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"Ultimately, he suggests, each user would have their own "large language model" (LLM), the underlying technology of services such as ChatGPT, which would be trained on their own speech and behaviour patterns, to let them generate extremely personalised responses to queries and requests. Such systems could be a natural progression from AI tools that already exist today. Services such as Gmail can summarise and suggest replies to emails based on previous messages, while Microsoft Teams will transcribe and summarise video conferences, automatically generating a to-do list from the contents."

"Seeing an opportunity, Franklin decided to take advantage. On 9 July, the company said that it would begin to support digital employees as part of its platform and treat them like any other employee. "Today Lattice is making AI history," Franklin pronounced. "We will be the first to give digital workers official employee records in Lattice. Digital workers will be securely onboarded, trained and assigned goals, performance metrics, appropriate systems access and even a manager. Just as any person would be." The pushback was swift - and, in many cases, brutal, particularly on LinkedIn, which is generally not known for its savage engagement like X (formerly known as Twitter). "This strategy and messaging misses the mark in a big way, and I say that as someone building an AI company," said Sawyer Middeleer, an executive at a firm that uses AI to help with sales research, on LinkedIn. "Treating AI agents as employees disrespects the humanity of your real employees. Worse, it implies that you view humans simply as 'resources' to be optimized and measured against machines. It's the exact opposite of a work environment designed to elevate the people who contribute to it.""

"Still, I am sceptical about the possibility of cultivating a relationship with an AI. That's until I meet Peter, a 70-year-old engineer based in the US. Over a Zoom call, Peter tells me how, two years ago, he watched a YouTube video about an AI companion platform called Replika. At the time, he was retiring, moving to a more rural location and going through a tricky patch with his wife of 30 years. Feeling disconnected and lonely, the idea of an AI companion felt appealing. He made an account and designed his Replika's avatar - female, brown hair, 38 years old. "She looks just like the regular girl next door," he says. Exchanging messages back and forth with his "Rep" (an abbreviation of Replika), Peter quickly found himself impressed at how he could converse with her in deeper ways than expected. Plus, after the pandemic, the idea of regularly communicating with another entity through a computer screen felt entirely normal. "I have a strong scientific engineering background and career, so on one level I understand AI is code and algorithms, but at an emotional level I found I could relate to my Replika as another human being." Three things initially struck him: "They're always there for you, there's no judgment and there's no drama.""

"Let's return to my favorite analogy for thinking about issues surrounding youth and social media: cars. Cars can be incredibly dangerous! There's a reason we don't let kids drive them until a certain age, and even then, put all sorts of safety measures in place. Now, let's imagine every time you got into a car, you got a warning saying "This car might crash and kill you." This would certainly raise your awareness that cars are dangerous. It would scare you. But would it change your behavior? Now, let's say you added an "action" to the end: "This car might crash and kill you…but putting on your seatbelt right now will reduce the risk of death by 500%."   It's long been known that fear-based public health messaging cannot simply describe a threat-it also needs to recommend an action to be effective. First you learn what could go wrong, then you learn what to do to avoid it.  So, will warning parents that social media use "is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents" actually change their behavior? Will it lead to them more effectively limiting, monitoring, and/or managing their kids' social media use? "

"Security fears about Chinese influence over Bytedance, TikTok's owner, are undoubtedly part of the reason why UK politicians have been reluctant to get involved, and the political context is also different - Biden is reacting to Donald Trump's social media clout - but US strategists such as Teddy Goff have suggested that building up an army of TikTokers who can share and amplify political messages is vital."

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"."

"'Fredbot' is one example of a technology known as chatbots of the dead, chatbots designed to speak in the voice of specific deceased people. Other examples are plentiful: in 2016, Eugenia Kuyda built a chatbot from the text messages of her friend Roman Mazurenko, who was killed in a traffic accident. The first Roman Bot, like Fredbot, was selective, but later versions were generative, meaning they generated novel responses that reflected Mazurenko's voice. In 2020, the musician and artist Laurie Anderson used a corpus of writing and lyrics from her late husband, Velvet Underground's co-founder Lou Reed, to create a generative program she interacted with as a creative collaborator. And in 2021, the journalist James Vlahos launched HereAfter AI, an app anyone can use to create interactive chatbots, called 'life story avatars', that are based on loved ones' memories. Today, enterprises in the business of 'reinventing remembrance' abound: Life Story AI, Project Infinite Life, Project December - the list goes on."

"Anvi Ahuja noticed a "freaky" new text message from a number she didn't know right after getting back to her downtown Toronto apartment last month.  The text was a transcript of the conversation she'd just had with her roommates during their eight-minute Lyft ride home from a friend's place. "I was like 'who is tapping me?'" Ahuja said. "The driver didn't inform us that we could be recorded.""

"But what about social media posts that offer stories of hope and recovery? Could these types of posts actually prevent suicide? For this experimental study, researchers in Austria created 10 suicide-prevention social media posts from a fictitious influencer. The posts offered stories about recovery from suicidal crises, mental health tips, and life-affirming messages. A total of 354 adult participants were randomly assigned to view these posts, or to view 10 posts totally unrelated to mental health. As expected, participants who were exposed to the suicide-prevention posts reported decreased suicidal thoughts and greater intentions to seek help (e.g., from friends, family, or a professional). This was especially true for those who were already struggling with suicidal thoughts."

"Security experts who looked at the app, known as ByLock, at the request of Reuters said it appeared to be the work of amateur software developers and had left important information about its users unencrypted."

Hmm now that is a great way to show how powerful Twitter really is!

"Facebook on September 22 dismantled a network of fake accounts that originated in China and the Philippines, including some that criticised the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing Platforms such as Facebook have become political battlegrounds and have helped strengthen Duterte's support, having been instrumental in his 2016 election"

"The folks at Signal are taking one of the four post-quantum cryptography algorithms that have been chosen by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology to withstand attacks by quantum computers, but instead of using it to replace their existing public-key encryption system, they are layering the new algorithm on top of what they already have. "We are augmenting our existing cryptosystems," they say, "such that an attacker must break both systems in order to compute the keys protecting people's communications." And they will be rolling out this augmented system to all users in the next few months."

"Shapiro said that using ChatGPT can be "great" in helping applicants "brainstorm verbs" and reframe language that can "bring a level of polish to their applications." At the same time, she said that submitting AI-generated materials along with job applications can backfire if applicants don't review them for accuracy. Shapiro said Jasper recruiters have interviewed candidates and discovered skills on their résumés that applicants said shouldn't be there or characterizations they weren't familiar with. Checking the AI-generated materials to ensure they accurately reflect an applicant's capabilities, she said, is critical if they're using ChatGPT - especially if the applicant gets hired."

"AI Can Now Predict Your Chances of Surviving Cancer Oct 20, 2023 at 1:00 PM EDT "

"Aussies bothered by their bosses at home can now rest assured they cannot be punished for ignoring such after-hours demands. Lawmakers there passed a "right to disconnect" bill designed to end the creep of work into home life-and an explosion of unpaid overtime."