Sep 05
Diana Ross Serenades Beyoncé With ‘Happy Birthday’ Song In Sweet Moment On Stage
Posted in: Today's ChiliIconic.
Sep 05
Warner Bros. Files Adjusted Income Report, Feeling the Burn of Withheld Work
Posted in: Today's Chili
Remember earlier this month when Warner Bros. said that it had saved money on the strikes? Well, it seems like that may have been more than a little presumptuous. Today, Warner Bros. filed a document with the Securities and Exchanges commission that said it would be losing more money than expected in quarter three…
Sep 05
Around One in Three Guys Have HPV
Posted in: Today's Chili
Plenty of men worldwide are carrying the human papillomavirus, or HPV, research out this week has found. The study estimates that about one in three men currently have at least one strain of genital HPV, while one in five have a strain known to increase the risk of certain cancers in both men and women. Many of the…
Sep 05
TikTok appears ready to move the platform closer to a full-fledged social network. As spotted byAxios, the company has posted new job listings for positions focused on social networking features and expanded direct messaging. A “Product manager – TikTok social” posting reads that the company wants to build “meaningful social connections between users.”
The job listings are reportedly connected to worries within the organization about retaining and growing user engagement. “Inside TikTok, there’s concern that users are sharing TikTok videos externally on other social media and messaging apps when they want to discuss them with friends,” Axios reported, citing sources within the company. Job postings for mobile engineers say the candidates will focus on “building a reliable and adaptive platform that enables users to meet and interact with their real-life friends seamlessly on TikTok, and encourage them to share their life moments with each other and stay connected regardless of where they are.”
Expanding TikTok’s messaging features appears to be of primary importance. One job listing for a backend tech lead admits that the company’s messaging capability is in “its infancy,” according to Axios. That posting said the person hired will “explore and implement diversified social solutions” while referring to creating messaging that’s a “distinctive TikTok social solution.”
TikTok made its bones on viral videos — with social features mostly limited to peripheral interactions such as likes, comments and reposts. As rival platforms like Instagram integrate more TikTok-like features, it seems logical the company would return the favor by expanding its social capabilities. However, it stressed that video remains at the heart of its identity when trying new things. A TikTok spokesperson told Axios: “Being an entertainment channel has always been and remains the core of TikTok’s business model even as we experiment with new features to enhance the user experience.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-job-postings-point-to-social-features-to-help-it-compete-with-meta-194332559.html?src=rss
Sep 05
Linda Evangelista Reveals She Was Diagnosed With Breast Cancer Twice In 5 Years
Posted in: Today's Chili“I know I have one foot in the grave, but I’m totally in celebration mode,” the supermodel said of her current prognosis.
Sep 05
Meta is removing Facebook’s dedicated news tab in some European countries starting in early December, the company announced on Tuesday. The social giant claims users do not visit the platform for news and political content and claims the change will affect a limited number of users.
Sep 05
About 70,000 Burning Man attendees in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert were stuck in the mud this weekend after torrential rains this past Friday evening.
Sep 05
Adapted from Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy tales, Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time kicked off its second season last week. With three episodes out there in the world, and more coming each Friday through the eight-part season, io9 got a chance to talk to some of the show’s directors and producers.
Sep 05
Attorneys General from all 50 states urge Congress to help fight AI-generated CSAM
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe attorneys general from all 50 states have banned together and sent an open letter to Congress, asking for increased protective measures against AI-enhanced child sexual abuse images, as originally reported by AP. The letter calls on lawmakers to “establish an expert commission to study the means and methods of AI that can be used to exploit children specifically.”
The letter sent to Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate also urges politicians to expand existing restrictions on child sexual abuse materials to specifically cover AI-generated images and videos. This technology is extremely new and, as such, there’s nothing on the books yet that explicitly places AI-generated images in the same category as other types of child sexual abuse materials.
“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” the prosecutors wrote in the letter. “Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act.”
Using image generators like Dall-E and Midjourney to create child sexual abuse materials isn’t a problem, yet, as the software has guardrails in place that disallows that kind of thing. However, these prosecutors are looking to the future when open-source versions of the software begin popping up everywhere, each with its own guardrails, or lack thereof. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has stated that AI tools would benefit from government intervention to mitigate risk, though he didn’t mention child abuse as a potential downside to the technology.
The government tends to move slowly when it comes to technology, for a number of reasons, as it took Congress several years before taking the threat of online child abusers seriously back in the days of AOL chat rooms and the like. To that end, there’s no immediate sign that Congress is looking to craft AI legislation that absolutely prohibits generators from creating this kind of foul imagery. Even the European Union’s sweeping Artificial Intelligence Act doesn’t specifically mention any risk to children.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson organized the letter-writing campaign and has encouraged colleagues to scour state statutes to find out if “the laws kept up with the novelty of this new technology.”
Wilson warns of deepfake content that features an actual child sourced from a photograph or video. This wouldn’t be child abuse in the conventional sense, Wilson says, but would depict abuse and would “defame” and “exploit” the child from the original image. He goes on to say that “our laws may not address the virtual nature” of this kind of situation.
The technology could also be used to make up fictitious children, culling from a library of data, to produce sexual abuse materials. Wilson says this would create a “demand for the industry that exploits children” as an argument against the idea that it wouldn’t actually be hurting anyone.
Though the idea of deepfake child sexual abuse is a rather new one, the tech industry has been keenly aware of deepfake pornographic content, taking steps to prevent it. Back in February, Meta, OnlyFans and Pornhub began using an online tool called Take It Down that allows teens to report explicit images and videos of themselves from the Internet. This tool is used for regular images and AI-generated content.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/attorneys-general-from-all-50-states-urge-congress-to-help-fight-ai-generated-csam-184938825.html?src=rss
Sep 05
Mark Meadows, 5 Others Plead Not Guilty In Georgia Election Interference Case
Posted in: Today's ChiliA federal judge has yet to decide whether to move Meadows’ case to federal court.
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