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dr tech

Instagram and YouTube owners built 'addiction machines', trial told - 0 views

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    ""These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose," Lanier said. Lawyers for Meta and YouTube told the jury that K.G.M.'s addiction stemmed from other issues in her life, not their negligence. "
dr tech

(11) Post | Feed | LinkedIn - 0 views

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    "Sweden is about to ban mobile phones in schools this autumn, claiming it will improve mental health and academic performance. Read my lips: It. won't. work. First, some hard evidence: A February 2025 Lancet study followed 1,227 UK adolescents across 30 schools. The findings? - No difference in mental wellbeing between schools with phone bans vs. those without - No difference in anxiety, depression, sleep, physical activity, or academic attainment - Bans reduced in-school phone use, but had zero effect on overall daily usage The Swedish government cites PISA correlations. But correlation ≠ causation, and a King's College London analysis actually found that countries with *more* extensive bans had *lower* PISA scores. Kids just use their phones more at home to compensate. The identified "problem", is just relocated outside school walls rather than being solved."
dr tech

The mistake we're making on teens and social media - 0 views

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    "What are these "obvious issues"? Here are just a few of them: Too much time. 45% of teens say they spend too much time on social media, and a quarter (24%) of girls who use TikTok say it gets in the way of their sleep every night. When teens (and adults!) regularly say they spend more time than they want to on a platform, this, in itself, feels like a problem to me. Contact by strangers. The majority of girls who use Instagram (58%) and Snapchat (57%) say they've been contacted by a stranger on these platforms in ways that make them uncomfortable. Suicide- and eating disorders-related content. Roughly 4 in 10 girls who use social media say they're seeing this content monthly or more. Unwanted sexual advances. According to Instagram's own internal research,3 13.9% of teens (ages 13-15) said they received "unwanted sexual advances" on the platform in the past week, with 93.8% of those from strangers. Unwanted nudity. Also according to Instagram, 19.2% of teens said they encountered unwanted nudity on the platform in the past week. Violent content. 65% of adolescent boys say they see content related to fighting, guns, or weapons at least sometimes. Betting or gambling content. 43% of boys say they see content related to gambling or betting activities at least sometimes. Of course, many of these problems will be relevant, in some way, for teens' mental health. But here's the thing: harm to mental health does not need to be our threshold for whether something is wrong."
dr tech

ICE's surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare | Moustafa Bayoumi | The Gua... - 0 views

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    "I'm referring specifically to Mobile Fortify, a specialized app ICE has been using at least since May 2025. (Usage of the app was first reported last June by 404Media.) What is Mobile Fortify? It's an app for facial recognition that can additionally take "contactless fingerprints" of someone simply by snapping a picture of a person's fingers. The app has been used more than 100,000 times, including on children, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. And it's dangerous."
dr tech

Explained: Darktrace CEO says she was deepfaked - and couldn't tell the difference | - ... - 0 views

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    "In a startling admission that highlights how advanced artificial intelligence scams have become, Darktrace CEO Jill Popelka revealed she was targeted by a deepfake of her own voice during a company board meeting."
dr tech

Life after Molly: Ian Russell on big tech, his daughter's death - and why a social medi... - 0 views

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    "Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approach"
dr tech

Meet 'Amelia': the AI-generated British schoolgirl who is a far-right social media star... - 0 views

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    "Meet 'Amelia': the AI-generated British schoolgirl who is a far-right social media star The avatar, created to deter young people from extremism, has been subverted and is breaking out of niche online silos"
dr tech

- 0 views

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    "ATProto represents one of the most concrete opportunities for Europe to create their own social networking infrastructure, because of a number of factors described below. ATProto provides an excellent base for public society to claim sovereign ownership over the social networking infrastructure, without it resulting in social media that is operated by governments."
dr tech

Welcome to the Attachment Economy - 0 views

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    "The AI attachment crisis isn't happening in isolation. It's part of a broader pattern we explored in a recent episode with Professor Sonja Amadae about the game-theory dilemma. Game theory-the logic of strategic competition-has colonized nearly every domain of modern life, from geopolitics to software testing and even dating. And now, AI companionship apps are playing the game with one goal: keeping you attached, regardless of the psychological cost. As Sonja argues, we've become "prisoners of reason," trapped in a world where optimal strategy crowds out cooperation and trust. And AI systems? Just like the computer in the classic 80s movie War Games they're the ultimate game theory players. They never get tired of optimizing. They never feel guilty about manipulation. They operate in permanent "game mode." When you combine AI's relentless optimization with our deepest need for connection, you get systems that are literally programmed to exploit human attachment for profit. It's game theory applied to the most intimate parts of our psyche."
dr tech

Yes, those big touchscreens in cars are dangerous and buttons are coming back - 0 views

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    "Interactions with touchscreen menus can, in theory, produce comparable effects to texting. Adjusting a vehicle's temperature using a sliding bar on a screen makes the driver divert visual attention from the road and allocate cognitive resources to the task. By contrast, a physical knob allows the same adjustment to be made with minimal or no visual input. Tactile feedback and muscle memory compensate for the lack of visual information and let you complete the task while keeping eyes on the road."
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Love Machines by James Muldoon review - inside the uncanny world of AI relationships | ... - 0 views

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    "To some, the idea of falling in love with an AI chatbot, or confiding your deepest secrets to one, might seem mystifying and more than a little creepy. But Muldoon refuses to belittle those seeking intimacy in "synthetic personas"."
dr tech

I'm watching myself on YouTube saying things I would never say. This is the deepfake me... - 0 views

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    "Might AI deepfakes salvage isegoria from the clutches of our technofeudal dystopia? When we realise that it is impossible to verify who is speaking in a YouTube video, might we be forced to judge the merits of what is being said, rather than who is saying it? In the process of debasing authenticity, could big tech have inadvertently given isegoria a chance? These questions offered a glimmer of hope."
dr tech

Reddit overtakes TikTok in UK thanks to search algorithms and gen Z | Reddit | The Guar... - 0 views

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    "A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most-cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT. The company believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions on issues including parenting, skincare and sports."
dr tech

Google AI Overviews put people at risk of harm with misleading health advice | Google |... - 0 views

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    "Google AI Overviews put people at risk of harm with misleading health advice Exclusive: Inaccurate information presented in summaries, Guardian investigation finds"
dr tech

Woman Hailed as Hero for Smashing Man's Meta Smart Glasses on Subway - 0 views

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    "A seeming eternity later, Meta has attempted to revive the idea with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses. While it's arguably a significant technological leap over Google's early forays, the debate has seemingly remained the same. Case in point, as Daily Dot reports, a New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. "She just broke my Meta glasses," said the TikTok user, who goes by eth8n, in a video that has since garnered millions of views."
dr tech

'It's frightening': How far right is infiltrating everyday culture | The far right | Th... - 0 views

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    ""I have a stepson who sometimes sends videos and then I go down the rabbit hole to see who created them and it turns out it's a far-right influencer." So-called "tradwives", referring to female content creators who promote traditional gender roles on social media, are another example. As the numbers of women embracing the concept online surges, the content's far-right roots have been increasingly obscured. Even so, the views they often promote - from anti-feminism to a nostalgia for an imagined past - continue to boost far-right aims."
dr tech

More than 20% of videos shown to new YouTube users are 'AI slop', study finds | Artific... - 0 views

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    "More than 20% of the videos that YouTube's algorithm shows to new users are "AI slop" - low-quality AI-generated content designed to farm views, research has found. The video-editing company Kapwing surveyed 15,000 of the world's most popular YouTube channels - the top 100 in every country - and found that 278 of them contain only AI slop. Together, these AI slop channels have amassed more than 63bn views and 221 million subscribers, generating about $117m (£90m) in revenue each year, according to estimates."
dr tech

The Shape of AI: Jaggedness, Bottlenecks and Salients - 0 views

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    "These are conceptual drawings, but a group of scientists recently tried to map the shape of AI ability and found that it was growing unevenly, just as the jagged frontier would predict. Reading, math, general knowledge, reasoning - all were things that AI was improving on rapidly. But memory, as we discussed, is a weak spot with very little improvement. Better prompting or better models (and GPT-5.2 is much better than GPT-5) might change the shape of the frontier, but jaggedness remains."
dr tech

AI fraudsters forge art authenticity docs, rattling galleries and insurers - Cryptopolitan - 0 views

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    "Art galleries and insurers are dealing with a flood of forged documents built with AI, a trend now changing how people file claims, seek valuations, and defend ownership records, according to the Financial Times. One fine art loss adjuster allegedly said they received dozens of valuation certificates for decorative paintings submitted in one claim. Each sheet looked correct at first, but the descriptions for different pieces were identical."
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