Anthropic takes steps to prevent election misinformation

February 16, 2024

Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Anthropic, the well-funded AI startup, is testing a technology to detect when users of its GenAI chatbot ask about political topics and redirect those users to “authoritative” sources of voting information. Called Prompt Shield, the technology, which relies on a combination of AI detection models and rules, shows […]

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How bacteria-fighting viruses could go mainstream

February 16, 2024
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. Lynn Cole had a blood infection she couldn’t shake. For years, she was in and out of the hospital. Each time antibiotics would force the infection…

India may block Proton Mail

February 16, 2024

Proton, the Swiss privacy-focused software maker, says it has received a notice of a “possible block” of Proton Mail in India after the service was used in sending bomb threats to schools in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In a statement, a Proton spokesperson told Indian daily Hindustan Times that the firm condemns […]

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European digital rights group say the future of online privacy is on a knife edge

February 16, 2024

A coalition of more than two dozen digital and democratic rights groups, NGOs and not-for-profits, including noyb and Wikimedia Europe, have written to the European Union’s regulatory body for data protection urging it to reject a tactic that’s been controversially seized upon by Meta in its latest bid to circumvent the bloc’s privacy laws. If […]

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How Neara uses AI to protect utilities from extreme weather

February 16, 2024

Over the past few decades, extreme weather events have not only become more severe, but are also occurring more frequently. Neara is focused on enabling utility companies and energy providers to create models of their power networks and anything that might affect them, like wildfires or flooding. The Redfern, New South Wales, Australia-based startup recently […]

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After rockets and spacecraft, Rocket Lab’s next frontier could be applications

February 16, 2024

Rocket Lab is exploring possible applications for a satellite constellation that they would build, launch and operate in-house, similar to SpaceX’s Starlink business, as a way of generating recurring revenue, an executive said this week. “If you look to where we ultimately want to go, in a lot of ways we want to emulate what […]

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OpenAI’s Sora video-generating model can render video games, too

February 16, 2024

OpenAI’s new — and first! — video-generating model, Sora, can pull off some genuinely impressive cinematographic feats. But the model’s even more capable than OpenAI initially made it out to be, at least judging by a technical paper published this evening. The paper, titled “Video generation models as world simulators,” co-authored by a host of […]

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FTC seeks to modify rule to combat deepfakes

February 16, 2024

Spurred by the growing threat of deepfakes, the FTC is seeking to modify an existing rule that bans the impersonation of businesses or government agencies to cover all consumers. The revised rule — depending on the final language, and the public comments that the FTC receives — might also make it unlawful for a GenAI […]

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