabulary defined by the RDF specification is as follows: ==== Classes ==== ===== rdf ===== rdf:XMLLiteral the class of XML literal values rdf:Property the class of properties rdf:Statement the class of RDF statements rdf:Alt, rdf:Bag, rdf:Seq containers of alternatives, unordered containers, and ordered containers (rdfs:Container is a super-class of the three) rdf:List the class of RDF Lists rdf:nil an instance of rdf:List representing the empty list ===== rdfs ===== rdfs:Resource the class resource, everything rdfs:Literal the class of literal values, e.g. strings and integers rdfs:Class the class of classes rdfs:Datatype the class of RDF datatypes rdfs:Container the class of RDF containers rdfs:ContainerMembershipProperty the class of container membership properties, rdf:_1, rdf:_2, ..., all of which are sub-properties of rdfs:member ==== Properties ==== ===== rdf ===== rdf:type an instance of rdf:Property used to state that a resource is an instance of a class rdf:first the first item in the subject RDF list rdf:rest the rest of the subject RDF list after rdf:first rdf:value idiomatic property used for structured values rdf:subject the subject of the RDF statement rdf:predicate the predicate of the RDF statement rdf:object the object of the RDF statement rdf:Statement, rdf:subject, rdf:predicate, rdf:object are used for reification (see below). ===== rdfs ===== rdfs:subClassOf the subject is a subclass of a class rdfs:subPropertyOf the subject is a subproperty of a property rdfs:domain a domain of the subject property rdfs:range a range of the subject property rdfs:label a human-readable name for the subject rdfs:comment a description of the subject resource rdfs:member a member of the subject resource rdfs:seeAlso further information about the subject resource rdfs:isDefinedBy the definition of the subject resource This vocabulary is used as a foundation for RDF Schema, where it is extended. === Serialization formats === Several common serialization formats are in use, including: Turtle, a compact, human-friendly format. TriG, an extension of Turtle to datasets. N-Triples, a very simple, easy-to-parse, line-based format that is not as compact as Turtle. N-Quads, a superset of N-Triples, for serializing multiple RDF graphs. JSON-LD, a JSON-based serialization. N3 or Notation3, a non-standard serialization that is very similar to Turtle, but has some additional features, such as the ability to define inference rules. RDF/XML, an XML-based syntax that was the first standard format for serializing RDF. RDF/JSON, an alternative syntax for expressing RDF triples using a simple JSON notation. RDF/XML is sometimes misleadingly called simply RDF because it was introduced among the other W3C specifications defining RDF and it was historically the first W3C standard RDF serialization format. However, it is important to distinguish the RDF/XML format from the abstract RDF model itself. Although the RDF/XML format is still in use, other RDF serializations are now preferred by many RDF users, both because they are more human-friendly, and because some RDF graphs are not representable in RDF/XML due to restrictions on the syntax of XML QNames. With a little effort, virtually any arbitrary XML may also be interpreted as RDF using GRDDL (pronounced 'griddle'), Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages. RDF triples may be stored in a type of database called a triplestore. === Resource identification === The subject of an RDF statement is either a uniform resource identifier (URI) or a blank node, both of which denote resources. Resources indicated by blank nodes are called anonymous resources. They are not directly identifiable from the RDF statement. The predicate is a URI which also indicates a resource, representing a relationship. The object is a URI, blank node or a Unicode string literal. As of RDF 1.1 resources are identified by Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs); IRIs are a generalization of URIs. In Semantic Web applications, and in re

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  • Voice activity detection

    Voice activity detection

    Voice activity detection (VAD), also known as speech activity detection or speech detection, is the detection of the presence or absence of human speech, used in speech processing. The main uses of VAD are in speaker diarization, speech coding and speech recognition. It can facilitate speech processing, and can also be used to deactivate some processes during non-speech section of an audio session: it can avoid unnecessary coding/transmission of silence packets in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, saving on computation and on network bandwidth. VAD is an important enabling technology for a variety of speech-based applications. Therefore, various VAD algorithms have been developed that provide varying features and compromises between latency, sensitivity, accuracy and computational cost. Some VAD algorithms also provide further analysis, for example whether the speech is voiced, unvoiced or sustained. Voice activity detection is usually independent of language. It was first investigated for use on time-assignment speech interpolation (TASI) systems. == Algorithm overview == The typical design of a VAD algorithm is as follows: There may first be a noise reduction stage, e.g. via spectral subtraction. Then some features or quantities are calculated from a section of the input signal. A classification rule is applied to classify the section as speech or non-speech – often this classification rule finds when a value exceeds a certain threshold. There may be some feedback in this sequence, in which the VAD decision is used to improve the noise estimate in the noise reduction stage, or to adaptively vary the threshold(s). These feedback operations improve the VAD performance in non-stationary noise (i.e. when the noise varies a lot). A representative set of recently published VAD methods formulates the decision rule on a frame by frame basis using instantaneous measures of the divergence distance between speech and noise. The different measures which are used in VAD methods include spectral slope, correlation coefficients, log likelihood ratio, cepstral, weighted cepstral, and modified distance measures. Independently from the choice of VAD algorithm, a compromise must be made between having voice detected as noise, or noise detected as voice (between false positive and false negative). A VAD operating in a mobile phone must be able to detect speech in the presence of a range of very diverse types of acoustic background noise. In these difficult detection conditions it is often preferable that a VAD should fail-safe, indicating speech detected when the decision is in doubt, to lower the chance of losing speech segments. The biggest difficulty in the detection of speech in this environment is the very low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) that are encountered. It may be impossible to distinguish between speech and noise using simple level detection techniques when parts of the speech utterance are buried below the noise. == Applications == VAD is an integral part of different speech communication systems such as audio conferencing, echo cancellation, speech recognition, speech encoding, speaker recognition and hands-free telephony. In the field of multimedia applications, VAD allows simultaneous voice and data applications. Similarly, in Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS), it controls and reduces the average bit rate and enhances overall coding quality of speech. In cellular radio systems (for instance GSM and CDMA systems) based on Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) mode, VAD is essential for enhancing system capacity by reducing co-channel interference and power consumption in portable digital devices. In speech processing applications, voice activity detection plays an important role since non-speech frames are often discarded. For a wide range of applications such as digital mobile radio, Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data (DSVD) or speech storage, it is desirable to provide a discontinuous transmission of speech-coding parameters. Advantages can include lower average power consumption in mobile handsets, higher average bit rate for simultaneous services like data transmission, or a higher capacity on storage chips. However, the improvement depends mainly on the percentage of pauses during speech and the reliability of the VAD used to detect these intervals. On the one hand, it is advantageous to have a low percentage of speech activity. On the other hand, clipping, that is the loss of milliseconds of active speech, should be minimized to preserve quality. This is the crucial problem for a VAD algorithm under heavy noise conditions. === Use in telemarketing === One controversial application of VAD is in conjunction with predictive dialers used by telemarketing firms. In order to maximize agent productivity, telemarketing firms set up predictive dialers to call more numbers than they have agents available, knowing most calls will end up in either "Ring – No Answer" or answering machines. When a person answers, they typically speak briefly ("Hello", "Good evening", etc.) and then there is a brief period of silence. Answering machine messages are usually 3–15 seconds of continuous speech. By setting VAD parameters correctly, dialers can determine whether a person or a machine answered the call and, if it's a person, transfer the call to an available agent. If it detects an answering machine message, the dialer hangs up. Often, even when the system correctly detects a person answering the call, no agent may be available, resulting in a "silent call". Call screening with a multi-second message like "please say who you are, and I may pick up the phone" will frustrate such automated calls. == Performance evaluation == To evaluate a VAD, its output using test recordings is compared with those of an "ideal" VAD – created by hand-annotating the presence or absence of voice in the recordings. The performance of a VAD is commonly evaluated on the basis of the following four parameters: FEC (Front End Clipping): clipping introduced in passing from noise to speech activity; MSC (Mid Speech Clipping): clipping due to speech misclassified as noise; OVER: noise interpreted as speech due to the VAD flag remaining active in passing from speech activity to noise; NDS (Noise Detected as Speech): noise interpreted as speech within a silence period. Although the method described above provides useful objective information concerning the performance of a VAD, it is only an approximate measure of the subjective effect. For example, the effects of speech signal clipping can at times be hidden by the presence of background noise, depending on the model chosen for the comfort noise synthesis, so some of the clipping measured with objective tests is in reality not audible. It is therefore important to carry out subjective tests on VADs, the main aim of which is to ensure that the clipping perceived is acceptable. In VoIP applications, front-end clipping can be reduced by rewinding to shortly before the detection and sending very slightly delayed data. This kind of test requires a certain number of listeners to judge recordings containing the processing results of the VADs being tested, giving marks to several speech sequences on the following features: Quality; Comprehension difficulty; Audibility of clipping. These marks are then used to calculate average results for each of the features listed above, thus providing a global estimate of the behavior of the VAD being tested. To conclude, whereas objective methods are very useful in an initial stage to evaluate the quality of a VAD, subjective methods are more significant. As they require the participation of several people for a few days, increasing cost, they are generally only used when a proposal is about to be standardized. == Implementations == One early standard VAD is that developed by British Telecom for use in the Pan-European digital cellular mobile telephone service in 1991. It uses inverse filtering trained on non-speech segments to filter out background noise, so that it can then more reliably use a simple power-threshold to decide if a voice is present. The G.729 standard calculates the following features for its VAD: line spectral frequencies, full-band energy, low-band energy (<1 kHz), and zero-crossing rate. It applies a simple classification using a fixed decision boundary in the space defined by these features, and then applies smoothing and adaptive correction to improve the estimate. The GSM standard includes two VAD options developed by ETSI. Option 1 computes the SNR in nine bands and applies a threshold to these values. Option 2 calculates different parameters: channel power, voice metrics, and noise power. It then thresholds the voice metrics using a threshold that varies according to the estimated SNR. The Speex audio compression library uses a procedure named Improved Minima Controlled Recursive Averaging, which uses a smoothed representation of spectral pow

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  • GPT-5.3-Codex

    GPT-5.3-Codex

    GPT-5.3-Codex (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 5.3 Codex) is a large language model (LLM) announced and released by OpenAI on February 5, 2026. It is made as a competitor to Claude's Opus 4.6, focusing on code generation, speed and the ability to search repositories, run terminal commands and at the same time, debug code. In technical benchmarks, it is reported that GPT-5.3 Codex is 25% faster than Opus 4.6. GPT-5.3 Codex is available in the Codex app and on the web; access via API is also planned. According to OpenAI, GPT-5.3-Codex is the company's "first model that was instrumental in creating itself." On February 12, 2026, GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark was released in a research preview, which is a smaller version of GPT-5.3-Codex which supports text-only input. As of February 2026, GPT-5.3-Codex is only available for ChatGPT Pro ($200/month) subscribers.

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  • Resource Description Framework

    Resource Description Framework

    The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a method to describe and exchange graph data. It was originally designed as a data model for metadata by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It provides a variety of syntax notations and formats, of which the most widely used is Turtle (Terse RDF Triple Language). RDF is a directed graph composed of triple statements. An RDF graph statement is represented by: (1) a node for the subject, (2) an arc from subject to object, representing a predicate, and (3) a node for the object. Each of these parts can be identified by a Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI). An object can also be a literal value. This simple, flexible data model has a lot of expressive power to represent complex situations, relationships, and other things of interest, while also being appropriately abstract. RDF was adopted as a W3C recommendation in 1999. The RDF 1.0 specification was published in 2004, and the RDF 1.1 specification in 2014. SPARQL is a standard query language for RDF graphs. RDF Schema (RDFS), Web Ontology Language (OWL) and SHACL (Shapes Constraint Language) are ontology languages that are used to describe RDF data. == Overview == The RDF data model is similar to classical conceptual modeling approaches (such as entity–relationship or class diagrams). It is based on the idea of making statements about resources (in particular web resources) in expressions of the form subject–predicate–object, known as triples. The subject denotes the resource; the predicate denotes traits or aspects of the resource, and expresses a relationship between the subject and the object. For example, one way to represent the notion "The sky has the color blue" in RDF is as the triple: a subject denoting "the sky", a predicate denoting "has the color", and an object denoting "blue". Therefore, RDF uses subject instead of object (or entity) in contrast to the typical approach of an entity–attribute–value model in object-oriented design: entity (sky), attribute (color), and value (blue). RDF is an abstract model with several serialization formats (being essentially specialized file formats). In addition the particular encoding for resources or triples can vary from format to format. This mechanism for describing resources is a major component in the W3C's Semantic Web activity: an evolutionary stage of the World Wide Web in which automated software can store, exchange, and use machine-readable information distributed throughout the Web, in turn enabling users to deal with the information with greater efficiency and certainty. RDF's simple data model and ability to model disparate, abstract concepts has also led to its increasing use in knowledge management applications unrelated to Semantic Web activity. A collection of RDF statements intrinsically represents a labeled, directed multigraph. This makes an RDF data model better suited to certain kinds of knowledge representation than other relational or ontological models. As RDFS, OWL and SHACL demonstrate, one can build additional ontology languages upon RDF. == History == The initial RDF design, intended to "build a vendor-neutral and operating system- independent system of metadata", derived from the W3C's Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), an early web content labelling system, but the project was also shaped by ideas from Dublin Core, and from the Meta Content Framework (MCF), which had been developed during 1995 to 1997 by Ramanathan V. Guha at Apple and Tim Bray at Netscape. A first public draft of RDF appeared in October 1997, issued by a W3C working group that included representatives from IBM, Microsoft, Netscape, Nokia, Reuters, SoftQuad, and the University of Michigan. In 1999, the W3C published the first recommended RDF specification, the Model and Syntax Specification ("RDF M&S"). This described RDF's data model and an XML serialization. Two persistent misunderstandings about RDF developed at this time: firstly, due to the MCF influence and the RDF "Resource Description" initialism, the idea that RDF was specifically for use in representing metadata; secondly that RDF was an XML format rather than a data model, and only the RDF/XML serialisation being XML-based. RDF saw little take-up in this period, but there was significant work done in Bristol, around ILRT at Bristol University and HP Labs, and in Boston at MIT. RSS 1.0 and FOAF became exemplar applications for RDF in this period. The recommendation of 1999 was replaced in 2004 by a set of six specifications: "The RDF Primer", "RDF Concepts and Abstract", "RDF/XML Syntax Specification (revised)", "RDF Semantics", "RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0", and "The RDF Test Cases". This series was superseded in 2014 by the following six "RDF 1.1" documents: "RDF 1.1 Primer", "RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax", "RDF 1.1 XML Syntax", "RDF 1.1 Semantics", "RDF Schema 1.1", and "RDF 1.1 Test Cases". == RDF topics == === Vocabulary === The vocabulary defined by the RDF specification is as follows: ==== Classes ==== ===== rdf ===== rdf:XMLLiteral the class of XML literal values rdf:Property the class of properties rdf:Statement the class of RDF statements rdf:Alt, rdf:Bag, rdf:Seq containers of alternatives, unordered containers, and ordered containers (rdfs:Container is a super-class of the three) rdf:List the class of RDF Lists rdf:nil an instance of rdf:List representing the empty list ===== rdfs ===== rdfs:Resource the class resource, everything rdfs:Literal the class of literal values, e.g. strings and integers rdfs:Class the class of classes rdfs:Datatype the class of RDF datatypes rdfs:Container the class of RDF containers rdfs:ContainerMembershipProperty the class of container membership properties, rdf:_1, rdf:_2, ..., all of which are sub-properties of rdfs:member ==== Properties ==== ===== rdf ===== rdf:type an instance of rdf:Property used to state that a resource is an instance of a class rdf:first the first item in the subject RDF list rdf:rest the rest of the subject RDF list after rdf:first rdf:value idiomatic property used for structured values rdf:subject the subject of the RDF statement rdf:predicate the predicate of the RDF statement rdf:object the object of the RDF statement rdf:Statement, rdf:subject, rdf:predicate, rdf:object are used for reification (see below). ===== rdfs ===== rdfs:subClassOf the subject is a subclass of a class rdfs:subPropertyOf the subject is a subproperty of a property rdfs:domain a domain of the subject property rdfs:range a range of the subject property rdfs:label a human-readable name for the subject rdfs:comment a description of the subject resource rdfs:member a member of the subject resource rdfs:seeAlso further information about the subject resource rdfs:isDefinedBy the definition of the subject resource This vocabulary is used as a foundation for RDF Schema, where it is extended. === Serialization formats === Several common serialization formats are in use, including: Turtle, a compact, human-friendly format. TriG, an extension of Turtle to datasets. N-Triples, a very simple, easy-to-parse, line-based format that is not as compact as Turtle. N-Quads, a superset of N-Triples, for serializing multiple RDF graphs. JSON-LD, a JSON-based serialization. N3 or Notation3, a non-standard serialization that is very similar to Turtle, but has some additional features, such as the ability to define inference rules. RDF/XML, an XML-based syntax that was the first standard format for serializing RDF. RDF/JSON, an alternative syntax for expressing RDF triples using a simple JSON notation. RDF/XML is sometimes misleadingly called simply RDF because it was introduced among the other W3C specifications defining RDF and it was historically the first W3C standard RDF serialization format. However, it is important to distinguish the RDF/XML format from the abstract RDF model itself. Although the RDF/XML format is still in use, other RDF serializations are now preferred by many RDF users, both because they are more human-friendly, and because some RDF graphs are not representable in RDF/XML due to restrictions on the syntax of XML QNames. With a little effort, virtually any arbitrary XML may also be interpreted as RDF using GRDDL (pronounced 'griddle'), Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages. RDF triples may be stored in a type of database called a triplestore. === Resource identification === The subject of an RDF statement is either a uniform resource identifier (URI) or a blank node, both of which denote resources. Resources indicated by blank nodes are called anonymous resources. They are not directly identifiable from the RDF statement. The predicate is a URI which also indicates a resource, representing a relationship. The object is a URI, blank node or a Unicode string literal. As of RDF 1.1 resources are identified by Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs); IRIs are a generalization of URIs. In Semantic Web applications, and in re

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  • GNOWSYS

    GNOWSYS

    GNOWSYS (Gnowledge Networking and Organizing system) is a specification for a generic distributed network based memory/knowledge management. It is developed as an application for developing and maintaining semantic web content. It is written in Python. It is implemented as a Django app. The GNOWSYS project was launched by Nagarjuna G. in 2001, while he was working at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE). The memory of GNOWSYS is designed as a node-oriented space. A node is described by other nodes to which it has links. The nodes are organized and processed according to a complex data structure called the neighborhood. == Applications == The application can be used for web-based knowledge representation and content management projects, for developing structured knowledge bases, as a collaborative authoring tool, suitable for making electronic glossaries, dictionaries and encyclopedias, for managing large web sites or links, developing an online catalogue for a library of any thing including books, to make ontologies, classifying and networking any objects, etc. This tool is also intended to be used for an on-line tutoring system with dependency management between various concepts or software packages. For example, the dependency relations between Debian packages have been represented by the gnowledge portal Archived 2018-05-14 at the Wayback Machine. == Component Classes == The kernel is designed to provide support to persistently store highly granular nodes of knowledge representation like terms, predicates and very complex propositional systems like arguments, rules, axiomatic systems, loosely held paragraphs, and more complex structured and consistent compositions. All the component classes in GNOWSYS are classified according to complexity into three groups, where the first two groups are used to express all possible well formed formulae permissible in a first order logic. === Terms === ‘Object’, ‘Object Type’ for declarative knowledge, ‘Event’, ‘Event Type’, for temporal objects, and ‘Meta Types’ for expressing upper ontology. The objects in this group are essentially any thing about which the knowledge engineer intends to express and store in the knowledge base, i.e., they are the objects of discourse. The instances of these component classes can be stored with or without expressing ‘instance of’ or ‘sub-class of’ relations among them. === Predicates === This group consists of ‘Relation’, and ‘Relation Type’ for expressing declarative knowledge, and ‘Function’ and ‘Function Type’ for expressing procedural knowledge. This group is to express qualitative and quantitative relations among the various instances stored in the knowledge base. While instantiating the predicates can be characterized by their logical properties of relations, quantifiers and cardinality as monadic predicates of these predicate objects. === Structures === ‘System’, ‘Encapsulated Class’, ‘Program’, and ‘Process’, are other base classes for complex structures, which can be combined iteratively to produce more complex systems. The component class ‘System’ is to store in the knowledge base a set of propositions composed into ontologies, axiomatic systems, complex systems like say a human body, an artifact like a vehicle etc., with or without consistency check. An ‘Encapsulated Class’ is to com- pose declarative and behavioural objects in a flexible way to build classes. A ‘Program’ is not only to store the logic of any complete program or a component class, composed from the already available behavioural instances in the knowledge base with built-in connectives (conditions, and loops), but also execute them as web services. A ‘Process’ is to structure temporal objects with sequence, concurrency, synchronous or asynchronous specifications. Every node in the database keeps the neighbourhood information, such as its super-class, sub-class, instance-of, and other relations, in which the object has a role, in the form of predicates. This feature makes computation of drawing graphs and inferences, on the one hand, and dependency and navigation paths on the other hand very easy. All the data and metadata is indexed in a central catalogue making query and locating resources efficient.

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  • Apache Parquet

    Apache Parquet

    Apache Parquet is a free and open-source column-oriented data storage format in the Apache Hadoop ecosystem inspired by Google Dremel interactive ad-hoc query system for analysis of read-only nested data. It is similar to RCFile and ORC, the other columnar-storage file formats in Hadoop, and is compatible with most of the data processing frameworks around Hadoop. It provides data compression and encoding schemes with enhanced performance to handle complex data in bulk. == History == The open-source project to build Apache Parquet began as a joint effort between Twitter and Cloudera using the record shredding and assembly algorithm as described in Google's Dremel. Parquet was designed as an improvement on the Trevni columnar storage format created by Doug Cutting, the creator of Hadoop. The name 'parquet' (lit. 'small compartment') refers to a style of decorative flooring and was chosen to "evoke the bottom layer of a database with an interesting layout". The first version, Apache Parquet 1.0, was released in July 2013. Since April 27, 2015, Apache Parquet has been a top-level Apache Software Foundation (ASF)-sponsored project. == Features == Apache Parquet is implemented using the record-shredding and assembly algorithm, which accommodates the complex data structures that can be used to store data. The values in each column are stored in contiguous memory locations, providing the following benefits: Column-wise compression is efficient in storage space Encoding and compression techniques specific to the type of data in each column can be used Queries that fetch specific column values need not read the entire row, thus improving performance Apache Parquet is implemented using the Apache Thrift framework, which increases its flexibility; it can work with a number of programming languages like C++, Java, Python, PHP, etc. As of August 2015, Parquet supports the big-data-processing frameworks including Apache Hive, Apache Drill, Apache Impala, Apache Crunch, Apache Pig, Cascading, Presto and Apache Spark. It is one of the external data formats used by the pandas Python data manipulation and analysis library. == Compression and encoding == In Parquet, compression is performed column by column, which enables different encoding schemes to be used for text and integer data. This strategy also keeps the door open for newer and better encoding schemes to be implemented as they are invented. Parquet supports various compression formats: snappy, gzip, LZO, brotli, zstd, and LZ4. === Dictionary encoding === Parquet has an automatic dictionary encoding enabled dynamically for data with a small number of unique values (i.e. below 105) that enables significant compression and boosts processing speed. === Bit packing === Storage of integers is usually done with dedicated 32 or 64 bits per integer. For small integers, packing multiple integers into the same space makes storage more efficient. === Run-length encoding (RLE) === To optimize storage of multiple occurrences of the same value, run-length encoding is used, which is where a single value is stored once along with the number of occurrences. Parquet implements a hybrid of bit packing and RLE, in which the encoding switches based on which produces the best compression results. This strategy works well for certain types of integer data and combines well with dictionary encoding. == Cloud Storage and Data Lakes == Parquet is widely used as the underlying file format in modern cloud-based data lake architectures. Cloud storage systems such as Amazon S3, Azure Data Lake Storage, and Google Cloud Storage commonly store data in Parquet format due to its efficient columnar representation and retrieval capabilities. Data lakehouse frameworks—including Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi —build an additional metadata layer on top of Parquet files to support features such as schema evolution, time-travel queries, and ACID-compliant transactions. In these architectures, Parquet files serve as the immutable storage layer while the table formats manage data versioning and transactional integrity. == Comparison == Apache Parquet is comparable to RCFile and Optimized Row Columnar (ORC) file formats — all three fall under the category of columnar data storage within the Hadoop ecosystem. They all have better compression and encoding with improved read performance at the cost of slower writes. In addition to these features, Apache Parquet supports limited schema evolution, i.e., the schema can be modified according to the changes in the data. It also provides the ability to add new columns and merge schemas that do not conflict. Apache Arrow is designed as an in-memory complement to on-disk columnar formats like Parquet and ORC. The Arrow and Parquet projects include libraries that allow for reading and writing between the two formats. == Implementations == Known implementations of Parquet include:

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  • Guideline execution engine

    Guideline execution engine

    A guideline execution engine is a computer program which can interpret a clinical guideline represented in a computerized format and perform actions towards the user of an electronic medical record. A guideline execution engine needs to communicate with a host clinical information system. Virtual Medical Record (vMR) is one possible interface which can be used. The engine's main function is to manage instances of executed guidelines of individual patients. == Architecture == The following modules are generally needed for any engine: interface to clinical information system new guidelines loading module guideline interpreter module clinical events parser alert/recommendations dispatch == Guideline Interchange Format == The Guideline Interchange Format (GLIF) is a computer representation format for clinical guidelines. Represented guidelines can be executed using a guideline execution engine. The format has several versions as it has been improved. In 2003 GLIF3 was introduced. == Use of third party workflow engine as a guideline execution engine == Some commercial electronic health record systems use a workflow engine to execute clinical guidelines. RetroGuide and HealthFlow are examples of such an approach.

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  • UMBEL

    UMBEL

    UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired at the end of 2019. UMBEL was first released in July 2008. Version 1.00 was released in February 2011. Its current release is version 1.50. The grounding of this information occurs by common reference to the permanent URIs for the UMBEL concepts; the connections within the UMBEL upper ontology enable concepts from sources at different levels of abstraction or specificity to be logically related. Since UMBEL is an open-source extract of the OpenCyc knowledge base, it can also take advantage of the reasoning capabilities within Cyc. UMBEL has two means to promote the semantic interoperability of information:. It is: An ontology of about 35,000 reference concepts, designed to provide common mapping points for relating different ontologies or schema to one another, and A vocabulary for aiding that ontology mapping, including expressions of likelihood relationships distinct from exact identity or equivalence. This vocabulary is also designed for interoperable domain ontologies. UMBEL is written in the Semantic Web languages of SKOS and OWL 2. It is a class structure used in Linked Data, along with OpenCyc, YAGO, and the DBpedia ontology. Besides data integration, UMBEL has been used to aid concept search, concept definitions, query ranking, ontology integration, and ontology consistency checking. It has also been used to build large ontologies and for online question answering systems. Including OpenCyc, UMBEL has about 65,000 formal mappings to DBpedia, PROTON, GeoNames, and schema.org, and provides linkages to more than 2 million Wikipedia pages (English version). All of its reference concepts and mappings are organized under a hierarchy of 31 different "super types", which are mostly disjoint from one another. Each of these "super types" has its own typology of entity classes to provide flexible tie-ins for external content. 90% of UMBEL is contained in these entity classes.

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  • ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health

    ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health

    The ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (AI for Health) was an inter-agency collaboration from 2018 between the World Health Organization and the ITU, which in 2019 created a benchmarking framework to assess the accuracy of AI in health. The organization convened an international network of experts and stakeholders from fields like research, practice, regulation, ethics, public health, etc, that developed guideline documentation and code. The documents have addressed ethics, assessment/evaluation, handling, and regulation of AI for health solutions, covering specific use cases including AI in ophthalmology, histopathology, dentistry, malaria detection, radiology, symptom checker applications, etc. FG-AI4H has established an ad hoc group concerned with digital technologies for health emergencies, including COVID-19. All documentation is public. The idea for the Focus Group came out of the Health Track of the 2018 AI for Good Global Summit. Administratively, FG-AI4H was created by ITU-T Study Group 16. Under ITU-T's framework, participation in Focus Groups is open to anyone from an ITU Member State. The secretariat is provided by the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (under Director Chaesub Lee). It was first created at the July 2018 meeting with a lifetime of two years, at the July 2020 meeting, this was extended for another two years, where the focus group also submitted its deliverables to its parent body. It was also presented at the NeurIPS 2020 health workshop. In July 2023 "the work was grandfathered in the Global Initiative on AI for Health (GI-AI4H)". == AI for Health Framework == The outline of the benchmarking framework was published in a 2019 commentary in The Lancet. The output of the Focus Group AI for Health were structured in the AI for Health Framework. Depending on their primary domain being health or ICT, the individual components of the AI for Health Framework were ratified by the corresponding United Nations Specialized Agency, as WHO Guidelines and ITU Recommendations respectively. Standards drawn up by FG-AI4H were titled as: AI4H ethics considerations AI4H regulatory [best practices | considerations] AI4H requirements specification AI software life cycle specification Data specification AI training best practices specification AI4H evaluation considerations AI4H scale-up and adoption AI4H applications and platforms Use cases of the ITU-WHO Focus Group on AI for Health

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  • Onshape

    Onshape

    Onshape is a computer-aided design (CAD) software system, delivered over the Internet via a software as a service (SaaS) model. It makes extensive use of cloud computing, with compute-intensive processing and rendering performed on Internet-based servers, and users are able to interact with the system via a web browser or the iOS and Android apps. As a SaaS system, Onshape upgrades are released directly to the web interface, and the software does not require maintenance by the user. Onshape allows teams to collaborate on a single shared design, the same way multiple writers can work together editing a shared document via cloud services. It is primarily focused on mechanical CAD (MCAD) and is used for product and machinery design across many industries, including consumer electronics, mechanical machinery, medical devices, 3D printing, machine parts, and industrial equipment. As of 2025, Onshape is popularly used as a CAD suite for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) alongside the MKCad application available in the Onshape App Store. == Company history == Onshape was developed by a company with the same name. Founded in 2012, Onshape was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), with offices in Singapore and Pune, India. Its leadership team includes several engineers and executives who originated from SolidWorks, a popular 3D CAD program that runs on Microsoft Windows. Onshape’s co-founders include two former SolidWorks CEOs, Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney. In November 2012, former SolidWorks CEOs Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney led six co-founders launching Belmont Technology, a placeholder name that was later changed to Onshape. The company’s first round of funding was $9 million from North Bridge Venture Partners and Commonwealth Capital. In March 2015, Onshape released the public beta version of its cloud CAD software, after pre-production testing with more than a thousand CAD professionals in 52 countries. Included in the beta launch was Onshape for iPhone. In August 2015, the company released its Onshape for Android app. In December 2015, Onshape launched its full commercial release. The company also launched the Onshape App Store, offering CAM, simulation, rendering and other cloud-based engineering tools. The Onshape App Store was launched with 24 developer partners. In April 2016, Onshape introduced its Education Plan, with a free version of Onshape Professional geared for college students and educators. In May 2016, Onshape released FeatureScript, a new open source (MIT licensed) programming language for creating and customizing CAD features. In October 2019, Onshape agreed to be acquired by PTC. The acquisition closed in November 2019 for $470 million. In February 2024, Onshape released iOS support for the Apple Vision Pro, allowing for real world applications of CAD models and prototypes. In January 2025, Onshape released the CAM studio, allowing users to generate G-code for up to 5-axis Simultaneous milling. == Funding == Onshape was a venture-backed company with investments from firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and North Bridge Venture Partners. Total venture funding amounted to $169 million. == Supported file formats == === Modelling === ==== Importing ==== As of May 2025, Onshape supported importing (opening) the following common CAD file formats: Parasolid X_T (Preferred) STEP (ISO 10303) ISO JT (ISO 14306) ACIS IGES CATIA v4, v5, v6 Autodesk Inventor Part (.IPT) Assembly (.IAM) Presentation (.IPN) Drawing (.IDW) Pro/ENGINEER, Creo Rhinoceros 3D: .3dm .STL .OBJ SolidWorks file formats Siemens NX file formats Drawings (.DXF/.DWG) ==== Exporting ==== Onshape supports exporting to the following formats: STEP (ISO 10303) Parasolid XT ACIS IGES SolidWorks file formats .STL Rhinoceros 3D: .3dm Collada XML-spec based textual file === Drawing === Ordinary engineering or technical drawing can be exported as .PDF file. === Other Formats === In addition to CAD file formats, Onshape supports importing some Non-CAD file formats for viewing and referencing. === Assembly === Assemblies can be imported and exported to: STEP (ISO 10303) Parasolid XT ACIS Pro/ENGINEER, Creo ISO JT Rhinoceros 3D: .3dm Siemens NX file formats SolidWorks Pack and Go zip file File formats that assemblies can be only-exported to, are: IGES .STL Collada XML-spec based textual file

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  • Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence

    Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence

    The Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (also called Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence or AI convention) is an international treaty on artificial intelligence. It was adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe (CoE) and signed on 5 September 2024. The treaty aims to ensure that the development and use of AI technologies align with fundamental human rights, democratic values, and the rule of law, addressing risks such as misinformation, algorithmic discrimination, and threats to public institutions. More than 50 countries, including the EU member states, have endorsed the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence. == Background == The development of the Framework Convention on AI emerged in response to growing concerns over the ethical, legal, and societal impacts of artificial intelligence. The Council of Europe, which has historically played a key role in setting human rights standards across Europe, initiated discussions on AI governance in 2020, leading to the drafting of a binding legal framework. The process of creating the Framework Convention began in 2019 with the ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI) assessing the feasibility of the instrument. In 2022, the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) took over the process, drafting and negotiating the text of the Convention. The treaty is designed to complement existing international human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. == Structure and content == The Convention establishes fundamental principles for AI governance, including transparency, accountability, non-discrimination, and human rights protection through eight chapters and 26 articles. Adopted in 2024, this landmark treaty addresses AI governance through seven core principles and detailed implementation mechanisms. It mandates risk and impact assessments to mitigate potential harms and provides safeguards such as the right to challenge AI-driven decisions. It applies to public authorities and private entities acting on their behalf but excludes national security and defense activities. Implementation is overseen by a Conference of the Parties, ensuring compliance and international cooperation. Activities within the AI system lifecycle must adhere to seven fundamental principles, ensuring compliance with human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. The treaty also establishes remedies, procedural rights and safeguards, and risk and impact management requirements to promote accountability, transparency, and responsible AI development. The treaty consists of five chapters. Chapter I contains general provisions. Chapter II states the general obligation to protect human rights and the integrity of democratic processes and respect of the rule of law. The main principles and rights are contained in Chapter III, which consists of Articles 6 to 13. Chapter IV (Articles 14 to 15) sets up the legal remedies. Chapter V states the risk and impact management framework. Chapter VI facilitates the implementation criteria of the treaty. Chapter VII sets the co-operation and oversight mechanisms. Chapter VIII contains various concluding clauses. Article 1 declares the objectives of the treaty, to ensure that activities within the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems are fully consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law. == Entry into force == The treaty will enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date on which five ratification made by five countries, including three member states of the Council of Europe. == Competing approaches == While the CoE's AI Convention represents a multilateral effort to regulate AI through a human rights-based approach, alternative frameworks have also been proposed. One notable example is the Munich Draft for a Convention on AI, Data and Human Rights, an initiative led by legal scholars and policymakers in Germany. The Munich Draft advocates for stronger safeguards against AI-related risks, emphasizing stricter data protection measures, accountability for AI developers, and explicit prohibitions on high-risk AI applications, such as mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons. Unlike the CoE convention, which focuses on balancing innovation with regulation, the Munich Draft takes a more precautionary stance, calling for tighter controls over AI deployment in sensitive domains. Other competing international efforts include the OECD’s AI Principles, the GPAI (Global Partnership on AI), and the European Union's AI Act, each of which offers different regulatory strategies to govern AI at regional and global levels. == Signatories == Signatories include Andorra, Canada, the European Union, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, the Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay. == Endorsement == The treaty was widely endorsed by leading AI policy experts, including Stuart J. Russell, Virginia Dignum, Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Pascal Pichonnaz, Maria Helen Murphy, Angella Ndaka, Hannes Werthner, Katja Langenbucher, Gry Hasselbalch, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Kutoma Wakunuma, Gianclaudio Malgieri, Oreste Pollicino, Nagla Rizk, Giovanni Sartor, Lee Tiedrich, Ingrid Schneider, Eduardo Bertoni, Garry Kasparov, Merve Hikcok, and Marc Rotenberg. The treaty was also endorsed by notable political leaders, including Theodoros Roussopoulos, President of the Parliamentart Assembly in the Council of Europe, and Christopher Holmes, Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, and by the International Bar Association (IBA), and personally by Almudena Arpón de Mendívil, President of the IBA. The Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) has been carrying out a campaign to promote endorsement of the treaty by urging various countries to sign and ratify the treaty. The CAIDP further urged the countries to make a clear and firm commitment to ensure the full inclusion of the private sector under the treaty’s provisions.

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  • Maia and Marco

    Maia and Marco

    Maia and Marco are artificial intelligence used by GMA Network. Unveiled in 2023, they are used to fulfill the role of sports newscasters. == Background == Maia and Marco are artificial intelligence (AI) which take the form of three-dimensional human avatars. Maia makes use of a female avatar while Marco uses a male likeness. They have aesthetic features that are typical to Filipino showbusiness personalities. Among the technologies used in making and operating the AI include image generation, text-to-speech AI voice synthesis/generation, and deep learning face animation. They are also demonstrated to be bilingual, being able to speak in English and Tagalog (Filipino). == Use == The AI pair was unveiled by GMA Network on September 24, 2023, for their coverage of Season 99 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Fulfilling the role of sports newscasters, Maia and Marco would join GMA's courtside human reporters. The AI pair are scheduled to appear four times a month on GMA's digital media platforms. They will not appear in traditional television broadcast. == Reception == The launch of the Maia and Marco was met with strong reactions. Various journalists and other personalities across the Philippine media industry expressed concern that their employment be at risk with the introduction of AI. The quality of the AI ability to emulate human behavior was characterized by critics as "soulless". GMA responding to concerns has stated that the AI would complement rather than replace its live human journalists including sportscasters. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines urged dialogue among its peers in the newsroom on policy on how to use AI, which the group acknowledge as "inevitable".

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