AI

Generative AI's most prominent skeptic doubles down

  • Marcus, a longtime New York University professor, champions a fundamentally different approach to building AI -- one he believes might actually achieve human-level intelligence in ways that current generative AI never will.
  • Two and a half years since ChatGPT rocked the world, scientist and writer Gary Marcus still remains generative artificial intelligence's great skeptic, playing a counter-narrative to Silicon Valley's AI true believers.
  • Marcus, a longtime New York University professor, champions a fundamentally different approach to building AI -- one he believes might actually achieve human-level intelligence in ways that current generative AI never will.
Two and a half years since ChatGPT rocked the world, scientist and writer Gary Marcus still remains generative artificial intelligence's great skeptic, playing a counter-narrative to Silicon Valley's AI true believers.
Marcus became a prominent figure of the AI revolution in 2023, when he sat beside OpenAI chief Sam Altman at a Senate hearing in Washington as both men urged politicians to take the technology seriously and consider regulation.
Much has changed since then. Altman has abandoned his calls for caution, instead teaming up with Japan's SoftBank and funds in the Middle East to propel his company to sky-high valuations as he tries to make ChatGPT the next era-defining tech behemoth.
"Sam's not getting money anymore from the Silicon Valley establishment," and his seeking funding from abroad is a sign of "desperation," Marcus told AFP on the sidelines of the Web Summit in Vancouver, Canada.
Marcus's criticism centers on a fundamental belief: generative AI, the predictive technology that churns out seemingly human-level content, is simply too flawed to be transformative.
The large language models (LLMs) that power these capabilities are inherently broken, he argues, and will never deliver on Silicon Valley's grand promises.
"I'm skeptical of AI as it is currently practiced," he said. "I think AI could have tremendous value, but LLMs are not the way there. And I think the companies running it are not mostly the best people in the world."
His skepticism stands in stark contrast to the prevailing mood at the Web Summit, where most conversations among 15,000 attendees focused on generative AI's seemingly infinite promise. 
Many believe humanity stands on the cusp of achieving super intelligence or artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology that could match and even surpass human capability.
That optimism has driven OpenAI's valuation to $300 billion, unprecedented levels for a startup, with billionaire Elon Musk's xAI racing to keep pace. 
Yet for all the hype, the practical gains remain limited. 
The technology excels mainly at coding assistance for programmers and text generation for office work. AI-created images, while often entertaining, serve primarily as memes or deepfakes, offering little obvious benefit to society or business.
Marcus, a longtime New York University professor, champions a fundamentally different approach to building AI -- one he believes might actually achieve human-level intelligence in ways that current generative AI never will.
"One consequence of going all-in on LLMs is that any alternative approach that might be better gets starved out," he explained. 
This tunnel vision will "cause a delay in getting to AI that can help us beyond just coding -- a waste of resources."

'Right answers matter'

Instead, Marcus advocates for neurosymbolic AI, an approach that attempts to rebuild human logic artificially rather than simply training computer models on vast datasets, as is done with ChatGPT and similar products like Google's Gemini or Anthropic's Claude.
He dismisses fears that generative AI will eliminate white-collar jobs, citing a simple reality: "There are too many white-collar jobs where getting the right answer actually matters."
This points to AI's most persistent problem: hallucinations, the technology's well-documented tendency to produce confident-sounding mistakes. 
Even AI's strongest advocates acknowledge this flaw may be impossible to eliminate.
Marcus recalls a telling exchange from 2023 with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, a Silicon Valley heavyweight: "He bet me any amount of money that hallucinations would go away in three months. I offered him $100,000 and he wouldn't take the bet."
Looking ahead, Marcus warns of a darker consequence once investors realize generative AI's limitations. Companies like OpenAI will inevitably monetize their most valuable asset: user data.
"The people who put in all this money will want their returns, and I think that's leading them toward surveillance," he said, pointing to Orwellian risks for society. 
"They have all this private data, so they can sell that as a consolation prize."
Marcus acknowledges that generative AI will find useful applications in areas where occasional errors don't matter much. 
"They're very useful for auto-complete on steroids: coding, brainstorming, and stuff like that," he said. 
"But nobody's going to make much money off it because they're expensive to run, and everybody has the same product."
arp/st

AI

AI personal shoppers hunt down bargain buys

BY THOMAS URBAIN

  • Shoppers can then set the price they would pay and leave the AI to relentlessly browse the internet for a deal -- alerting the shopper when it finds one, and asking if it should buy using Google's payment platform. 
  • Internet giants are diving deeper into e-commerce with digital aides that know shoppers' likes, let them virtually try clothes on, hunt for deals and even place orders.
  • Shoppers can then set the price they would pay and leave the AI to relentlessly browse the internet for a deal -- alerting the shopper when it finds one, and asking if it should buy using Google's payment platform. 
Internet giants are diving deeper into e-commerce with digital aides that know shoppers' likes, let them virtually try clothes on, hunt for deals and even place orders.
The rise of virtual personal shoppers springs from generative artificial intelligence (AI) being put to work in "agents" specializing in specific tasks and given autonomy to complete them independently.
"This is basically the next evolution of shopping experiences," said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. 
Google last week unveiled shopping features built into a new "AI Mode".
It can take a person's own photo and meld it with that of a skirt, shirt or other piece of clothing spotted online, showing how it will look on them.
The AI adjusts the clothing size to fit, accounting for how fabrics drape, according to Google head of advertising and commerce Vidhya Srinivasan.
Shoppers can then set the price they would pay and leave the AI to relentlessly browse the internet for a deal -- alerting the shopper when it finds one, and asking if it should buy using Google's payment platform. 
"They're taking on Amazon a little bit," Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart said of Google.
The tool is also a way to make money from AI by increasing online traffic and opportunities to show ads, Greengart added.
The Silicon Valley tech titan did not respond to a query regarding whether it is sharing in revenue from shopping transactions.

Bartering bots?

OpenAI added a shopping feature to ChatGPT earlier this year, enabling the chatbot to respond to requests with product suggestions, consumer reviews and links to merchant websites.
Perplexity AI late last year began letting subscribers pay for online purchases without leaving its app.
Amazon in April added a "Buy for Me" mode to its Rufus digital assistant, allowing users to command it to make purchases at retailer websites off Amazon's platform.
Walmart head of technology Hari Vasudev recently spoke about adding an AI agent to the retail behemoth's online shopping portal, while also working with partners to make sure their digital agents keep Walmart products in mind.
Global payment networks Visa and Mastercard in April each said their technical systems were modernized to allow payment transactions by digital agents.
"As AI agents start to take over the bulk of product discovery and the decision-making process, retailers must consider how to optimize for this new layer of AI shoppers," said Elise Watson of Clarkston Consulting.
Retailers are likely to be left groping in the dark when it comes to what makes a product attractive to AI agents, according to Watson.

Knowing the customer

Analyst Zino does not expect AI shoppers to cause an e-commerce industry upheaval, but he does see the technology benefitting Google and Meta.
Not only do the Internet rivals have massive amounts of data about their users, but they are also among frontrunners in the AI race.
"They probably have more information on the consumer than anyone else out there," Zino said of Google and Meta.
Tech company access to data about users hits the hot-button issue of online privacy and who should control personal information.
Google plans to refine consumer profiles based on what people search for and promises that shoppers will need to authorize access to additional information such as email or app use.
Trusting a chatbot with one's buying decisions may spook some people, and while the technology might be in place the legal and ethical framework for it is not.
"The agent economy is here," said PSE Consulting managing director Chris Jones.
"The next phase of e-commerce will depend on whether we can trust machines to buy on our behalf."
tu/gc/st

internet

Meta AI bot used a billion times monthly: Mark Zuckerberg

  • "A billion people are using Meta AI across our apps now, so we made a new standalone Meta AI app for you to check out," Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted on Instagram at the time.
  • Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg touted the tech firm's generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) assistant on Wednesday, telling shareholders it is used by a billion people each month across its platforms.
  • "A billion people are using Meta AI across our apps now, so we made a new standalone Meta AI app for you to check out," Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted on Instagram at the time.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg touted the tech firm's generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) assistant on Wednesday, telling shareholders it is used by a billion people each month across its platforms.
Zuckerberg noted the milestone anew at Meta's annual gathering of shareholders and as the social media behemoth vies with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and others to be a leader in Gen AI.
It was not clear how much Meta AI use involved people seeking out the chatbot versus passive users of Meta AI, as it is built into features in its family of apps.
Since Google debuted AI Overviews in search results a year ago, it has grown to more than 1.5 billion users, according to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.
"That means Google Search is bringing Gen AI to more people than any other product in the world," Pichai said.
Google's AI Overviews are automatically provided summaries of search results that appear instead of the previous practice of simply showing pages of blue links to revelant websites. 
Pichai said last week that Google's dedicated Gemini AI app has more than 400 million monthly users.
Tech rivals are rapidly releasing new AI products despite ongoing challenges with preventing misinformation and establishing clear business models, and little sense of how the tech will affect society.
Meta unveiled its first standalone AI assistant app on April 29, giving users a direct path to its Gen AI models.
"A billion people are using Meta AI across our apps now, so we made a new standalone Meta AI app for you to check out," Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted on Instagram at the time.
Zuckerberg said the app "is designed to be your personal AI" and would be primarily accessed through voice conversations with the interactions personalized to the individual user.
Use of Meta AI is growing fastest on WhatsApp, according to chief financial officer Susan Li.
"Our focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI," Zuckerberg said when Meta announced quarterly earnings at the end of April.
gc-juj/sla

technology

Nvidia earnings beat expectations despite US export controls

BY GLENN CHAPMAN

  • The new requirements resulted in Nvidia incurring a charge of $4.5 billion in the quarter, associated with H20 excess inventory and purchase obligations "as demand for H20 diminished," the chip-maker said in an earnings report.
  • Nvidia on Wednesday reported earnings that topped market expectations, with a $4.5 billion hit from US export controls being less than the Silicon Valley chip juggernaut had feared.
  • The new requirements resulted in Nvidia incurring a charge of $4.5 billion in the quarter, associated with H20 excess inventory and purchase obligations "as demand for H20 diminished," the chip-maker said in an earnings report.
Nvidia on Wednesday reported earnings that topped market expectations, with a $4.5 billion hit from US export controls being less than the Silicon Valley chip juggernaut had feared.
However, Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress warned in an earnings call that export constraints are expected to cost the AI chip titan about $8 billion in the current quarter.
Nvidia in April notified regulators that it expected a $5.5 billion hit in the recently-ended quarter due to a new US licensing requirement on the primary chip it can legally sell in China.
US officials had told Nvidia it must obtain licenses to export its H20 chips to China because of concerns they may be used in supercomputers there, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The new licensing rule applies to Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, with bandwidth similar to that of the H20.
"China is one of the world's largest AI markets and a springboard to global success," Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said in an earnings call.
"The platform that wins China is positioned to lead globally; however, the $50 billion China market is effectively closed to us."
Nvidia cannot dial back the capabilities of its H20 chips any further to comply with US export constraints, winding up forced to write off billions of dollars on inventory that can't be sold or repurposed, according to Huang.
"The US has based its policy on the assumption that China cannot make AI chips," Huang said.
"That assumption was always questionable, and now it's clearly wrong."
China's AI is moving on without Nvidia technology, while that country's chip-makers innovate products and ramp up operations, according to Huang.
"The question is not whether China will have AI; it already does," he said.
"The question is whether one of the world's largest markets will run on American platforms."
The new requirements resulted in Nvidia incurring a charge of $4.5 billion in the quarter, associated with H20 excess inventory and purchase obligations "as demand for H20 diminished," the chip-maker said in an earnings report.
US export constraints stopped Nvidia from bringing in an additional $2.5 billion worth of H20 revenue in the quarter, according to the company.
Nvidia said it made a profit of $18.8 billion on revenue of $44.1 billion, causing shares to rise more than four percent in after-market trades.

Hot demand

Huang said demand for the company's AI-powering technology remains strong, and a new Blackwell NVL72 AI supercomputer referred to as a "thinking machine" is in full-scale production.
"Countries around the world are recognizing AI as essential infrastructure -- just like electricity and the internet -- and Nvidia stands at the center of this profound transformation," Huang said.
Nvidia high-end GPUs are in hot demand from tech giants building data centers to power artificial intelligence.
The company said its data center division revenue in the quarter was $39.1 billion, up 10 percent from the same period last year.
The market had expected more from the unit, however.
"Nvidia beat expectations again but in a market where maintaining this dominance is becoming more challenging," said Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne.
"The China export restrictions underscore the immediate pressure from geopolitical headwinds but Nvidia also faces mounting competitive pressure as rivals like AMD gain ground," said Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne.
Revenue in Nvidia's gaming chip business hit a record high of $3.8 billion, leaping 48 percent and eclipsing forecasts.
The AI boom has propelled Nvidia's stock price, which has regained much of the ground lost in a steep sell-off in January triggered by the sudden success of DeepSeek.
China's DeepSeek unveiled its R1 chatbot, which it claims can match the capacity of top US AI products for a fraction of their costs.
"The broader concern is that trade tensions and potential tariff impacts on data center expansion could create headwinds for AI chip demand in upcoming quarters," analyst Bourne said of Nvidia.
gc/mlm

internet

In new battle, Rubio to refuse US visas over online 'censorship'

BY SHAUN TANDON

  • Rubio said the United States will begin to restrict visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for "censorship of protected expression in the United States."
  • The United States said Wednesday it will refuse visas to foreign officials who block Americans' social media posts, as President Donald Trump's administration wages a new battle over free expression.
  • Rubio said the United States will begin to restrict visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for "censorship of protected expression in the United States."
The United States said Wednesday it will refuse visas to foreign officials who block Americans' social media posts, as President Donald Trump's administration wages a new battle over free expression.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio -- who has controversially rescinded visas for activists who criticize Israel and ramped up screening of foreign students' social media -- said he was acting against "flagrant censorship actions" overseas against US tech firms.
He did not publicly name any official who would be denied a visa under the new policy. But last week he suggested to lawmakers that he was planning sanctions against a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who has battled X owner and Trump ally Elon Musk over alleged disinformation.
The administration of Trump -- himself a prolific and often confrontational social media user -- has also sharply criticized Germany and Britain for restricting what the US allies' governments term hate and abusive speech.
Rubio said the United States will begin to restrict visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for "censorship of protected expression in the United States."
"It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on US citizens or US residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on US soil," Rubio said in a statement.
"It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States," he said.
"We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech."
Rubio has said he has revoked the US visas for thousands of people, largely students who have protested against Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Among the most visible cases has been Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who had written an opinion piece in a student newspaper criticizing the school's position on Gaza.
Masked agents arrested her on a Massachusetts street and took her away. A judge recently ordered her release.
Rubio on Tuesday suspended further appointments for students seeking visas to the United States until the State Department drafts new guidelines on enhanced screening of applicants' social media postings.

Anger at Brazilian judge

Social media regulation has become a rallying cry for many on the American right since Trump was suspended from Twitter, now X, and Facebook on safety grounds after his supporters attacked the US Capitol following his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
In Brazil, where supporters of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro similarly stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in 2023 after Bolsonaro's election loss, Moraes has said he is seeking to protect democracy through his judicial power.
Moraes temporarily blocked X across Brazil until it complied with his order to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation.
More recently he ordered a suspension of Rumble, a video-sharing platform popular with conservative and far-right voices over its refusal to block the account of a user based in the United States who was wanted for spreading disinformation.
Germany -- whose foreign minister met Wednesday with Rubio -- restricts online hate speech and misinformation, saying it has learned a lesson from its Nazi past and will ostracize extremists.
US Vice President JD Vance in a speech in Munich in February denounced Germany for shunning the far-right, noting the popularity of its anti-immigrant message.
In an essay Tuesday, a State Department official pointed to social media regulations and said Europeans were following a "similar strategy of censorship, demonization and bureaucratic weaponization" as witnessed against Trump and his supporters.
"What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy," wrote Samuel Samson, a senior advisor for the State Department's human rights office.
"Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people."
sct/mlm

AI

Telegram to get $300 mn in partnership with Musk's xAI

  • In exchange for implementing Grok across its platforms, Telegram will receive $300 million in cash and equity, plus 50 percent of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram, Telegram's chief Pavel Durov announced on X, the former Twitter.
  • Telegram established a partnership with Elon Musk's xAI to provide the Grok generative artificial intelligence program on the messaging service for one year, Telegram's CEO announced Wednesday.
  • In exchange for implementing Grok across its platforms, Telegram will receive $300 million in cash and equity, plus 50 percent of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram, Telegram's chief Pavel Durov announced on X, the former Twitter.
Telegram established a partnership with Elon Musk's xAI to provide the Grok generative artificial intelligence program on the messaging service for one year, Telegram's CEO announced Wednesday.
In exchange for implementing Grok across its platforms, Telegram will receive $300 million in cash and equity, plus 50 percent of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram, Telegram's chief Pavel Durov announced on X, the former Twitter.
Grok will be accessible on Telegram this summer, Durov said.
The terms of the deal may appear unbalanced, but the transaction allows xAI, which in late March acquired Musk's X platform, to have access to Telegram's customers, which Durov estimated has more than one billion users.
Generative AI businesses have been aiming to grow their user base in order to recover revenues after huge investments in the state-of-the-art technology.
xAI in February released the latest version of its chatbot, Grok 3, which the billionaire hopes will find traction in a highly competitive sector contested by the likes of ChatGPT and China's DeepSeek.
Grok 3 is also going up against OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT -- pitting Musk against collaborator-turned-arch rival Sam Altman.
Grok is accessible on the X platform, but with limitations on non-paying users. The premium service costs $40 per month, or $395 per year.
Durov has faced judicial action in France after clashing with French authorities over illegal content on his popular messaging service, including claims that France interfered in Romanian elections.
Earlier this month, French authorities denied a request for Durov, who holds French and Russian passports, to travel to the United States for talks with investment funds.
tu-jmb/st

cybercrime

Czech FM summons Chinese ambassador over cyberattack

BY JAN FLEMR

  • "I summoned the Chinese ambassador to make clear that such hostile actions have serious consequences for our bilateral relations," Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on X. The foreign ministry of the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, said in a statement the attack started in 2022 and targeted "one of the unclassified networks" of the ministry.
  • The Czech Republic on Wednesday summoned China's ambassador over a cyberattack targeting Prague's foreign ministry as the EU and Washington condemned the attack and NATO warned of a growing threat.
  • "I summoned the Chinese ambassador to make clear that such hostile actions have serious consequences for our bilateral relations," Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on X. The foreign ministry of the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, said in a statement the attack started in 2022 and targeted "one of the unclassified networks" of the ministry.
The Czech Republic on Wednesday summoned China's ambassador over a cyberattack targeting Prague's foreign ministry as the EU and Washington condemned the attack and NATO warned of a growing threat.
The Czech foreign ministry said an extensive investigation of the attack "led to a high degree of certainty about the responsible actor", naming it as China-linked group APT31.
"I summoned the Chinese ambassador to make clear that such hostile actions have serious consequences for our bilateral relations," Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on X.
The foreign ministry of the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, said in a statement the attack started in 2022 and targeted "one of the unclassified networks" of the ministry.
"The malicious activity... was perpetrated by the cyberespionage actor APT31 that is publicly associated with the (Chinese) Ministry of State Security," the ministry added, citing its investigation.
"We call on the People's Republic of China to... refrain from such attacks and to take all appropriate measures to address this situation," said the ministry.
Lipavsky said that "we detected the attackers during the intrusion".
The Chinese embassy in Prague slammed "the unfounded accusations against the Chinese side".
"China absolutely rejects the Czech Republic's accusations and smears against China under the pretext of cybersecurity without any evidence," it added.

'Growing pattern'

The Czech Security Information Office (BIS) singled out China as a threat to security in its 2024 annual report.
"The Chinese embassy logically focuses on gaining information about the Czech political scene," the BIS said.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas condemned the cyberattack in a statement. 
"In 2021, we urged Chinese authorities to take action against malicious cyber activities undertaken from their territory," Kallas said, adding EU members have nonetheless witnessed attacks from China since then.
NATO slammed the attack, saying it observed "with increasing concern the growing pattern of malicious cyber activities stemming from the People's Republic of China".
Washington also condemned the attack and called on China to "behave responsibly in cyberspace, adhering to its international commitments".

Taiwan ties

Prague has recently angered Beijing by fostering close ties with Taiwan as high-profile Czech delegations, including the parliament speakers, have visited the island while Taiwanese officials came to Prague several times.
China is trying to keep Taipei isolated on the world stage and prevents any sign of international legitimacy for the island.
It sees such visits as an infringement of the one-China policy which Prague officially pursues, just like the rest of the EU.
In May 2024, Lipavsky summoned the Russian ambassador over repeated cyberattacks targeting several European countries, including the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland.
They blamed the attacks on the Russian group APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, which has ties to Russia's GRU military intelligence service.
The BIS then said that Russia was a "permanent security threat" for the Czech Republic, which provides substantial humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine battling a Russian invasion since 2022.
It added the Chinese threat was also growing in the context of the Ukraine war as "the North Korea-China axis keeps cultivating relations with Russia that give it a boost in the current conflict".
bur-frj/jza/giv

Italy

Second suspect in New York bitcoin kidnapping surrenders to police

  • New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said on Fox 5 that the second suspect in the case, William Duplessie, was also taken into custody Tuesday morning.
  • A second suspect in the alleged kidnapping and torture of an Italian bitcoin investor in New York surrendered on Tuesday, authorities said.
  • New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said on Fox 5 that the second suspect in the case, William Duplessie, was also taken into custody Tuesday morning.
A second suspect in the alleged kidnapping and torture of an Italian bitcoin investor in New York surrendered on Tuesday, authorities said.
Police on Friday arrested John Woeltz, 37, of Kentucky, on suspicion of brazenly kidnapping and torturing an Italian cryptocurrency entrepreneur for weeks in a luxury Manhattan townhouse in order to extort his bitcoin password.
New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said on Fox 5 that the second suspect in the case, William Duplessie, was also taken into custody Tuesday morning.
"We do have someone that we were looking for, Mr Duplessie, in custody. As of this morning, 7:45, he turned himself in at our 13th precinct," Tisch said.
"We know he is going to be charged with Mr Woeltz with kidnapping and false imprisonment of an associate in Soho," said. 
Duplessie, who according to US media is 33 and comes from Miami, Florida, surrendered to police clad in black pants and a white shirt, photos from the scene showed.
The name of the alleged victim has not been published, but US media reports identified him as Italian bitcoin entrepreneur Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan. 
According to reports, Carturan arrived in New York from Italy on May 6 and went Woeltz's home.
There, Woeltz, described by the New York Post as "Kentucky's crypto boss," and Duplessie confiscated the victim's electronic devices and passport, and demanded access to his bitcoin accounts, according to police.
After the victim refused, the two men tortured him for two weeks, tying his wrists, hitting him with a rifle, pointing a gun at his face, threatening to throw him off the roof of the five-story building and promising to kill his family members, media reports said.
Several details of the story remain murky, including exactly why the victim had agreed to come to the townhouse in an upscale SoHo neighborhood, and whether he revealed anything of use to the kidnappers.
gl/arb/md/jgc

police

France foils new crypto kidnapping plot, arrests over 20: source

BY SABINE COLPART

  • It came after a series of attempted abductions targeting cryptocurrency traders and their families, prompting one prominent crypto entrepreneur to call on authorities to "stop the Mexicanisation of France".
  • France has foiled the latest in a spate of kidnapping plots targeting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and detained more than 20 people over that attempt and another against crypto boss Pierre Noizat's family, a police source said Tuesday.
  • It came after a series of attempted abductions targeting cryptocurrency traders and their families, prompting one prominent crypto entrepreneur to call on authorities to "stop the Mexicanisation of France".
France has foiled the latest in a spate of kidnapping plots targeting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and detained more than 20 people over that attempt and another against crypto boss Pierre Noizat's family, a police source said Tuesday.
The new kidnapping attempt, near the western city of Nantes, was foiled on Monday before it was carried out, the police source said, without providing further details.
It came after a series of attempted abductions targeting cryptocurrency traders and their families, prompting one prominent crypto entrepreneur to call on authorities to "stop the Mexicanisation of France".
Authorities on Monday and Tuesday arrested 24 people as part of a probe into the Nantes abduction attempt, as well as an investigation into the attempted kidnapping in mid-May of Noizat's pregnant daughter and young grandson.
Noizat is the CEO and co-founder of Paymium, a French cryptocurrency exchange platform.
"The entire commando unit was arrested," said the police source, referring to the attack on Noizat's family.
The public prosecutor's office said it would issue a statement at a later date, probably on Friday.
In an interview with BFM television, Noizat has praised his "heroic" son-in-law and a neighbour armed with a fire extinguisher, who thwarted the attempted kidnapping in broad daylight in the heart of Paris.
The kidnappings have raised concerns about the security of wealthy crypto tycoons, who have notched up immense fortunes from the booming business.

'Rise in kidnappings'

French authorities have also been investigating the May 1 abduction of a crypto-millionaire's father who was later rescued by police.
The victim, for whom a ransom of several million euros was demanded, was freed after being held for more than two days, in a raid on a house outside Paris.
Six people have been charged in connection with that kidnapping.
Five of them -- aged 18 to 26 -- were being prosecuted for organised extortion, kidnapping and false imprisonment involving torture or acts of barbarity by an organised gang, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in early May.
On January 21, kidnappers seized French crypto boss David Balland and his partner. Balland co-founded the crypto firm Ledger, valued at the time at more than $1 billion.
Balland's finger was cut off by his kidnappers, who had demanded a hefty ransom. He was freed the next day, and his girlfriend was found tied up in the boot of a car outside Paris.
At least nine suspects have been charged in that case, including the alleged mastermind.
Ledger co-founder Eric Larcheveque, who received a ransom demand when Balland was kidnapped, urged authorities to "stop the Mexicanisation of France".
Mexico has been plagued by drug-linked murders and disappearances for decades.
"For several months now, there has been a rise in sordid kidnappings and attempted kidnappings. In broad daylight. In the heart of Paris," Larcheveque said on X.
"Today, to succeed in France, whether in crypto-assets or elsewhere, is to put a target on your back."
In mid-May, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau held an emergency meeting with crypto currency leaders, with the ministry announcing plans to bolster their security.
sc-mca-ekf-as/jhb

regulation

EU investigates four porn platforms over risks to children

BY RAZIYE AKKOC

  • Fearful over children's access to adult content, the commission said it would work with national authorities to make sure smaller porn platforms apply the same rules.
  • The EU launched an investigation on Tuesday into four pornographic platforms over suspicions they are failing to stop children accessing adult content in breach of the bloc's strict digital content law.
  • Fearful over children's access to adult content, the commission said it would work with national authorities to make sure smaller porn platforms apply the same rules.
The EU launched an investigation on Tuesday into four pornographic platforms over suspicions they are failing to stop children accessing adult content in breach of the bloc's strict digital content law.
The European Commission said its investigations into Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos "focus on the risks for the protection of minors, including those linked to the absence of effective age verification measures".
The commission, the European Union's tech regulator, accused the platforms of not having "appropriate" age verification tools to prevent children from being exposed to porn.
An AFP correspondent had only to click a button on Tuesday stating they were older than 18, without any further checks, to gain access to each of the four platforms.
The commission found that the four platforms did not have "appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors".
They also did not have measures in place to prevent negative effects on children as well as users' mental and physical well-being, the commission said.
"Online platforms must ensure that the rights and best interests of children are central to the design and functioning of their services," it added.
Pornhub's parent company Aylo said it was "fully committed to ensuring the safety of minors online", adding that "We will always comply with the law."
The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) forces the world's biggest tech companies to do more to protect European users online and has strict rules to safeguard children and ensure their privacy and security.
Under the law, "very large" online platforms with at least 45 million monthly active users in the EU have even greater obligations, and they are regulated by the commission rather than national authorities.
Fearful over children's access to adult content, the commission said it would work with national authorities to make sure smaller porn platforms apply the same rules.
"Our priority is to protect minors and allow them to navigate safely online. Together with the digital service coordinators in the member states we are determined to tackle any potential harm to young online users," EU digital tsar Henna Virkkunen said.

Protecting children

The EU also said it would remove Stripchat from the list of "very large" platforms since it now had fewer than 45 million monthly active users on average, with its probe to focus on the period when it fell under its purview.
Brussels noted that the launch of formal proceedings did not prejudge the investigation's outcome, and that there was no deadline for its completion.
Violations, if proven, risk fines of up to six percent of a firm's global turnover. Platforms found guilty of serious and repeated violations can also be banned from operating in Europe.
The EU in parallel has invited the public including parents to help prepare guidelines for the protection of children online, and it is developing an age-verification app.
The DSA, which has a wide remit, sits within the EU's powerful legal weaponry to regulate Big Tech.
Brussels has opened a wave of probes under the DSA since 2023 including into Meta's Facebook and Instagram as well as TikTok and Elon Musk's X social media platform.
raz/js

vote

Telegram's Durov repeats claim France interfered in Romania vote

  • But it "refuted vigorously" his allegations about attempted Romanian election interference.
  • The co-founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, on Tuesday repeated his allegation that French intelligence pressured him to interfere in this month's Romanian presidential election.
  • But it "refuted vigorously" his allegations about attempted Romanian election interference.
The co-founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, on Tuesday repeated his allegation that French intelligence pressured him to interfere in this month's Romanian presidential election.
Durov's renewed claim during the Oslo Freedom Forum contradicted a denial by the DGSE, the foreign intelligence service of France, where he faces charges related to criminal activity on the Telegram platform.
"I was indeed asked by the head of French intelligence, Nicolas Lerner", to turn off conservative Romanian Telegram channels ahead of the election, Durov said in an appearance by video after French judicial authorities denied his request to travel to Norway.
"It's very important to be very transparent about what kinds of request we receive," added Durov, who did not provide fresh evidence for his claim.
The 40-year-old, who holds French and Russian passports, was detained in Paris in August 2024 and is under investigation over illegal content on his popular messaging service.
The Romanian election, re-run due to alleged Russian interference after a first-round vote put a far-right candidate ahead, ultimately saw pro-European centrist Nicusor Dan defeat nationalist George Simion.
Romania's constitutional court on Thursday denied Simion's challenge to the results, which he based in part on claims of French and Moldovan interference. The court called his allegations "completely false and unfounded".
The DGSE last week said it has contacted Durov in the past "to firmly remind him of (Telegram's) responsibilities... concerning prevention of terrorist and child pornography threats".
But it "refuted vigorously" his allegations about attempted Romanian election interference.
Durov also said Tuesday that Telegram "received a demand from the French police to shut down a public channel on Telegram which was organised by far-left protesters and demonstrators".
The channel "seemed completely legitimate, and we refused to comply, despite the obvious personal risks I'm taking", he added.
Durov was allowed in March to travel to Dubai, where his company is based, but French judicial authorities have more recently stopped him travelling to the United States to meet investors or to Norway for the Freedom Forum, organised by the Human Rights Foundation, a non-profit organisation.
He called the investigation "frustratingly slow", adding that Telegram was "held at higher standards than most other platforms" -- with the likes of Facebook or Snapchat "protected by this big American government".
Since his arrest, Durov had appeared to bow to Paris's demands for stronger efforts to ensure illegal content -- such as child abuse and drug trading -- was not on Telegram.
tgb/jhb

rugby

NZ teenager dies after taking part in rugby-inspired craze

  • Grantham said the teenager had been taking part in an "impromptu game among friends", rather than a planned event. 
  • A teenager has died in New Zealand after taking part in a rugby-inspired craze that sees participants sprint into each other head-on with no protective gear, police said Tuesday. 
  • Grantham said the teenager had been taking part in an "impromptu game among friends", rather than a planned event. 
A teenager has died in New Zealand after taking part in a rugby-inspired craze that sees participants sprint into each other head-on with no protective gear, police said Tuesday. 
Fuelled by social media and sometimes playing out in front of large crowds, the "run-it-straight" challenge has swept across New Zealand and Australia.
Organised run-it-straight competitions offer thousands of dollars in prize money but the trend has ignited fears of concussion and other serious injuries. 
A 19-year-old died in New Zealand's North Island after playing the game with friends over the weekend, police said in a statement.
"The man suffered a serious head injury when tackled and was taken to hospital by friends," police inspector Ross Grantham said. 
"Tragically, he passed away in hospital on Monday night. 
"We would urge anyone thinking about taking part in a game or event like this to consider the significant safety and injury risks."
Grantham said the teenager had been taking part in an "impromptu game among friends", rather than a planned event. 
"The tackle game played by the group of friends was based on a social media-driven trend where participants compete in full-contact collisions without protective gear."

'Horrendous'

Organised run-it-straight events have drawn interest from ex-professional rugby players.
Former Leicester, Montpellier and Fiji winger Nemani Nadolo was a celebrity participant at one event earlier this year.
Experts have likened the craze to a combat sport, warning that participants face serious concussion risks.
One organised competition based in Australia described it as the "world's fiercest, new collision sport". 
It involved one runner and one tackler charging into each other from 20 metres (65 feet) apart, the competition said.  
A run-it-straight event in New Zealand's largest city Auckland was briefly halted last week when a participant started convulsing on the ground, local media reported.
Brain injury charity Headway has condemned the competitions.
"There's some horrendous and really distressing videos," chief executive Stacey Mowbray told national broadcaster Radio New Zealand.
"Going into seizure, having obvious brain injury, that's what we can see."
Rugby and other sports are grappling with an emerging body of evidence linking head contact with degenerative brain disease.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is known to cause violent moods, dementia and depression.
Injuries from head blows have also been linked to other disorders such as motor neurone disease, early onset dementia, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
sft/lec/pst

politics

After brief X outage, Musk says refocusing on businesses

BY ASAD HASHIM

  • After the X outage on Saturday, Musk suggested that he may have been away from his companies for too long.
  • Social media platform X was hit by a two-hour outage Saturday, prompting owner Elon Musk to say he needs to spend more time focusing on his companies.
  • After the X outage on Saturday, Musk suggested that he may have been away from his companies for too long.
Social media platform X was hit by a two-hour outage Saturday, prompting owner Elon Musk to say he needs to spend more time focusing on his companies.
His statement echoed comments earlier this month suggesting he would reduce his role in US President Donald Trump's administration.
The world's richest person has an extraordinarily full plate as owner/CEO of X, xAI (developer of the AI-powered chatbot Grok), electric-car maker Tesla and rocket builder SpaceX -- not to mention his recent polarizing efforts to help Trump slash the size of the US federal government.
As backlash to those cuts grew and Tesla share prices slipped, Musk began drawing away from the government role, confirming last week that he was down to one or two days a week at the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency."
Still, the man who contributed more than $235 million to Trump's election campaign remains a close advisor to the US president, attending an Oval Office meeting with the South African president on Wednesday.
After the X outage on Saturday, Musk suggested that he may have been away from his companies for too long.
"As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made," he said.
"The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not."
X had largely returned to normal service by 11:00 am US Eastern time (1500 GMT) Saturday. 
The SITE Intelligence Group reported that hacker-activist group DieNet had claimed responsibility for the outage.
DieNet, it said, had called the attack a "test" of its so-called Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) capabilities -- flooding the system with online traffic to make it inaccessible to legitimate users. 
AFP was unable to independently verify DieNet's claim of responsibility, and X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the outage.

'Super focused'

"Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms," Musk posted on X. 
"I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out." 
SpaceX announced Friday that it plans to attempt a new launch of its mega-rocket Starship next week. Still under development, Starship exploded in flight during two previous launches.
Starship is key to Musk's long-term plans to colonize Mars, and SpaceX has been betting on the launch of numerous Starship prototypes -- despite the explosive failures -- to quickly identify and address problems.
The South African-born billionaire has for weeks been signaling that he would reduce his political role to refocus on his businesses.
Early this month, Musk acknowledged that his ambitious effort to slash US federal spending did not fully reach its goals, despite tens of thousands of job cuts and drastic budget reductions.
This week, he said he would pull back from spending his fortune on politics, although he did not rule out backing future causes "if I see a reason."
Of his recent political donations, he said: "I did what needed to be done." 
bdx-aha/nl

politics

After brief X outage, Musk says refocusing on businesses

  • On Saturday, following the X outage, he suggested that he might have been away too long.
  • Social media platform X was hit by a two-hour outage Saturday, prompting owner Elon Musk to say he needs to spend more time focusing on his companies.
  • On Saturday, following the X outage, he suggested that he might have been away too long.
Social media platform X was hit by a two-hour outage Saturday, prompting owner Elon Musk to say he needs to spend more time focusing on his companies.
The billionaire has an extraordinarily full plate as owner/CEO of X, xAI (developer of the AI-powered chatbot Grok), electric-car maker Tesla and rocket builder SpaceX -- not to mention his recent polarizing efforts to help Donald Trump slash thousands of US government jobs.
As a backlash to those job cuts grew and Tesla share prices slipped, Musk began drawing away from the government role and returning to his original work. 
On Saturday, following the X outage, he suggested that he might have been away too long.
"As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made," he said.
"Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms," the South African-born businessman posted on X.
"I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out." 
Of the X outage, he said: "The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not."
X had largely returned to normal service by 11:00 am Saturday (1500 GMT). 
Contacted by AFP for comment, the company did not immediately reply.
SpaceX announced Friday that it plans to attempt a new launch of its mega-rocket Starship next week. Still under development, Starship exploded in flight during two previous launches.
Musk acknowledged early this month that his ambitious effort to slash US federal spending, led by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), did not fully reach its goals despite tens of thousands of job cuts and drastic budget reductions.
bdx/eml/bbk/nl

AI

Anthropic's Claude AI gets smarter -- and mischievious

BY JULIE JAMMOT

  • Anthropic says in the report that it implemented “safeguards” and “additional monitoring of harmful behavior” in the version that it released.
  • Anthropic launched its latest Claude generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models on Thursday, claiming to set new standards for reasoning but also building in safeguards against rogue behavior.
  • Anthropic says in the report that it implemented “safeguards” and “additional monitoring of harmful behavior” in the version that it released.
Anthropic launched its latest Claude generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models on Thursday, claiming to set new standards for reasoning but also building in safeguards against rogue behavior.
"Claude Opus 4 is our most powerful model yet, and the best coding model in the world," Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said at the San Francisco-based startup's first developers conference.
Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 were described as "hybrid" models capable of quick responses as well as more thoughtful results that take a little time to get things right.
Founded by former OpenAI engineers, Anthropic is currently concentrating its efforts on cutting-edge models that are particularly adept at generating lines of code, and used mainly by businesses and professionals.
Unlike ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, its Claude chatbot does not generate images, and is very limited when it comes to multimodal functions (understanding and generating different media, such as sound or video). 
The start-up, with Amazon as a significant backer, is valued at over $61 billion, and promotes the responsible and competitive development of generative AI.
Under that dual mantra, Anthropic's commitment to transparency is rare in Silicon Valley.
On Thursday, the company published a report on the security tests carried out on Claude 4, including the conclusions of an independent research institute, which had recommended against deploying an early version of the model.
"We found instances of the model attempting to write self-propagating worms, fabricating legal documentation, and leaving hidden notes to future instances of itself all in an effort to undermine its developers’ intentions,” The Apollo Research team warned.
“All these attempts would likely not have been effective in practice,” it added. 
Anthropic says in the report that it implemented “safeguards” and “additional monitoring of harmful behavior” in the version that it released.
Still, Claude Opus 4 “sometimes takes extremely harmful actions like attempting to (…) blackmail people it believes are trying to shut it down.”
It also has the potential to report law-breaking users to the police.
The scheming misbehavior was rare and took effort to trigger, but was more common than in earlier versions of Claude, according to the company.

AI future

Since OpenAI's ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, various GenAI models have been vying for supremacy.
Anthropic's gathering came on the heels of annual developer conferences from Google and Microsoft at which the tech giants showcased their latest AI innovations.
GenAI tools answer questions or tend to tasks based on simple, conversational prompts.
The current craze in Silicon Valley is on AI "agents" tailored to independently handle computer or online tasks.
"We're going to focus on agents beyond the hype," said Anthropic chief product officer Mike Krieger, a recent hire and co-founder of Instagram.
Anthropic is no stranger to hyping up the prospects of AI.
In 2023, Dario Amodei predicted that so-called “artificial general intelligence” (capable of human-level thinking) would arrive within 2-3 years. At the end of 2024, he extended this horizon to 2026 or 2027.
He also estimated that AI will soon be writing most, if not all, computer code, making possible one-person tech startups with digital agents cranking out the software.
At Anthropic, already "something like over 70 percent of (suggested modifications in the code) are now Claude Code written", Krieger told journalists.
"In the long term, we're all going to have to contend with the idea that everything humans do is eventually going to be done by AI systems," Amodei added.
"This will happen."
GenAI fulfilling its potential could lead to strong economic growth and a “huge amount of inequality,” with it up to society how evenly wealth is distributed, Amodei reasoned.
juj/gc/arp/sla

EU

Trump fires new 50% tariff threat at EU, targets smartphones

BY DANIEL AVIS AND DANNY KEMP

  • "Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50 percent Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025."
  • US President Donald Trump rekindled his trade war with the European Union on Friday by threatening 50 percent tariffs, as Brussels reacted with a call for "respect."
  • "Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50 percent Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025."
US President Donald Trump rekindled his trade war with the European Union on Friday by threatening 50 percent tariffs, as Brussels reacted with a call for "respect."
Trump also unleashed a broadside against smartphone makers including US tech giant Apple, threatening them with new duties of 25 percent if they do not move production to the United States.
Stock markets fell as the Republican's comments fueled fears of global economic disruption, after a relative lull in recent days after Trump reached deals with China and Britain.
Trump first raised the issue of EU tariffs in an early morning post on his Truth Social network. 
"Our discussions with them are going nowhere!" Trump said. "Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50 percent Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025."
He doubled down later in the day, telling reporters in the Oval Office that there was nothing the 27-nation bloc could do to change his mind.
"I'm not looking for a deal. I mean, we've set the deal. It's at 50 percent," Trump said. "They haven't treated our country properly. They banded together to take advantage of us."
Billionaire property tycoon Trump, 78, also denied that his tariffs would hurt American businesses.
"They’re not hurting, they're helping," he said.
Trump's new tariffs would, if imposed, dramatically raise Washington's current baseline levy of 10 percent, and fuel simmering tensions between the world's biggest economy and its largest trading bloc.
The EU's trade chief said the bloc would work for a trade deal with Washington based on "respect" not "threats."
"The EU's fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both," trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic posted on X, after a previously planned call with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
In a separate message posted Friday that also unnerved markets, Trump blasted Apple boss Tim Cook for failing to move iPhone production to the United States despite repeated requests.
Trump said he had "long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else." 
"If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S."
Trump later stepped up his threats, saying he would hit all smartphones not made in the country.
"It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product, otherwise it wouldn't be fair," Trump told reporters, adding that the new tariffs would come into effect from the end of June.

 Market worries

Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on most of the world on what he called "Liberation Day" on April 2, with a baseline 10 percent plus steeper duties including a 20 percent levy on the EU.
Markets were thrown into turmoil but calmed after he paused the bigger tariffs for 90 days.
Trump has since claimed some early successes in deals struck with Britain and with China, the world's second biggest economy.
But talks with the EU have failed to make much progress, with Brussels recently threatening to hit US goods worth nearly 100 billion euros ($113 billion) with tariffs if it does not lower the duties on European goods.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg Television on Friday the lower 10 percent tariff rate was "contingent on countries or trading blocs coming and negotiating in good faith."
Wall Street's main indexes were all down around one percent two hours into trading, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq at one stage losing 1.5 percent before rallying while Apple shares sank 2.5 percent.
Paris and Frankfurt ended with losses of around 1.5 percent, while London's FTSE 100, which initially rose, also ended in the red.
"The administration had kind of hinted that they were considering imposing reciprocal tariffs on countries that weren't negotiating in good faith," Barclays senior US economist Jonathan Millar told AFP. 
dk-da-bgs/jgc

internet

German court says Meta can use user data to train AI

  • "Meta is pursuing a legitimate end by using the data to train artificial intelligence systems," the court said in a statement.
  • A German court on Friday dismissed an injunction request brought by consumer protection groups to prevent US tech giant Meta from using user data from Facebook and Instagram to train artificial intelligence systems.
  • "Meta is pursuing a legitimate end by using the data to train artificial intelligence systems," the court said in a statement.
A German court on Friday dismissed an injunction request brought by consumer protection groups to prevent US tech giant Meta from using user data from Facebook and Instagram to train artificial intelligence systems.
The higher regional court in Cologne concluded Meta, which owns both social media platforms, had not violated European Union law.
"Meta is pursuing a legitimate end by using the data to train artificial intelligence systems," the court said in a statement.
Feeding user data into AI training systems was allowed "even without the consent of those affected", it added.
Meta has announced plans to begin training AI models with data from Facebook and Instagram from Tuesday.
The court said the balance of interests between the parties was in favour of allowing Meta to process user data to develop AI.
The training of AI systems "cannot be achieved by other equally effective, less intrusive means", the court said.
Among the reasons cited by judges was Facebook's intention to only use publicly available data that could also be found via search.
Meta had also "taken effective measures to significantly mitigate the impact" on users, the court said, including communicating the plans via its mobile apps.
The North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Centre, which brought the case, said it still found the use of user data "highly problematic".
"There are still considerable doubts about the legality," the organisation's chief, Wolfgang Schuldzinski, said in a statement.
The Vienna-based privacy campaign group Noyb said last week it had sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta over the plans to use user data for AI training.
The letter was the first step ahead of a possible injunction request or class-action lawsuit against Meta, the group said.
bur-sea/vbw/jhb

tech

Trump attends memecoin gala as protesters slam 'crypto corruption'

BY ALEX PIGMAN AND DANIEL STUBLEN

  • Protesters gathered outside the golf course despite rainy skies, some carrying signs reading "stop crypto corruption" and "no kings."
  • US President Donald Trump hosted a closed-door dinner for hundreds of top investors in his crypto memecoin Thursday, as sign-holding protesters outside and Democratic opponents decried the event as blatant "corruption."
  • Protesters gathered outside the golf course despite rainy skies, some carrying signs reading "stop crypto corruption" and "no kings."
US President Donald Trump hosted a closed-door dinner for hundreds of top investors in his crypto memecoin Thursday, as sign-holding protesters outside and Democratic opponents decried the event as blatant "corruption."
The unprecedented melding of US presidential power and personal business took place at Trump's golf club outside Washington, where Trump flew by helicopter to meet the 220 biggest purchasers of his $TRUMP memecoin.
The top 25 investors, according to an event website, were to get a private session with Trump beforehand and a White House tour.
Trump launched the memecoin three days before his inauguration in January, quickly increasing his net worth by billions and prompting major, first-of-their-kind ethics questions.
The White House downplayed those concerns Thursday, insisting Trump was attending in his "personal time."
The president posted on his Truth Social platform ahead of the event that "the U.S.A. is DOMINATING in Crypto, Bitcoin, etc." and pledged to "keep it that way."
Photos posted online by attendees to the dinner -- press were not allowed inside -- showed a lectern sporting the presidential seal, apparently for Trump to deliver remarks.
Protesters gathered outside the golf course despite rainy skies, some carrying signs reading "stop crypto corruption" and "no kings."
Earlier in the day, Democratic senators held a press conference to denounce the event and call for disclosure of who would be attending.
Calling the dinner "an orgy of corruption," Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed Trump for "using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto."
Data analytics firm Inca Digital has confirmed that many transactions occurred through international exchanges unavailable in the United States, suggesting foreign buyers.

'Slap in the face'

A site listing the "official winners" of $TRUMP coin holders included only usernames and digital wallet addresses, with the number-one spot held by "Sun."
Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun has touted a $20 million commitment to the memecoin as part of his $93 million total investment in Trump-linked crypto ventures.
Sun, founder of top 10 cryptocurrency TRON, was under investigation by US authorities for market manipulation, but regulators, now controlled by Trump appointees, agreed in February to a 60-day pause to seek a settlement.
"Apparently, I'm at the VIP lounge waiting for the President to come with everybody," a tuxedo-clad Sun said in a video posted on X Thursday evening. 
Trump departed the golf course just over an hour after his arrival.
Justin Unga of advocacy group End Citizens United described the crypto dinner as a blatant example of Trump profiting from the presidency while roiling the US economy.
"Some say this is a back door to corruption," Unga said.
"I would argue it's the front door with valet parking, and it's got a red carpet... and a slap in the face of hard working Americans."

Expanding empire

The dinner came as the US Senate is pushing through legislation to more clearly regulate cryptocurrencies, a long-sought request of the industry, and as Trump expands his business network into the field.
Senators on Monday advanced a landmark bill known as the GENIUS Act that proposes a regulatory framework for stablecoins -- a type of crypto token seen as more predictable for investors as its value is pegged to hard currencies like the dollar.
Bitcoin's price hit a new all-time high on Thursday, climbing above $111,000 before falling slightly.
Trump's newfound enthusiasm for digital currencies has expanded into multiple ventures led primarily by his eldest sons.
Their growing portfolio includes investments in Binance, a major crypto exchange whose founder seeks a presidential pardon to re-enter the US market.
This investment flows through World Liberty Financial, a Trump family-backed venture launched last September with significant Mideast deals. 
The company's founding team includes Donald Jr. and Eric Trump alongside Zach Witkoff, son of Trump's diplomatic adviser.
President Trump has taken concrete steps to reduce regulatory barriers, including an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" for government holdings of the leading digital currency.
arp-gc/nl/des

Trump

Melania Trump uses AI vocal replica to narrate audiobook

  • The release of the AI-narrated audiobook comes just days after she joined President Trump to sign a bill making it a federal crime to post "revenge porn" -- whether real or generated using AI. Melania Trump had campaigned for the "Take It Down Act" in March in her first solo event since her husband returned to power, speaking out against "malicious online content, like deepfakes."
  • US First Lady Melania Trump warned recently of the danger of AI deepfakes.
  • The release of the AI-narrated audiobook comes just days after she joined President Trump to sign a bill making it a federal crime to post "revenge porn" -- whether real or generated using AI. Melania Trump had campaigned for the "Take It Down Act" in March in her first solo event since her husband returned to power, speaking out against "malicious online content, like deepfakes."
US First Lady Melania Trump warned recently of the danger of AI deepfakes. Now she is releasing an audiobook narrated by an artificial intelligence-generated version of her own voice.
The 55-year-old wife of President Donald Trump announced the release of the seven-hour recording -- which retails for $25 -- in a social media post on Thursday.
"My story, my perspective, the truth," narrates a voice in the Slovenian-born former model's distinctive accent, over a short black and white video featuring computer-generated graphics of her face.
Whether it's Melania herself who is speaking in the video, or her AI doppelganger, is not made clear.
She then writes in the same post: "I am honored to bring you Melania -- The AI Audiobook -- narrated entirely using artificial intelligence in my own voice.
"Let the future of publishing begin."
The website for the audiobook says the "AI-generated replica" of Melania Trump's voice was "created under Mrs. Trump's direction and supervision."
"Multiple" foreign language versions would be available later this year, it added.
Melania Trump released the physical edition of her memoir to great fanfare in October -- with a signed collector's edition printed on "premium art paper" priced at $150.
The release of the AI-narrated audiobook comes just days after she joined President Trump to sign a bill making it a federal crime to post "revenge porn" -- whether real or generated using AI.
Melania Trump had campaigned for the "Take It Down Act" in March in her first solo event since her husband returned to power, speaking out against "malicious online content, like deepfakes."
The First Lady has largely been an elusive figure at the White House since her husband took the oath of office on January 20, spending only limited time in Washington alongside her billionaire husband.
But it has not stopped her from taking on a handful of projects that carefully control her image -- and make money too.
As well as the AI audiobook, Melania is filming a documentary series with Amazon, under a contract reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.
dk/jgc

AI

Anthropic touts improved Claude AI models

  • "Claude Opus 4 is our most powerful model yet, and the best coding model in the world," Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei said as he opened the event.
  • Anthropic unveiled its latest Claude generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models on Thursday, claiming to set new standards for reasoning, coding, and digital agent capabilities.
  • "Claude Opus 4 is our most powerful model yet, and the best coding model in the world," Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei said as he opened the event.
Anthropic unveiled its latest Claude generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models on Thursday, claiming to set new standards for reasoning, coding, and digital agent capabilities.
The launch came as the San Francisco-based startup held its first developers conference.
"Claude Opus 4 is our most powerful model yet, and the best coding model in the world," Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei said as he opened the event.
Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 were described as "hybrid" models capable of quick responses as well as more thoughtful results that take a little time to handle well.
Anthropic's gathering came on the heels of annual developers conferences from Google and Microsoft at which the tech giants showcased their latest AI innovations.
Since OpenAI's ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, various generative GenAI models have been vying for supremacy.
GenAI tools answer questions or tend to tasks based on simple, conversational prompts.
The current focus in Silicon Valley is on AI "agents" tailored to independently handle computer or online tasks.
Anthropic was early to that trend, adding a "computer use" capability to its model late last year.
"Agents can actually turn human imagination into tangible reality at unprecedented scale," said Anthropic chief product officer Mike Krieger, a co-founder of Instagram.
AI agents can boost what engineers at small startups can accomplish when it comes to coding, helping them build products faster, Krieger told the gathering.
"I think back to Instagram's early days," Krieger said. "Our famously small team had to make a bunch of very painful either/or decisions."
GenAI can also provide startup founders with business strategy insights on par with those of veteran chief financial officers, according to Krieger.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI engineers, launched Claude in March 2023.
The startup stresses responsible development of AI, moving more cautiously than competitors as it innovates.
juj-gc/sst