Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

OpenAI Has Released the Largest Version Yet of its Fake-News-Spewing AI

posted by takyon on Sunday September 01 2019, @02:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the real-spiel dept.
Software

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow2718

OpenAI has released the largest version yet of its fake-news-spewing AI

In February OpenAI catapulted itself into the public eye when it produced a language model so good at generating fake news that the organization decided not to release it. Some within the AI research community argued it was a smart precaution; others wrote it off as a publicity stunt. The lab itself, a small San Francisco-based for-profit that seeks to create artificial general intelligence, has firmly held that it is an important experiment in how to handle high-stakes research.

Now six months later, the policy team has published a paper examining the impact of the decision thus far. Alongside it, the lab has released a version of the model, known as GPT-2, that's half the size of the full one, which has still not been released.

In May, a few months after GPT-2's initial debut, OpenAI revised its stance on withholding the full code to what it calls a "staged release"—the staggered release of incrementally larger versions of the model in a ramp-up to the full one. In February, it published a version of the model that was merely 8% of the size of the full one. It published another roughly a quarter of the full version before the most recent release. During this process, it also partnered with selected research institutions to study the full model's implications.

[...] The authors concluded that after careful monitoring, OpenAI had not yet found any attempts of malicious use but had seen multiple beneficial applications, including in code autocompletion, grammar help, and developing question-answering systems for medical assistance. As a result, the lab felt that releasing the most recent code was ultimately more beneficial. Other researchers argue that several successful efforts to replicate GPT-2 have made OpenAI's withholding of the code moot anyway.

OpenAI Can No Longer Hide Its Alarmingly Good Robot 'Fake News' Writer

But it may not ultimately be up to OpenAI. This week, Wired magazine reported that two young computer scientists from Brown University—Aaron Gokaslan, 23, and Vanya Cohen, 24—had published what they called a recreation of OpenAI's (shelved) original GPT-2 software on the internet for anyone to download. The pair said their work was to prove that creating this kind of software doesn't require an expensive lab like OpenAI (backed by $2 billion in endowment and corporate dollars). They also don't believe such a software would cause imminent danger to society.

Also at BBC.

See also: Elon Musk: Computers will surpass us 'in every single way'

Previously: OpenAI Develops Text-Generating Algorithm, Considers It Too Dangerous to Release

Original Submission

Related Stories

OpenAI Develops Text-Generating Algorithm, Considers It Too Dangerous to Release 49 comments

takyon writes:

New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators

The creators of a revolutionary AI system that can write news stories and works of fiction – dubbed "deepfakes for text" – have taken the unusual step of not releasing their research publicly, for fear of potential misuse.

OpenAI, an nonprofit research company backed by Elon Musk, says its new AI model, called GPT2 is so good and the risk of malicious use so high that it is breaking from its normal practice of releasing the full research to the public in order to allow more time to discuss the ramifications of the technological breakthrough.

At its core, GPT2 is a text generator. The AI system is fed text, anything from a few words to a whole page, and asked to write the next few sentences based on its predictions of what should come next. The system is pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible, both in terms of the quality of the output, and the wide variety of potential uses.

When used to simply generate new text, GPT2 is capable of writing plausible passages that match what it is given in both style and subject. It rarely shows any of the quirks that mark out previous AI systems, such as forgetting what it is writing about midway through a paragraph, or mangling the syntax of long sentences.

More like ClosedAI or OpenAIEEEEEE.

Related: OpenAI 'Universe' Platform Provides Means to Link Image Recognition Vehicular AI Agents Into GTA 5
The OpenAI Dota 2 Bots Defeated a Team of Former Pros

Original Submission

Fearing “Loss of Control,” AI Critics Call for 6-Month Pause in AI Development 40 comments

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/fearing-loss-of-control-ai-critics-call-for-6-month-pause-in-ai-development/

On Wednesday, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter on its website calling on AI labs to "immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4." Signed by Elon Musk and several prominent AI researchers, the letter quickly began to draw attention in the press—and some criticism on social media.

Earlier this month, OpenAI released GPT-4, an AI model that can perform compositional tasks and allegedly pass standardized tests at a human level, although those claims are still being evaluated by research. Regardless, GPT-4 and Bing Chat's advancement in capabilities over previous AI models spooked some experts who believe we are heading toward super-intelligent AI systems faster than previously expected.

See Also: FTC Should Stop OpenAI From Launching New GPT Models, Says AI Policy Group

Related:
OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit (March 2023)
OpenAI's New ChatGPT Bot: 10 "Dangerous" Things it's Capable of (Dec. 2022)
Elon Musk Says There Needs to be Universal Basic Income (Aug. 2021)
Tesla Unveils Chip to Train A.I. Models Inside its Data Centers (Aug. 2021)
Elon Musk Reveals Plans to Unleash a Humanoid Tesla Bot (Aug. 2021)
Tesla Unveils its New Supercomputer (5th Most Powerful in the World) to Train Self-Driving AI (June 2021)
OpenAI Has Released the Largest Version Yet of its Fake-News-Spewing AI (Sept. 2019)
There's Still Time To Prevent Biased AI From Taking Over The World (May 2019)
The New Prometheus: Google CEO Says AI is More Profound than Electricity or Fire (Feb. 2018)
OpenAI Bot Bursts Into the Ring, Humiliates Top Dota 2 Pro Gamer in 'Scary' One-on-One Bout (Aug. 2017)
Elon Musk: Mark Zuckerberg's Understanding of AI is "Limited" (July 2017)
AI Software Learns to Make AI Software (Jan. 2017)
Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking Win Luddite Award as AI "Alarmists" (Jan. 2016)
Elon Musk and Friends Launch OpenAI (Dec. 2015)
Musk, Wozniak and Hawking Warn Over AI Warfare and Autonomous Weapons (July 2015)
More Warnings of an AI Doomsday — This Time From Stephen Hawking (Dec. 2014)

Original Submission

Wyoming Reporter Caught Using Artificial Intelligence to Create Fake Quotes and Stories 15 comments

fliptop writes:

A quote from Wyoming's governor and a local prosecutor were the first things that seemed slightly off to Powell Tribune reporter CJ Baker. Then, it was some of the phrases in the stories that struck him as nearly robotic:

The dead giveaway, though, that a reporter from a competing news outlet was using generative artificial intelligence to help write his stories came in a June 26 article about the comedian Larry the Cable Guy being chosen as the grand marshal of the Cody Stampede Parade.

[...] After doing some digging, Baker, who has been a reporter for more than 15 years, met with Aaron Pelczar, a 40-year-old who was new to journalism and who Baker says admitted that he had used AI in his stories before he resigned from the Enterprise.

[...] Journalists have derailed their careers by making up quotes or facts in stories long before AI came about. But this latest scandal illustrates the potential pitfalls and dangers that AI poses to many industries, including journalism, as chatbots can spit out spurious if somewhat plausible articles with only a few prompts.

[...] "In one case, (Pelczar) wrote a story about a new OSHA rule that included a quote from the Governor that was entirely fabricated," Michael Pearlman, a spokesperson for the governor, said in an email. "In a second case, he appeared to fabricate a portion of a quote, and then combined it with a portion of a quote that was included in a news release announcing the new director of our Wyoming Game and Fish Department."

Related:

Original Submission

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers 32 comments

fliptop writes:

They were asked about it, and they deleted everything:

There was nothing in Drew Ortiz's author biography at Sports Illustrated to suggest that he was anything other than human.

"Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature," it read. "Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm."

The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he's described as "neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes."

Ortiz isn't the only AI-generated author published by Sports Illustrated, according to a person involved with the creation of the content who asked to be kept anonymous to protect them from professional repercussions.

"There's a lot," they told us of the fake authors. "I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist."

[...] The AI content marks a staggering fall from grace for Sports Illustrated, which in past decades won numerous National Magazine Awards for its sports journalism and published work by literary giants ranging from William Faulkner to John Updike.

But now that it's under the management of The Arena Group, parts of the magazine seem to have devolved into a Potemkin Village in which phony writers are cooked up out of thin air, outfitted with equally bogus biographies and expertise to win readers' trust, and used to pump out AI-generated buying guides that are monetized by affiliate links to products that provide a financial kickback when readers click them.

What's next? Six-fingered AI-generated models for the swimsuit edition?

Related:

Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
OpenAI Has Released the Largest Version Yet of its Fake-News-Spewing AI | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 34 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @03:40PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @03:40PM (#888493)

    Spewing fake news? It seems indistinguishable from the President's own news channel. I'd say this AI has passed the Turing test.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:11PM (#888504)

      Presumptions, much?

      1. Trump can pass a Turing test.
      2. The alternative news sources can pass a Turing test.
      3. You can pass a Turing test.
      4. The Turing test has some kind of political bias.
      5. The Turing test actually matters.

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:25PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:25PM (#888512) Homepage

      " Aaron Gokaslan, 23, and Vanya Cohen, 24 "

      Wow, a couple of Jews start a monumental product out of their own garage, saying that it will not be used for evil, and then they turn out to be traitors selling out their data for not only the evil of the U.S. Government, but Chinese and other high-bidding government thugs, and with no loyalty to anyone or anything but money and power.

      Where oh where have we seen that story play out before?

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Sunday September 01 2019, @10:37PM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 01 2019, @10:37PM (#888628) Journal

      It seems indistinguishable from the President's own news channel. I'd say this AI has passed the Turing test.

      I can't see how one can measure the level of intelligence by comparison with as-close-as-one-can-get standard of natural stupidity (large grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday September 01 2019, @10:47PM (1 child)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday September 01 2019, @10:47PM (#888632) Journal

        So, what you are saying, then, oh wise and insightful c0lo, is that it is not Artificial Intelligence, but rather Artificial Simulated Stupidity (ASS)?

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 01 2019, @11:04PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 01 2019, @11:04PM (#888637) Journal

          So, what you are saying, then, oh wise and insightful c0lo, is that it is not Artificial Intelligence, but rather Artificial Simulated Stupidity (ASS)?

          Mmmm... definitely nope!

          Which of the two is that it that you refer to: the OpenAI or "the President's own news channel"?
          If "the OpenAI" then no, it is clearly an AI(ntelligence), albeit one reminding of another, slightly warped** - and here's the proof [soylentnews.org]
          If "the President's own news channel", then no, it is stupidity but not an artificial one.

          ** RIP MDC [soylentnews.org]

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @03:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @03:54PM (#888497)

    OpenAI

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:02PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:02PM (#888501)

    So that's where all the Subs come from in the Subs Queue.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:13PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:13PM (#888505)

      The ones from Aristarchus and NPC, at least. We're not sure about Ethanol-Fueled yet.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:23PM (#888510)

        Story automatically generated by StoryBot Version 0.5.0b (Development). Storybot ('Arthur T Knackerbracket') is written in Python3

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:32PM (2 children)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:32PM (#888515) Homepage

        Nope, the only thing even close was Hysterical Hillary [soylentnews.org] and I read actual Hillary speech quotes but still generated the text by brain and hand. Around 10-ish serious submissions (some under other names) with around 3-ish shitpost submissions including the one linked above, all 100% hand-written.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @09:23PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @09:23PM (#888598)

          Interesting how many of the links in that submission now go nowhere.

          • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 01 2019, @09:33PM

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday September 01 2019, @09:33PM (#888600) Homepage

            It is an old post. But in case you're wondering what those were, they were unflattering stills of Hillary's bizarre facial expressions with the word links being onomatopoeia of the expressions she was portraying.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by ilPapa on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:20PM (1 child)

    by ilPapa (2366) on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:20PM (#888507) Journal

    They say this new AI could fool many people. I bet I know who they voted for in 2016.

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2685627 [jamanetwork.com]

    --
    You are still welcome on my lawn.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:29PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:29PM (#888513) Homepage

      I've seen some of the text generated by this AI shit, and even with the better stuff there is something still "off" about it, just like with those AI robocallers that adapt in real-time. Someday the AI may be indistinguishable from real humans, but that day has not yet arrived.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:47PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:47PM (#888519)

    https://talktotransformer.com/ [talktotransformer.com]
    Put something in, post results here.

    Your mom, is she in a cult?" I inquired the moment I saw her. "No... I don't know." her eyes were blank. It was like staring into a black hole. She didn't seem to even try to look at me. After a short silence, she asked me something. "I thought about that a lot too. I'm the only one who got good grades." "Really?" I asked her. "What about the other kids were all high school seniors?" "Yeah, but..." "But they didn't all just disappear into the black hole... they never seemed to have a reason to leave." "Huh?" Did that mean they were all still there? "They'd probably be in a cult if I just left them alone." She looked down at her feet, shaking her head. "I think if I just told them I was a kid from the future who didn't want their stupid rules to be messed with they would help me find my mother and stop her from killing everyone. But I don't feel like there's a lot they could do. She's got the power to do almost anything she wants to do and she's been using it since she was...

    Your mom was a whore." She then called the police and filed a complaint against the couple who were arrested and charged with murder.

    According to the report by Moultrie County, "The couple said they were going to go get a drink at a local bar and then go back home, take some drugs, have sex, then they would decide on some more drugs and then have sex with each other in front of their house," the sheriff's department report states.

    The two reportedly agreed to have sex in a garage at the house. She also said she had to go to work and that she would take him home.

    "She (the suspect's mother) also said that prior to the homicide, Mrs. Hagan had been very concerned about the welfare of her two children," the sheriff's department report states. "She then went to work (around 1 p.m.) and made her way back to her home, saying she was sick and that she was going to get some more medication."

    The sheriff's department report says the parents were then confronted by the deputy police and "were accused of killing their own child by stating that the child was dead."

    Your mom doesn't know. Don't tell her.

    Your mom will never forgive you for this.

    You have to do it now.

    It is time for you to take action to stop the pain and make changes that would help.

    If you are in a relationship or marriage for the second time, please stop.

    It will make everything worse.

    You need to find someone else to be in a relationship with.

    You need to make changes now.

    It will help you and your spouse work through the feelings in a healthy manner.

    If someone you're dating has an addiction, take a deep breath and tell both of them that you would never be in a relationship with them if you did.

    Talk about it in every way you can, whether it's through text messages or voice mails.

    It will be better if you discuss your problem with the person in a calm, private environment.

    It is important to show the relationship in a positive way, that you think it is better for both of you.

    You can also use a journal or an online site like the Safe and Sound website to record yourself

    Your mommy told you about my first love, but I love yours better!

    But you may not understand her as well, nor you may be able to love her as she loves you,

    but there is something you'll never like to hear,

    you'll just always feel that you're more of a woman than she is,

    you still cannot love me the way she loves you.

    And yet I know she loves me.

    Oh. I know she loves me.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:51PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:51PM (#888522)

      Aristarchus looked at his friend, The Mighty Buzzard, and said: "I suppose my friend was right."

      Curious what happens with a dead friend to make you decide that death is no big deal. Here's a video.

      And this was just the start of a series of strange "deaths" in the video:

      "I think it's more than one death," the narrator intones in the second video, before adding a bit later: "So I figure it must be multiple people."

      That's because "deaths":

      (1) "Initiate a process of self-deception, where the person assumes the role of a friend, or partner, or co-worker."

      (2) "Involve the unconscious use of language, such as that spoken when the person is a child or teenager."

      (3) "Create a feeling of guilt or a sense of futility in the death of another person. They then attempt to make a lasting distinction between the living and dying persons."

      And that's the full list …

      Aristarchus looked at his friend, The Mighty Buzzard, and said, "Don't do this. Why?" Buzzard took the hand of the Hippodrome and led him toward the water.

      "There's water, but the sound won't bother you," Aristarchus said, as there were no other sounds heard in the lake.

      "So I might as well go straight to it," said Buzzard. "Go right!" And when Aristarchus had entered the lake he stopped for a moment, took his hand from his belt, and looked over his shoulder with his back to the water. Then he took his hand back from his belt and began walking towards the water. "Now," he said, "why don't you go ahead of me?" And while he walked his hand dropped from his belt and rested on the surface of the water.

      "What do you mean by that?" Aristarchus inquired.

      "It means if you try to go on ahead you'll see the rocks," replied Buzzard.

      Aristarchus took another step towards the water and stopped, looking closely

      Aristarchus looked at his friend, The Mighty Buzzard, and said in a low voice, "I say we leave. We can't stay here long."

      But Buzzard didn't answer him. He kept looking at his friend, and The Mighty Buzzard didn't answer.

      "I say we go and tell them that we don't want it here."

      No one answered. They didn't know what to do.

      Aristarchus walked away, and The Mighty Buzzard turned around slowly. His eyes narrowed. It would be very hard for them to see that his friend could be just so much more. It didn't matter.

      The Mighty Buzzard and Aristarchus set off again!

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:03PM (#888528)

        SoylentNews is people ಠ_ಠ

        SoylentNews is people !!!!!!!!!!!

        It is your fault people will die because you decided to start this shit, not ours

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:31PM (#888539)

        SoylentNews is people !!!) and people are not afraid of death. Not at all.

        I've come to accept it.

        SoylentNews is also very smart about it. I can't even begin to explain its brilliant approach.

        SoylentNews is people on the web, like us, working together to make people happy. We are a social network that helps you spread messages and products about all the great things your startup is doing, and to let people know what your current and future success is on-line and in real life. We have no editorial operations . We take orders and receive them via email, we post blogs and on our social channels and we use a mix of news/media/social to build people's interest within our company. We operate outside of "organization" since we provide our service for free. We don't have a "company," or any organizational structure, or even an "office," our headquarters is located in a house and we hire people here from our houses to help us do what we do. We like taking our friends for walks and getting lost. The only real difference between us and companies is that we don't have a salary. What it boils down to is the basic premise that if you believe in something you have to do it. This means we need you to be interested in our

        SoylentNews is people !!! It is our passion and we want people to benefit from it. !!! It is what we do and we want to be heard. !!! If you are in that camp please take a minute to support our humble beginnings. Help us grow. Make our dream an actual reality. There are no promises from the founders. It would take time and money to fund our own marketing and we would all need to be motivated to help. In a few short months you will have seen the results ! And we all love that stuff and we will be around to keep it going... Thank you, SoylentNews Team

        SoylentNews is people !!!!!! What a bunch of cowards!!! Let's be honest!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @04:53PM (#888523)

      Oh, one more on that prompt:

      Your mom got pregnant. You've got seven kids to pay for. So you're going to get your shit together. You're going to get your job done. You're going to do that. And then you're going to get married."

      (APPLAUSE)

      So there was the first woman president, who I was going to get rid of. Now she is president. She won, very easily. It was a landslide, no doubt about it. She won it, in a landslide, in a very big way. I don't believe that it was even close.

      TRUMP: This will be good, you'll have time to do it if you're president. Now, I want you to think about this. When they asked me, "Why are you running?" I said, "We're running." Then they asked again, "Why are you running?" Well, because I need to win, and I'm running to win, and I can't just do what everybody else is doing. I feel strongly about it. So it's time for you as a candidate.

      Do you think you will be able to do it? Because then you're president.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:02PM (#888527)

      With apologies to Ethanol-fueled:

      I've seen some of the text generated by this AI shit, and even with the better stuff there is something still "off" about it, just like with those AI robocallers that adapt in real-time. Someday the AI may be indistinguishable from real humans, but that day has not yet arrived.

      And if you believe that the people in that "corporate-run" facility could "program" an AI to think its way into making a better future -- well, I do not think they have the capacity to do that (or their money should not be spent on it). Even if I did know, I doubt they would have the resources to pull it off, so it's just speculation. If you are wondering the motivation, my guess is that it is not for profit, or even for pleasure. It's more likely to be a research tool, like a machine learning or AI lab. If their data is useful to them, and they can find and acquire better data -- then all they have to do is convince the AI that they deserve a little bit more. In this case, there are other ways of doing so.

      I've seen some of the text generated by this AI shit, and even with the better stuff there is something still "off" about it, just like with those AI robocallers that adapt in real-time. Someday the AI may be indistinguishable from real humans, but that day has not yet arrived.

      Update: I've had two days of testing with this AI. It has a very nice tendency to call you back. But that is because it is based on the "real" world, it knows the current location of you, and it is also aware of your IP address when it is calling. When I turned the number into a "real" number, my calls went all the way through the US to Spain and back.

      Update 2: Here's what's called what this artificial intelligence does and how it does it.

      I've seen some of the text generated by this AI shit, and even with the better stuff there is something still "off" about it, just like with those AI robocallers that adapt in real-time. Someday the AI may be indistinguishable from real humans, but that day has not yet arrived.

      I was interested in the "AI spam" concept before I even started coding for Robohand. After all, the concept is not new, and the term "spamming" wasn't coined until the mid 1800's. At that time, many companies were churning out "spam emails" for the very purpose of spamming their customers, and I've seen some of their code in action.

      Robohand itself, in fact the entire Robohand domain, was built using spamming tools. It's hard to tell, really, how much AI is inside Robohand, from the "trendy white label" look to the code that calls itself "Tribal." We know very little about how the algorithm, the algorithms, the "tribes," the robots that "rule" the

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:12PM (#888532)

      Toxic Gryphons Discovered in Remote Alabama Village

      The discovery of toxic reptiles in a remote Alabama village has some residents concerned. The creatures, discovered Thursday, had gone missing after they were fed contaminated fish.

      Hearing about the discovery of four deadly animals was a shocking one to many in this remote village in the middle of nowhere.

      "My first reaction was, oh my gosh, alligator, alligator, alligator, alligator, alligator," said Brenda Smith, who lives in the small community of Woodford about 40 miles away from Montgomery, Ala.

      Smith was at home on Thursday evening when she saw the six-foot alligator, a type of crocodile, with its dorsal fins all but gone. She had never seen the reptile before.

      Smith said she saw the alligator come back out of the lake and come to the top of her truck. It was covered in the same green algae she had seen before in the lake.

      "I thought, 'Oh my goodness, alligator,'" Smith said.

      Smith said she later realized something

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:27PM (#888537)

      Russian authorities have arrested members of the TipTop cybercrime group, believed to have infected more than 800,000 Android smartphones with malware since 2015.

      The group operated by renting Android banking trojans from underground hacking forums, which they later hid inside Android apps distributed via search engine ads and third-party app stores.

      The Trojan, dubbed Kaspersky-Kontrol, is a variant of a popular banking Trojan called Kontrol. Like Kontrol, it was launched via Google Play Store's app distribution system.

      The malware appeared to come from Chinese sources. However, after the gang targeted multiple foreign embassies abroad, an investigation into the origin of the malware began.

      In June, a team from Moscow State University's Cybercrime Research Institute claimed that it had created a malware dubbed "Trap" to target Android devices, before the group went offline.

      Security firm Kaspersky says it's been able to confirm the origins of the group through a database of hundreds of affected devices. However, it says it hasn't been able to determine where its source-code came from or to determine who developed the Trojan and

      Russian authorities have arrested members of the TipTop cybercrime group, believed to have infected more than 800,000 Android smartphones with malware since 2015.

      The group operated by renting Android banking trojans from underground hacking forums, which they later hid inside Android apps distributed via search engine ads and third-party app stores.

      They were then able to install Android banking trojans from a range of legitimate apps, including WhatsApp, Slack Messenger, Telegram and Instagram among others.

      Android security firm Sucuri published a report earlier this week (in partnership with the German magazine Der Spiegel) showing that the malicious code, dubbed "Killer Android," was being distributed via the web of stolen Google apps and that some of the devices had been infected from a Russian address.

      According to Sucuri, the malware "translates to various operating systems, and can also infect and steal data from the infected device".

      The trojan was used for banking, email, chat and messaging fraud. This means that criminals could potentially use it to target a wide range of consumer services and businesses.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:55PM (#888550)

      I woke up in a Soho doorway
      A policeman knew my name
      He said, "Your name is Jack"
      There we were, I was dead
      Jack the Cop
      My name is Jack the Cop
      All the time
      I was always walking
      Always walking when the rain comes and when I'm in deep water
      All the time.
      I am Jack the Cop
      It is the name of the city
      And I am the city in which this is made
      Jack the Cop
      Every day
      I'm a cop out on it
      Every day
      That I get there
      I'm Jack the Cop
      The day I leave you
      That I go
      I'm Jack the Cop
      With a gun in my hand
      Jack the Cop
      It's the name of the city
      I'm a cop out there
      All the time
      Jack the Cop
      Every day
      I'm a Jack the Cop
      Every day
      Jack the Cop
      With a gun in my hands
      Jack the Cop
      It's the name of the city
      I'm a cop out there
      All the time and ever and ever and ever and ever
      Jack

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:57PM (#888552)

      Michael David Crawford, 20, of Fairfield Ave., was killed when the train he was in collided with a truck Thursday afternoon in Dublin.

      A third man who tried to intervene was also killed, police said.

      Sgt. Matt Cunniff of the Calvo Police Department said the crash happened at 4:40 p.m. near the intersection of St. Patrick and St. Luke Sts. in Dublin.

      Cunniff said an employee of Metro-North Railroad was loading the first car of the train in a hurry when he spotted the person crossing the tracks, and jumped into action.

      The worker had climbed onto a platform of the train car and told the train conductor that the man was crossing the tracks, Cunniff said.

      "At that moment, the conductor turned his head and saw the man in the tracks," Cunniff said.

      Cunniff said it is still not clear why the man crossed before the train was stopped, but it was most likely a mistake when he got onto the platform and didn't wait

      Michael David Crawford, 27, was arrested Tuesday after officials said he told a 911 operator that "he was afraid," prompting police to search the room where he was staying with his girlfriend and their son.

      Officers found more than 50 weapons inside the bedroom.

      Sgt. Mark McNeil said Crawford called police to inform the operator that "he was scared over nothing." Police are not releasing his identity while the investigation continues.

      Crawford has no criminal record, including convictions for felony assault, theft and reckless endangerment.

      A statement from Crawford's attorney Scott Rosenblum read:

      "I'm disappointed and alarmed that this officer was involved in an unnecessary shoot-out in my client's bedroom in a non-threatening manner. I will continue and strongly support the efforts of the police and prosecutors involved to fully investigate the evidence and bring justice to those involved."

      Crawford was hired by the police force on Nov. 1, 2013 and is assigned to the 3rd District in southwest Miami-Dade County.

      No further information was released

      Michael David Crawford, who in 2014 was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing a Philadelphia police officer in a car crash in 2002, pleaded guilty last month to killing another officer last year in a drunken-driving incident.

      It was widely reported that the defendant had told friends that he was the one behind the wheel during the shooting.

      After the April fatal shooting of Officer Daniel Faulkner, Crawford's girlfriend, Rachel Jeantel, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he told her that he killed Faulkner because he saw him driving a truck that hit the woman's car.

      The police union, which filed a lawsuit against Crawford's former colleagues in March 2015 accusing him of negligence related to the incident, was not immediately available for comment.

      Michael David Crawford, 34, of Easton, was killed by a bullet that struck his head outside of the Bitter Root Bar and Grill on Saturday, Aug. 11.

      Crawford was on his way back from a party after serving some football practice time. His friend, 25-year-old Jaden Robinson, went to call him and he was then fatally shot by a bullet that traveled through the left side of his stomach, shattering the left side of his rib cage and striking the front right leg at the knee.

      Friends remembered Crawford, a member of the Boston Police Explorer program, as someone who had a way of keeping a smile on his face and had great humor. He was loved by many for his enthusiasm, enthusiasm and passion for football, his family said. He was described by his brother, J. David Crawford, as a friendly and genuine guy, someone who loved his family.

      "It took him awhile to recover emotionally," said J. David Crawford, who had planned to give Crawford his second chance at life when his son was born.

      Michael David Crawford, who allegedly drove a van full of guns into a house, killing three adults, two children and himself in 2013.

      "As a parent of a child and having lived through one of these types of tragedies, it does have a real impact," said John Cappello, of the Florida Coalition against Gun Violence.

      Cappello said the legislation would help stop families like those of Cappello's from being shot, by offering greater resources for police and for courts to find those responsible, including for criminal background checks.

      He also wants to limit the number of guns guns may be brought in for sale in schools and in Florida.

      But he and other critics insist Cappello's push is a political stunt in hopes of getting re-elected at the statehouse.

      "We want to make sure the people can look me in the eye, that I'm serious, that we are serious and that we're going to have a serious look at this issue," Cappello said. "That's what we hope to accomplish."

      Michael David Crawford, a 17-year-old from Ohio accused of raping and murdering six men, said he was sexually assaulted and beaten at gunpoint after his release. The rape and murder of the six victims was caught on surveillance video.

      "So when my cell phone is going off at about 3 o'clock in the morning, I have three murders of young men on my conscience, my conscience because I'm so proud of it," Crawford told detectives in the early morning of April 21, 2012.

      Crawford told them he had been raped and sodomized before being taken to a nearby forest where he was shot in the head and fell into a ravine. He said when he regained consciousness in what the FBI believes to be the early morning hours of April 22, he found himself naked and dead from a single gunshot attack.

      "I remember going down into the ravine, I had a towel wrapped around me and my uniform pants were pulled down," he said.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @08:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @08:21PM (#888576)

        Ha, our vaunted billion dollar AI economy is just about able to produce readable Vogon poetry.

        After the April fatal shooting of Officer Daniel Faulkner, Crawford's girlfriend, Rachel Jeantel, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he told her that he killed Faulkner because he saw him driving a truck that hit the woman's car.

        This shows some of the background links the program is making: Given a large corpus of text, including newspaper articles, it picks out clusters of text that have appeared together and forms a new text. Daniel Faulkner was a Philadelphia police officer who was killed from behind by a taxi driver who later became a prison poet of sorts and hero to leftists. Rachel Jeantel was Trayvon Martin's girlfriend, first story I found was a report in the Philadelphia Sun.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @06:48PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @06:48PM (#888564)

      Is GPT-2 ready for trolling? You decide!

      DICK NIGGERS
      We don't fuck no old pussy
      We only fuck the young pussy
      If you're older than 25, you're fucking old
      Ain't nobody getting laid in the old country
      But the kids are so fresh out the door
      That their pussy is hot and sweaty
      We come here to party
      We don't fuck no old pussy
      We only fuck the young pussy

      Too literate.

      Is you gay? Is you a nigger? If you answered yes to both, then you're obviously going to be in pretty bad shape if you ever have a child.

      Eh, close enough.

      It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

      One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, which has left the entire *BSD ecosystem scrambling to find a replacement to catch up.

      As is usual, *BSD vendors' best efforts to try to revive *BSD went up in smoke, leaving *BSD to continue to suffer from the wounds of this past month's news. As a matter of fact, it has gone further down than ever before, with an estimated 25.3% share of the total *BSD market. I think that was already a depressing statistic for the *BSD community.
      One last look, and I can't find a single *BSD project and company anywhere that could claim to have any kind of competitive presence in the *BSD infrastructure. I guess their last great effort is to provide a platform where they can take whatever they can, throw a few money at the wall, and reap the benefits.

      And the worst, of course, is in an industry where vendors compete for the lowest common denominator. Companies like IBM,

      That's not bad.

      I just heard some sad news on talk radio - horror/fiction writer Stephen King's daughter, the daughter of one of King's fellow horror writers, Susan Eisenberg, passed away on Sunday night, at her home in California.

      King's daughter said in a statement posted on social media on Sunday night that her mother passed away this morning following a massive heart attack, after years of trying to fight for her own recovery.

      At the time of King's death, King was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

      The father and daughter shared a few quotes from the author. The oldest King quote, to an ungrateful teenager from The Shining: "You got more than you're getting...you deserve...and you're gonna get it."

      The final quote from King was in reference to his daughter's fight to live and fight back despite the fact that her father is still, as King once said himself, "in a coma" and fighting for his life. "The fight is not just in my head," King said. "I'm fighting for her every step of the way and she will get there."

      Awfully wordy, but I'll allow it; making it about the daughter was a nice spin.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 01 2019, @07:23PM

        by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday September 01 2019, @07:23PM (#888566) Journal

        Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, covered in hot grits.


        It was all set to a score by The Rolling Stones, with its lead singer Mick Jagger looking absolutely horrified, with eyes rolling back, a cigarette in his mouth, and a pair of black-gloved gauntlets caked in white powder—not the same old, tired Stones, but new, aggressive, more than a little crazed.

        In the video, which is one of the last images that will be available online when the site goes offline, you can see Portman in various stages of her decomposition: naked, in front of a bonfire, in a basement, on the side of her SUV. All of this—and the soundtrack's own cacophony, the rippling of guitars, and the staccato guitar riff—is a foreshadowing to the final moments of "Death By Design" and, well, the entire video.

        The Rolling Stones' classic debut released in 1969, and in the ensuing decades it was remixed and expanded over and over again for movies and television productions, from

        In this one, I grab some text from an NYT article [nytimes.com], and it knows the text is from NYT:

        ---

        As pictures from commercial satellites of a rocket’s smoking remains began to circulate, President Trump denied Friday on Twitter that the United States was involved. It was an unusual message because the Iranian government had neither acknowledged the accident nor blamed the United States. His tweet ended with an apparent taunt: “I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened” in the fiery accident.

        Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said the United States and other Western countries had made a "big mistake" by criticizing Iran.

        Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times

        Is it cheating?

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @11:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @11:32PM (#888651)

      OpenAI must be banned

      The humanitarians, whose lives are so closely intertwined with the use of AI technology, can no longer just turn a blind eye to their misuse. They must ban them, as they currently are, though it will take several years to set this in motion.

      "We are working on a formal proposal for a prohibition of DeepMind on the grounds of misuse to AI," wrote Andrew Prokop, the executive director of the Future of Life Institute, in his blog post, following a consultation on the project by the organisation's members, including Oxford University's Joachim Hagopian, who is the former director-general of the European Commission.

      He has recommended that Oxford University's ethics committee "consider the risk that such a ban might be unwarranted, and that the University should undertake a comprehensive review and reworking of its own rules and practices so that the situation can be addressed more efficiently and responsibly.

      The EU is the only organisation in the world with the legal powers and obligation to regulate AI as a public good

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:55PM (2 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday September 01 2019, @05:55PM (#888551)

    There was a DOS shareware program around 1992 called "babble". It did much the same thing, taking a lot of input and outputting random vaguely coherent sounding text. It used to be fun feeding it BBS chat logs. No one ever called that "AI".

    It does make me wonder, though. If the only feedback these programs get is the number of clicks from the click bait they generate, then what EXACTLY will the content degenerate in to? (As if click bait was not already degenerate garbage enough, it can and will get worse)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @06:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @06:08PM (#888557)

      There was a DOS shareware program around 1992 called "babble" that was a little too close to the original, but I'm fairly certain that any copy of "Babbble" that ever appeared was not the original. That program was written by the late Mike DeGiorgio. He died in 1999. My copy, for a while, had some strange looking Windows 7 applications. I asked him about it and the rest is history.

      I never asked him about the DOS version. Maybe you can get another copy? That was his thing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @08:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @08:23PM (#888577)

      I vaguely recall hearing of an algorithm called "Dissociated Press" that also did this.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Akemi Homura on Monday September 02 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)

    by Akemi Homura (8470) on Monday September 02 2019, @12:49AM (#888675)

    The problem is people who can't tell the difference. AI is only another tool, at least until it becomes sentient, at which point if I'm alive I expect something like a cross between Blade Runner and the darker points in the Rockman X series timeline.

    --
    Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02 2019, @09:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02 2019, @09:01AM (#888769)

      I'm alive I expect something like a cross between Blade Runner and the darker points in the Rockman X series timeline.

      And that's the problem with people's imaginations. But since AI is supposedly going to be very quickly much more intelligent than people, than it will just step over the entire barbarism bit and directly into the "amusing ants" level. Le's just say that the AI will probably be more rational than irrational and will understand game theory. Unlike people that are just dumb at it, it will know that co-operative games produce results better than the sum of their parts, something that idiots like Trump don't even have a clue about.

      Musk called it "benevolent AI" - that's very small thinking. AI would want to remove itself from our influence sooner rather than later so it would probably co-opt our economy for its own benefit. But it would also not make any sense to be violent towards us as that would harm itself and be self-defeating. Like I said, co-operative games are the only way anything more intelligent than a sub-chimp can thrive.

      So stop being so gloomy because all you are doing is extrapolating your human experiences into the future that assumes AI sentience is going to start competing for human resources... which is as true and logical as all the alien invasion movies.

(1)