James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Sam Altman says superintelligence is on the way, and the future is bright
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman published a blog post today stating that the world will have superintelligence in “a few thousand days” and what he sees ahead is not the techno-dystopia some critics see but “massive prosperity.” Altman’s post was only a few hundred words long, but he managed to pack it with enough assertions ...
X has found a way to come back to life in Brazil
Elon Musk’s X Corp. is back up in Brazil after the government blocked the app under orders from the country’s Supreme Court. Earlier this month, Brazil’s 28 million or so X users found themselves without a platform after the government ordered the National Telecommunications Agency to block access to the app. X owner Elon Musk ...
Big changes to Instagram: Will teens be saved?
Meta Platforms Inc.-owned Instagram today announced some profound changes to how the platform works for young people in an effort to address the growing concern that social media is damaging the minds of children. The company said it is ushering in “built-in protections” for young folks, giving parents more control over how their kids use ...
TikTok jousts with US appeals court in attempt to avoid nationwide ban
Chinese-owned social media app TikTok faced a barrage of questions today from a U.S. appeals court as the company fights to block a law that will ban the app in the U.S. if it’s not sold. In April, President Joe Biden signed legislation that meant TikTok’s owner, ByteDance Ltd., had one year to sell the ...
White House secures commitment from AI firms to curb deepfake porn
The White House today announced voluntary commitments from several leading artificial intelligence companies to rein in the creation and distribution of image-based sexual abuse, IBSA, including “deepfake” content generated by AI. The announcement was made by President Biden and Vice President Harris on the eve of the anniversary of the introduction of the Violence Against ...
Coalition of US attorneys general calls for warning labels on social media
A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general today called for Congress to require Surgeon General warning labels on social media apps to attend to the growing mental health crisis among young adults in the U.S. In June this year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy penned an op-ed for the New York Times in which he called the ...
US man raked in millions from AI-generated songs played by bots on streaming platforms
Federal prosecutors today charged a North Carolina musician who’d taken in around $10 million in royalties from his AI-generated songs that were streamed by the bots he deployed. Michael Smith, a 52-year-old real musician, had seemingly decided that making a living in the legitimate world of music was a bridge too far. He proceeded to ...
Internet Archive loses appeal, court rules e-book lending is copyright infringement
The online digital library Internet Archive today lost its appeal to lend out scanned e-books without the approval of publishers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the nonprofit’s claim in a lawsuit with a coalition of book publishers that its digitized library of books can legally operate under the fair use ...
Telegram investigated in South Korea over surge of sexual deepfake content
Authorities in South Korea have begun an investigation into the embattled instant messaging app Telegram, focusing on the platform’s relationship with deepfake sex crimes that have caused a stir in the country. The probe comes after Telegram’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France in late August for a slew of charges ...
Brazil’s Supreme Court upholds X ban, Starlink won’t comply
Five Brazilian Supreme Court justices today voted to uphold a decision that requires the National Telecommunications Agency, Anatel, to block access to Elon Musk’s X Corp. platform. Millions of X users in Brazil found themselves without X over the weekend as the country’s internet providers and mobile phone companies restricted access. Alexandre de Moraes (pictured), ...
