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"Meta has apologised after inserting the word "terrorist" into the profile bios of some Palestinian Instagram users, in what the company says was a bug in auto-translation. The issue, which was first reported by 404media, affected users with the word "Palestinian" written in English on their profile, the Palestinian flag emoji and the word "alhamdulillah" written in Arabic. When auto-translated to English the phrase read: "Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom." TikTok user YtKingKhan posted earlier this week about the issue, noting that different combinations still translated to "terrorist"."

"Could it be the phones? Absolutely! To be clear: the idea that phones are causing distraction both inside and outside of school hours, and this contributes to declining test scores, seems totally plausible to me-and preliminary cross-sectional data from the PISA report indicates the same. Might it be a good idea to keep phones out of the classroom? Definitely! But, as often happens when an excerpt of a larger study makes the rounds online, some nuance is missing. Let's talk about what the data actually show. "

"But in internet time 2009 was aeons ago. Now, intensive surveillance is available to anyone. And you don't have to be a tech wizard to do it. In mid-January this year, Kashmir Hill, a talented American tech reporter, used three bits of everyday consumer electronics - Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker - to track her husband's every move. He agreed to this in principle, but didn't realise just how many devices she had planted on him. He found only two of the trackers: a Tile he felt in the breast pocket of his coat and an AirTag in his backpack when he was looking for something else. "It is impossible to find a device that makes no noise and gives no warning," he said when she showed him the ones he missed."

"The investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients. Hanan told the undercover reporters that his services, which others describe as "black ops", were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe."

"Kellin Pelrine, an American player who is one level below the top amateur ranking, beat the machine by taking advantage of a previously unknown flaw that had been identified by another computer. But the head-to-head confrontation in which he won 14 of 15 games was undertaken without direct computer support. The triumph, which has not previously been reported, highlighted a weakness in the best Go computer programs that is shared by most of today's widely used AI systems, including the ChatGPT chatbot created by San Francisco-based OpenAI. The tactics that put a human back on top on the Go board were suggested by a computer program that had probed the AI systems looking for weaknesses. The suggested plan was then ruthlessly delivered by Pelrine."

"On Tuesday, security firm Cleafy reported that TeaBot was back. This time, the trojan spread through a malicious app called QR Code & Barcode Scanner, which as the name suggests, allowed users to interact with QR codes and barcodes. The app had more than 10,000 installations before Cleafy researchers notified Google of the fraudulent activity and Google removed it."

"Once you gather up every reported incident of violence in one place, however, the threat seems far greater. A record of up to date criminal activity might be useful if you are new to an area. Businesses considering locations and homeowners interested in moving might use it to get certain information. But it can also facilitate panic and unjustified accusations."

"But the reporters in those videos aren't real. Their names are Daren and Noah, and they're computer-generated avatars crafted by Synthesia, a London-based artificial intelligence company. The clips are from a YouTube channel called House of News, which presents itself as an English-language media outlet. Researchers say the videos are part of the Venezuelan government's attempts to spin the narrative on social media, considered one of the last bastions of free speech in a nation where outlets are censored and journalists are often persecuted. The incorporation of AI, experts told The Washington Post, seems to be a new addition to the government's disinformation campaigns, which range from incentivizing Twitter users to post specific talking points to using bots that spit out the regime's messaging."

"The opt-out movement is spreading, with tens of millions of artworks and images excluded in the last few weeks. But following the trail is tricky as images are used by clients in altered forms and opt-out clauses can be hard to find. Many photographers are also reporting that their "style" is being mimicked to produce cheaper work. "As these programs are devised to 'machine learn', at what point can they generate with ease the style of an established professional photographer and displace the need for their human creativity?" says Doran."

"A Belgian man recently died by suicide after chatting with an AI chatbot on an app called Chai, Belgian outlet La Libre reported. The incident raises the issue of how businesses and governments can better regulate and mitigate the risks of AI, especially when it comes to mental health. The app's chatbot encouraged the user to kill himself, according to statements by the man's widow and chat logs she supplied to the outlet. When Motherboard tried the app, which runs on a bespoke AI language model based on an open-source GPT-4 alternative that was fine-tuned by Chai, it provided us with different methods of suicide with very little prompting. "

"Twitter has made more cuts to its trust and safety team in charge of international content moderation, as well as a unit overseeing hate speech and harassment, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The move adds to longstanding concerns that new owner Elon Musk is dismantling the company's regulation of hateful content and misinformation."

"Nearly half of three to four year-olds (48 per cent) were reported by their parent or guardian in the Ofcom survey to have used apps or sites to send messages or make video or voice calls. Those who did mainly used WhatsApp (25 per cent) and Facetime (19 per cent). "It's likely that children of this age were receiving help with these communication activities as they are still developing basic reading and writing skills," said Ofcom. The disclosures prompted a warning by Dame Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner, that young children should not have internet-enabled phones because of the risk of them accessing harmful content."

""Bots view, 'like,' subscribe and repost content and manipulate view counts to move content up in search results and recommendation lists," the analysis said. In some cases, Fabrika targets users with disinformation directly after gleaning their emails and phone numbers from databases. The campaign's goals include demoralising Ukrainians and exploiting divisions among western states, the document added. Experts have downplayed the 1% claim. Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said the figure sounded implausible and that sock puppet accounts - a term for accounts with fake identities - need their content to be reposted by plausible accounts such as those operated by influencers."

"Much of west and central Africa has been left without internet service, as operators of several subsea cables reported failures. The cause of the cable failures on Thursday was not immediately clear. The African subsea cable operator Seacom confirmed that services on its west African cable system were down and that customers who relied on that cable were being redirected to the Google Equiano cable, which Seacom uses."

"The public is often supportive of the use of such tech: 59% of U.K. adults told a survey they "somewhat" or "strongly" support police use of facial recognition technology in public spaces, and a Pew Research study found 46% of U.S. adults said they thought it was a good idea for society. In China, one study found that 51% of respondents approved of facial recognition tech in the public sphere, while in India, 69% of people said in a 2023 report that they supported its use by the police. But while authorities generally pitch facial recognition as a tool to capture terrorists or wanted murderers, the technology has also emerged as a critical instrument in a very particular context: punishing protesters. "

""Elderly Chinese still often prefer to pay with cash and some struggle with using mobile payments." Less than a year ago, state media was lauding China's trajectory towards becoming the world's top country for cashless transactions. Xinhua reported cash had dropped to just 3.7% of the total money in circulation. But in recent months China's government has appeared to push back, with numerous announcements about "streamlining" payment systems for visitors and elderly people."

"Claims that artificial intelligence will help solve the climate crisis are misguided, with the technology instead likely cause rising energy use and turbocharge the spread of climate disinformation, a coalition of environmental groups has warned. Advances in AI have been touted by big tech companies and the United Nations as a way to help ameliorate global heating, via tools that help track deforestation, identify pollution leaks and track extreme weather events. AI is already being used to predict droughts in Africa and to measure changes to melting icebergs."

"Amazon's algorithms encourage customers pay more than they need to for popular products and appear to give more prominence to items that benefit the retail giant, according to an investigation by ProPublica. The investigation looked at 250 frequently purchased products over several weeks to see which ones were chosen to appear in the highly-prized "buy box" that pops up first as a suggested purchase. "