By Hannah Lang (Reuters) -The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Thursday proposed increasing transparency around cryptocurrency

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 27, 2023--

Five TikTok creators have filed a lawsuit to overturn a planned ban on the video sharing app in Montana

Less than eight months after discouraging companies from developing advanced artificial intelligence, Elon Musk has unveiled his answer to “woke” AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The tech billionaire claims his new Grok AI is both smarter and funnier than its rivals, offering paid users of X (formerly Twitter) the chance to ask it “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems”. The X boss offered an example of how it will answer “almost anything”, sharing a screenshot of a user asking it how to make cocaine. “Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak,” a blog post announcing its launch noted. “Please don’t use it if you hate humour!” What differentiates it from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard is that it has access to real-time data from X, which Mr Musk took over almost exactly a year ago. Before the takeover, AI firms were using Twitter as a data set to train its models, however the tech billionaire shut this down following the release of ChatGPT last November. Initially labelled “TruthGPT”, Grok takes its name from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land, meaning understanding something thoroughly and intuitively, while the tone of its responses are modelled on the same writing style as Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But with X as its training set, Grok risks mimicking the same misinformation and toxic discourse that has plagued the platform since before Musk’s takeover. Not only does it adopt a more informal tone to its rivals, Grok also appears to have less safety filters preventing it from answering questions about sensitive topics. Despite claiming that Grok outperforms ChatGPT, which is freely available, xAI did acknowledge that it does not yet match the capabilities of OpenAI’s more powerful GPT-4 model – which carries a similar monthly fee to Grok. In its own in-house tests, xAI graded Grok against GPT-4 on the 2023 Hungarian national high school finals in mathematics. Grok passed the exam with a mark of 59 per cent, while GPT-4 scored 68 per cent. In March this year, Mr Musk was among hundreds of leading tech figures to add their name to an open letter calling on all AI labs to pause the training of AI systems. The letter warned that artificial intelligence with “human-competitive intelligence” could pose “profound risks to society and humanity”, potentially leading to the loss of control of human civilisation and even its extinction. This letter of discouragement looks increasingly like a plea to allow his own companies – which include the newly formed xAI – to catch up. Just weeks before signing it, Mr Musk was approaching AI researchers to form xAI, with the explicit intention of taking on ChatGPT. The world’s richest person had been instrumental in the formation of OpenAI in 2015 but cut ties after it became a for-profit endeavour. His team included researchers from OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, who had experience in developing large language models (LLMs) that power AI chatbots. The reason he cited for creating his own chatbot was due to apparent fears that these tech companies were creating “woke” AI systems. “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly,” he tweeted last December in reply to a post by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. The new chatbot fits in with Musk’s broader goals that he is hoping to achieve with his other companies, including SpaceX’s mission to transform humanity into a multi-planetary species “Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilisation will never become multiplanetary,” Mr Musk said. In justifying why it built Grok, xAI said its goal was to create a tool that “maximally benefits all of humanity”. The blog post explained: “We believe that it is important to design AI tools that are useful to people of all backgrounds and political views.” Read More How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT Musk shares cocaine recipe in effort to prove Grok AI is ‘rebellious’ Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity Musk shares cocaine recipe in effort to prove Grok AI is ‘rebellious’

TOKYO Japan's Rakuten Group will combine its credit card and mobile payment businesses and is considering listing its

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse dropped earlier this month and has already done record-breaking numbers at the box office. The animated film is centred on 'canon events," the idea that some unfortunate situations that are often unavoidable. TikTokers have since put their own spin on the concept, racking up over 150 million views under the hashtag alone. Users are taking the phrase and using it to share a nostalgic look back at some of the weird phases in their lives. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The canon event TikTok takeover has left some blissfully unaware users baffled, prompting them to turn to the app to ask the all-important question: What does it mean? @bex392 ??? #canonevent #help Luckily for Bex (@bex392) and her 1 million viewers, people were on standby to help out. "Canon event= something that is going happen regardless of space, time and dimension in order to keep the balance. It’s basically fate," one person responded, while another reiterated: "Canon event is something that has to happen in the universe because it’s part of the universes canon, it’s from Spider-Man so it's a multiverse thing". It didn't take long for fellow TikTokers to share their very own canon events. One TikTok user under the username @bonnieaustinnnnnnnn wrote: "Me watching every teenage girl getting into her first relationship with a medium ugly guy that bares a striking resemblance to the rat from flushed away. (I can not interfere, it is a canon event)." Meanwhile, another earlier example saw @greekos_nikos share: "Realising it was never trauma, just a canon event." His video went viral across the platform with 5.2 million views and thousands more comments. "Getting hit on the leg with a firework gotta be a canon event," one person shared, while another joked: "Gonna start calling all my trauma canon events just to make it seem less serious." "It's a plot twist, gotta keep the audience on their toes," a third added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

BEIJING China's gaming regulator on Tuesday granted publishing license to 58 imported online games, including titles belonging to

Previously, Mizzy shared a picture of himself being handcuffed and escorted by the police, which quickly went viral on social media

Pokimane recently explored if hard work alone is enough to become a popular streamer and whether other factors also play a role

NASA is turning its attention from the stars to our screens, after it announced it will launch its own streaming service. The organisation announced that it is launching a beta for a streaming platform with the name NASA+ – and yes, the plus is shaped to look like a star. It looks like the streaming service will be ad-free and available to watch on the new beta site and the NASA app. Essentially, it’ll work a little like Netflix for space content, updating the current Nasa TV output which features livestreams of rocket launches and other events. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter There’s not much information out there about the new platform but it’ll come “later this year” and NASA has stated that it won’t require a paid subscription. NASA communications administrator Marc Etkind said in the press release that the organisation has designed the platform around “putting space on demand at your fingertips”. Introducing NASA's On-Demand Streaming Service, NASA+ (Official Trailer) www.youtube.com Judging by the look of the new promo clip, it’ll feature a lot of educational videos and public content as well as documentaries. “Modernizing our main websites from a technology standpoint and streamlining how the public engages with our content online are critical first steps in making our agency’s information more accessible, discoverable, and secure,” said NASA chief information officer Jeff Seaton. Meanwhile, it comes after Nasa celebrated the first birthday of the James Webb Space Telescope this summer by releasing extraordinary images of stars 'being born'. In the images, which almost look surreal, rainbow bursts with tiny twinkles can be seen. "The darkest areas are the densest, where thick dust cocoons still-forming protostars", the space giants say. These occur when a star first bursts through its natal envelope of cosmic dust, shooting out a pair of opposing jets into space like a newborn first stretching her arms out into the world." Nasa also recently stated that it discovered “diverse organic matter” on the surface of Mars, which could change our understanding of the red planet and the search for life in the universe. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Meta’s Twitter rival Threads appears to be struggling to hold on to users as its daily active user count is down by about four-fifth since its launch – just days after it broke records as the fastest-growing app ever. Within a few days of its launch, Instagram’s threads reached 100 million users, making it the most rapidly growing app ever developed. In comparison, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was the previous fastest-growing app, took two months to reach 100 million users. Growing at such a rapid rate, Threads easily became the leading competitor of X (formerly Twitter) with about three times as many users as all other rivals combined within hours of launching. But new data assessed by market research firm Sensor Tower suggests Threads is facing challenges in retaining its user base. The firm’s analysis points out that the daily active user count of Threads is down by 82 per cent since the app’s launch as of 31 July, CNN reported. Fewer users are opening the app and doing so less frequently, apart from spending less time there, according to Sensor Tower. Citing the market research firm, CNN said users spent barely three minutes per day on Threads, compared to nearly 20 minutes during its initial launch. Analysis by another firm Similarweb also pointed out that Threads is struggling to retain its users. While the app’s usage peaked on 7 July – immediately after its launch – with over 49 million daily active users on Android alone, this number had fallen to 12.6 million by 23 July, according to a blog post by Similarweb. At its peak, Threads reportedly had over a third of X’s audience on that platform, but by 23 July, this had dropped to about 12 per cent of the users on the Elon Musk-owned platform. Sensor Tower noted that Threads’ daily active user count is still falling at about 1 per cent each day. “Threads took off like a rocket, with its close linkage to Instagram as the booster. However, the developers of Threads will need to fill in missing features and add some new and unique ones if they want to make checking the app a daily habit for users,” Similarweb noted in its blog post. Despite falling numbers, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg is “quite optimistic” about the app, intending now to focus on “retention and improving the basics”, according to CNN. “And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale we think is possible,” Mr Zuckerberg said. Read More Meta is secretly building an AI chatbot with the personality of Abraham Lincoln Are you a Facebook user? Here’s how to claim your share of $725m settlement in privacy lawsuit Elon Musk red-faced as police halt Twitter sign removal leaving company called ‘ER’ Mark Zuckerberg reveals his 4,000 calorie diet and large McDonald’s order Meta is secretly building an AI chatbot with the personality of Abraham Lincoln Here’s how to claim your share of $725m settlement in Facebook’s privacy lawsuit

BELFAST, Northern Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 31, 2023--