Happy Valentines Day, you lovely nerds! io9’s favorite tradition on this most romantic day is back, with another round of pop culture gag cards to send to your sweetie from some of the last year’s highlights in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and more. As always, our thanks to G/O Media art director Vicky Leta for bringing…
The parents of a teenager who was killed in Florida’s Parkland school shooting in 2018 have started a bold new project called The Shotline to lobby for stricter gun laws in the country. The Shotline uses AI to recreate the voices of children killed by gun violence and send recordings through automated calls to lawmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The project launched on Wednesday, six years after a gunman killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen at a high school in Parkland, Florida. It features the voice of six children, some as young as ten, and young adults, who have lost their lives in incidents of gun violence across the US. Once you type in your zip code, The Shotline finds your local representative and lets you place an automated call from one of the six dead people in their own voice, urging for stronger gun control laws. “I’m back today because my parents used AI to recreate my voice to call you,” says the AI-generated voice of Joaquin Oliver, one of the teenagers killed in the Parkland shooting. “Other victims like me will be calling too.” At the time of publishing, more than 8,000 AI calls had been submitted to lawmakers through the website.
“This is a United States problem and we have not been able to fix it,” Oliver’s father Manuel, who started the project along with his wife Patricia, told the Journal. “If we need to use creepy stuff to fix it, welcome to the creepy.”
To recreate the voices, the Olivers used a voice cloning service from ElevenLabs, a two-year-old startup that recently raised $80 million in a round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Using just a few minutes of vocal samples, the software is able to recreate voices in more than two dozen languages. The Olivers reportedly used their son’s social media posts for his voice samples. Parents and legal guardians of gun violence victims can fill up a form to submit their voices to The Shotline to be added its repository of AI-generated voices.
The project raises ethical questions about using AI to generate deepfakes of voices belonging to dead people. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission declared that robocalls made using AI-generated voices were illegal, a decision that came weeks after voters in New Hampshire received calls impersonating President Joe Biden telling them to not vote in their state’s primary. An analysis by security company called Pindrop revealed that Biden’s audio deepfake was created using software from ElevenLabs.
The company’s co-founder Mati Staniszewski told the Journal that ElevenLabs allows people to recreate the voices of dead relatives if they have the rights and permissions. But so far, it’s not clear whether parents of minors had the rights to their children’s likenesses.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/their-children-were-shot-so-they-used-ai-to-recreate-their-voices-and-call-lawmakers-003832488.html?src=rss
It’s safe to say crypto is experiencing renewed interest since the crash of 2022. Bitcoin just hit its highest price since 2021, the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs has investors very excited, and the market cap for all crypto just breached $2 trillion. But everyone who’s ready to FOMO their way into crypto…
From Stranger Things to Barbie, Disney fairytales, and a Halloweentown of your own—various creative destinations have undertaken the task of transporting guests into their own movie moments. This includes the pink-on-pink mid-century vibes at Palm Springs’ Trixie Motel, and thethemed rooms at Disney Parks’Disneyland…
X has allowed dozens of sanctioned individuals and groups to pay for its premium service, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). The report raises questions about whether X is running afoul of US sanctions.
The report found 28 verified accounts belonging to people and groups the US government considers to be a national security threat. The group includes two leaders of Hezbollah, accounts associated with Houthis in Yemen and state-run media accounts from Iran and Russia. Of those, 18 of the accounts were verified after X began charging for verification last spring.
“The fact that X requires users to pay a monthly or annual fee for premium service suggests that X is engaging in financial transactions with these accounts, a potential violation of U.S. sanctions,” the report says. As the TTP points out, X’s own policies state that sanctioned individuals are prohibited from paying for premium services. Some of the accounts identified by the TTP also had ads in their replies, according to the group, “raising the possibility that they could be profiting from X’s revenue-sharing program.”
Changing up Twitter’s verification policy was one of the most significant changes implemented by Elon Musk after he took over the company. Under the new rules, anyone can pay for a blue checkmark if they subscribe to X Premium. X doesn’t require users to submit identification, and the company has at times scrambled to shut down impersonators.
X also offers gold checkmarks to advertisers as part of its “verified organizations” tier, which starts at $200 a month. The TTP report found that accounts belonging to Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s Tinkoff Bank — both sanctioned entities — had gold checks. X has also given away gold checks to at least 10,000 companies. As the report points out, even giving away the gold badge to sanctioned groups could violate US government policies.
X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but it appears that the company has removed verification from some of the accounts named in the TTP’s report. “X, formerly known as Twitter, has removed the blue check and suspended the paid subscriptions of several Iranian outlets,” Press TV tweeted from its account, which still has a gold check. The Hezbollah leaders’ accounts are also no longer verified.
In a statement shared by the company’s @Safety account, X said that it was reviewing the TTP report and would “take action if necessary.”
“X has a robust and secure approach in place for our monetization features, adhering to legal obligations, along with independent screening by our payments providers,” the company wrote. “Several of the accounts listed in the Tech Transparency Report are not directly named on sanction lists, while some others may have visible account check marks without receiving any services that would be subject to sanctions.”
Update February 14, 2024, 4:52 PM ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from X.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-let-terrorist-groups-pay-for-verification-report-says-201254824.html?src=rss
This month, Apple released its first truly anticipated product in years, the Apple Vision Pro. It’s a groundbreaking device, with some of the best hardware specs and the most impressive performance of any commercial headset ever released. It’s also a $3,500 toy, one that an untold number of people seem to regret…
X has allowed dozens of sanctioned individuals and groups to pay for its premium service, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). The report raises questions about whether X is running afoul of US sanctions.
The report found 28 verified accounts belonging to people and groups the US government considers to be a national security threat. The group includes two leaders of Hezbollah, accounts associated with Houthis in Yemen and state-run media accounts from Iran and Russia. Of those, 18 of the accounts were verified after X began charging for verification last spring.
“The fact that X requires users to pay a monthly or annual fee for premium service suggests that X is engaging in financial transactions with these accounts, a potential violation of U.S. sanctions,” the report says. As the TTP points out, X’s own policies state that sanctioned individuals are prohibited from paying for premium services. Some of the accounts identified by the TTP also had ads in their replies, according to the group, “raising the possibility that they could be profiting from X’s revenue-sharing program.”
Changing up Twitter’s verification policy was one of the most significant changes implemented by Elon Musk after he took over the company. Under the new rules, anyone can pay for a blue checkmark if they subscribe to X Premium. X doesn’t require users to submit identification, and the company has at times scrambled to shut down impersonators.
X also offers gold checkmarks to advertisers as part of its “verified organizations” tier, which starts at $200 a month. The TTP report found that accounts belonging to Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s Tinkoff Bank — both sanctioned entities — had gold checks. X has also given away gold checks to at least 10,000 companies. As the report points out, even giving away the gold badge to sanctioned groups could violate US government policies.
X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but it appears that the company has removed verification from some of the accounts named in the TTP’s report. “X, formerly known as Twitter, has removed the blue check and suspended the paid subscriptions of several Iranian outlets,” Press TV tweeted from its account, which still has a gold check. The Hezbollah leaders’ accounts are also no longer verified.
In a statement shared by the company’s @Safety account, X said that it was reviewing the TTP report and would “take action if necessary.”
“X has a robust and secure approach in place for our monetization features, adhering to legal obligations, along with independent screening by our payments providers,” the company wrote. “Several of the accounts listed in the Tech Transparency Report are not directly named on sanction lists, while some others may have visible account check marks without receiving any services that would be subject to sanctions.”
Update February 14, 2024, 4:52 PM ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from X.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-let-terrorist-groups-pay-for-verification-report-says-201254824.html?src=rss
Two years after Star Wars (as we then knew it) came to an end with the release of Return of the Jedi, Star Wars merchandise seemingly followed. In 1985, as sales declined, Kenner closed out its Star Wars action figure line after seven years—but Star Wars nearly lived on in what could’ve been the earliest glimpses of…
It’s that time of year again! Nerdy romance is in the air, and io9 is here to share 10 movies easily found on streaming services that make for perfect Valentine’s Day viewing. As always, you won’t find any standard rom-coms here; we’re bringing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror into the mix.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
