Plus: AI fakes of the Iran war are flooding X--and Grok is failing to flag them. Pokémon Go was the world's first augmented-reality megahit. Released in 2016 by Niantic, the AR twist on the juggernaut Pokémon franchise fast became a global phenomenon. "500 million people installed that app in 60 days," says Brian McClendon, CTO at Niantic Spatial, an AI company that Niantic spun out last year. Now Niantic Spatial is using that vast trove of crowdsourced data to build a kind of world model--a buzzy new technology that grounds the smarts of LLMs in real environments. The firm wants to use it to help robots navigate more precisely.

In July, Siyan, a UK-based Discord user, logged on one morning and found himself unable to access some of his text chats marked NSFW. The channel, a popup informed him, was now age-restricted. The United Kingdom had enacted its far reaching child safety laws, which includes an age requirement system to verify users are over 18. Discord's updates required users to verify their age, either by government ID or a face scan. Siyan (who requested to only be referred to by his screen name for privacy reasons) describes himself as "painfully over the age of needing to fake an ID." He didn't want to take a photo of his ID.

If you watch as much YouTube as I do, you've no doubt been inundated with AI in the last year or so. AI-generated thumbnails, AI-generated voiceovers, even full-on AI-generated video is now in the cards. Well, YouTube has taken notice and has officially promised to protect the creators on its platform with new tools. YouTube's infamous Content ID system -- the thing that makes YouTubers freak out whenever someone starts humming a song because they don't want their video demonetized -- is being augmented with new AI-hunting tools. Content ID can now search for AI-generated singing voices based on existing artists.

Another widely viewed AI image the BBC investigation found shows Mr Trump posing with black voters on a front porch. It had originally been posted by a satirical account that generates images of the former president, but only gained widespread attention when it was reposted with a new caption falsely claiming that he had stopped his motorcade to meet these people.

Back in May, Google announced it was working on a feature called "about this image" that gives users verified data regarding any photo on the internet. Well, it just rolled out as part of search, so you won't be able to get away with passing off somebody else's photo of a 1988 Burger King Alf plushie as your own. Just use Google Search, select an image and click on the three dots on the right-hand corner to access the tool. You'll receive a whole gob of useful information, including when the image was originally published, if it's been published since then and where it's popped up throughout the years. The obvious use case scenario for this is verifying whether or not an image used to accompany a news event is legit, or if it's been taken out of context from something that happened in 2007 to drum up misinformation. To that end, the tool also shows you how other sites use and describe the image, similar to how search already handles factual information via the "perspectives" filter and the "about this result" tab.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Tom Hanks isn't trying to sell you a dental plan. I knew this stage of AI tomfoolery was coming, but it's still surprising how fast it's happening. Let's take a closer look at how free and cheap tools are fueling fraud -- and the signs to watch for.

A song featuring the voices of Drake and The Weeknd called "Heart on My Sleeve" has amassed over 250,000 Spotify streams and 10 million views on TikTok. But the two renowned musicians had nothing to do with the song -- an artist going by the name "Ghostwriter" generated the song using AI. Drake and The Weeknd have not yet responded to the song, but Drake recently commented on AI-generated music that rips off his voice. When Drake noticed an AI model of himself singing "Munch" by Ice Spice, he wrote on his Instagram story, "This is the final straw AI." It's possible he was messing around, but he would be far from the first major artist to take issue with the rising count of deepfake songs. Ghostwriter and Spotify did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's requests for comment.

"Less than a minute after finishing the call with Johannes, the fake Johannes rang again. His voice was identical but as soon as I asked who was calling, the line went dead." The criminals have yet to be identified, the company's insurer, Euler Hermes, said. Philipp Amann, head of strategy at the cybercrime centre at Europol, said that similar frauds may have already been made but gone undetected. Experts have raised concerns in the past year about the rapid acceleration of the technology but it had been believed that only video footage could be mimicked with such accuracy.

Over the past few years, the rise of AI fakes has got a lot of people very worried, with experts warning that this technology could be used to spread lies and misinformation online. But actual evidence of this happening has so far been thin on the ground, which is why a new report from the Associated Press makes for such interesting reading. The AP says it found evidence of a what seems to be a would-be spy using an AI-generated profile picture to fool contacts on LinkedIn. The publication says that the fake profile, given the name Katie Jones, connected with a number of policy experts in Washington. These included a scattering of government figures such as a senator's aide, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and Paul Winfree, an economist currently being considered for a seat on the Federal Reserve.

As with their class, Bergstrom and West seek to address--and help people navigate--the increasing amount of misinformation and deception they see online.