The Responsible AI Safety and Education Act (RAISE Act) is a New York State law that imposes transparency, safety, and reporting requirements on developers of large frontier artificial intelligence models. The law was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on December 19, 2025. It was sponsored by State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Alex Bores. The RAISE Act is the second U.S. state law to regulate frontier AI model developers, following California's Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (TFAIA), which was signed in September 2025. Hochul signed the bill on the condition that the legislature would pass chapter amendments to bring the law closer to the California model. The amending bills (A9449/S8828) were introduced in January 2026; as of February 2026 they remain in committee, though the Governor's office and legal commentators treat the agreed-upon amendments as representing the final form of the law. == Provisions == The following describes the RAISE Act as it is expected to operate after the agreed-upon chapter amendments take effect. The law is expected to take effect on January 1, 2027. === Scope === The law applies to "large frontier developers," defined as companies with annual revenues exceeding $500 million that develop "frontier models," which are foundation models trained using more than 1026 floating-point operations (FLOPs). The version passed by the legislature in June 2025 had instead defined large developers based on having spent over $100 million in aggregate compute costs, and also included a provision prohibiting deployment of frontier models posing "unreasonable risk of critical harm"; both were removed as part of the negotiations between Hochul and the legislature. Accredited colleges and universities engaged in academic research are exempt, as is the state's Empire AI consortium. === Safety and transparency framework === Large frontier developers must write, implement, and publicly publish a "frontier AI framework" describing how they assess and mitigate catastrophic risks, secure unreleased model weights against unauthorized access, use third-party evaluators, govern internal use of frontier models, and respond to safety incidents. The framework must describe these measures "in detail," a requirement that goes beyond the California TFAIA's requirement to describe a developer's "approach." The framework must be reviewed at least annually, and material modifications must be published with justification within 30 days. Before or concurrently with deploying a new or substantially modified frontier model, developers must publish a transparency report including the model's release date, supported languages and output modalities, intended uses, and any restrictions on use. Large frontier developers must additionally include summaries of catastrophic risk assessments and the extent of third-party involvement. === Catastrophic risk and incident reporting === The law defines "catastrophic risk" as a foreseeable and material risk that a frontier model will contribute to the death of or serious injury to more than 50 people, or more than $1 billion in property damage, arising from a frontier model providing expert-level assistance in creating chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons; engaging in cyberattacks or conduct equivalent to crimes such as murder, assault, or theft without meaningful human oversight; or evading the control of its developer or user. Loss of equity value is explicitly excluded from the definition of property damage. "Critical safety incidents" include unauthorized access to model weights resulting in death or injury, materialization of a catastrophic risk, loss of control of a frontier model causing death or injury, and a model using deceptive techniques to subvert developer controls outside of an evaluation context in a manner that increases catastrophic risk. Frontier developers must report critical safety incidents within 72 hours, or within 24 hours if the incident poses an imminent risk of death or serious physical injury. === Enforcement === The chapter amendments establish a new office within the New York State Department of Financial Services to oversee compliance, receive incident reports, and publish annual reports on AI safety beginning in 2028. Large frontier developers must file disclosure statements with this office and pay pro rata assessments to fund its operations. The New York Attorney General may bring civil actions, with penalties of up to $1 million for a first violation and $3 million for subsequent violations. The version passed by the legislature in June 2025 had set penalties at up to $10 million and $30 million respectively. The law does not create a private right of action. == Legislative history == The bill was introduced in the Assembly on March 5, 2025, by Assemblymember Alex Bores, and in the Senate on March 27, 2025, by Senator Andrew Gounardes. After a series of amendments, the legislature passed the bill in June 2025. Governor Hochul did not immediately sign the bill, using nearly all the time available under New York law before acting; had she not signed by the end of 2025, the bill would have been pocket vetoed. The tech industry lobbied against the bill during this period, and Hochul initially proposed a near-complete rewrite modeled on California's TFAIA. Legislators resisted the extent of the changes, and the two sides ultimately agreed on a version that used the California law as a base but preserved several provisions that went beyond it, including the 72-hour incident reporting timeline and the creation of a dedicated enforcement office. Hochul signed the original bill (S6953-B/A6453-B) on December 19, 2025, with the legislature committing to pass chapter amendments formalizing the agreed changes in the January 2026 session. The amending bills (A9449 in the Assembly, S8828 in the Senate) were introduced on January 6 and January 8, 2026. OpenAI and Anthropic expressed support for the law. Anthropic's head of external affairs Sarah Heck said the two state laws "should inspire Congress to build on them." The super PAC network Leading the Future, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, subsequently announced plans to challenge Bores in a future election. == Federal preemption debate == Hochul signed the RAISE Act eight days after President Donald Trump issued an executive order on December 11, 2025, directing the Department of Justice to challenge state AI laws deemed to conflict with a "minimally burdensome" national AI policy. On January 9, 2026, the Department of Justice announced the establishment of an AI Litigation Task Force as called for by the executive order. The executive order also threatened states with loss of certain federal broadband funding if their AI laws were found to be onerous. Legal commentators have noted several potential avenues for federal challenge, including arguments that the law constitutes compelled speech, violates the dormant Commerce Clause by creating a patchwork of state regulations, or is preempted by federal AI policy. == Comparison with California's TFAIA == The RAISE Act was designed to align with California's Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, signed on September 29, 2025. Both laws use the same 1026 FLOP threshold to define frontier models and the same $500 million revenue threshold to define large developers. Both require public safety frameworks, transparency reports, and incident reporting. The RAISE Act's 72-hour incident reporting window is stricter than the TFAIA's 15-day window, though both require faster reporting for incidents posing imminent physical risk (24 hours under the RAISE Act, immediate under the TFAIA). The RAISE Act establishes a dedicated enforcement office within the Department of Financial Services, whereas California routes reports through the Office of Emergency Services. The RAISE Act requires developers to describe their safety measures "in detail" and how they "handle" various risks, whereas the TFAIA requires developers to describe their "approach."
Face Swap Live
Face Swap Live is a mobile app created by Laan Labs that enables users to swap faces with another person in real-time using the device's camera. It was released on December 14, 2015. In addition to swapping faces with another person, the app enables users to create videos using a set of bundled live filters. The app is available on iOS and Android devices. Face Swap Live was named Apple's #2 best-selling paid app in 2016.
Geoffrey J. Gordon
Geoffrey J. Gordon is a professor at the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and director of research at the Microsoft Montréal lab. He is known for his research in statistical relational learning (a subdiscipline of artificial intelligence and machine learning) and on anytime dynamic variants of the A search algorithm. His research interests include multi-agent planning, reinforcement learning, decision-theoretic planning, statistical models of difficult data (e.g. maps, video, text), computational learning theory, and game theory. Gordon received a B.A. in computer science from Cornell University in 1991, and a PhD at Carnegie Mellon in 1999.
Madhan Karky
Madhan Karky Vairamuthu is an Indian lyricist, screenwriter, research associate, software engineer, and entrepreneur. A holder of a doctorate in computer science from the University of Queensland, Karky began his professional career as an assistant professor at the College of Engineering, Guindy, and soon after ventured into the Tamil cinema, working as a lyricist and dialogue writer. He resigned from his teaching profession in early 2013 and began working full-time in the film industry, while also launching the Karky Research Foundation (KaReFo), an educational research organization which primarily focuses on language computing and language literacy. He also founded the Mellinam Education, which develops educational games and story books designed to propagate learning among children, and DooPaaDoo, an online music platform which promotes independent music and serves a distributor for film soundtracks. == Early life == Karky is the eldest son of seven-time National Award winning lyricist Vairamuthu and Ponmani, a Tamil scholar and veteran professor at the Meenakshi College for Women. He has a younger brother, Kabilan, who is a novelist and also works as a lyricist and dialogue writer for Tamil films. === Education === He grew up in Chennai and was educated at the Loyala Matriculation School in Kodambakkam. By his own admission, he was not a good student, excelling primarily only in Tamil and English. During his time in high school, he gained an interest in computer science He got admission in College of Engineering, Guindy which is affiliated with the Anna University. He began his undergraduate education in the field of Computer engineering in the year 1997. While in CEG, as part of his final year project, Karky developed a program called the Tamil Voice Engine, under the supervision of Professor T.V. Geetha. The goal of the project was construction of a text to speech engine for the Tamil language. The research paper on the project was officially selected at the Tamil Internet Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Other projects during his tenure include the Name Generator, which was part of his course on Creativity, Innovation and New Product Development (the objective being to generate random names that are pronounceable with respect to Indian phonetics) and Compiler Design, for which a high level programming language was conceived, with the goal of proper specification and interpretation of lexical rules and grammar rules. For Chennai Kavigal, he created a Spell Checker for a Tamil Word Processor. The project involved a lot of Natural Language Processing elements, based on a root dictionary built as a part of the morphological analyzer for the Tamil Language. The endgame being determining the correctness of words. Following the completion of his bachelor's degree in 2001, Karky began his master's degree at the University of Queensland in the year 2003. In that particular stint, he developed a project based on the theory of computation and strong mathematics (under the supervision of Dr. George Havas). It aimed at analyzing an existing algorithm of reducing any kind of matrix format to a standard format called 'Hermite Normal form', which is a unit upper triangular matrix. Some of his other projects during this course include the Disciplined Software Process Project (whose objective was to introduce and practice the software development process for individuals called Personal Software Process), the On-Line Art Store Website (which involved the creation of a website that trades paintings through the Internet) and the Text Based Voice Chat (for which a Proxy Voice Chat system was designed and developed in Visual Basic that incorporated the predominant computing aspects). In addition to his academics, Karky also served as Academic tutor at the university. He conducted class room tutorials and laboratory sessions on subjects such as Relational Database Systems and Programming Languages. As part of his PhD program on information technology, he developed a Java-based simulation platform called SENSE (Simulated Environment of Networked Sensor Experiments), to test different heuristics. This project was done under the guidance of Dr. Maria Orlowska and Dr. Shazia Sadiq. His thesis is titled "Design considerations for query dissemination in wireless sensor networks". === Teaching career === Upon his return to India following the completion of his post-graduation, Karky returned to CEG Anna University in December 2007. He was a Senior Research Fellow for the next six months, managing research projects as well as multiple student projects at an undergrad and postgrad levels. In addition to those, he handled courses and labs for students who pursued their master's degrees. He also served as a Project Scientist between July 2008 and July 2009, managing projects of research groups as well as ME & MBA students. Starting from August 2009, he began his role as an assistant professor. He lectured Computer Science students who were pursuing their Bachelors and master's degrees as well as coordinated the Tamil Computing Lab at the university. He also served as counsellor for NRI and foreign national students, as well as the Staff treasurer of Computer Science Engineering Association. Some of the subjects he taught include Advanced Databases, Ethics for Engineers, Principles of Programming Languages, Environmental Science and Tamil Computing (for PhD students). === Family and personal life === Karky's been married to Nandini Eswaramoorthy, a fellow alum at Anna University, since June 22, 2008. Nandini Karky now works in the Tamil film industry as a subtitler for feature films and documentaries. They have a son named Haiku Karky, who was born in 2009. == Film career == === Debut === During his teaching stint at Anna University, Karky also began his career in the Tamil film industry with the science-fiction film Enthiran (2010), the magnum opus of director Shankar. Karky had approached the director in 2008 with some of the songs he had written, and was brought him on board to help with the dialogues of the film, especially assisting with technical terminology. He stated that there were three sets of dialogues written for almost every scene of the film; one by Shankar, one by Karky, and the other by the late Sujatha, a frequent collaborator with the director who had died during the early stages of the film's pre-production. Shankar would go through all the three drafts and implement those that fit best. The climax was the only portion that didn't have multiple hands, as it was written solely by Karky. In addition to the dialogue, Karky wrote 2 songs for the film, as well: "Irumbile oru Irudhaiyam" (the first song of his career, which was partially crooned by A.R. Rahman) and "Boom Boom Robo Da". However, Kanden Kadhalai (2009), in which he had written the song "Ododi Poren" (composed by Vidyasagar), became his first release. For his work on Enthiran, Karky was named Best Find of the Year at the 2011 Vijay Awards. === Lyric writer === Following his work on Enthiran, Karky became one of the most sought after lyricists in the Tamil film industry, having multiple collaborations with A.R. Rahman, Harris Jayaraj, G. V. Prakash Kumar, D. Imman, M.M. Keeravani, Yuvan Shankar Raja, S. Thaman, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Anirudh Ravichander and Sam CS. In addition to his native Tamil, he is known for penning songs in multiple languages; some of which include "Asku Laska" from Nanban (which features 16 different languages), "The Rise of Damo" from 7 Aum Arivu (written in Mandarin) and "Continua" from Nootrenbadhu (in Portuguese). His work is also characterized by infusing uncommon Tamil words that aren't normally used in everyday lexicon, as part of lyrics (like "Kuviyamillaa Kaatchi Paezhai" from Ko and "Panikoozh" from I). He also wrote the first palindrome song in Tamil cinema for the film Vinodhan. As of the end of 2025, he has over one thousand songs to his credit. Some of Karky's most popular songs include "Irumbile oru Irudhaiyam" (Enthiran), "Enamo Edho" (Ko), "Nee Koorinal" (Nootrenbadhu), "Asku Laska" (Nanban), "Google Google" (Thuppakki), "Elay Keechaan" (Kadal), "Osakka" (Vanakkam Chennai), "Selfie Pulla" (Kaththi), "Pookkalae Sattru Oyivedungal" (I), "Mei Nigara" (24), "Azhagiye" (Kaatru Veliyidai), "Endhira Logathu Sundariye" (2.0) and "Kurumba" (Tik Tik Tik). === Dialogue writer === On the heels of the success with Enthiran, Karky once again collaborated as a dialogue writer with director Shankar for Nanban. An adaptation of the Hindi blockbuster 3 Idiots, he infused a twang to the dialogue that aimed to showcase college life in a different manner. He also collaborated as a technical advisor with Shankar with 2.0 (the sequel to Enthiran). Karky's also known for his successful collaboration with Telugu director S.S. Rajamouli, on his two-part magnum opus Baahubali; the second part being the most profitable South Indian film of all time, and RRR. His o
Phraselator
The Phraselator is a weatherproof handheld language translation device developed by Applied Data Systems and VoxTec, a former division of the military contractor Marine Acoustics, located in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. It was designed to serve as a handheld computer device that translates English into one of 40 different languages. == The device == The Phraselator is a small speech translation PDA-sized device designed to aid in interpretation. The device does not produce synthesized speech like that utilized by Stephen Hawking; instead, it plays pre-recorded foreign language MP3 files. Users can select the phrase they wish to convey from an English list on the screen or speak into the device. It then uses speech recognition technology called DynaSpeak, developed by SRI International, to play the proper sound file. The accuracy of the speech recognition software is over 70 percent according to software developer Jack Buchanan. The device can also record replies for translation later. Pre-recorded phrases are stored on Secure Digital flash memory cards. A 128 MB card can hold up to 12,000 phrases in four or five languages. Users can download phrase modules from the official website, which contained over 300,000 phrases as of March 2005. Users can also construct their own custom phrase modules. Earlier devices were known to have run on an SA-1110 Strong Arm 206 MHz CPU with 32MB SDRAM and 32MB onboard Flash RAM. A newer model, the P2, was released in 2004 and developed according to feedback from U.S. soldiers. It translates one way from English to approximately 60 other languages. It has a directional microphone, a larger library of phrases and a longer battery life. The 2004 release was created by and utilizes a computer board manufactured by InHand Electronics, Inc. In the future, the device will be able to display pictures so users can ask questions such as "Have you seen this person?" Developer Ace Sarich notes that the device is inferior to human interpreter. Conclusions derived from a Nepal field test conducted by U.S. and Nepal based NGO Himalayan Aid in 2004 seemed to confirm Sarich's comparisons: The very concept of using a machine as a communication point between individuals seemed to actually encourage a more limited form of interaction between tester and respondent. Usually, when limited language skills are present between parties, the genuine struggle and desire to communicate acts as a display of good will – we openly display our weakness in this regard – and the result is a more relaxed and human encounter. This was not necessarily present with the Phraselator as all parties abandoned learning about each other and instead focused on learning how to work with the device. As a tool for bridging any cultural differences or communicating effectively at any length, the Phraselator would not be recommended. This device, at least in the form tested, would best be used in large-scale operations where there is no time for language training and there is a need to communicate fixed ideas, quickly, over the greatest distance by employing large amounts of unskilled users. Large humanitarian or natural disasters in remote areas of third-world countries might be an effective example. == Origin == The original idea for the device came from Lee Morin, a Navy doctor in Operation Desert Storm. To communicate with patients, he played Arabic audio files from his laptop. He informed Ace Sarich, the vice president of VoxTec, about the idea. VoxTec won a DARPA Small Business Innovation Research grant in early 2001 to develop a military-grade handheld phrase translator. During its development, the Phraselator was tested and evaluated by scientists from the Army Research Laboratory. The device was first field tested in Afghanistan in 2001. By 2002, about 500 Phraselators were built for soldiers around the world with another 250 ordered by the U.S. Special Forces. The device cost $2000 to develop and could convert spoken English into one of 200,000 recorded commands and questions in 30 languages. However, the device could only translate one-way. At the time, the only existing two-way voice translator that could convert speech back and forth between languages was the Audio Voice Translation Guide System, or TONGUES, which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University for Lockheed Martin. As part of a DARPA program known as the Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use, SRI International has further developed two-way translation software for use in Iraq called IraqComm in 2006 which contains a vocabulary of 40,000 English words and 50,000 words in Iraqi Arabic. == Notable users == The handheld translator was recently used by U.S. troops while providing relief to tsunami victims in early 2005. About 500 prototypes of the device were provided to U.S. military forces in Operation Enduring Freedom. Units loaded with Haitian dialects have been provided to U.S. troops in Haiti. Army military police have used it in Kandahar to communicate with POWs. In late 2004, the U.S. Navy began to augment some ships with a version of the device attached to large speakers in order to broadcast clear voice instructions up to 400 yards (370 m) away. Corrections officers and law enforcement in Oneida County, New York, have tested the device. Hospital emergency rooms and health departments have also evaluated it. Several Native American tribes such as the Choctaw Nation, the Ponca, and the Comanche Nation have also used the device to preserve their dying languages. Various law enforcement agencies, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, also use the phraselator in their patrol cars. == Awards == In March 2004, DARPA director Dr. Tony Tether presented the Small Business Innovative Research Award to the VoxTec division of Marine Acoustics at DARPATech 2004 in Anaheim, CA. The device was recently listed as one of "Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World" in MIT's Technology Review. == Pop culture == Software developer Jack Buchanan believes that building a device similar to the fictional universal translator seen in Star Trek would be harder than building the Enterprise. The device was mentioned in a list of "Top 10 Star Trek Tech" on Space.com.
Sahara Net
Sahara Net is an information and communications technology provider (ICT) serving the Saudi market, the company has rapidly grown since 1989 to offer various complementary services such as connectivity, internet, hosting, cloud, optimization, cyber security, and managed services. == History == Sahara Net is a Saudi Joint Stock Company (JSC) and its history goes back to 1989 when Sahara Net established the 1st Saudi Bulletin Board Service (BBS) in the Kingdom. During this period, it operated as a hub for email exchange in the FidoNet network. And in 1994 Sahara Net started offering Internet connectivity and other related services like internet email, web design, web hosting, and Domain name registry services. These services made the first ISP in Saudi Arabia before the official licensing in 1998, when the Saudi Internet market was regulated and Sahara Net received Internet Service Provider (ISP) license and was appointed as the official Local Internet Registry (LIR) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. == Today == The company grew over these years to become one of the main ICTs in the Saudi Arabian market, extending network coverage to all major cities in Saudi Arabia, and offering various connectivity options to business as well as home users. In 2009, the company was partially acquired by Telindus (the ICT investment arm of Belgacom), the famous telecom operator in Belgium and Europe. Then, in 2014, the company was fully acquired by its original founders. Recently, Sahara Net was converted from an LLC to a JSC with over 1200 shareholders by a capital raise (original founders still control 70% of the shares).
Dialogflow
Dialogflow is a natural language understanding platform used to design and integrate a conversational user interface into mobile apps, web applications, devices, bots, interactive voice response systems and related uses. == History == In May 2012, Speaktoit received a venture round (funding terms undisclosed) from Intel Capital. In July 2014, Speaktoit closed their Series B funding led by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital with participation from new investor Plug and Play Ventures and existing backers Intel Capital and Alpine Technology Fund. In September 2014, Speaktoit released api.ai (the voice-enabling engine that powers Assistant) to third-party developers, allowing the addition of voice interfaces to apps based on Android, iOS, HTML5, and Cordova. The SDK's contain voice recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech. api.ai offers a web interface to build and test conversation scenarios. The platform is based on the natural language processing engine built by Speaktoit for its Assistant application. Api.ai allows Internet of Things developers to include natural language voice interfaces in their products. Assistant and Speaktoit's websites now redirect to api.ai's website Archived 2017-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, which redirects to the Dialogflow website. Google bought the company in September 2016 and was initially known as API.AI; it provides tools to developers building apps ("Actions") for the Google Assistant virtual assistant. The organization discontinued the Assistant app on December 15, 2016. In October 2017, it was renamed as Dialogflow. In November 2017, Dialogflow became part of Google Cloud Platform.