ChatGPT can go far beyond writing an email or coding a complex project. Some of the most useful applications are assistance with practical tasks in your everyday life, such as explaining that really complex x-ray diagnosis that is pure jargon or why your electric bill was sky-high (both based on real scenarios that happened to me). However, this requires you to give your personal information. If you are hesitant about giving ChatGPT your private information, you have good reason to be. The companies behind these popular generative AI tools, such as OpenAI, often use user inputs to further train the models and make them smarter.

In this interview series, we're meeting some of the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants to find out more about their research. Ananya Joshi recently completed her PhD, where she developed a system that experts have used for the past two years to identify respiratory outbreaks (like COVID-19) in large-scale healthcare streams across the United States using her novel algorithms for ranking real-time events from large-scale time series data. In this interview, she tells us more about this project, how healthcare applications inspire basic AI research, and her future plans. When I started my PhD during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an explosion in continuously-updated human health data. Still, it was difficult for people to figure out which data was important so that they could make decisions like increasing the number of hospital beds at the start of an outbreak or patching a serious data problem that would impact disease forecasting.

SoftBank Group reported a 124% jump in quarterly profit on resilient AI demand that's supporting startup valuations and chip unit sales, a boost to its aggressive data center investment plans. The Tokyo-based company reported net income of 517.18 billion ( 3.5 billion) in its fiscal fourth quarter. It was helped by the Vision Fund, which swung to a profit of 26.1 billion. The earnings come at a critical juncture for SoftBank as it plans to invest 30 billion in OpenAI while leading a 100 billion foray into building AI hardware in the U.S. Maintaining a healthy cash flow and balance sheet is key to securing the billions of dollars needed at minimum cost.

Even if you've never fallen victim to a tech support scam, you've likely been targeted. Have you ever gotten a pop-up, or a cascading series of pop-ups that crowd your entire screen, warning you that your device has been compromised and urging you to call tech support ASAP? If the unlucky victims who fall for these tricks give the scammers access to their computer, the perpetrators can plant malware, steal personal information, or even wipe out victims' bank accounts. Now, Google wants to use AI to stop these scams in real time for Google Chrome users. "Chrome has always worked with Google Safe Browsing to help keep you safe online. Now, with this week's launch of Chrome 137, Chrome will offer an additional layer of protection using the on-device Gemini Nano large language model," Google said in a blog post.

Anyone who owned an Apple device over the last decade may be able to claim part of a 95 million class action lawsuit against the tech giant. According to the lawsuit, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and MacBooks dating back to 2014 may have secretly recorded their users' private conversations after the devices unintentionally activated Apple's voice assistant Siri. A notice about the case, Lopez v. Apple, has advised anyone who believes Siri spied on their confidential or private calls between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024 to submit a claim for damages. Apple's iMacs, Apple TV streaming boxes, HomePod speakers, and iPod Touches are also included in the lawsuit. Although Apple has denied that their devices spied on users, the 3 trillion company reached a settlement in the case, agreeing to give users up to 20 per Siri device in their claim.

Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson says hackers are using CAPTCHAs to infect your PC with malware. Ransomware gangs once thrived on infected email attachments and bogus invoices, but security-savvy users and hardened mail gateways have weakened those tactics. Attackers are now focusing on a subtler trick that targets the small checkbox labeled "I'm not a robot" that most people click without thinking. A widespread campaign known as MacReaper has compromised more than 2,800 legitimate websites and redirects visitors to an infection process designed specifically for Apple computers. The operation relies on visual trust signals, including a convincing fake of Google's reCAPTCHA, along with hidden clipboard code that ends with the installation of Atomic macOS Stealer malware, a data-harvesting infostealer distributed through Telegram.

The debate over the risks and harms of artificial intelligence often focuses on what governments can or should do. However, just as important are the choices that AI researchers themselves make. This week, in Singapore, more than 100 scientists from around the world proposed guidelines for how researchers should approach making AI more "trustworthy, reliable, and secure." The recommendations come at a time when the giants of generative AI, such as OpenAI and Google, have increasingly reduced disclosures about their AI models, so the public knows less and less about how the work is conducted. The guidelines grew out of an exchange among the scholars last month in Singapore, in conjunction with one of the most prestigious conferences on AI, the International Conference on Learning Representations -- the first time a major AI conference has taken place in Asia.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You've unwrapped your new Mac desktop or laptop and you're ready to dive in: Where should you start? Modern-day macOS is designed to be intuitive and straightforward, but it's also stuffed with options and features you can tweak to fit your needs. Here we'll look at some of the fundamental settings that you should change first, to ensure you're getting the best possible experience. All of these options can be found by opening the Apple menu in the top left corner of the macOS interface, then choosing System Settings.

ChatGPT can go far beyond writing an email or coding a complex project. Some of the most useful applications are assistance with practical tasks in your everyday life, such as explaining that really complex x-ray diagnosis that is pure jargon or why your electric bill was sky-high (both based on real scenarios that happened to me). However, this requires you to give your personal information. If you are hesitant about giving ChatGPT your private information, you have good reason to be. The companies behind these popular generative AI tools, such as OpenAI, often use user inputs to further train the models and make them smarter.

As many as 83% of decision-makers expect to increase investment in artificial intelligence (AI) during the next year, according to research from Salesforce. Services organizations are leaning into AI and automation, including assessing the current tools used to operate the business. Most services organizations are investing in AI. Eighty-three percent of decision-makers expect this investment to rise over the next year, while only 6% say they have no plans for the technology. Generative AI use is on the rise -- 24% of service employees have used generative AI.