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Snapchat’s New AI Chatbot Is Already Raising Alarms Among Teens and Parents
The feature is powered by the viral AI chatbot tool ChatGPT — and like ChatGPT, it can offer recommendations, answer questions and converse with users. But Snapchat’s version has some key differences: Users can customize the chatbot’s name, design a custom Bitmoji avatar for it, and bring it into conversations with friends.
The new tool is facing backlash not only from parents but also from some Snapchat users who are bombarding the app with bad reviews in the app store and criticisms on social media over privacy concerns, “creepy” exchanges and an inability to remove the feature from their chat feed unless they pay for a premium subscription.
While some may find value in the tool, the mixed reactions hint at the risks companies face in rolling out new generative AI technology to their products, particularly in products like Snapchat, whose users skew younger.
“These examples would be disturbing for any social media platform, but they are especially troubling for Snapchat, which almost 60% of American teenagers use,” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet wrote in a letter to the CEOs of Snap and other tech companies last month. “Although Snap concedes My AI is ‘experimental,’ it has nevertheless rushed to enroll American kids and adolescents in its social experiment.”
Musk Meets With Lawmakers to Discuss AI: ‘Great Power to Do Good and Evil’
Elon Musk met with members of Congress on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of regulating artificial intelligence as many companies rush to incorporate the systems into their operations.
Leading corporations and venture capital firms have poured considerable funds into developing AI tools meant for consumer products and internal business solutions. Musk contended on social media after his discussion with lawmakers that regulations would protect the population from possible harmful effects of the nascent technology.
Elon Musk met with members of Congress on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of regulating artificial intelligence as many companies rush to incorporate the systems into their operations.
Leading corporations and venture capital firms have poured considerable funds into developing AI tools meant for consumer products and internal business solutions. Musk contended on social media after his discussion with lawmakers that regulations would protect the population from possible harmful effects of the nascent technology.
‘Our Free Will Is Being Taken’: Montana TikTokers Caught in Legal Limbo After State’s Unprecedented Ban
Montana’s first-of-its-kind law banning TikTok threatens to cut Spencre McGowan, an herbalist and a cookbook writer in Butte, Montana, and other creators off from their followings — the main promotional tool propping up their livelihoods.
When the bill takes effect in January, it will force creators and business owners across the state to make a difficult choice: abandon the app that has so enriched their lives and their businesses or sidestep the law and continue using TikTok in a state of anxious legal uncertainty. McGowan said she’s not interested in leaving the state.
“Our free will is being taken away from us,” McGowan said. Legal experts agree with her. Several who spoke to Gizmodo called the law “clearly unconstitutional” and said it will certainly face legal challenges. The creators Gizmodo spoke to were exploring joining a class action suit against the state.
Lawmakers around the country and around the world have been beating the “Ban TikTok” drum louder in recent months, with many expressing fears buttressed by intelligence services that the foreign-owned app could be used as an espionage tool by the Chinese government.
While many states and even the federal government have already capitalized on that rhetoric to ban TikTok on devices their employees use, Montana went where no state had gone before and passed a bill banning the app on all personal devices within state lines.
‘Knife in the Back’: Havana Syndrome Victims Dispute Report Dismissing Their Cases
“Patient Zero,” an American official stationed at the U.S. embassy in Cuba, was in his Havana apartment one night in December 2016 when he heard a strange sound and felt what he described as a “head-crushing pressure” and a “massive ear pain.” The sound stopped after he moved to another residence, but the symptoms remained, he told the Miami Herald: “I would wake up with nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop.”
A doctor the CIA sent to investigate had a similar incident himself in his Capri Hotel room just hours after arriving on the island’s capital in April 2017. “I woke up with severe pain in my right ear. I had a deafening, resounding headache and nausea. I sat on the bed and realized I was awake. I had this extreme feeling of pressure. I thought, ‘This can’t be happening; it’s crazy,’” he told the Herald.
All of these people have been diagnosed with brain injuries or inner-ear problems that doctors who treated them believe are part of a new disorder known for the place it all started: Havana Syndrome. They went through years of tests and rehabilitation therapies and are still suffering from debilitating effects. But after so many years, they still struggle to be believed.
The Miami Herald spoke to three former CIA officials and two Canadian diplomats affected by the strange incidents who said they are convinced they were targeted while serving their countries abroad. And all said that a recent U.S. intelligence report blaming their ailments on pre-existing medical conditions or environmental factors is an attempt to whitewash the Havana Syndrome affair, likely due to political considerations.
Now the victims claim the U.S. government wants to move on and “put a bow on it and close the book in hopes that no one would question it,” Patient Zero said. “This is a massive analytic intelligence failure or a cover-up; only time will tell,” he said.
House Republicans Grill Teachers Union Chief on Pandemic School Closures
Republican lawmakers on the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic pressed American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten during a hearing Wednesday on the exact role the union had in influencing school reopening guidance from the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC).
Weingarten was called before the panel after a public records request showed the AFT had the opportunity to give proposals and suggestions to the CDC’s “Operational Strategy for K-12 Through Phased Mitigation” guidance during the pandemic.
“We’re investigating the decision-making process behind school closures and the effects it had so that we can do better in the future,” Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in his opening statement. “Inherently, part of that investigation is evaluating if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed science as they knew it or learned it or merely accepted outside guidance regardless of available data during its guidance drafting and publication process.”
Republicans also pointed to an email from the AFT to the CDC that showed the union wanting a trigger for when schools should close if transmissions got too bad.
Ban on COVID Vaccine Mandates Clears North Carolina House
State agencies and local governments in North Carolina would not be allowed to deny employment to someone who refuses to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or prove they’ve been vaccinated, under legislation passed Wednesday by the state House.
The bill passed the House 73-41, with three Democrats and all present Republicans voting in favor, and was sent to the Senate.
Beginning in January 2024, the state’s public schools, community colleges and universities would also be prohibited from requiring students to get the COVID-19 vaccination or a booster shot. Private schools and businesses could still require their students or employees to receive the vaccine.
North Carolina law requires students at public, private and religious colleges and universities to receive other immunizations in most circumstances, including for mumps, measles and polio. The coronavirus vaccine is not currently required.
Groups Pushing Vaccine Passports, Mandates, Were Quietly Funded by Pfizer
Pfizer, the manufacturer of one of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the country, silently funded groups advocating for vaccine mandates and passports, according to a report by Lee Fang.
In August 2021, the president of the Chicago Urban League, Karen Freeman-Wilson, in an interview on TV, argued that vaccine mandates would not disproportionately harm the black community. “The health and safety factor here far outweighs the concern about shutting people out or creating a barrier,” Freeman-Wilson said at the time.
Earlier that year, the Chicago Urban League had received $100,000 from Pfizer for a project on promoting “vaccine safety and effectiveness.” The organization did not list Pfizer as a donor or partner on its website and Freeman-Wilson did not mention the funding during the interview.
The Chicago Urban League grant is one of many Pfizer-awarded groups to promote and encourage vaccine mandates. The pharmaceutical giant awarded grants to public health organizations, civil rights groups, as well as consumer, medical, and doctors’ groups. Most of these groups did not disclose the funding from Pfizer.
AI Will Take Over Facebook and Instagram if Mark Zuckerberg Gets His Way
If you’re tired of seeing generative AI like ChatGPT being introduced to apps and products you love we have some bad news — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Meta-owned platforms could soon be flooded with AI.
In the company’s latest earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed his visions for how “AI agents” could be used across a wide range of the company’s services. He elaborated that we might see chatbots on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, image creation tools to help make posts and ads on Facebook and Instagram, and in the future video content produced and enhanced by AI. Zuckerberg added, “I expect that these tools will be valuable for everyone from regular people to creators to businesses.”
The metaverse won’t be free from artificial intelligence either. Mark Zuckerberg went on to explain that Meta wants to eventually expand AI to provide assistance to Quest users as they explore virtual reality worlds — using the assistant to design avatars, create VR worlds and connect metaverse spaces together.
