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LONDON (AP) — Phones hold so much of our digital lives — emails, social media and bank accounts, photos, chat messages and more — that if they ever get stolen or go missing, it can cause major disruption beyond just the loss of a device. In some places, phone thefts have surged so much it's now an everyday problem, with thieves on electric bikes snatching them out of pedestrians' hands, swiping them off restaurant tables or pickpocketing them on the subway. In Britain, where 200 phones are stolen every day in "snatch thefts," the gover...
LONDON (AP) — Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins — the building blocks of life — were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday. Their work used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and holds the potential to transform how new drugs and other materials are made. The prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artif...
OpenAI's history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders. The artificial intelligence company's board is considering a decision that would change OpenAI into a public benefit corporation, according to a source familiar with the discussions who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about them. While OpenAI already has a for-profit division, where most of its...
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Leading artificial intelligence companies made a fresh pledge at a mini-summit Tuesday to develop AI safely, while world leaders agreed to build a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology. Google, Meta and OpenAI were among the companies that made voluntary safety commitments at the AI Seoul Summit, including pulling the plug on their cutting-edge systems if they can't rein in the most extreme risks. The two-day meeting is a follow-up to November's AI Safety S...
LONDON (AP) — TikTok is in the crosshairs of authorities in the U.S., where new law threatens a nationwide ban unless its China-based parent ByteDance divests. It would be the biggest blow yet to the popular video-sharing app, which has faced various restrictions around the world. TikTok is already banned in a handful of countries and from government-issued devices in a number of others, due to official worries that the app poses privacy and cybersecurity concerns. Those fears are reflected in the U.S. law, which is the culmination of l...
LONDON (AP) — Instagram says it's deploying new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. The social media platform said in a blog post Thursday that it's testing out the features as part of its campaign to fight sexual scams and other forms of "image abuse," and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public u...
Monday's total solar eclipse might become one of the most filmed and photographed events of the year. As the moon passes in front of the sun, plunging a swath of North America into a few minutes of darkness, throngs will take pictures or videos of the moment. But powerful solar rays and drastic changes in lighting pose unique challenges in catching that perfect image. Here are some pointers on how to get the best shot: How can I find the best place to capture the eclipse? First, get in the right position. You'll want to be as close as possible...
LONDON (AP) — It's not just you. A lot people think Google searches are getting worse. And the rise of generative AI chatbots is giving people new and different ways to look up information. While Google has been the one-stop shop for decades — after all, we commonly call searches "googling" — its longtime dominance has attracted a flood of sponsored or spammy links and junk content fueled by "search engine optimization" techniques. That pushes down genuinely useful results. A recent study by German researchers suggests the quality of resul...
LONDON (AP) — European Union officials worked into the late hours last week hammering out an agreement on world-leading rules meant to govern the use of artificial intelligence in the 27-nation bloc. The Artificial Intelligence Act is the latest set of regulations designed to govern technology in Europe destined to have global impact. Here's a closer look at the AI rules: WHAT IS THE AI ACT AND HOW DOES IT WORK? The AI Act takes a "risk-based approach" to products or services that use artificial intelligence and focuses on regulating uses of AI...
Advertisers are fleeing social media platform X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with billionaire owner Elon Musk inflaming tensions with his own tweets endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory. IBM said this week that it stopped advertising on X after a report said its ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis — a fresh setback as the platform formerly known as Twitter tries to win back big brands and their ad dollars, X's main source of revenue. The l...
BLETCHLEY PARK, England (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to join senior politicians from around the world on Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Sunak organized the first-ever AI Safety Summit as a forum for officials, experts and the tech industry to better understand "frontier" AI that some scientists warn could pose a risk to humanity's very existence. The leaders of the United Nations and the European U...
LONDON (AP) — Chatbots like ChatGPT wowed the world with their ability to write speeches, plan vacations or hold a conversation as good as or arguably even better than humans do, thanks to cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems. Now, frontier AI has become the latest buzzword as concerns grow that the emerging technology has capabilities that could endanger humanity. Everyone from the British government to top researchers and even major AI companies themselves are raising the alarm about frontier AI's as-yet-unknown dangers and calling f...
LONDON (AP) — Google, Facebook, TikTok and other Big Tech companies operating in Europe are facing one of the most far-reaching efforts to clean up what people encounter online. The first phase of the European Union's groundbreaking new digital rules will take effect this week. The Digital Services Act is part of a suite of tech-focused regulations crafted by the 27-nation bloc — long a global leader in cracking down on tech giants. The DSA, which the biggest platforms must start following Friday, is designed to keep users safe online and stop...
Goodbye, Twitter. Hello, X. Elon Musk has unveiled a new "X" logo to replace Twitter's famous blue bird as he follows through with a major rebranding of the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday, but the bird was still dominant across the smartphone app. At Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, meanwhile, workers were seen removing the iconic bird and logo Monday until police showed up and stopped them because they didn't have the proper permi...
LONDON (AP) — Meta is poised to unveil a new app that appears to mimic Twitter — a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple's App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday. It is billed as a "text-based conversation app" that is linked to Instagram, with the listing teasing a Twitter-like microblogging experience. "Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tom...
LONDON (AP) — Microsoft's stalled $68.7 billion deal to buy video game company Activision Blizzard has hit a fresh hurdle in the United Kingdom. Britain's antitrust watchdog said Wednesday that the deal will stifle competition and hurt gamers. The watchdog's investigation found that the deal could strengthen Microsoft's position in the growing cloud gaming market. The provisional report also says the deal would weaken the important rivalry between Microsoft's Xbox console and Sony's rival PlayStation. The deal faces opposition from Sony and p...
Millions of Twitter users asked Elon Musk to step down as the head of Twitter in a poll the billionaire created and promised to abide by. But by Monday afternoon there was no word on whether Musk would step aside or who the new leader might be. Twitter has grown more chaotic and confusing under Musk's leadership with rapidly vacillating policies that are issued, then withdrawn or changed. Among those voting with the "go" camp almost certainly were Tesla investors who have grown tired of the 24/7 Twitter chaos that they say has distracted the...
LONDON (AP) — Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to European Union data released Thursday. The EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms' compliance with the 27-nation bloc's code of conduct on disinformation. Twitter wasn't alone — most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse. But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU's tough new online rules after owner Elo...
The cost of living in Cairo has soared so much that security guard Mustafa Gamal had to send his wife and year-old daughter to live with his parents in a village 70 miles south of the Egyptian capital to save money. Gamal, 28, stayed behind, working two jobs, sharing an apartment with other young people and eliminating meat from his diet. "The prices of everything have been doubled," he said. "There was no alternative.'' Around the world, people are sharing Gamal's pain and frustration. An auto parts dealer in Nairobi, a seller of baby clothes...
LONDON (AP) — Taking aim at hate speech, disinformation and other harmful content online, the European Union is nearing agreement on a sweeping law that would force big tech companies to police themselves harder, make it easier for users to flag problems, and empower regulators to punish noncompliance with billions in fines. EU officials were negotiating late Friday night over the final details of the Digital Services Act, which would overhaul the digital rulebook for 27 countries and cement Europe's reputation as the global leader in r...
BRUSSELS (AP) — Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warned Tuesday that the "metaverse," the all-encompassing virtual reality world at the heart of the social media giant's growth strategy, will be addictive and rob people of yet more personal information while giving the embattled company another monopoly online. In an interview with The Associated Press, Haugen said her former employer rushed to trumpet the metaverse recently because of the intense pressure it is facing after she revealed deep-seated problems at the company, in d...
Amid fallout from the Facebook Papers documents supporting claims that the social network has valued financial success over user safety, Facebook on Monday reported higher profit for the latest quarter. The company's latest show of financial strength followed an avalanche of reports on the Facebook Papers — a vast trove of redacted internal documents obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including The Associated Press — as well as Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's Monday testimony to British lawmakers. Facebook said its net inc...
LONDON (AP) — Facebook said it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform that promises to connect people virtually but could raise concerns about privacy and the social platform gaining more control over people's online lives. The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build "the metaverse," a futuristic notion for connecting online that uses augmented and virtual reality. Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next b...
MOSCOW (AP) — Facing Kremlin pressure, Apple and Google on Friday removed an opposition-created smartphone app that tells voters which candidates are likely to defeat those backed by Russian authorities, as polls opened for three days of balloting in Russia's parliamentary election. Unexpectedly long lines formed at some polling places, and independent media suggested this could show that state institutions and companies were forcing employees to vote. The election is widely seen as an important part of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to cem...
LONDON (AP) — A digital art piece, tweaked using cryptocurrency technology to make it one-of-a-kind, sold at auction this week for nearly $70 million. That transaction made global headlines and buoyed already-mushrooming interest in these kinds of digital objects — known as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs — that have captured the attention of artists and collectors alike. A NON-WHAT TOKEN? In economics jargon, a fungible token is an asset that can be exchanged on a one-for-one basis. Think of dollars or bitcoins — each one has the exact same va...
