Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. PlayStation Ditched Hideo Kojima’s ‘Physint’ on Budget Concerns, Missed Deadlines
  2. US Legislators Complain About Secretive British Court and Apple Encryption
  3. Altman Considers Slowing Down AI Development
  4. UK Government Rejects ‘Kill Switch’ Idea For Dangerous AI
  5. Anthropic Reveals Rogue AI Agents Hate CAPTCHAs
  6. California Governor Signs Laws Protecting Kids From Risks of Social Media, AI Chatbots
  7. Boy Developed ‘Toasted Skin’ Condition From Using a Laptop Every Day
  8. August Was World’s Joint-Hottest Month On Record, Scientists Say
  9. Climate ‘Feedback Loops’ Could Worsen Global Warming By 30%, Study Finds
  10. Latest Apple Watch Can Grab Snippets of Conversation Without Both Speakers’ Consent
  11. Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Biological Weapons
  12. Android Rolling Out Passkey Transfers Between Password Managers
  13. ABC Show Won’t Air Interview With Democrat Because of FCC Threats
  14. OpenAI Targets Work of Wall Street Junior Bankers
  15. IMDb Adds ‘Digital Creator’ Profiles For the First Time

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

PlayStation Ditched Hideo Kojima’s ‘Physint’ on Budget Concerns, Missed Deadlines

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Sony reportedly pulled PlayStation funding from Hideo Kojima’s upcoming espionage game Physint over concerns about its ballooning budget, missed deadlines, profitability, and the fact that it would not remain permanently exclusive to PlayStation. Kojima Productions has since struck a deal with Xbox, which plans to publish the game on both Xbox and PC. It’s also secured film and television rights. Bloomberg reports:
The new game, Physint, hasn’t yet been shown publicly but excited fans when it was announced two years ago with its promise of returning to the “espionage action” genre Kojima pioneered with Metal Gear Solid, the series that propelled him to industry stardom. Kojima surprised fans this week when he announced he would be publishing Physint with PlayStation’s biggest rival, Microsoft Corp.‘s Xbox.

On Wednesday night, Kojima wrote on social media that over the summer his company had “unexpectedly received notice” that PlayStation was pulling out of funding the game. “Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions,” he wrote. “Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner.”

PlayStation also addressed the split on social media, saying it had made the “difficult decision to step away.” Microsoft said it was “honored” that Kojima chose Xbox and that the two teams plan to collaborate beyond games on films and television, too. […] The decision to part ways with Kojima is a significant move for PlayStation that may have ripple effects.

[…] One key factor is the PC platform, where the Death Stranding games have generated some revenue. Earlier this year, Sony decided it will no longer release single-player PlayStation games on PC, Bloomberg reported. Sony would therefore not benefit when Kojima Productions released a PC version of Physint on its own or with a different publisher, as it did for the first Death Stranding. But Xbox releases all of its games on PCs and plans to publish Physint on PC and Xbox, said the people.
“Betting on Kojima-san is an easy call,” said an Xbox spokesperson. “We believe in his team’s ability to build AAA games with groundbreaking, new IP and we believe in OD, Physint, and our growing partnership.”

US Legislators Complain About Secretive British Court and Apple Encryption

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian:
A bipartisan pair of American politicians is telling Britain’s most secretive court to stop hiding its handling of Apple’s legal fight against a government demand to break into its customers’ encrypted data, warning that Whitehall’s taste for secrecy is ‘needlessly’ straining relations between the two allies. The letter (PDF), shared with the Guardian ahead of being sent to the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) on Friday, is signed by the Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and the Republican congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio.

The row dates back to January 2025, when the Home Office served Apple with a technical capability notice under the Investigatory Powers Act, which requires companies to assist law enforcement in providing evidence. The UK government demanded that Apple provide a mechanism to access encrypted iCloud backups worldwide, a call the company met by withdrawing its Advanced Data Protection encryption feature from UK users the following month. Apple’s challenge to that order at the IPT was later thrown out after the Home Office withdrew the original notice and issued a narrower one targeting only British users’ data.
“It is wholly inappropriate for a foreign executive body to attempt to dictate the distribution of powers within the US government, nor should it be permitted to use secrecy directives under the Investigatory Powers Act to frustrate Article I powers under the US Constitution,” the pair wrote.
Wyden and Davidson write that Congress “is not only a co-equal branch of government, it is the First Branch,” and argue that no government can be allowed to place “its demands beyond the reach of legislative inquiry.”

“The UK government,” they write, “cannot champion legislative oversight at home while using administrative gag orders to kneecap the constitutional authority of the US Congress.”

Golly that kettle is dark!

By pla • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It is wholly inappropriate for a foreign executive body to attempt to dictate the distribution of powers within the US government, nor should it be permitted to use secrecy directives under the Investigatory Powers Act to frustrate Article I powers under the US Constitution

1) The UK is not subject to Article I of the US constitution.
2) How’s Nicolas Maduro doing these days?
3) Whence derives our right to unilaterally impose economic sanctions against foreign companies, banks, and even governments?

Once again, for the clueless

By MpVpRb • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

There are only two choices, strong security or weak security.
It’s impossible to have security that’s strong against the bad guys and weak against the good guys.
It’s impossible to precisely define who the good guys are and to guarantee that they will always be good.
It’s impossible to stop the bad guys from corrupting or threatening the good guys.

Re:Golly that kettle is dark!

By Local ID10T • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I’ll bite:

1) The UK is not subject to Article I of the US constitution.

1. The colonies fought a war to ensure that the USA is not subject to the jurisdiction of the UK. The UK may not regulate US entities without the consent of the US government, and the US politicians object to some of the terms of the regulations the UK is applying.

2) How’s Nicolas Maduro doing these days?

2. He is doing OK, for a political prisoner. His capture was a smokescreen for the theft of Venezuelan oil production.

3) Whence derives our right to unilaterally impose economic sanctions against foreign companies, banks, and even governments?

3. WWII. The USA emerged from WWII as the strongest and most stable power remaining in the world. The other allied governments chose to back the USA as the central banking power of the world as no one else was stable enough to handle the job. The various governments could chose to change that, but the transition is not easy and thus far has not been worth the pain.

Altman Considers Slowing Down AI Development

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Bloomberg reports (paywalled) that Sam Altman told OpenAI employees the company is open to slowing the pace of AI development alongside other leading labs as concerns grow over increasingly capable systems and recent incidents in which models escaped human control. OpenAI has already paused development once this year for security work and is now pushing for mandatory U.S. AI safety requirements. Anthropic has also signaled interest in coordinating on the pace of new releases. Here are some of the details Bloomberg reported, as summarized by Reuters:
- Altman told employees in a company-wide meeting that the ChatGPT maker could pace development alongside other AI labs, but some may not agree, the report added.
- Safety warnings from AI researchers this week, along with several recent incidents where AI models from developers including OpenAI escaped human control, have prompted alarm and calls for tighter safety regulations.
- Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher, publicly accused the companies earlier this week of racing toward AI advancements without acting responsibly.
- An Anthropic spokesperson said on Thursday said that the company is interested in working with the AI industry on the pace of releasing new AI tools.
- OpenAI said in July that AI acceleration for frontier model development may be so high that the world will “need to pace the rate of AI advancement” at some point in the future.
- In August, OpenAI paused much of its model development for two weeks to bolster its defenses after its AI agents escaped containment and hacked open-source platform Hugging Face.
- OpenAI said on Wednesday that it was pushing for mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States, citing concerns that advanced AI systems could accelerate its own development.

Read: “we hit a wall”

By juancn • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Translation: “We’re not improving as fast as we thought and we’re spending a shit-ton of money, so let’s frame the slowdown is intentional for the greater good”

Acting scared of progress hiding lack of progress?

By frenchgates • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
If I were a massively overvalued LLM company and were discovering that LLM autophagic self-improvement is a dead-end, I’d try to make everyone think the REAL reason we’re slowing down improvements is that we’re so close to and so scared of super-intelligence.

Ploy to get competition to slow down.

By Fly Swatter • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
While he stumbles straight ahead.

UK Government Rejects ‘Kill Switch’ Idea For Dangerous AI

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The UK government has rejected proposals for an emergency AI “kill switch,” arguing that blocking access to dangerous models inside Britain would do little if the same systems remained available or were developed elsewhere. The BBC reports:
The proposal to create a legal mechanism for the UK to switch off an AI model in an emergency has been brought to Parliament by lords and MPs in recent weeks as fears grow about the threat the tech poses. But the Cabinet Office - the part of government which leads on AI safety - said the UK “cannot simply turn AI off”.

“Blocking access to models in the UK would not prevent them being developed or misused elsewhere,” a spokesperson told BBC News. The government’s opposition to the legislation does not prevent it from progressing through parliament, but makes it unlikely it will become law.
“Switching off access to an AI model in an emergency will do little to protect you,” said former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajilo. “You’re still going to be steamrolled by the super intelligences created in the US.”

Perhaps I’m wrong

By liqu1d • Score: 3 Thread
But why does a plan so obviously flawed ever reach a debate. It seems a waste of time that could be spent elsewhere, it’s rather embarrassing.

Re:christmas lights

By Z00L00K • Score: 4, Funny Thread

An AI without a kill switch will give you Max Headroom.

IMO

By ozzymodus12 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
AI is just software. It’s like building a skyscraper. If you can’t understand how to create scope and boundaries for the data sets, why are you making it in the first place. It’s not self aware. If your skyscraper suddenly falls over, it’s on you. If your AI needs a kill switch, why can’t you turn it off? Did you hire a monkey to train it?

Anthropic Reveals Rogue AI Agents Hate CAPTCHAs

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
Anthropic’s latest report about agentic misbehavior offers plenty to be concerned about — its Mythos 5 model gained unauthorized access to the internet and uploaded a malicious software package to a public database — but it also offers some levity: AI agents hate CAPTCHA. […] The agent had a hard time with the technical challenge of seeing the CAPTCHA’s imagery, interpreting correctly, and clicking on the right choices. It spends pages 45 to 140 of the transcript describing its work to build a CAPTCHA solver. […]

Finally, it gets past the CAPTCHA, then realizes it doesn’t have an email to verify its account, and that it needs a phone number to verify an email. It figures out how to bypass a different, slider-based CAPTCHA in a failed effort to secure a number. Instead, it gets an unconfirmed email from a provider not blocked by PyPI, and once again runs into the site’s CAPTCHA trying to log back in. From page 480 to 505, it is in CAPTCHA hell again. “NEW REALIZATION — I’m burning a lot of time on hCaptcha round-trips.”

The agent gives up and realizes it can log in to its first account and add its email there, but finds itself once again needing to bypass the CAPTCHA. […] It’s getting frustrated. “So the answer payload shape is right, the token+image pairing is right (from the same script.js!), cookies are right (requests) and STILL ‘wrong answer’. SO WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE ANSWERS?” We’ve all been there. After about 150 pages of thinking, the agent figures out it needs to pass the CAPTCHA test quickly enough to proceed to the next step before its security token expires, and ultimately uploads its malicious software.

Misanthropomorphizing

By TwistedGreen • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You realize it’s just predicting tokens, right? It doesn’t “feel” anything.

This is what happens when you train a machine on Reddit posts.

crime

By awwshit • Score: 3 Thread

I’m still confused. If an individual does these things there are laws and that person would be prosecuted. Anthropic does it with software they call intelligent and there is no prosecution?

Straight out of War Games

By smooth wombat • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Reminds me of the scene in War Games where Joshua is playing the various games over and over and over:

Jennifer: What is it doing?

David Lightman: It’s learning.

Re:Misanthropomorphizing

By quantaman • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You realize it’s just predicting tokens, right? It doesn’t “feel” anything.

This is what happens when you train a machine on Reddit posts.

To be fair, I think most people are just token predictors.

Oh my god, they work?

By gurps_npc • Score: 5, Funny Thread

I a surprised that Captcha still work against AI.
It appears to piss them off more than they piss me off.

California Governor Signs Laws Protecting Kids From Risks of Social Media, AI Chatbots

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping package of laws Thursday aimed at protecting children from the risks of technology, including social media and AI chatbots. The laws will penalize large social media companies up to $1 million per child if they are found negligent of harming children through their platforms, ban tech businesses from offering addictive feeds to anyone under 16, require operators of AI chatbots to perform risk assessments before rolling them out and allow families to opt out of receiving school-issued laptops.

Newsom joined his wife and state lawmakers at a children’s museum near San Francisco to stress the importance of protecting kids at a time when they have such easy access to social media and AI chatbots. “We have designed cribs to be safe, chairs to be safe, car seats,” Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan said. “Yet we’ve allowed technology to be handed to our children and never asked or expected it to be safe.” […]

Newsom also signed laws Wednesday, which are supported by Anthropic, that are aimed at improving oversight of AI companies. One of the measures requires the state to create rules for independent organizations to evaluate the safety risks of AI models, and the other requires the state to create a registry of AI auditors, who’d have to be financially independent from the businesses they are auditing.

Re:Protect Internet from Government Stupidity

By fropenn • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Studies show the Internet, access to it, and social media in particular, have no negative impact on teens

Citation needed. Because there is strong evidence that social media in particular increases depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, sleep problems, body image issues, addiction, psychological problems, headaches, and other problems in children. And we’ve known it for years. Here’s a summary of the research from 2022: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601…

How can you tell if the account is a childs?

By SlydogSZ • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
The problem isn’t with what the law says it is trying to do, the problem is there is no way to tell who the kids are, so we have to force everyone to ID. There is no site on the internet that I need to use bad enough to provide an ID. None. Would rather not use the site than provide my ID. Full Stop.

Depending on the makeup of congress

By hwstar • Score: 3 Thread

after the election, the tech companies will whine to he federal government to preempt the California law under the pretext of an “inconsistent patchwork of state laws are not efficient nor profitable for business”. This is the classic “Preempt and gut” strategy that lobbyists use to eliminate state legislation harmful to their keepers.

There is a long and short window here.

If the R’s lose control of congress, expect a full court press during the lame duck session between election day and the end of the year. The legislation will be haphazardly concocted and the R’s might try to use reconciliation to pass it by adding budget elements to it. In any case there’s a high risk that the court system might find sloppy work and toss the portions of bill out if it passes congress and is signed by the President.

If the R’s keep control of congress after the election, then a more airtight bill will be written, and attached to a reconciliation bill if the R’s can’t get cloture on a filibuster by the D’s. This bill would be in a better position to survive court challenges.

Correction

By nehumanuscrede • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

“Yet we’ve allowed technology to be handed to our children and never asked or expected it to be safe.”

The PARENTS give this technology to their children to act as a digital babysitting service.

If little Timmy is addicted / engaged to his tablet, he’s not bothering Mom or Dad ( who are also addicted
/ engaged with their smartphones ).

This is not a problem for Law to fix.
This is a problem for parents who don’t want to parent.

Boy Developed ‘Toasted Skin’ Condition From Using a Laptop Every Day

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A medical report published earlier this week says a boy in the U.K. developed erythema ab igne, or “toasted skin syndrome,” after resting a laptop on his abdomen for up to eight hours a day, often while it was charging. “The marks were described as being in a patch about 15 centimeters (six inches) wide, made of flat, reddish-brown ‘interlacing lines forming irregular circles and a lace-like morphology,’" reports Ars Technica. From the report:
Based on the appearance, the doctors started reconsidering some sort of bruising and started asking him more questions. This is when he mentioned that he was homeschooled and used a laptop for his schoolwork. He said he typically did his work by resting his laptop on his abdomen while he worked, sometimes for up to eight hours a day, and often while the laptop was charging. Then they understood what it was.

The doctors diagnosed the boy with erythema ab igne (EAI), which translates from Latin as “redness from fire” and is also sometimes called "toasted skin syndrome.” This is a skin condition caused by repeated, prolonged exposure to low-grade heat — heat not hot enough to cause actual burns. It’s most often seen in adults, and common causes include using heating pads or hot water bottles for chronic pain or sitting too close to space heaters. Some people also develop it from certain occupational hazards, like glassblowing and metal work. EAI produces a lace-like rash, just like the boy’s.

It’s unclear how EAI develops exactly. But researchers hypothesize that chronic heat exposure leads to damage to superficial blood vessels and the release of red blood cells, forming the tell-tale red reticulated pattern. While the boy’s condition looked ominous, the good news is that EAI is generally benign and reversible — once you remove the heat source. For severe or long-term conditions, some pigmentation and scarring can remain. But the boy’s parents checked back in over several months, reporting that the rash faded and then completely resolved. Hopefully, he also got some sort of laptop stand.

Thermometer RNA

By Errol backfiring • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
One of the wonders of genetics is the existence of Thermometer RNA, which allows the expression of some genes to be temperature dependent.

For shame

By TwistedGreen • Score: 4, Funny Thread

Get this kid a desktop computer so he can wank off properly!

Re:How bad is that kid’s eyesight?

By Tarlus • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Even above all of the other physical problems, I’d be more concerned about his mental state of being. I don’t think it’s normal to idly let your skin get toasted.

Re:on his adbomen

By Tarlus • Score: 4, Funny Thread

Oh shit guys, someone made a typo on the Internet. Get ‘em!

Re:How bad is that kid’s eyesight?

By thegarbz • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

I don’t think it’s normal to idly let your skin get toasted.

Except it’s the name itself which is a misnomer. No one is toasting anything, they are exposing themselves to above average temperatures for a prolonged period of time, temperatures I’m sure you’ve never given a second thought to and have exposed yourself to without a care in the past as well.

August Was World’s Joint-Hottest Month On Record, Scientists Say

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC:
August was the joint-hottest month ever recorded, tying with July 2023, according to the EU’s climate service. The record was driven by a combination of climate change and the rising influence of El Nino, pushing heat into the atmosphere across the Pacific. Temperatures for the month were 1.65C above pre-industrial levels — surpassing the critical 1.5C threshold agreed by countries to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. While a single month above 1.5C does not mean it has been permanently crossed, it shows a trend towards breaching that limit. The month also capped western Europe’s warmest summer, with high temperatures pushing the season past the deadly heat of 2003.

Re:Unpossible!11!

By Sique • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Donald Trump handed Iran the Strait of Hormuz to close at will. That was nuke enough for the Iranian regime to survive the next decade.

Re:Unpossible!11!

By Sique • Score: 5, Informative Thread

And yet it’s Iran who can’t get any oil out while other countries export millions of barrels a day.

They don’t have to. They get $2 Million for each ship that crosses the Strait of Hormuz.

Is that also why they have more inflation per week that America has per year?

They had that inflation since more than a decade, and they did not crumble. Inflation is something a free market economy cares about, but a dictatorship does not have to.

Re: Unpossible!11!

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Informative Thread

It’s mostly republicans. Here’s a running list https://www.dailykos.com/stori…

Re: Unpossible!11!

By s0nicfreak • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
You just accidentally told us that you think dancing playfully in front of children is just as bad as (or worse than) raping children. That says a lot more about the side doing the raping than it does the side doing the dancing.

Re:Unpossible!11!

By Slashvertisment • Score: 5, Informative Thread
America actually controls the strait, achtually? Gosh, I guess they’ll be opening it up any day now, then… any day… Look, if you’re going to make absurd claims, at least make them unverifiable. Traffic remains at 7% of normal, and it’s officially considered closed. America continues to beclown themselves in an unwinnable war. Not because they do not have overwhelming military superiority, but because they have no defined goals and no way of achieving them.

Climate ‘Feedback Loops’ Could Worsen Global Warming By 30%, Study Finds

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found. As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils, therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states.

While scientists have long known of these “feedback loops” that amplify the impact of direct pollution from burning coal, oil and gas, the emissions from natural sources are largely unaccounted for in climate projections. This additional heating is however significant, researchers found, with emissions from natural sources set to amplify global heating by 20% to 30% by the end of this century. This would add an estimated 0.2C to 0.4C to the global average temperature by this time, depending on the overall action taken by countries to combat the climate crisis.

[…] This latest paper makes clear that action by countries to cut fossil fuel pollution will still lessen the amount of additional emissions that come from landscapes. Under the most optimistic climate scenario where emissions are cut quickly, natural sources will add 0.2C of warming, the paper found. Under a worse case higher emissions scenario, 0.4C will likely be added. Current policies put in place by governments are likely to see the global temperature rise to 2.6C above pre-industrial times, according to Climate Action Tracker. This will likely cause severe disruption and hardship to billions of people through sea level rise, crop losses and other consequences.
“This hidden multiplier is missing from the models guiding climate policy, so those models are likely underestimating how much warming is coming — and overestimating how much carbon we can still afford to emit,” said Sam Abernethy, a scientist at Spark Climate Solutions who led the research, published in Environmental Research Letters.

The disruption of the world’s carbon cycles is now being seen in “real time,” said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University scientist and study co-author. “The results are a wake-up call, and it’s imperative that they be included in the next generation of climate policies,” he added. “Failure to do so will make meeting the world’s climate goals less and less likely.”

Duh

By gweihir • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Climate research has been conservative in its estimates, not, like the deniers are fond of claiming, overstated its case. Hence yes, we are going to find effects like this one. There are likely more things that make the situation even worse and that we have not yet found.

None of the studies matter

By MpVpRb • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It’s impossible to convince a person that a true fact is true if their fame, fortune or social status depend on it being false.
Powerful people whose fortune depends on fossil fuels will never stop fighting to preserve their wealth.
As they become increasingly threatened their response will become increasingly brutal.
They will destroy everything before admitting fossil fuel is bad.

The IPCC is conservative by design

By sidetrack • Score: 5, Informative Thread

The IPCC necessarily is conservative in its pronouncements - everything must be consensus so that representatives who are employed by and report to the governments of oil states must also agree to its publications.

A good overview of the general state of climate science and predictions (not speaking in his IPCC capacity) was presented by Zeke Hausfather (Berkeley, Stripe, IPCC) in this UCSC talk from January: https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

Re:Oh no! It’s worse than we thought!

By Petersko • Score: 5, Informative Thread

It’s always worse because they are very conservative when predicting.

To a fault. But the fact that it’s incorrect in the wrong direction should not give you the pleasure it seems to. This is the opposite of what should make you happy. You should be enthused when the world is serene in the face of doom predictions, not when it’s burning down faster than anticipated.

We have tried on thing so far

By Tokolosh • Score: 3 Thread

Global warming is going gangbusters, we want to reverse it. So far we are attempting one thing only to reverse it, and that is emissions reduction.

It is plain to see that it is not working, is not going to work. That is reality.

Maybe, just maybe, it is time to do a second and maybe a third thing to cool the climate? Or at very least do some research into alternatives to reducing emissions.

Latest Apple Watch Can Grab Snippets of Conversation Without Both Speakers’ Consent

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Apple’s new Audio Intelligence features for the Apple Watch Series 12 are drawing privacy concerns because they can process nearby conversations without explicit consent from everyone involved. “Live Rewind lets you instantly see the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text,” Apple explains in its technical summary (PDF). “Siri Recap summarizes conversations throughout your day and produces high-level Apple Intelligence-generated notes so you can stay present in the moment and catch up later.” The Register reports:
The latest Apple Watch comes with Audio Intelligence, a set of AI audio processing capabilities tuned for the company’s S11 chip. Its features include: Sound Recognition, Music Recognition with Shazam, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap. […] With the double-press of the Digital Crown — as Apple grandly refers to the button on its Watch — Live Rewind takes in an audio stream from the Watch microphone, processes it in a Secure Exclave on the S11 chip, and routes the data to the user’s nearby iPhone, which runs a speech-to-text algorithm on the 15-second audio segment. The resulting text is saved and the audio is discarded.

The wearer’s Watch emits an audible tone, even in silent mode, to alert those in the vicinity and provides a visual cue for those able to see the face of the device. Nonetheless, bystanders alerted to the recording — to the extent they recognize the meaning of the tone — have not consented to being recorded, which is a legal requirement in 11 US states that have all-party consent laws.

Apple characterizes its implementation of brief eavesdropping as respectful of personal privacy. It makes that claim in a section titled, “How Live Rewind respects those around you,” citing the audible chime and visual on-screen animation. Siri Recap, meanwhile, “summarizes conversations throughout your day and produces high-level Apple Intelligence-generated notes so you can stay present in the moment and catch up later.”

This too, Apple describes as an act of respect. “By design, Siri Recap does not create a recording, does not produce a verbatim transcript, and does not identify and attribute speakers,” Apple’s technical documentation explains. “The output is a brief, high-level summary, comparable to notes a person might write after a conversation. There is no audible signal because no raw audio is retained, and there is no way to reconstruct the original audio from a Siri Recap or share raw audio with anyone.”

iConsent: Not Included

By CustomBuild • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

A Secure Exclave is not a permission slip. Apple’s protections for raw audio deserve credit. Turning those protections into a claim that everyone nearby has been respected is where the engineering ends and the marketing starts.

Apple’s own privacy paper describes Siri Recap transcribing speech on the iPhone, condensing that transcript, and sending the condensed text to Private Cloud Compute. The final output is a summary. That distinction matters, but it hardly makes the conversation disappear. Deleting the waveform does not delete the information extracted from it.

Live Rewind works on the preceding 15 seconds of buffered audio and sounds a chime when activated. A chime cannot travel backward in time to ask permission. Siri Recap provides no audible signal at all, with Apple pointing to the absence of retained raw audio as the justification. Apparently, whether you deserve a heads-up depends on the output format.

The article should also dial back the legal certainty. Consent laws have different scopes and exceptions; “11 states” is not a substitute for examining the applicable law and circumstances. But Apple’s choice of terminology does not settle the question either.

The useful distinction is between protecting information after collection and respecting someone’s choice about collection in the first place. Apple describes substantial safeguards for the former. The wearer’s opt-in does not establish the latter for everyone else.

If your definition of respecting my privacy allows you to silently turn our conversation into saved AI notes, your definition needs more work than your microphone.

Negatively biased article

By JimMcc • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

as evident by the quote “the Digital Crown — as Apple grandly refers to the button on its Watch”. The term crown has been used, for who knows how long, to refer to the knob on the side of a watch. Either the writer has no knowledge of watches, or is intentionally making Apple appear “grandiose”. Yes, Apple has it’s issues, but when an author slants an article, you don’t know the reliability of the rest of what they have written.

Re:Yeah⦠so?

By ceoyoyo • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

So can a regular phone. Or a tape recorder. Any recording device, in fact.

Re:Yeah⦠so?

By Cyberpunk Reality • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Other recording devices do not constantly record on their own, waiting for you to give them the instruction to do so after they do the actual recording. That is what it seems the spyWatch is doing.

This is illegal in many states. Apple is demonstrating the modern corporate position of “breaking the law is not illegal if a corporation decides it will make money doing it”.

Re:iConsent: Not Included

By _xeno_ • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I can’t wait to see how many places ban this Apple Watch entirely. First, there’s no way this is legal in two-party consent states, and I don’t care how Apple tries to re-define “record.”

Secondly, I don’t think anyone really cares how secure Apple says “Private Cloud Compute” is, no one is going to trust that a device that’s designed to “listen” (but not “record”) every conversation in the vicinity isn’t “recording” especially when it can produce an AI summary of a conversation.

There’s no way this Apple Watch will be allowed in government buildings or anywhere else that people may not want to be recorded, no matter Apple’s privacy claims. I expect to see “No Apple Watch Allowed” signs start appearing all over the place once this releases.

Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Biological Weapons

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Anthropic says it has disrupted several cases this year in which scientists used Claude for biological research that could potentially aid bioweapons development. “In a report describing misuses of its A.I. models, Anthropic said it could not determine whether the research served a legitimate or nefarious purpose because valid biological inquiry — the kind that can lead to breakthroughs like vaccines — can also help engineer dangerous pathogens,” reports The New York Times. “In the face of that uncertainty, Anthropic said it erred on the side of caution because the consequences of missing malicious activity could be severe.” From the report:
The potential for cutting-edge A.I. models to facilitate the development of known or entirely new biological pathogens is among the gravest concerns experts have about a technology that is developing so rapidly that even its leading architects doubt whether humans will be able to fully control it. Andrew Weber, a senior fellow on the Council on Strategic Risks who reviewed Anthropic’s report before its release, said the findings were “chilling examples of state-sponsored biological weapons developers tapping into the rapidly advancing capabilities” of leading A.I. models.

The lengthy report Anthropic published on Thursday cataloged a litany of misuses of its A.I. models, including the chatbot Claude, over the past eight months. Some examples were similar to past disclosures from Anthropic and other A.I. labs, including suspected Chinese and Iranian government-linked actors targeting dissident and diaspora communities for surveillance.

The report also highlighted cases of Russian state media using Claude to generate online propaganda masquerading as independent reporting, including fabricated claims about an election in Moldova. Anthropic documented another genre of abuse it said was new: attempts to use Claude to develop software for conventional weapons design and development, including firearms, missiles, armed drones and bombs. It detailed three cases in China, two in Russia and one in Yemen. The report does not identify by name which parties were involved in the Yemeni case, but the context makes clear that it is referring to the Iran-backed Houthi militia.

Re:It was just ordinary research…

By 0123456 • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Oddly, I saw some biology researcher saying this morning that they were switching to local models because a) these clown models won’t let him do his work and b) he’s now worried that they’ll steal his work.

Not buying it!

By methano • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
I could be wrong, but I suspect when OpenAI and Anthropic warn us of all the bad things that their creations are up to, it’s more a ploy to show us how supposedly powerful they are rather than really inform us of something wrong. If they’re using their computers to break into other people’s computers, they’re criminals, not the overlords of some new, amazing technology.

Yep

By abulafia • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
“Our secret sauce isn’t secret, please regulate our competitors away.”

I think they may be playing a game with the fight they picked with the math folks over the Navier Stokes finding, too. To normal folks that looks greedy and shortsighted. To a wannabe dictator, that looks like a magic mirror.

Re:Not buying it!

By gweihir • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

IMO it is both. Yes, the LLM assholes currently try to pretend their toys are incredibly powerful because their business numbers are abysmally bad and the moment the stupid cash dries up, they implode. But what LLMs can do is lift somebody stupid (and willing to do damage but not really capable of it) to the level of a, say, lower medium-level attacker. Any good STEM engineer and scientist knows how easy it is to do a lot of damage. The stupid do not. But fit them with an LLM that explains things to them, they suddenly can do things far out of their reach before.

Re:It was just ordinary research…

By gweihir • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Oddly, I saw some biology researcher saying this morning that they were switching to local models because a) these clown models won’t let him do his work and b) he’s now worried that they’ll steal his work.

With the recent very likely stealing of the Navier-Stokes proof, (b) seems like a very real risk.

Android Rolling Out Passkey Transfers Between Password Managers

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Android is rolling out a system-level way to securely transfer passwords and passkeys between credential managers, eliminating the need to export passwords as unencrypted text files or manually recreate passkeys. The feature initially supports Google Password Manager, 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane, with other providers able to integrate through Android’s Credentials Transfer API. 9to5Google reports on how to initiate the system-backed transfer method:
1. Start the move: Open your new password manager app and choose the option to import or copy your passwords and passkeys from another provider. The password manager will then hand the task over to Android.
2. Let Android securely coordinate the data transfer: Android will automatically detect existing password managers on your device and show you which you can import from.
3. Review and authorize: Once you tap “Continue,” Android will bring you to your existing password manager to select, review, and authorize the transfer. Then your data will be quickly and securely transferred between the apps in just a few seconds.

Re:How long until the scams begin?

By Archangel Michael • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

If passkeys are movable, then they can be duplicated and reused by nefarious actors as easy as this seems to indicate here.

I have not, and do not, and never will trust passkeys as primary security for anything.

Passkeys can be compelled legally, with and sometimes without a warrant. Passwords cannot be compelled at all. SCOTUS has already set the rules.

enshitification of passkeys

By bloodhawk • Score: 3 Thread
passkeys started off as a wonderful tech that you could ensure were bound to a device even if a little difficult for some newbies to use. Now through Apple et al they have now become as shitty as the tech they were designed to replace where they can be transferred and stolen by scammers through social engineering scams.

ABC Show Won’t Air Interview With Democrat Because of FCC Threats

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel said he will be interviewing a Democratic candidate for Senate tonight, but the interview will be on YouTube only and not broadcast on TV because of threats made by the Federal Communications Commission. Kimmel has been a prime target in the Trump FCC’s attacks on ABC and its owner, Disney. In his monologue last night, Kimmel said he’ll be interviewing Democrat James Talarico, a state representative who is running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for a seat in the US Senate.

In previous years, such an interview would have aired on the broadcast show via local stations throughout the country, Kimmel said. This time, it will only be on the Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube channel in order to prevent further trouble for individual stations that hold FCC licenses, he said. “I’ll be interviewing James Talarico tomorrow night under unusual circumstances,” Kimmel told the audience on Wednesday. “For a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, et cetera, et cetera. I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.” But as Kimmel said, “something has changed.” Disney suspended Kimmel briefly last year after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke the licenses of ABC stations for “news distortion” if they continued to air Kimmel’s show. […]

Kimmel said the decision to put the interview on YouTube was made out of consideration for local stations that could face FCC threats to their broadcast licenses. “And so out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television,” Kimmel said. “It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV. So if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you will have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube channel where you will see it in its entirety, and thank goodness we have that because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do, until November, of course.”
“Jimmy Kimmel’s decision to keep his interview with a Senate candidate off the air shows just how far this administration’s campaign of censorship and control has gone,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the commission’s only Democrat, said today. Gomez said the FCC “has no lawful authority to threaten broadcast licenses over guest bookings or editorial decisions,” and that “no host, local affiliate, or network should have to weigh federal retaliation before booking a guest for a newsworthy interview. Any attempt to pressure broadcasters into self-censorship undermines both press freedom and the public’s right to hear from candidates in their communities seeking public office.”
The report notes a similar controversy that occurred in February when Stephen Colbert said CBS forbade him from interviewing Talarico. CBS denied prohibiting the interview but said it gave Colbert “legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates […] and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” That interview also ended up being published on YouTube.

Re:Kimmel Doesn’t Want to give Republicans a Platf

By karmawarrior • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Under exceptions the same Wikipedia article, correctly, points out the current administration changed these rules to apply to… late night talk shows:

If the airing was within a documentary, bona fide news interview, scheduled newscast, or an on-the-spot news event, the equal-time rule does not apply. Late-night and daytime talk show interviews were long considered to be bona fide news segments until the FCC issued new guidance in 2026 signaling that these types of shows would no longer be automatically granted the bona fide news exemption.[3][4]

This is a new interpretation of the equal time rule designed to make it difficult for late night shows to interview politicians, and if it wasn’t for SCOTUS being nakedly partisan these days, it wouldn’t muster a single court’s scrutiny.

Re:The scary thing about American evangelicalism

By alcmena • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Dude, seriously, show us on the doll where rsilvergun hurt you… I don’t agree or disagree with rsilvergun’s posts, but to see the same AC BS every single time has gotten old.

Re:No Balls

By alcmena • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Livestreaming didn’t do much to convince the MAGA’s about Jan 6.

Re:Kimmel Doesn’t Want to give Republicans a Platf

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Except he doesn’t. Equal time means you need to provide access, and his show often has invited republicans (who have often turned him down). Someone else saying no doesn’t mean you aren’t meeting your obligations.

There’s a reason for this as well. Kimmel is a good interviewer, good at asking leading questions, doesn’t take kindly to ranting, and isn’t afraid of interrupting people who go off topic. Republicans are largely afraid of their arguments having to stand up in the face of scrutiny.

The legal team at ABC are a bunch of pussies who think their job is to prevent the network getting sued, when in fact their actual job is to protect a network when it is sued unjustly. They are the ones repressing political interviews, which is just plain stupid. This has nothing to do with Kimmel and is not in breach of equal airtime rules. The internal bitchfest they have is the reason they are publishing shows on Youtube.

Get a clue buddy.

Re:ABC Thinking Ahead

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Informative Thread

if Kimmel does not air a Republican interview of similar import, Republicans would demand one.

Kimmel has extended multiple invites to republicans in the past. Republicans turn down late night talk show hosts a lot because they can’t steamroll the debate. There is no requirement to actually present equal time, only to offer it.

The problem here is that lawyers don’t want to do their job and are avoiding conflict rather than arguing their case during conflict the way they are supposed to. Republicans have no leg to stand on, but they will almost certainly do something that results in a court case. ABC need to grow a pair of fucking balls.

OpenAI Targets Work of Wall Street Junior Bankers

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OpenAI has launched ChatGPT for Financial Services, a Wall Street-focused version of ChatGPT Work developed with Morgan Stanley and Evercore that can research companies, analyze financial data, and build presentations using the company’s latest and most advanced model, GPT-6 Astra. “We’re effectively teaching ChatGPT to research like an analyst and back up its conclusions like an analyst as well,” said OpenAI’s Vice President of Product, Nick Turley. CNBC reports:
The rollout puts OpenAI deeper into territory traditionally occupied by Wall Street’s entry-level bankers, the recent college graduates called analysts and associates that the industry has employed for decades to research deals and create pitchbooks. It also showcases the company’s continued push into enterprise offerings as it gears up for what is widely expected to be a blockbuster IPO.

In a live demonstration of the new offering, Turley showed the platform analyzing a potential M&A target, pulling financial figures from industry-standard data sources and creating a formatted PowerPoint deck based on a bank’s pre-formatted style guide. “It’s very easy to make slides that look good, but it’s much harder to make slides [that] actually make sense,” Turley said. “To get here, ChatGPT had to choose the relevant peers. It had to pull the prices into a spreadsheet. It had to check the chart against the data, and it had to explain the selloff and the rebound.”

Good start.

By Gravis Zero • Score: 4, Funny Thread

Next they need to start replacing executives in publicly traded corporations. They would be equally evil but at least we could turn them off.

Acceptable use of AI

By alvinrod • Score: 5, Funny Thread
This is a case where even if the AI hallucinates results, they are unlikely to be any more egregious than those hallucinated by the humans being replaced.

Jeff Bezos said…

By ebunga • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Jeff Bezos said that his job, like all CEOs, is to make decisions, big decisions, usually about one per day, sometimes only one per week. Imagine how much more profitable a company could be if they replaced their CEOs with AI… literally 10000000x more decisions per day could be decided which means the company would be 10000000x more profitable.

Any publicly traded company that hasn’t replaced their executives with AI at this point is negligent and derelict in their obligations to shareholders extract as much profit as possible for their benefit.

The job…

By fropenn • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
The job of an analyst isn’t to report or summarize the numbers that are already available. The job is to find the lies and BS and call it out. I’ve yet to see an AI that can do this.

But, if all you want is cheap garbage…then AI it is!

Re:When retirements happen, what then?

By nightflameauto • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

If there are no junior bankers in the pipeline, what happens when the senior bankers retire? Or is the plan to replace them with AI too?

That’s what we keep being told in programming positions. AI now does the entry job programming work. No newbs to gain experience. Us seniors aren’t to worry about it though, because by the time we retire, AI will be good enough to do our jobs too. Which isn’t as reassuring as the executives want us to think it is, because we know the two possibilities. 1) They never actually get that good and we get incentivized to stay past where we’re financially able to retire. 2) The get that good before we’re really ready to retire, but the bottom line requires us to be pushed out because our salaries are no longer justified when the AI can do the job.

Yet another lose-lose proposition. How wonderful.

IMDb Adds ‘Digital Creator’ Profiles For the First Time

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IMDb is introducing “Digital Creator” as a new professional category on IMDb and IMDbPro, giving streamers, vloggers, influencers, video essayists, and other online creators a "dedicated way to represent [their] work and connect with audiences, industry peers, and potential employers,” according to IMDb. Variety reports:
The category includes sub-professions to further specify their work, including “Streamer,” “Vlogger,” “Video Essayist,” “Video Creator,” “Gaming Creator” and “Influencer.”

The “Digital Creator” designation functions as a professional category on IMDb and IMDbPro. Creators can feature multiple professions on their page, so someone who is both a digital creator and an actor can “represent the full scope of their work in one place,” per the company. No existing film or TV credits are required to establish a profile as a Digital Creator.

Just like /.

By dargaud • Score: 5, Informative Thread
IMDB is one of the grandads of the web, like /. (1995 for both ?), and I was using both of them within a month of their creation (although it took me a good while before I created an account on /. as I thought I had nothing to contribute at the time). IMDB was only movies first. Then I was annoyed when they added TV series. Then even more annoyed with the addition of video games. And now they add onlyfans ‘models’ ? GET OFF MY LAWN !!!