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"These advergames (adverts presented in the format of a video game), typically splash corporate branding over a set of game mechanics simple enough for Roblox's young player base. And despite broader allegations of a lack of child safeguarding levelled against Roblox (which they deny), corporates are rushing to build them. Brands from Walmart to Wimbledon, McDonald's to Gucci, Nike to the BBC have all launched advergames on the platform. Some have been visited hundreds of thousands of times, others tens of millions, all while Roblox courts further brand involvement by touting its huge, young user base as a big draw in a crowded advertising market."

"The Ukrainian military has used AI-equipped drones mounted with explosives to fly into battlefields and strike at Russian oil refineries. American AI systems identified targets in Syria and Yemen for airstrikes earlier this year. The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, used another kind of AI-enabled targeting system to label as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants during the first weeks of its war in Gaza."

"Apple is banking on its upcoming AI features to boost iPhone sales especially in China, where demand has been lagging. But there's a problem: ChatGPT - soon to be integrated into Siri - is banned in China. "

"With the release of artificial intelligence (AI) video generation products like Sora and Luma, we're on the verge of a flood of AI-generated video content, and policymakers, public figures and software engineers are already warning about a deluge of deepfakes. Now it seems that AI itself might be our best defense against AI fakery after an algorithm has identified telltale markers of AI videos with over 98% accuracy."

"Pliny the Prompter is known for his ability to disrupt the world's most robust artificial intelligence models within approximately thirty minutes. This pseudonymous hacker has managed to manipulate Meta's Llama 3 into sharing instructions on creating napalm and even caused Elon Musk's Grok to praise Adolf Hitler. One of his own modified versions of OpenAI's latest GPT-4o model, named "Godmode GPT," was banned by the startup after it started providing advice on illegal activities."

"A UK-based startup has used an AI algorithm to identify a previously unknown kind of rare-earth free magnet, in a potential breakthrough for how we discover and create new materials. Materials Nexus, headquartered in London, used its machine learning algorithm to identify and analyse over 100 million combinations of materials that could produce a viable rare-earth free magnet."

"A mobile camera will be taken to roads in East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire to catch drivers using phones and those not wearing seat belts. Safer Roads Humber said the camera unit, which is on loan from National Highways, would be in use for a week from Monday 10 June. A spokesperson said: "It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify motorists potentially breaking the law."

"huge public corporations launch products that are known to "hallucinate" "

""Quantum processors are peeling away at a double exponential rate and will continue to vastly outperform classical computers as we scale up," said Hartmut Neven, the founder of the firm, who said that the latest test results, published on Monday in Nature magazine, "cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction that the field has pursued for almost 30 years". He said the far greater speed of the new chip than classical computers "lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse". Simply put, if a quantum computer can be in many different states at once, it can get more done at the same time."

In today's interconnected digital world, AI plays a pivotal role in both spreading and combating misinformation. It is revolutionizing the way information is created and disseminated, particularly in discussions about migration. On one side, generative AI (genAI) technologies can be weaponized to produce and spread disinformation rapidly. False statistics, sensational narratives and deep-seated stereotypes can take root in public discourse, influencing perceptions and policies.

"The research refers to tech executives discussing how AI models will be able to predict a user's intent and actions. It quotes the chief executive of the largest AI chipmaker, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, who said last year that models will "figure out what is your intention, what is your desire, what are you trying to do, given the context, and present the information to you in the best possible way"."

Humans process thoughts at just 10 bits per second, according to a recent paper published by Caltech researchers. In contrast, a human's sensory organs gather data at a billion bits per second. So, if you ever feel overwhelmed by what is going on around you, it's only natural. The research paper, dubbed 'The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?' ponders the human neural substrate which limits thoughts to such a slow pace, and proposes new research to look into this 'bottleneck' now that it has been quantified.

Is it possible there are modes of attention that a younger generation is developing that might be difficult for those of us who are older to value, but which bring new types of benefit? What of the rapid, quick-fire, written exchanges of instant messaging? The art of the pithy, witty expression condensed into 140 or 280 characters? What of the dexterity and reflex-training physical and mental movement of the video game, or the socially dispersed forms of collective attention that are possible in online environments?

"Russian state-linked hackers have targeted the WhatsApp accounts of government ministers and officials around the world with emails inviting them to join user groups on the messaging app. The WhatsApp tactic marks a new approach by a hacking unit called Star Blizzard. Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has linked Star Blizzard to Russia's domestic spy agency, the FSB, and has accused it of seeking to "undermine trust in politics in the UK and likeminded states"."

"Users who once came to Facebook to connect with friends and family are increasingly complaining of random, spammy, junk content - much of it apparently generated by artificial intelligence - showing up in their feeds. Sometimes it's obviously fake, AI-generated images, like the now-infamous "Shrimp Jesus." Other times, it's old posts from real creators that look like they're being reshared by bot accounts for engagement. In some cases, it's pages sharing streams of seemingly benign but random content - memes or movie clips, shared every few hours."

"Both industries are at an impasse: tech insisting that enforcing copyright laws on AI is unfeasible and regressive, creatives that opting out is unworkable and unjust. It is up to government to foster a fair agreement in which both flourish. This is a pivotal moment for our cultural future. The artistic community has spoken. Now ministers must listen, take their concerns seriously and respond. We must protect our creators at all costs."

"For people who hate making mundane phone calls, Google has an AI solution. On Thursday, the tech giant announced "Ask for me," an experiment in its Search Labs testing ground for Google Search. The feature uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf and ask about pricing and availability. Currently, the feature works for calling nail salons and local mechanics for an oil change or other standard car maintenance, but according to the options menu, more businesses are coming soon. "

"A recent incident at a company has led to the dismissal of half its HR team after a manager discovered a significant flaw in the applicant tracking system (ATS) used for hiring. This system, intended to improve the recruitment process, was automatically rejecting all job candidates, including the manager's own application."

"We've been told that social media feeds can either be engagement-maximizing or chronological-and that those are the only two options. But this is a false choice. A new report by the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Better Feeds: Algorithms That Put People First, makes it clear: platforms could offer far better feeds-ones that serve users' interests without the distortions of engagement-driven design."

"There is also a lot of research that both third-party fact-checking and Community Notes can be really effective at reducing misperceptions. But - and this is a significant caveat - neither works well as a complete solution for lies on social media. When Twitter was working on Birdwatch, they claimed it would "not replace other labels and fact checks Twitter currently uses". But as I've written about before, Musk scaled back Twitter's Trust and Safety team significantly and positioned Community Notes as the replacement. As Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of Trust and Safety, told WIRED, "The intention of Birdwatch was always to be a complement to, rather than a replacement for, Twitter's other misinformation methods." In fact, research on various attempts to mitigate COVID misinformation found that a layered, "Swiss cheese" approach might work best, where some efforts work well sometimes, but collectively the system catches most falsehoods."