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"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy," says the adage, "they first make mad." Actually, that's overkill: the Gods just need to make people forget. Amnesia turns out to be a powerful narcotic and it's been clouding our perceptions of what's been happening on the internet for at least 25 years, namely the inexorable degradation of the online environment and our passive, sullen acceptance of that."

"A leading psychologist who advises Meta on suicide prevention and self-harm has quit her role, accusing the tech giant of "turning a blind eye" to harmful content on Instagram, repeatedly ignoring expert advice and prioritising profit over lives. Lotte Rubæk, who has been on Meta's global expert group for more than three years, told the Observer that the tech giant's ongoing failure to remove images of self-harm from its platforms is "triggering" vulnerable young women and girls to further harm themselves and contributing to rising suicide figures."

"For Bejar, the controls in place on social networks like Instagram are not sufficient because they turn "inherently human interactions into an objective assessment". There are too few options for users to hide content or flag comments and DMs and explain why it made them uncomfortable even if it doesn't violate Meta's specific policies, he said. "There's a question of how clearly bad does the content need to be to warrant removal? And that means you set a line somewhere and have to define a criterion where either a computer system or a human can evaluate a piece of content," Bejar said."

" A finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into paying out $25 million to fraudsters using deepfake technology to pose as the company's chief financial officer in a video conference call, according to Hong Kong police. The elaborate scam saw the worker duped into attending a video call with what he thought were several other members of staff, but all of whom were in fact deepfake recreations, Hong Kong police said at a briefing on Friday. "(In the) multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake," senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching told the city's public broadcaster RTHK. Chan said the worker had grown suspicious after he received a message that was purportedly from the company's UK-based chief financial officer. Initially, the worker suspected it was a phishing email, as it talked of the need for a secret transaction to be carried out. However, the worker put aside his early doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized, Chan said."

"The research has found many children do not even recognise these promotions, known as content marketing, as advertising. It warns that this may lead to children following betting companies on social media, making it more likely that they sign up with them when they turn 18 and can legally gamble. Dr Raffaello Rossi, lecturer in marketing at Bristol University, one of the report's authors, said content marketing was particularly popular with young people."

"But there have been corresponding sacrifices. Over 20 years, I have turned over whole areas of competence, memory, authority and independence to the machines in my life. Along the way, I have become anxious about problems that didn't used to exist, indecisive over choices I never used to have to make, and angry about things I would once have been wholly unaware of."

"Search for Common Ground designed BridgeBot together with TangibleAI after our research revealed that most people shy away - or turn away - from discussions online once they heat up. We learned that few people felt comfortable responding, and even fewer felt that they could be constructive. BridgeBot acts like a companion to help social media users think differently about how to deal with differences, by equipping them with skills and perspectives on empathy, identity, perception and non-violent communication."

32 million passwords compromised - yikes...

"Apocalypsarians who are equally convinced that a super-intelligent AI will have no interest in curing cancer or old age, or ending poverty, but will - malevolently or maybe just accidentally - bring about the end of human civilisation as we know it."

"Some have argued for much greater policing of content online, and companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have talked about hiring thousands to staff up their moderation teams.8 8. April Glaser, Want a Terrible Job? Facebook and Google May Be Hiring,Slate (Jan. 18, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/facebook-and-google-are-building-an-army-of-content-moderators-for-2018.html (explaining that major platforms have hired or have announced plans to hire thousands, in some cases more than ten thousand, new content moderators).On the other side of the coin, companies are increasingly investing in more and more sophisticated technology help, such as artificial intelligence, to try to spot contentious content earlier in the process.9 9. Tom Simonite, AI Has Started Cleaning Up Facebook, But Can It Finish?,Wired (Dec. 18, 2018), https://www.wired.com/story/ai-has-started-cleaning-facebook-can-it-finish/.Others have argued that we should change Section 230 of the CDA, which gives platforms a free hand in determining how they moderate (or how they don't moderate).10 10. Gohmert Press Release, supra note 7 ("Social media companies enjoy special legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, protections not shared by other media. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order obtain their immunity, these companies have turned Section 230 into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity… Since there still appears to be no sincere effort to stop this disconcerting behavior, it is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company. If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable."); Eric Johnson, Silicon Valley's Self-Regulating Days "Probably Should Be" Over, Nancy Pelosi Says, Vox (Apr. 11, 2019), https:/

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically-now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred.1 1. Zachary Laub, Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons, Council on Foreign Rel. (Jun. 7, 2019), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons.Meanwhile, others feel that these platforms have become too aggressive in policing language and are systematically silencing or censoring certain viewpoints.2 2. Tony Romm, Republicans Accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of Bias. Democrats Called the Hearing 'Dumb.', Wash. Post (Jul. 17, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/17/republicans-accused-facebook-google-twitter-bias-democrats-called-hearing-dumb/?utm_term=.895b34499816.And that's not even touching on the question of privacy and what these platforms are doing (or not doing) with all of the data they collect."

"Remote surveillance software like Sneek, also known as "tattleware" or "bossware", represented something of a niche market pre-Covid. But that all changed in March 2020, as employers scrambled to pull together work-from-home policies out of thin air. In April last year, Google queries for "remote monitoring" were up 212% year-on-year; by April this year, they'd continued to surge by another 243%."

"As reported by The Independent this week, Microsoft has been granted a patent that allows the company "to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people." Under the patent, Microsoft can create an artificial intelligence bot "based on images, voice data, social media posts, electronic message, and more personal information" of a deceased person."

"Generative artificial-intelligence tools are unproven and expensive to operate, requiring muscular servers with expensive chips that consume lots of power. Microsoft MSFT -0.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle , Google, Adobe and other tech companies investing in AI are experimenting with an array of tactics to make, market and charge for it. Microsoft has lost money on one of its first generative AI products, said a person with knowledge of the figures. It and Google are now launching AI-backed upgrades to their software with higher price tags. Zoom Video Communications ZM 1.79%increase; green up pointing triangle has tried to mitigate costs by sometimes using a simpler AI it developed in-house. Adobe and others are putting caps on monthly usage and charging based on consumption. "A lot of the customers I've talked to are unhappy about the cost that they are seeing for running some of these models," said Adam Selipsky, the chief executive of Amazon.com's cloud division, Amazon Web Services, speaking of the industry broadly. "

"Can AI bring personalized tutors to every student? The AI education tools being piloted today are mind-blowing because they are tailored to each individual learner. Some of them-like Khanmigo and MATHia-are already remarkable, and they'll only get better in the years ahead. One of the things that excites me the most about this type of technology is the possibility of localizing it to every student, no matter where they live. For example, a team in Nairobi is working on Somanasi, an AI-based tutor that aligns with the curriculum in Kenya. The name means "learn together" in Swahili, and the tutor has been designed with the cultural context in mind so it feels familiar to the students who use it."

"The model is AI-generated, a digital rendering of a human being that will start appearing on Levi's e-commerce website later this year. The brand teamed with LaLaLand.ai, a digital studio that makes customized AI models for companies like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, to dream up this avatar. Amy Gershkoff Bolles, Levi's global head of digital and emerging technology strategy, announced the model's debut at a Business of Fashion event in March. AI models will not completely replace the humans, she said, but will serve as a "supplement" intended to aid in the brand's representation of various sizes, skin tones and ages."