James Farrell – SiliconANGLE

EU now tells Meta to keep platform free of misinformation during Israel-Gaza conflict

James Farrell — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 03:00:21 +0000

A day after the European Union warned X Corp. about the spread of disinformation regarding the Hamas attack on Israel, a similarly worded letter was sent to Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. In this missive, also penned by the European Commissioner Thierry Breton, Meta was told to heed the EU’s Digital Services Act – […]

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EU sends stern words to Elon Musk over Hamas attack disinformation appearing on X

James Farrell — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 06:52:51 +0000

The European Union Tuesday issued a warning to X Corp. boss Elon Musk over possible disinformation appearing on the platform regarding the recent Hamas attack on Israel. Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a letter addressed to Musk that his office has “indications” that various people or groups are promulgating […]

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Neuralink is now searching for human volunteers for its brain-computer interface trials

James Farrell — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:59:21 +0000

After years of trials with monkeys, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface start-up Neuralink Corp., says it’s now looking for human volunteers to take part in a new set of trials. Since the company got off the ground in 2017, the mission has been to achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.” First, the symbiosis was practiced on monkeys, […]

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UK passes Online Safety Bill, vows to tame the ‘Wild West’ of online communications

James Farrell — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 02:21:26 +0000

The British government today passed the controversial and groundbreaking Online Safety Bill after the legislation received the green light in what was the final parliamentary debate on the matter. The bill consists of around 300 pages of sweeping legislation that the U.K. says will make the country “the safest place in the world to be […]

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Elon Musk says X users soon may have to pay a subscription fee to use the platform

James Farrell — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 01:18:03 +0000

Elon Musk today said today he’s considering making X Corp., the social network formerly known as Twitter Inc., a subscription-based platform for all users, albeit at low cost. He issued those words in a livestreamed conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured). The conversation turned to artificial intelligence and the future of AI, […]

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Supreme Court pauses lower-court order restricting Biden administration’s contact with social media firms

James Farrell — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:51:33 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court today put a temporary block on a lower court order that limited the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies. The original order was put in place to prevent the administration from applying pressure on such companies to moderate what it considered possible misinformation. It had earlier been discovered that the […]

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As France warns Apple it might have to recall the iPhone 12, Apple tries to dampen radiation fears

James Farrell — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 01:44:42 +0000

The French watchdog Agence Nationale des Fréquences told Apple Inc. Tuesday that it has to halt sales of its iPhone 12 in France over fears the device emits dangerous levels of radiation. ANFR, as it’s known for short, told Apple that if the phones are not fixed via a software update, every iPhone 12 will […]

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Microsoft suspects China is now using AI in disinformation campaigns to sway US voters

James Farrell — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 01:15:49 +0000

In a report published today by Microsoft Corp.’s Threat Analysis Center, analysts warned that Chinese operatives may now be using images created by artificial intelligence to provoke division inside the U.S. in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election. The report’s focus was on possible threats from all of East Asia, but China is the […]

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Flexport CEO Dave Clark steps down after just one year in charge

James Farrell — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 01:22:26 +0000

Logistics startup Flexport Inc. Chief Executive Dave Clark today announced that he’s resigning from the company after just one year as the boss. Clark joined Flexport after serving Amazon.com Inc. for a period of 23 years, helping the e-commerce giant build its massive logistics network. He joined Amazon back in 1999 as an operations manager, […]

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FTC antitrust lawsuit against Amazon will likely come later this month after talks break down

James Farrell — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 02:04:59 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly going ahead with an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc. after the company’s lawyers offered no concessions in recent talks with the regulator, according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal. The FTC’s probe into the e-commerce giant began during President Donald Trump’s administration, when the government initiated antitrust […]

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Elon Musk says he might sue the Anti-Defamation League for … defamation

James Farrell — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 01:45:05 +0000

X Corp. boss Elon Musk today partly blamed the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, for his company’s steep decline in advertising revenue since he became boss of what was then Twitter Inc. The mercurial tech mogul (pictured) took to X today to air his views, something that quite often leads to headlines in the media. This […]

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AI quadcopter autonomous drone in Switzerland leaves champion human racers in the dust

James Farrell — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 02:05:01 +0000

In what is being called a world first and another giant leap for artificial intelligence, an autonomous drone in Switzerland just outperformed the world’s best drone racers more than 25 separate races. The competition pitted the human champions in what were first-person view, or FPV, races in which the humans pilot high-speed aircraft through a […]

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In what could be a landmark case, Open AI lawyers motion to dismiss authors’ copyright claims

James Farrell — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 02:53:55 +0000

Open AI LP, a firm currently raking in money from its ChatGPT large language model-based chatbots, has moved to dismiss the majority of the claims against it in lawsuits recently filed by authors who allege the company has breached copyright laws by using their work. The comedian and author Sarah Silverman, along with author Christopher […]

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Meta removes thousands of accounts linked to Chinese government propaganda campaign

James Farrell — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 02:03:14 +0000

Meta Platforms Inc. today said that it has disrupted a Chinese disinformation campaign that it called the “largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world.” The company said that not only Facebook and Instagram had been infiltrated, but so was Twitter –now X – Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Medium, Substack and Tumblr. In total, the […]

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Tech chiefs will meet in Washington next month to discuss AI regulations

James Farrell — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 01:46:58 +0000

The chief executives of some of the largest tech companies in the U.S. will meet at the Capitol next month to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated in the future. The bipartisan meeting has been organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. On his invite list are Tesla Inc.’s […]

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Walmart teams up with Alphabet’s Wing for drone deliveries in Dallas

James Farrell — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 01:22:26 +0000

Residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas might soon be getting their groceries delivered by drone after Walmart Inc. today announced that it will partner with Alphabet Inc.’s drone delivery unit Wing. Alphabet, Google LLC’s parent company, has high hopes for Wing, explaining earlier this year that it expects in the near future to […]

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To placate EU regulators, Meta will let European users turn off its recommendation algorithms

James Farrell — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 01:06:42 +0000

Meta Platforms Inc. today explained that it has had to make some major changes in Europe to its Instagram and Facebook platforms in order to comply with the bloc’s Digital Services Act, or DSA. Meta, just as any other American tech behemoth will have to do if it wants to meet the requirements of the EU’s […]

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As wildfires rage, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau throws daggers at Meta over news block

James Farrell — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 02:13:52 +0000

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today accused Meta Platforms Inc. of thinking more about its bottom line than the safety of residents, as Canada and Meta continue to bump heads over Meta’s blackout of the country’s news. Canada is having its worst fire season on record, with cities engulfed in the Northwest Territories and around […]

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Microsoft’s AI travel writer advises foodies visiting Canada to fill up at Ottawa’s food bank

James Farrell — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 02:23:40 +0000

Microsoft Corp. has bet big in artificial intelligence, but it may have to spend a little more on human editors to expunge embarrassing and insulting generative AI goofs. Today a user on X, formerly Twitter — and most likely a lot more people — spotted a Microsoft Travel story on its Microsoft Network website titled […]

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New York City bans TikTok on government devices over security concerns

James Farrell — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 02:07:44 +0000

New York City today joined a number of states and government agencies in the U.S. by putting its foot down and banning the popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok. Starting today, employees of the city are asked to delete the app and not use it. All agencies are required to have removed it within the next […]

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Elon Musk accused of throttling links to competing apps and news sites

James Farrell — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 01:57:45 +0000

X Corp., formerly known as Twitter Inc., reportedly throttled links to websites and applications for which X owner Elon Musk has a particular distaste. The issue has now been resolved, but for a while, when an X user clicked on a link to Meta Platforms Inc.-owned Threads, Facebook or Instagram, there was a five-second delay. […]

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X Corp. hit with fine for not turning over data on Donald Trump

James Farrell — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 01:24:20 +0000

X Corp., formerly Twitter Inc., has just been fined $350,000 for contempt of court after the social media giant refused to hand over Donald Trump’s Twitter data to a special counsel investigation. Trump (pictured), who was something of a Twitter addict during his presidency, with a massive following, was banned from the platform after being […]

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AI-generated deepfake books were just sold on Amazon under a real author’s name

James Farrell — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:07:23 +0000

In what is surely a sign of things to come, an author this week talked about her struggle to get Amazon.com Inc. to take down books that had been written with generative artificial intelligence but were being sold under her name. Right now, the generative AI systems available from companies such as Open AI LC […]

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Detroit police in deep water after using erroneous facial recognition to arrest pregnant black woman

James Farrell — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 02:45:25 +0000

A Detroit woman who was falsely arrested for carjacking after police used faulty facial recognition technology is now suing the city, it was reported today. This is the third case in Detroit in which an African-American has been falsely arrested after police used the highly controversial technology. Although all the cases expose a serious flaw […]

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The company formerly known as Twitter will now allow people to hide their blue checkmarks

James Farrell — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 02:08:46 +0000

X Corp., formerly Twitter Inc., announced today that if users so choose, they can hide what they might now feel are their embarrassing checkmarks. Twitter Blue, which was originally launched before Elon Musk took over Twitter as an ad-free service with some other paid-for inducements, supplanted Twitter’s verification badge altogether once Musk got his feet […]

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Want advice from Abraham Lincoln? Meet Meta’s new multi-persona AI chatbots

James Farrell — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 01:52:12 +0000

Meta Platforms Inc. is on the verge of releasing a tribe of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots that each have an individual persona, and if today’s report in the Financial Times is correct, one of those personas will sound something like Abraham Lincoln. FT said it spoke to three people who have seen what’s going on inside […]

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X is going after an anti-hate speech organization over ‘baseless’ claims

James Farrell — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 02:05:08 +0000

Twitter Inc., recently renamed to X Corp., is threatening to take legal action against a British anti-hate speech and misinformation nonprofit organization for allegedly making untrue claims that hurt the company’s business. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, or CCDH, which has offices in London and Washington D.C., today posted screenshots of a letter showing […]

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Study: Facebook might not be as politically polarizing as we think

James Farrell — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 02:02:05 +0000

A series of studies published today tells us that Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms do not explicitly divide people politically, and tweaking the algorithms won’t change someone’s political attitudes. The four studies, two of which were published in the science journals Nature and Science, address the concern regarding so-called “echo chambers” on social media platforms dividing […]

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Waymo changes course from its self-driving truck ambitions to focus on ride-hailing

James Farrell — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 02:58:35 +0000

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo LLC announced today that it’s putting the brakes on autonomous truck operations and will now focus its efforts on the self-driving ride-hailing part of the business. Waymo Via, the company’s trucking division, was launched six years ago. Until recently, it has been testing its Class 8 heavy-duty trucks, operated by Waymo Driver, […]

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TikTok announces new text and e-commerce features amid social media battle to become meta

James Farrell — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 02:20:46 +0000

The popular Chinese-owned video streaming app TikTok today announced that it will introduce a text-only feature, now competing with Elon Musk’s newly named X and Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads. TikTok said it’s currently “expanding the boundaries of content creation,” which in short means providing a feature that will look a lot like […]

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