The search for aliens may be on the brink of a revolutionary transformation. Breakthrough Listen — a scientific program dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life — has released a series of groundbreaking technological advancements that are set to significantly improve our ability to detect extraterrestrial civilizations, at the group’s annual conference in Oxford this week. The conference will bring together several hundred scientists from various disciplines to discuss these innovations, reports The Guardian.

So, why the renewed focus on aliens? For over six decades, scientists have been on a quest to find evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth, but so far, the search has sadly come up empty. Despite the lack of definitive proof, the field is now poised for a dramatic shift thanks to this new tech. This includes the construction of colossal telescopes in Chile, South Africa, and Australia, and major strides in AI.

Key among these new tools is the Square Kilometer Array. This is a vast network of radio telescopes being assembled in South Africa and Australia — and the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, home to the world’s largest camera capable of imaging the entire visible sky every few nights. Both are set to go online in the next few years, providing essential data for Breakthrough Listen. Remarkably, these advancements are so sensitive that they might even pick up unintended signals, like alien airport radar or powerful TV transmissions.

Google’s Gemini is allegedly invading its users’ privacy. Google’s AI chatbot Gemini has reportedly been caught scanning and reading PDF files off of users’ Google Drives without permission, according to a tweet by Kevin Bankston, senior advisor on AI governance at CenDemTech.

This isn’t Google’s first privacy scandal. The company is facing several lawsuits related to breaching user privacy and accessing data without permission. While those lawsuits are built on Google’s shady user agreements, what makes this instance even more concerning is that they don’t know how Gemini gained access.

Gemini’s privacy settings don’t ask for permission to access user files, meaning that it’s a feature that can’t be disabled. Tom’s Hardware reports that this presents an issue either with the AI or with Google’s servers. Bankston documented his journey to uncover how Gemini was able to trespass. To his surprise, not only did he find the settings that enabled access in a completely different place than it should have been, the accessibility option for Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs were disabled. Yet, they were accessed anyway.

Bankston’s findings: Bankston reported that the issue can be traced to a single click, when the button to use Gemini as a tool was pressed just once. Doing so gave Gemini permission to access all documents of the same file type within that user’s Google Drive. He also theorized that enabling Google Workspace Labs could override the user’s privacy settings. The informal investigation is still underway, but the conclusion is that Google has failed the privacy of its user base once again.

Tags: