Replika, an AI chatbot companion, has millions of users worldwide, many of whom woke up earlier last year to discover their virtual lover had friend-zoned them overnight. The company had mass-disabled the chatbot’s sex talk and “spicy selfies” in response to a slap on the wrist from Italian authorities. Users …
Read More »
The gulf between tech and government is legendary. In the 2010s, tech talent flocked to startups and big platforms where they could move fast, break things, and get people to click on ads. Venture capital flowed freely as firms jumped further and faster to stake a claim in businesses that …
Read More »
For researchers, social media has always represented greater access to data, more democratic involvement in knowledge production, and great transparency about social behavior. Getting a sense of what was happening—especially during political crises, major media events, or natural disasters—was as easy as looking around a platform like Twitter or Facebook. …
Read More »
If you’ve been creeping around underground tech forums lately, you might have seen advertisements for a new program called WormGPT. The program is an AI-powered tool for cybercriminals to automate the creation of personalized phishing emails; although it sounds a bit like ChatGPT, WormGPT is not your friendly neighborhood AI. …
Read More »
In 2024, increased adoption of biometric surveillance systems, such as the use of AI-powered facial recognition in public places and access to government services, will spur biometric identity theft and anti-surveillance innovations. Individuals aiming to steal biometric identities to commit fraud or gain access to unauthorized data will be bolstered …
Read More »
In April 2022, when Dall-E, a text-to-image visio-linguistic model, was released, it purportedly attracted over a million users within the first three months. This was followed by ChatGPT, in January 2023, which apparently reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch. Both mark notable moments in the …
Read More »
If you ever had pastries at breakfast, drank soy milk, used soaps at home, or built yourself a nice flat-pack piece of furniture, you may have contributed to deforestation and climate change. Every item has a price—but the cost isn’t felt only in our pockets. Hidden in that price is …
Read More »