ars technica - CybAI news

13 Jan

Judge Ends One Man’s 11-Year Quest to Recover $765 Million in Bitcoin by Digging Up a Landfill

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsars technica, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, law, uk

A British judge ruled against a man who wants to excavate a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped over 11 years ago.Since 2013, James Howells has been hoping to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains the private key for cryptocurrency which he says he mined in 2009. Ars wrote about it at the time, noting that the value of a bitcoin had just passed $1,000, making 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million.The alleged number of bitcoins has changed a bit, with Howells now saying he lost 8,000 bitcoins.…

02 Jan

Editors at Science Journal Resign En Masse Over Bad Use of AI, High Fees

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIars technica, artificial intelligence, science, scientific publishing, scientific research

Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned “with heartfelt sadness and great regret,” according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors’ full statement. It’s the 20th mass resignation from a science journal since 2023 over various points of contention, per Retraction Watch, many in response to controversial changes in the business models used by the scientific publishing industry.“This has been an exceptionally painful decision for each of us,” the board members wrote in their statement. “The editors who have stewarded the journal…

06 Nov

The $50 Million Movie ‘Here’ De-Aged Tom Hanks With Generative AI

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIars technica, artificial intelligence, movies, special effects

On Friday, TriStar Pictures released Here, a $50 million Robert Zemeckis-directed film that used real-time generative AI face transformation techniques to portray actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright across a 60-year span, marking one of Hollywood's first full-length features built around AI-powered visual effects.The film adapts a 2014 graphic novel set primarily in a New Jersey living room across multiple time periods. Rather than cast different actors for various ages, the production used AI to modify Hanks' and Wright's appearances throughout.The de-aging technology comes from Metaphysic, a visual effects company that creates real time face swapping and aging effects. During…

30 Oct

OpenAI’s Transcription Tool Hallucinates. Hospitals Are Using It Anyway

stp2y0 CommentsAIars technica, artificial intelligence, healthcare, hospitals, privacy

On Saturday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool creates fabricated text in medical and business settings despite warnings against such use. The AP interviewed more than 12 software engineers, developers, and researchers who found the model regularly invents text that speakers never said, a phenomenon often called a “confabulation” or “hallucination” in the AI field.Upon its release in 2022, OpenAI claimed that Whisper approached “human level robustness” in audio transcription accuracy. However, a University of Michigan researcher told the AP that Whisper created false text in 80 percent of public meeting transcripts examined. Another developer, unnamed…

23 Oct

AT&T and T-Mobile Claim Locked Phones Are Good, Actually

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsars technica, at&t, fcc, T-Mobile, telecoms, Wireless

T-Mobile and AT&T say US regulators should drop a plan to require unlocking of phones within 60 days of activation, claiming that locking phones to a carrier's network makes it possible to provide cheaper handsets to consumers. "If the Commission mandates a uniform unlocking policy, it is consumers—not providers—who stand to lose the most," T-Mobile wrote in an October 17 filing with the Federal Communications Commission.The proposed rule has support from consumer advocacy groups who say it will give users more choice and lower their costs. T-Mobile has been criticized for locking phones for up to a year, which makes…

17 Oct

SpaceX Has a Plan for Starlink to Hit Gigabit Speeds

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsars technica, elon musk, fcc, satellites, spacex, telecoms

SpaceX is seeking approval for changes to Starlink that the company says will enable gigabit-per-second broadband service. In an application submitted to the US Federal Communications Commission on October 11, SpaceX claims the requested "modification and its companion amendment will enable the Gen2 system to deliver gigabit-speed, truly low-latency broadband and ubiquitous mobile connectivity to all Americans and the billions of people globally who still lack access to adequate broadband."SpaceX said it is seeking "several small-but-meaningful updates to the orbital configuration and operational parameters for its Gen2 space station authorization to improve space sustainability, better respond to evolving demand, and…

15 Oct

Apple Engineers Show How Flimsy AI ‘Reasoning’ Can Be

stp2y0 CommentsAIapple, ars technica, artificial intelligence, openai, research

For a while now, companies like OpenAI and Google have been touting advanced "reasoning" capabilities as the next big step in their latest artificial intelligence models. Now, though, a new study from six Apple engineers shows that the mathematical "reasoning" displayed by advanced large language models can be extremely brittle and unreliable in the face of seemingly trivial changes to common benchmark problems.The fragility highlighted in these new results helps support previous research suggesting that LLMs' use of probabilistic pattern matching is missing the formal understanding of underlying concepts needed for truly reliable mathematical reasoning capabilities. "Current LLMs are not…

17 Sep

OpenAI Threatens Bans as Users Probe Its ‘Strawberry’ AI Models

stp2y0 CommentsAIars technica, artificial intelligence, openai, research

OpenAI truly does not want you to know what its latest AI model is “thinking.” Since the company launched its “Strawberry” AI model family last week, touting so-called reasoning abilities with o1-preview and o1-mini, OpenAI has been sending out warning emails and threats of bans to any user who tries to probe how the model works.Unlike previous AI models from OpenAI, such as GPT-4o, the company trained o1 specifically to work through a step-by-step problem-solving process before generating an answer. When users ask an "o1" model a question in ChatGPT, users have the option of seeing this chain-of-thought process written…

22 Aug

A Popular iOS Illustration App Is Saying No to Generative AI

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIapps, ars technica, art, artificial intelligence

The backlash against image and video synthesis is not solely focused on creative app developers. Hardware manufacturer Wacom and game publisher Wizards of the Coast have faced criticism and issued apologies after using AI-generated content in their marketing materials. Toys "R" Us also faced a negative reaction after debuting an AI-generated commercial. Companies are still grappling with balancing the potential benefits of generative AI with the ethical concerns it raises.Artists and Critics ReactSo far, Procreate’s anti-AI announcement has been met with a largely positive reaction in replies to its social media post. In a widely liked comment, artist Freya Holmér…

13 Aug

Kamala Harris’ Rally Crowds Aren’t AI-Generated. Here’s How You Can Tell

stp2y0 CommentsRAG models2024 election, ars technica, donald trump, Kamala Harris, national affairs, politics

Suffice it to say that this mountain of evidence from direct sources weighs more heavily than marked-up images from conservative commentators like Chuck Callesto and Dinesh D'Souza, both of whom have been caught spreading election disinformation in the past.When it comes to accusations of AI fakery, the more disparate sources of information you have, the better. While a single source can easily generate a plausible-looking image of an event, multiple independent sources showing the same event from multiple angles are much less likely to be in on the same hoax. Photos that line up with video evidence are even better,…