New Studies Reveal Mental Health Blindspots of AI Chatbots New research studies find that AI chatbots often give advice and reassurance without asking enough questions and may respond sometimes to questions of intermediate suicide risk.

"Although AI can mimic warmth or therapy-like dialogue, it lacks the understanding, responsiveness, and dynamic exchange central to effective and safe therapy."

And it's not clear how to make chatbots either as effective or as safe as therapists. 😬

Chinese Cybersecurity Firm Data Breach Exposes State-Sponsored Hackers Cyber Weapons and Target List A massive breach at China’s Knownsec exposed 12,000+ secret files revealing state cyber tools, espionage ops, and global surveillance.

"Hackers successfully extracted technical documentation detailing collaborations between Knownsec and various Chinese government departments, complete source code for proprietary internal tools, and spreadsheets listing 80 overseas targets that were allegedly already compromised."
😬

Google Uncovers PROMPTFLUX Malware That Uses Gemini AI to Rewrite Its Code Hourly Google discovers PROMPTFLUX malware using Gemini AI to rewrite and hide its code for smarter evasion.

"'The increasing accessibility of powerful AI models and the growing number of businesses integrating them into daily operations create perfect conditions for prompt injection attacks,' [Google] said." #NotGood

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, and it internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day, company documents show.

Meta really has no sense of decency. 😞

Chimps Are Capable of Human-Like Rational Thought, Breakthrough Study Finds In a series of experiments, chimpanzees revised their beliefs based on new evidence, shedding light on the evolutionary origins of rational thought.

Ok, now let's give them social media and see how rational they are. 😉

Google pulls Gemma from AI Studio after Senator Blackburn accuses model of defamation | TechCrunch Senator Martha Blackburn argued Gemma’s fabrications are “not a harmless ‘hallucination,’" but rather “an act of defamation produced and distributed by a Google-owned AI model.”

"Google said it’s removing Gemma from AI Studio while continuing to make the models available via API."

Because presumably if an app uses a model that hallucinates then the app is responsible, not Google. 🤮

Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend Jeep has pulled the update; owners are advised to ignore it if it already downloaded.

"The buggy update doesn’t appear to brick the car immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem." 😳

"Owners are advised to ignore it if it [was] already downloaded."
🙈

It is

It is very important to recognize that #NoKings is about process, not policy. A constitutional process can yield a policy you don't like.

"Public good" is not only funded by the federal government. Around 90% of the K-12 budget is paid by state and local governments, and it does not seem completely unreasonable to suggest that the percentage should be even higher.

Two teenagers arrested over cyber-attack on nursery chain Hackers were said to have stolen the photographs, names and addresses of about 8,000 children.

Fascinating story. Apparently some cyber criminals have more of a conscience then some politicians. 🤔

Deloitte to refund government over AI errors Generative AI produced fake references, quotes in report.

"The original report included 12 references to a made-up report supposedly by a law professor at the University of Sydney, and two references to a non-existent report by a Swedish professor."

Fake references are becoming the new normal. #NotGood

Amazon agrees to make canceling Prime easy, will refund customers $1.5B Amazon’s settlement with FTC kills the “No, I don’t want free shipping” button.

"... Amazon executives and employees 'knowingly discussed' how hard it was to cancel Prime ... admitting that 'subscription driving is a bit of a shady world' and suggesting that forcing unwanted subscriptions was 'an unspoken cancer.'"

And they did it anyway. 😔

Supermicro server motherboards can be infected with unremovable malware Baseboard management controller vulnerabilities make remote attacks possible.

Supermicro's web site says they are "not aware of any malicious exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild." I guess that's supposed to make customers feel better, and yet ... 🫣

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

"Frame AI as a collaborative tool" sounds nice but who is doing that? Reducing headcount is the more common message.

California issues historic fine over lawyer’s ChatGPT fabrications The court of appeals issued an historic fine after 21 of 23 quotes in the lawyer's opening brief were fake. Courts want more AI regulations.

Maybe chatbots should be required to give a disclaimer at the beginning of every session that they might just make stuff up. 🤔

The New Frontier of AI Hacking—Could Online Images Hijack Your Computer? Artificial-intelligence agents—touted as AI’s next wave—could be vulnerable to malicious code hidden in innocent-looking images on your computer screen

"Oh, not good."

Have to admit it made my laugh. The writing style is almost a cross between an SNL monologue and A.A. Milne. Quite sure I've never seen a legal document with the word "zeitgeist" in it. 😅

It isn't clear that either subscriptions or micropayments will work for news in the U.S. We just want rumors and conspiracy theories delivered with ads. 😉

Pay-per-item works fine at the grocery store and Kindle books, we just haven't figured out the right user experience for media such as news.

Maybe we need to teach STEM better and more broadly, both how to understand and how to explain the concepts and data. Seems better to understand an expert's analysis than to be told to accept it based solely on someone's title or background.

Silicon Valley is pouring millions into pro-AI PACs to sway midterms | TechCrunch The new pro-AI super-PAC network dubbed Leading the Future aims to use campaign donations and digital ads to advocate for favorable AI regulation and oppose candidates that the group thinks will stifl...

Regardless of how you feel about AI, this can't be good. PACs are the wrong way to determine government policy. 🤨

FBI warns of Russian hackers exploiting 7-year-old Cisco flaw The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned that hackers linked to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) are targeting critical infrastructure organizations in attacks exploiting a 7-year-o...

Any device running known-to-be-insecure software should not be allowed on the internet. 🙈

Intel's future does not seem particularly bright--their chip designs are too complicated and their manufacturing business is a mess--so in some ways this could boost current ownership's value by propping the company up.

Lithuania to give children drone training to counter Russia threat Government aims to teach 22,000 people, including children as young as eight, how to build and operate drones

May the force be with them. 😟

It's Staggeringly Easy for Hackers to Trick ChatGPT Into Leaking Your Most Personal Data OpenAI's ChatGPT can easily be coaxed into leaking your personal data — with just a single "poisoned" document.

"Now that's just lovely." "But not totally unexpected." 😬

Google's new AI-powered bug hunting tool finds major issues in open source software Big Sleep issues its first 20 warnings

This is pretty cool (and, Google did something good 😲).

Can Microsoft use this approach to clean up their software messes? Won't hold my breath but I can always dream. 😊

YouTube channels are being sold and repurposed to spread scams and disinformation, says new research A new study finds that 1 in every 400 YouTube channels has been sold and often repurposed to promote scams, disinformation, and spam.

"in these platforms, we’ve seen a decrease in the agency over what we consume" 😞

Oh, when will we ever learn?

Did RFK just take away your cancer treatment? mRNA promised to help turn cancer from a death sentence into a manageable condition.

"Well, we are all going to die" 😔

Trump Went to War With the Ivies. Community Colleges Are Being Hit.

Good in-depth look at the war on post-secondary education. Very sad. 😔

AI Turns Drone Footage Into Disaster Response Maps In Minutes A system developed at Texas A&M uses drone imagery and artificial intelligence to rapidly assess damage after hurricanes and floods, offering life-saving insights in minutes.

Another great use of machine learning!