F-Secure: AI-based recommendation engines are easy to manipulate

Cybersecurity giant F-Secure has warned that AI-based recommendation systems are easy to manipulate.

Recommendations often come under increased scrutiny around major elections due to concerns that bias could, in extreme cases, lead to electoral manipulation. However, the recommendations that are delivered to people day-to-day matter just as much, if not more.

Matti Aksela, VP of Artificial Intelligence at F-Secure, commented:

“As we rely more and more on AI...

Facebook is developing a news-summarising AI called TL;DR

Facebook is developing an AI called TL;DR which summarises news into shorter snippets.

Anyone who’s spent much time on the web will know what TL;DR stands for⁠—but, for everyone else, it’s an acronym for “Too Long, Didn’t Read”.

It’s an understandable sentiment we’ve all felt at some point. People lead busy lives. Some outlets now even specialise in short, at-a-glance news.

The problem is, it’s hard to get the full picture of a story in just...

China’s first AI news anchor has debuted for a state-run outlet

Chinese state-run outlet Xinhua has offered a glimpse at the dystopian future of reporting with an AI replacement for news anchors. Xinhua appears to be using two human anchors for the base layer – one Chinese-speaking, and the other English. The humans are then animated to appear like they’re reporting the day’s news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB29ZVDOFfU The technology looks similar to that used for ‘DeepFakes’ – videos where celebrity faces are imposed on actresses...