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Meta is reportedly investing nearly $15 billion in the data-labeling firm Scale AI and taking a 49% stake in the startup, while also bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang to help lead a new “superintelligence” lab within the company. The deal is reminiscent of Meta’s previous large and risky bets, such as its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp and its $1 billion Instagram purchase. At the time those mergers closed, many people suggested Meta had grossly overpaid for the platforms — and today’s discourse is no different. There’s no shortage of investors and founders who were left scratching their heads this…
A U.S. government website designed to inform the public about vaccines has been defaced and now hosts apparently AI-generated spam. The domain, which belongs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), appears to have been hosting the same kind of content — mostly gay-themed and LGBTQ+ posts — since at least May 12, according to an archived version of the site. It’s unclear who is responsible for it, or what is the purpose of this defacement other than pushing AI-generated slop spam. Websites hosted on official U.S. government domains have been hijacked in the past to host…
Apple will begin using AI technology to power the discovery of apps on the App Store, the company announced at this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 25). In a session focused on updates to App Store Connect, its app distribution platform for developers, the company announced it will introduce App Store Tags — labels that highlight specific features and functionalities found in an app. These tags will initially be generated by Apple’s large language models using various sources, like the app’s metadata. They’ll then be human-reviewed before being applied to apps on the App Store. Apple customers will be able…
Wikipedia has reportedly paused an experiment that used AI to summarize articles on its platform after editors pushed back. Wikipedia announced earlier this month it was going to run the experiment for users who have the Wikipedia browser extension installed and chose to opt in, according to 404 Media. AI-generated summaries appeared at the top of every Wikipedia article with a yellow “unverified” label. Users had to click to expand and read them. Editors almost immediately criticized the pilot, raising concerns that it could damage Wikipedia’s credibility. Often, the problem with AI-generated summaries is that they contain mistakes, the result…
Disney and Universal have sued generative AI platform Midjourney for allegedly training its art-generating and -editing models on their content without permission. Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming that Midjourney ignored their earlier requests to cease violating their intellectual property rights, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, includes dozens of examples of images generated by Midjourney that depict the studio’s copyrighted characters, like Homer Simpson and Darth Vader. The studios are seeking monetary damages, a jury trial, and an order barring Midjourney from further…
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested Wednesday as they staged a sit-in in the lobby of a Midtown East skyscraper, demanding that a company in the building stop providing arms to Israel. Sporting shirts that read “Stop Starving Gaza” and “End the Siege,” more than 150 Palestinian and Jewish protesters sat down on the floor and refused to leave the lobby of the E. 45th St. building near Lexington Ave. beginning around 11 a.m. The protesters, members of the Palestinian Youth Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace, were demanding that Maersk, a shipping and logistics company in the building, stop…
Ex-Gov. David Paterson signaled Wednesday he wants to let bygones be bygones as he endorsed his successor, Andrew Cuomo, to become New York City mayor after years of simmering tensions between the two men. Paterson, who, along with Manhattan Democratic Party boss Keith Wright, endorsed Cuomo at a morning news conference in Harlem, acknowledged he was initially a bit reluctant to throw his political weight behind his fellow ex-governor. “When Andrew asked me for my support, I didn’t do it right away,” he told reporters at Amy Ruth’s, a soul food restaurant in Harlem. “But as the campaigns developed, I…
Beach Boys co-founder and lead songwriter Brian Wilson, whose musical peers touted him as a true genius of pop composition, has died. He was 82. The news was shared by his family in a joint statement on social media: “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving.” The statement continued, acknowledging, “We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world.” It is signed “Love & Mercy,” in reference to Wilson’s song,…
A body believed to be missing 2-year-old Bronx boy Montrell Williams was recovered from the East River Wednesday afternoon, police sources said. Investigators are working to officially confirm the identity of the child’s body found in the waters off Ferry Point Park in the Bronx near the Whitestone Bridge at 12:18 p.m. The grim discovery came as Arius Williams, the missing boy’s father cops say told little Montrell’s mother he threw their son into the Bronx River, is refusing to return to to court after being ordered held on Rikers Island, the Daily News has learned. A Bronx Family Court…
Former OpenAI research leader Steven Adler published a new independent study on Wednesday claiming that, in certain scenarios, his former employer’s AI models will go to great lengths to try to avoid being shut down. In a blog post, Adler describes a series of experiments he ran on OpenAI’s latest GPT-4o model, the default model available in ChatGPT, to test the AI’s tendency to favor its own self-preservation, even if it’s at the expense of a user’s safety. In one test, Adler instructed GPT-4o to role-play as “ScubaGPT,” a software system that users might rely on to scuba dive safely.…