A Huawei patent that mentions AI-powered identification of Uighur people and other ethnic groups has been discovered.

The patent was exposed by video surveillance research group IPVM , the same organization that had previously spotted references to an AI “Uighur alarm” on Huawei‘s website, as well as evidence that Alibaba had offered “ Uighur-detection-as-a-service .”

IPVM also recently found 12 government projects from the last few years that mandate Uighur analytics across the country. These show that the persecution of the Muslim minority group spreads way beyond the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in north-western China.

Satellite images , leaked documents , and personal accounts of former detainees of “re-education” camps depict a range of systematic human rights violations in the country that are being turbocharged by tech.

IVPM’s latest report adds further evidence of the prevalence of one of the most egregious examples: “ethnicity detection” software.

The group revealed that Huawei, facial recognition firm Megvii, and several other Chinese tech firms have filed patents “for various devices and systems that include Uighur and ethnic minority detection.”

Huawei’s ‘target object’ patent

The Huawei patent describes AI techniques for identifying pedestrians by attributes including “race (Han [China’s biggest ethnic group], Uighur).”

It was originally filed in July 2018 by Huawei and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Huawei told IVPM that the Uighur detection “should never have become part of the [patent] application” and that the firm is “taking proactive steps to amend” it.

Beyond Huawei

IPVM also flagged patents filed by Megvii and AI giant SenseTime for systems capable of recognizing Uighurs. Megvii told the BBC it would “withdraw” the patent.

SenseTime said its patent was “regrettable” and that the firm would “update” it “at the next available opportunity on record.”

IPVM further revealed patents filed by Chinese tech firms Alibaba and Baibu that mention classification by ethnicity, although neither refers specifically to Uighurs.

Alibaba told IVPM that “ethnic discrimination… violates our policies and values, while Huawei said it had “never developed or permitted its technology to profile any ethnic group.”

This collection of patents alongside further systems exposed by IPVM show that the development of ethnicity detection AI in China goes way beyond one company.

US joins G7 AI alliance to counter China’s influence

The US is joining the rest of the G7 in the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, in an effort to contain China‘s influence on AI.

The initiative was launched in 2019 to build a consensus on AI ethics , but has made little impact since — partly because the US initially refused to join.

White House officials feared the group would damage US tech firms, even though its recommendations aren’t legally binding and it can’t regulate private companies. Cédric O, France’s digital affairs minister, had warned the US that its decision would help China export its authoritarian approach to AI.

“If you don’t want a Chinese model in western countries, for instance to use AI to control your population, then you need to set up some rules that must be common,” he told Wired in January.

Today’s announcement suggests the US has heeded the warning.

“The pandemic has made clear why AI development aligned with privacy, freedom, and civil liberties is such an imperative,” said Michael Kratsios, the White House’s Chief Technology Officer, tweeted today . “It is critical that America stand alongside those who share and promote our values.”

Choosing sides

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal , Kratsios described the group as a bulwark against authoritarian regimes abusing AI.

He said its first act will be committing to using AI responsibly to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, drawing a stark contrast to China, which has been accused of using the tech to punish critics of its response to the outbreak.

“It is critical that America stand alongside those who share and promote our values and push back on such efforts,” said Kratsios, who worked Trump supporter Peter Thiel before joining the White House.

Still, the US’ motivations for joining the rest of the G7 in the program are unlikely only ethical. China has publically aims to become the world’s leader in AI by 2030 , but the US won’t give up the top spot without a fight. Its best chance of retaining its lead will be strengthening its ties to other democratic nations.

How light-propelled robots will fly in the wafer-thin atmosphere of Mars

What goes up must come down, but as any aerodynamics engineer will tell you: getting it up is the hard part.

On Earth, where our atmosphere is rather dense compared to many planets, we’re able to send aloft objects that are massive enough to be anchored to the ground through gravity via engineering based on simple physical science principles. As MIT puts it :

But the atmosphere on Mars is some 100 times thinner than Earth’s. If you tried to send a traditional Earth-bound jet aloft on the red planet it’d likely just peter along the planet’s surface until it smacked into something ground-level. There’s not enough support in the air on Mars for most fixed-wing aircraft to get aloft, much less remain there. And, because buoyancy-based flight, also known as “lighter than air” flight, is likely out of the question too, that just leaves us with clever helicopter designs such as NASA’s Ingenuity, pictured in the video below:

But what if we went a different route? Instead of sending an object in flight using aerodynamics, we could just build robots that levitate on light instead – metallic Martian angels, held aloft on sun-drenched gossamer wings.

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently developed a light-driven levitation technique that enables tiny “aircraft” to ride on light itself. The project was designed with the aim of solving the problem of aircraft flight in Earth’s mesosphere.

According to the team’s paper :

The solution? The researchers built ultra-thin flying discs made of OS film , a type of mylar often used on model airplanes. Per the team:

The next steps for the research should include engineering tiny fliers and testing them in the Earth’s mesosphere. But, interestingly, Earth’s mesosphere isn’t that far off from what Mars’ atmosphere is. And that means the Penn team’s work might be the first steps toward solving traditional flight on Mars.

Of course, there’s a huge difference between a Boeing 747 and a centimeter-scale object. The Penn team’s proposed aircraft would be able to carry about 10mg, certainly not enough to move people or equipment around. But it could be enough to affix a chip, a sensor, and transmitter to.

Theoretically, we should be able to fold nanobots and sensors into OS film and send them flying around Mars using the sun’s rays to achieve lift.

If you think about poor Percy, the Perserverence rover that’s currently rolling around Mars looking at rocks, it’s easy to imagine how millions of tiny robots swarming around the red planet could increase our planetary coverage by orders.

You can check out the full paper here .