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Trump Is the Emperor of A.I. Slop

The New Yorker

On February 19th, Donald Trump logged onto Truth Social to congratulate himself on vanquishing congestion pricing in his home state. "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD," he posted. "Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. The message was amplified by the White House's official X account, which tweeted it with an A.I.-generated image of Trump, golden-haired and golden-crowned, blotting out the New York City skyline. The illustration, which was styled to look like the cover of Time magazine, displayed the President's fondness for crude symbols of power and wealth.


At least 11 killed in suspected RSF drone attack on Sudan displacement camp

Al Jazeera

A suspected drone attack by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary has killed at least 11 people at a displacement camp in River Nile state, authorities said. In a statement late on Friday, the local governor said the attack knocked out a nearby power station for the fourth time since the war between the RSF and the Sudanese army began two years ago. The attack marks a deadly escalation in the ongoing conflict, with a further 23 people injured, a medical official said. Witnesses said at least nine children were among the wounded. "My son, my cousin, my daughter's husband and two children, my cousin's children are dead. The boy is 10 years old and the girl is about two years old," witness Haleema told Al Jazeera.


Save over 900 on the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni robot vacuum

Mashable

SAVE OVER 900: The Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni robot vacuum is on sale for 589.99 at Amazon. This deal saves you over 900 on list price. Leah Stodart states that it "skimps on multiple features that make it so pricey in the first place," but it's important to note that these comments were made when asking whether anyone should be dropping 1,500 on a robot vacuum. That's the list price, but this robot vacuum just got a massive discount. The Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni robot vacuum is on sale for 589.99 at Amazon.


Get the most out of Windows 11 Pro for less than a movie ticket

Mashable

TL;DR: Upgrade to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just 14.97 (regularly 199) and enjoy enhanced security, productivity features, and the AI-powered Copilot assistant. In the ever-evolving world of technology, keeping your operating system current is essential for optimal performance and security. For a limited time, you can upgrade to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just 14.97, a significant reduction from its regular price of 199. Windows 11 Pro offers a sleek and user-friendly interface designed to enhance your computing experience. Features like Snap Layouts and Virtual Desktops allow for efficient multitasking and enable you to organize your workspace with ease.


Israel's A.I. Experiments in Gaza War Raise Ethical Concerns

NYT > Middle East

In the past 18 months, Israel has also combined A.I. with facial recognition software to match partly obscured or injured faces to real identities, turned to A.I. to compile potential airstrike targets, and created an Arabic-language A.I. model to power a chatbot that could scan and analyze text messages, social media posts and other Arabic-language data, two people with knowledge of the programs said. Many of these efforts were a partnership between enlisted soldiers in Unit 8200 and reserve soldiers who work at tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Meta, three people with knowledge of the technologies said. Unit 8200 set up what became known as "The Studio," an innovation hub and place to match experts with A.I. projects, the people said. Yet even as Israel raced to develop the A.I. arsenal, deployment of the technologies sometimes led to mistaken identifications and arrests, as well as civilian deaths, the Israeli and American officials said. Some officials have struggled with the ethical implications of the A.I. tools, which could result in increased surveillance and other civilian killings.


How to watch LlamaCon 2025, Meta's first generative AI developer conference

Engadget

After a couple years of having its open-source Llama AI model be just a part of its Connect conferences, Meta is breaking things out and hosting an entirely generative AI-focused developer conference called LlamaCon on April 29. The event is entirely virtual, and you'll be able to watch along live on the Meta for Developers Facebook page. LlamaCon kicks off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT with a keynote address from Meta's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, Vice President of AI Manohar Paluri and research scientist Angela Fan. The keynote is supposed to cover developments in the company's open-source AI community, "the latest on the Llama collection of models and tools" and offer a glimpse at yet-to-be released AI features. The keynote address will be followed by a conversation at 1:45PM ET / 10:45PM ET between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi on "building AI-powered applications," followed by a chat at 7PM ET / 4PM PT about "the latest trends in AI" between Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. It doesn't seem like either conversation will be used to break news, but Microsoft and Meta have collaborated before, so anything is possible.



US government defunds research on misinformation

New Scientist

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has terminated government research grants for studying misinformation and disinformation. The defunding comes at a time when propaganda and scams fuelled by the latest artificial intelligence technologies are flooding social media networks, and tech companies are abandoning content moderation efforts and eliminating fact-checking teams. The grant cancellations began on 18 April when the NSF published a statement saying it would not support research on misinformation or disinformation "that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rightsโ€ฆ


The Pollution of AI

Communications of the ACM

In its successful understanding of phenomena, science allows us to solve problems by concentrating on some of their characteristics to find optimal solutions along these chosen characteristics. It provides analytical and precise dedicated solutions along a particular set of dominant attributes of interest where all other criteria are set aside. The adoption of such dedicated one-sided solutions that can maximize the "profit" in one area of interest can lead to pollution, namely a cumulative adverse effect on other aspects of the problem that are collaterally related to the focus of the dedicated solution. We therefore have environmental pollution by maximizing the rate of industrial production or social pollution of poverty in some parts of the population due to a sterile maximization of economic growth. These causes of pollution emerge out of a scientific understanding of the world (physical or socioeconomic) through which it is possible to find and engineer solutions dedicated to a particular area of interest.


It seems like most Windows users don't care for Copilot

Engadget

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, appears to be struggling to match its competition in terms of popularity. The number of people using Copilot has remained around 20 million weekly users for the last year, according to tech newsletter Newcomer, while OpenAI's ChatGPT has hit as high as 400 million weekly users. The data was shared at an annual executive meeting in March by Microsoft's chief financial officer Amy Hood, Newcomer reports, and raise some concerns about the AI future Microsoft is pitching. Microsoft uses OpenAI's models to power Copilot, and the assistant offers similar features to ChatGPT, but they clearly don't draw the same interest from users. The company has also built Copilot into Windows 11, Microsoft 365 and the Edge browser, without apparently reaping the benefit of additional user growth.