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""I'm in shock, there are no words right now. I've been in the [creative] industry for over 20 years and I have never felt so violated and vulnerable," said Mark Torres, a creative director based in London, who appears in the blue shirt in the fake videos. "I don't want anyone viewing me like that. Just the fact that my image is out there, could be saying anything - promoting military rule in a country I did not know existed. People will think I am involved in the coup," Torres added after being shown the video by the Guardian for the first time."

"Writing in the journal Science, Summerfield and colleagues from Google DeepMind report how they built the "Habermas Machine" - an AI system named after the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. The system works by taking written views of individuals within a group and using them to generate a set of group statements designed to be acceptable to all. Group members can then rate these statements, a process that not only trains the system but allows the statement with the greatest endorsement to be selected."

"But what is pitched as a more convenient way of looking up information online has prompted scrutiny over how and where these chatbots select the information they provide. Looking into the sort of evidence that large language models (LLMs, the engines on which chatbots are built) find most convincing, three computer science researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found current chatbots overrely on the superficial relevance of information. They tend to prioritise text that includes pertinent technical language or is stuffed with related keywords, while ignoring other features we would usually use to assess trustworthiness, such as the inclusion of scientific references or objective language free of personal bias."

"Imagine sitting down with an AI model for a spoken two-hour interview. A friendly voice guides you through a conversation that ranges from your childhood, your formative memories, and your career to your thoughts on immigration policy. Not long after, a virtual replica of you is able to embody your values and preferences with stunning accuracy. That's now possible, according to a new paper from a team including researchers from Stanford and Google DeepMind, which has been published on arXiv and has not yet been peer-reviewed."

"The climate crisis could prove AI's greatest challenge. While Google publicises AI-driven advances in flooding, wildfire and heatwave forecasts, like many big tech companies, it uses more energy than many countries. Today's large models are a major culprit. It can take 10 gigawatt-hours of power to train a single large language model like OpenAI's ChatGPT, enough to supply 1,000 US homes for a year."

"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.""

"Sara needed some chocolate - she had had one of those days - so wandered into a Home Bargains store. "Within less than a minute, I'm approached by a store worker who comes up to me and says, 'You're a thief, you need to leave the store'." Sara - who wants to remain anonymous - was wrongly accused after being flagged by a facial-recognition system called Facewatch."

"Last week we reported how Facebook and Instagram's algorithms are luring young men into the Manosphere. This week, we explore what happens when TikTok's algorithm is unleashed on a blank account in the absence of any interactions such as liking or commenting. In April, Guardian Australia set up a new TikTok account on a completely blank smartphone linked to a new, unused email address. A John Doe profile was set up as a generic 24-year-old male. We scrolled through the feed every couple of weeks."

"CHICAGO, June 18 (Reuters) - Bayer's crop science division is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence in its battle against crop killing weeds, the company told Reuters. Weeds are growing resistant to the herbicides already on the market, and agribusiness companies like Bayer are in a desperate search for new modes of action to help farmers kill them. Bayer's Icafolin product will be its first new mode of action herbicide in some 30 years when it launches in Brazil in 2028."

"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."

""An emotionally intelligent human does not usually claim they can accurately put a label on everything everyone says and tell you this person is currently feeling 80% angry, 18% fearful, and 2% sad," says Edward B Kang, an assistant professor at New York University writing about the intersection of AI and sound. "In fact, that sounds to me like the opposite of what an emotionally intelligent person would say." Adding to this is the notorious problem of AI bias. "Your algorithms are only as good as the training material," Barrett says. "And if your training material is biased in some way, then you are enshrining that bias in code.""

"A woman whose 14-year-old son killed himself is calling for parents to be given the legal right to access their child's social media accounts to help understand why they died. Ellen Roome has gathered more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for social media companies to be required to hand over data to parents after a child has died. Under the current law, parents have no legal right to see whether their child was being bullied or threatened, was looking at self-harm images or other harmful content, or had expressed suicidal feelings online or searched for help with mental health problems."

""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."

"ChatGPT can help with reframing thoughts and situations, similar to cognitive behavioural therapy - but "some clients can start to use it as a substitute for therapy", Masterson says. "I've had clients telling me they've already processed on their own, because of what they've read - it's incredibly dangerous." She has had to ask some clients to cease their self-experiments while in treatment with her. "It's about you and me in the room," she says. "You just cannot have that with text - let alone a conglomeration of lots of other people's texts." Self-directed chatbot therapy also risks being counterproductive, shrinking the area of inquiry. "It's quite affirmative; I challenge clients," says Masterson. ChatGPT could actually cement patterns as it draws, over and again, from the same database: "The more you try to refine it, the more refined the message becomes.""

Instead, affiliate charter schools seek applicants for positions like a "High School Guide." These $50/hr employees will help design "creative, immersive learning experiences that teach students to leverage cutting-edge AI tools and innovative strategies," among other responsibilities. "Think of yourself as a brand consultant for 50 startups simultaneously, guiding diverse branding needs from business to personal expertise positioning," reads one job listing. Apart from students' brand development, the opening also stipulates candidates must possess "demonstrated expertise in social media management, content creation, and audience engagement."

"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"."

"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"."

"The European Commission has asked X to hand over internal documents about its algorithms, as it steps up its investigation into whether Elon Musk's social media platform has breached EU rules on content moderation. The EU's executive branch told the company it wanted to see internal documentation about its "recommender system", which makes content suggestions to users, and any recent changes made to it, by 15 February. X has been under investigation since December 2023 under the EU's content law - known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) - over how it tackles the spread of illegal content and information manipulation. The company has been accused of manipulating the platform's systems to give far-right posts and politicians greater visibility over other political groups."

"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."