The piece ran on 11 May and accused people who use fake tan of mocking those with naturally dark skin
The Irish Times has apologised for running an article about Irish women’s use of fake tan that was submitted by a hoaxer who used artificial intelligence.
The editor, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, said on Sunday that it had fallen victim to “a deliberate and coordinated deception” that showed a need for stronger controls.
Continue reading...Host was fired by the news network last month in the aftermath of its $787.5m settlement with Dominion over election lies
Tucker Carlson will be reviving his show on Twitter, after being abruptly dismissed from Fox News last month.
In a tweet captioned “We’re back,” Carlson on Tuesday shared a video discussing his next moves. The former host said he would be taking his show to Twitter, which he described as “the last remaining platform in the world” to allow free speech.
Continue reading...Children’s commissioner for England calls for ‘robust’ measures in UK’s online safety bill to protect young people
England’s children’s commissioner has called for the “most robust” online protections for under-18s after publishing research examining links between sexual abuse cases and pornography.
In the second of a series of reports exploring the impact on children, Rachel de Souza said she wanted to “turn the tide on pornography’s harms to children”.
Continue reading...Non-binding vote bans surveillance software after concluding Hungary and Poland used it to track journalists and opponents
The EU needs tighter regulation of the spyware industry, a European parliament special committee has said, after concluding that Hungary and Poland had used surveillance software to illegally monitor journalists, politicians and activists.
A special European parliament committee voted on Monday for a temporary ban on the sale, acquisition and use of spyware while the bloc draws up common EU standards based on international law. The moratorium would be lifted only on strict conditions, including independent investigations into the abuse of spyware in the EU.
Continue reading...Tech billionaire, 38, surprises onlookers by winning gold and silver medal at tournament in Redwood City, California
Mark Zuckerberg is adding one more title to his résumé: medal-winning martial artist.
The Facebook and Meta founder won gold and silver medals at his very first Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament in Redwood City, California, to the shock of many in the martial arts community and probably more widely.
Continue reading...Under proposed ‘chat controls’ regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to screen for ‘identifiers’
An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.
Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.
Continue reading...Buzzfeed, Vice, Gawker and Drudge Report are all traffic-war casualties, but they succeeded in shaking up the media landscape
Toward the end of Traffic, a new account of the early rock n roll years of internet publishing, Ben Smith writes that the failings of Buzzfeed News had come about as a result of a “utopian ideology, from a kind of magical thinking”.
No truer words, perhaps, for a digital-based business that for a decade paddled in a warm bath of venture capital funding but never fully controlled its pricing and distribution, a basic business requirement that applies to information as much as it does to selling lemonade in the school yard or fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Experts warn Brussels it cannot afford to leave artificial intelligence in the hands of foreign firms such as Google
The EU has been warned that it risks handing control of artificial intelligence to US tech firms if it does not act to protect grassroots research in its forthcoming AI bill.
In an open letter coordinated by the German research group Laion, or Large-scale AI Open Network, the European parliament was told that “one-size-fits-all” rules risked eliminating open research and development.
Continue reading...CMA to look at underlying systems of artificial intelligence tools amid concerns over false information
The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market.
As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, will publish its findings in September.
Continue reading...Brazilian government has accused Alphabet of interference after it placed advertising on its search homepage and YouTube
Brazil’s government is taking a stand against major tech companies over a new internet regulation that is shaping up to be one of the world’s strongest legislations on social media.
Bill 2630, also known as the ‘fake news’ law, puts the onus on the internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, instead of leaving it to the courts, charging hefty fines for failures to do so.
Continue reading...Met says technology will not be used to target protesters or activists, but campaigners say use is ‘extremely worrying’
The Metropolitan police has been accused of using the coronation to stage the biggest live facial recognition operation in British history.
The force said on Wednesday it intended to use the controversial technology, which scans faces and matches them against a list of people police want for alleged crimes and could identify convicted terrorists mingling in the crowds.
Continue reading...Investments in Bristol and Santo Tomas in the Philippines will be worth £100m and £166m respectively
Dyson has revealed plans to build a new battery factory in Singapore, alongside investments by the maker of vacuum cleaners and dryers in technology centres in the UK and the Philippines.
The company, run by the billionaire Sir James Dyson, said the investments in Bristol in the UK and Santo Tomas in the Philippines would be worth £100m and £166m respectively. The Singapore investment will be significantly larger.
Continue reading...Group has removed AI images used to promote their reports on social media, including fake photos of Colombia’s 2021 protests
While the systemic brutality used by Colombian police to quell national protests in 2021 was real and is well documented, photos recently used by Amnesty International to highlight the issue were not.
The international human rights advocacy group has come under fire for posting images generated by artificial intelligence in order to promote their reports on social media – and has since removed them.
Continue reading...ChatGPT rated higher in quality and empathy of written advice, raising possibility of medical assistance role
ChatGPT appears to have a better ‘bedside manner’ than some doctors – at least when their written advice is rated for quality and empathy, a study has shown.
The findings highlight the potential for AI assistants to play a role in medicine, according to the authors of the work, who suggest such agents could help draft doctors’ communications with patients. “The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Dr John Ayers, of the University of California San Diego.
Continue reading...Downing Street responds to stinging attack from US firm’s president over blocking of $69bn Activision deal
Downing Street has defended the UK as an “extremely attractive” place for tech startups after Microsoft’s president said Brexit Britain was worse for business than the EU, in a stinging attack on the UK’s decision to block a $69bn (£55bn) deal to take over Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft rounded on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday after a surprise decision to block its planned takeover of the Call of Duty games developer, with its president, Brad Smith, describing it as the “darkest day in our four decades in Britain”.
Continue reading...Redmond-based company exceeded analysts’ estimates, driven by its cloud computing and Office software businesses
Microsoft Corp beat Wall Street’s quarterly revenue and profit estimates on Tuesday, driven by growth in its cloud computing and Office productivity software businesses, and the company said artificial intelligence products were stimulating sales.
The company forecast that revenue in its main segments for the current quarter would match or top Wall Street targets.
Continue reading...Designation as ‘very large online platform’ along with 16 other major names means big penalties for breaches
Twitter is among the tech firms that will face the toughest level of scrutiny under a new European Union regulatory regime for monitoring digital platforms, after warnings from Brussels that the Elon Musk-owned platform is unprepared for the new rules.
The company, which Musk bought in October 2022, has been designated a “very large online platform” under the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which means complying with measures such as publishing an independent audit of its compliance with the legislation.
Continue reading...Global companies like Google, Apple and Amazon could have to pay penalties of up to 10% of their global turnover as government gives competition watchdog more power
Major tech firms face the threat of multibillion-pound fines for breaching consumer protection rules under new legislation that will tackle issues including fake online reviews and subscriptions that are difficult to cancel.
The digital markets, competition and consumers bill will empower the UK’s competition watchdog to tackle the “excessive dominance” that a small number of tech firms hold over consumers and businesses.
Continue reading...Internet Watch Foundation says amount of material showing most extreme form of sexual abuse has doubled since 2020
The most extreme form of child sexual abuse material accounted for a fifth of such content found online last year, according to a report.
Category A abuse represented 20% of illegal images discovered online last year by the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based body that monitors distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). It found more than 51,000 instances of such content, which can include the most severe imagery including rape, sadism and bestiality.
The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331.
Continue reading...At 3pm BST, every phone in Britain was due to receive a loud alarm as a test for future emergencies
Boston-based Everbridge is one of the companies providing the technology behind today’s alert. Lorenzo Marchetti, the company’s public affairs manager, explained the requirements of any such system:
A public alerting system should encompass three key elements– communication, synchronisation and analysis of data. For example, information might come from a weather forecast, a traffic report or through social media. Analysis of this data gives authorities a broad picture of what could occur and allows them to communicate and synchronise their actions. They can then disseminate this across specific locations or to an entire nation while ensuring that they reach the targeted people in the area. This means that effective public warning platforms can integrate several delivery methods such as radio or TVs, depending on the context of the deployment, in addition to the cell broadcast capacity.
Emergency alerts don’t just benefit citizens but are also essential for giving information and directions to the emergency services, helping them understand where to go and how to direct people away from danger.
If you are concerned you could:
Avoid wearing headphones during the test
Continue reading...