In this paper, we explore the use of large language models to assess human interpretations of real world events. To do so, we use a language model trained prior to 2020 to artificially generate news articles concerning COVID-19 given the headlines of actual articles written during the pandemic. We then compare stylistic qualities of our artificially generated corpus with a news corpus, in this case 5,082 articles produced by CBC News between January 23 and May 5, 2020. We find our artificially generated articles exhibits a considerably more negative attitude towards COVID and a significantly lower reliance on geopolitical framing. Our methods and results hold importance for researchers seeking to simulate large scale cultural processes via recent breakthroughs in text generation.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Officials in Canada are racing to find the cause of a mysterious brain disease that has afflicted more than 40 people in the New Brunswick province, according to news reports. Symptoms of the mystery illness resemble those of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a rare and fatal brain disorder; and include memory loss, hallucinations and muscle atrophy, according to The Guardian. Earlier this month, Canadian officials alerted doctors in the New Brunswick area that they were monitoring a cluster of 43 cases of neurological disease of unknown cause, The Guardian reported.

We may remember 2018 as the year when technology's dystopian potential became clear, from Facebook's role enabling the harvesting of our personal data for election interference to a seemingly unending series of revelations about the dark side of Silicon Valley's connect-everything ethos. It's been enough to exhaust even the most imaginative sci-fi visionaries. "It doesn't so much feel like we're living in the future now, as that we're living in a retro-future," novelist William Gibson wrote this month on Twitter. More awaits us in 2019, as surveillance and data-collection efforts ramp up and artificial intelligence systems start sounding more human, reading facial expressions and generating fake video images so realistic that it will be harder to detect malicious distortions of the truth. But there are also countermeasures afoot in Congress and state government -- and even among tech-firm employees who are more active about ensuring their work is put to positive ends.

Matthew Braga is the senior technology reporter for CBC News, where he covers stories about how data is collected, used, and shared. If you have a tip, you can contact this reporter securely using Signal or WhatsApp at 1 416 316 4872, or via email at matthew.braga@cbc.ca. For particularly sensitive messages or documents, consider using Secure Drop, an anonymous, confidential system for sharing encrypted information with CBC News.

Canada is planning a pilot project to see if Artificial Intelligence (AI) can find patterns of suicidality – i.e., suicidal thoughts or attempts, self-harm, or suicidal threats or plans – on social media before they lead to tragedy. According to a contract award notice posted by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the $99,860 project is being handled by an Ottawa-based AI company called Advanced Symbolics Inc. (ASI). The agency says the company was the only one that could do it, given that ASI has a patented technique for creating randomized, controlled samples of social media users in any geographic region. The focus on geographic region is key: As it is, the country is reeling after a dramatic spike in suicides in Cape Breton among girls 15 years old and younger and men in their late 40s and early 50s. The idea isn't to identify specific individuals at risk of suicide.

As far as career choices go, working in mortgage financing at one of the country's top banks seemed like a solid bet. She figured there would be more job security than many other professions and plenty of opportunities to climb the corporate ladder in Toronto. Over the next seven years, she says she had a front-row seat to watch automation -- most often intelligent software -- take over nearly every aspect of mortgage processing. Tory Shoreman worked at one of Canada's top banks and says she watched automation take out 40 per cent of her department. "I witnessed about 40 per cent of my department get laid off and the reason they were given was automation," the 32-year-old told CBC News.

With the swift acceleration of artificial intelligence and automated technology, there are growing concerns around the development of so-called killer robots. Unlike drones and other technologies that are controlled remotely by humans, lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) could operate independently in military missions. Proponents say with proper safeguards it could actually save lives, but critics say they will lead to an arms race and even threaten humanity. Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan of Non-Violence International said while automated machines may work well on factory floors, they have no place on the battlefield. "War is an unstructured space," she said.

Microsoft will roll out the latest version of its Windows operating system at the end of July. The company said Monday that Windows 10 is designed with mobile computing in mind, allowing users to switch seamlessly between personal computers, tablets, smartphones and other gadgets. The operating system is intended to give apps a similar feel on all devices and comes with a new Web browser integrated with Cortana, the company's voice-activated answer to Apple's Siri. Microsoft Corp. says Windows 10 will be available in 190 countries as a free upgrade on July 29 for anyone currently running Windows 8.1 or 7, the two previous versions of the software.