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As Hurricane Melissa battered the Caribbean this week, social media became awash with AI-generated content that blurs the line between reality and fiction. Described by CBS News as one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic, Melissa reached Category 5 intensity as it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday. CNN reports that it has already caused seven deaths in the northern Caribbean, and is the most powerful storm to hit the basin since 2019s Hurricane Dorian. Amid a crisis, social media is flooded Over the last few days, major social media platforms have been saturated with AI-generated videosdepicting a wide range of content supposedly related to the hurricane, from towering waves battering coastal towns to sharks gliding through floodwaters, destroyed airports, and an aerial view of the storms eye that reached over 17,000 views. Much of this content was made possible by Sora 2OpenAIs new text-to-video appreleased less than a month ago, which allows users to generate lifelike videos simply by typing a description. The app, free on iPhones, has proven to be as mesmerizing as it is disturbingquickly taking over social media feeds in the weeks since its release. But it’s also caused alarm among people who worry about its potential to spread misinformation. Its as if deepfakes got a publicist and a distribution deal, Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, a former trust and safety manager at TikTok, told NPR earlier this month. “It’s an amplification of something that has been scary for a while, but now it has a whole new platform. As it turns out, its now becoming increasingly harder to trust what you see on screen. Turning a catastrophe into clickbait The proliferation of misleading content regarding natural disasters poses a real threat, well beyond the trivial AI-generated slop that typically clogs social feeds. This storm is a huge storm that will likely cause catastrophic damage, and fake content undermines the seriousness of the message from the government to be prepared, Amy McGovern, a University of Oklahoma meteorology professor, told the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). In a report on Monday, AFP said it identified numerous AI-generated clipsmany, but not all, marked with OpenAIs Sora watermarkspreading across social media feeds. The videos ranged from dramatic newscasts and scenes of severe flooding to fabricated human suffering. Other videos seemed to show localsoften speaking with exaggerated Jamaican accents that reinforced stereotypespartying, boating, jet skiing, swimming, or otherwise downplaying the severity of what forecasters have warned could be the islands most violent storm on record. After AFP flagged the clips, TikTok reportedly removed over two dozen videos and multiple accounts sharing them. Reached for comment, TikTok told Fast Company that its community guidelines require AI-generated or heavily edited content depicting realistic people or events to be labeled. It said unlabeled content may be removed, restricted, or relabeled. The platform prohibits material that “misleads on matters of public importance or harms individuals,” even if labeled. In Jamaica, users seeking updates on Hurricane Melissa are encouraged to consult official sources, including the Jamaica Information Service and TikToks event guides. Similar content appeared on Facebook and Instagram, despite Metas policies requiring labels for AI-generated videos. OpenAI and Meta did not respond to requests for comment. Experts worry that AI-generated content can overshadow critical safety warnings. Jamaicas information minister, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, urged the public to rely on official sources, according to AFP. The risks extend far beyond natural disasters In the Sora era, anyone can generate nearly any scene imaginable with a single prompt, but experts have long raised concerns about generative AI and misinformation. For instance, studies indicate that warning labels alone may not suffice to combat AI-generated falsehoods and can sometimes have unintended effects on users perception of credibility. Aaron Rodericks, head of trust and safety at Bluesky, noted in an interview with NPR that the public is unprepared for such a collapse between reality and fabrication. In a polarized world, it is easy to create fabricated evidence targeting identity groups or individuals, or to conduct large-scale scams. What once existed as a rumorlike a fabricated story about an immigrant or politiciancan now be turned into seemingly credible video proof, Rodericks said. And this is only the beginning OpenAI’s Sora 2 app, where many of these recent clips surfaced, is just the newest player in the expanding world of increasingly powerful video creation tools. This year alone has brought a wave of AI-driven innovations across platforms. As of May, users could chat with AI personas on Instagram, and TikToks AI Alive tool enabled still images to be turned into videos with a single command. By September, Meta introduced its new Vibes app, featuring a TikTok-style AI-generated feed. Together, they signal a new race to shape the future of the internet.
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E-Commerce
The United States and South Korea advanced trade talks on Wednesday, addressing details of $350 billion that would be invested in the American economy, after negotiations and ceremonies that included the presentation of a gold medal and crown to President Donald Trump.Both were gifts from the country’s president, Lee Jae Myung, who dialed up the flattery while Washington and Seoul worked to nail down financial promises during the last stop of Trump’s Asia trip.Although both sides said progress has been made Trump said things were “pretty much finalized” no agreement has been signed yet. The framework includes gradual investments, cooperation on shipbuilding and the lowering of Trump’s tariffs on South Korea’s automobile exports, according to Kim Yong-beom, Lee’s chief of staff for policy. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The announcement came after a day of adulation for the visiting American president from his hosts. There was a special lunch menu featuring U.S.-raised beef and a gold-adorned brownie. A band played Trump’s campaign anthem of “Y.M.C.A.” when he stepped off Air Force One. Lee told him that “you are indeed making America great again.”Trump can be mercurial and demanding, but he has a soft spot for pomp and circumstance. He was particularly impressed by a choreographed display of colorful flags as he walked along the red carpet.“That was some spectacle, and some beautiful scene,” Trump told Lee during their meeting. “It was so perfect, so flawlessly done.”Earlier in the day, Trump even softened his rhetoric on international trade, which he normally describes in predatory terms where someone is always trying to rip off the United States.“The best deals are deals that work for everybody,” he said during a business forum. Washington and Seoul have been working on a trade deal Trump was visiting while South Korea is hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the historical city of Gyeongju. He previously stopped in Japan, where he bonded with the new prime minister, and Malaysia, where he attended a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.The Republican president has been trying to tie up trade deals along the way, eager to show that his confrontational approach of tariffs is paying dividends for Americans who are uneasy about the job market and watching a federal government shutdown extend into its fifth week.However, South Korea has been particularly tough to crack, with the sticking point being Trump’s demand for $350 billion of direct investment in the U.S.Korean officials say putting up cash could destabilize their own economy, and they’d rather offer loans and loan guarantees instead. The country would also need a swap line to manage the flow of its currency into the U.S.Trump, after meeting with Lee, said “we made our deal pretty much finalized.” He did not provide any details.Oh Hyunjoo, a deputy national security director for South Korea, told reporters earlier in the week that the negotiations have been proceeding “a little bit more slowly” than expected.“We haven’t yet been able to reach an agreement on matters such as the structure of investments, their formats and how the profits will be distributed,” she said Monday.It’s a contrast from Trump’s experience in Japan, where the government has worked to deliver the $550 billion in investments it promised as part of an earlier trade agreement. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in specific commitments during a dinner with business leaders in Tokyo.For now, South Korea is stuck with a 25% tariff on automobiles, putting automakers such as Hyundai and Kia at a disadvantage against Japanese and European competitors, which face 15%.Lee, speaking at the business forum before Trump arrived, warned against trade barriers.“At a time when protectionism and nationalism are on the rise and nations focus on their immediate survival, words like ‘cooperation,’ ‘coexistence’ and ‘inclusive growth’ may sound hollow,” he said. “Yet, paradoxically, it is in times of crisis like this that APEC’s role as a platform for solidarity shines brighter.” Trump and Lee swap praise despite disagreements Lee took office in June and had a warm meeting with Trump at the White House in August, when he praised Oval Office renovations and suggested building a Trump Tower in North Korea.He took a similar approach when Trump visited on Wednesday. The gold medal presented to Trump represents the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, the country’s highest honor, and Trump is the first U.S. president to receive it.Trump said “it’s as beautiful as it can possibly be” and “I’d like to wear it right now.”Next was a replica of a royal crown from the Silla Kingdom, which existed from 57 B.C. to 935 A.D. The original crown was found in a tomb in Gyeongju, the kingdom’s capital.Besides trade disagreements, there have been other points of tension between Washington and Seoul this year. More than 300 South Koreans were detained during a U.S. immigration raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia in September, sparking a sense of outrage and betrayal.Lee said at the time companies would likely hesitate to make future investments unless the visa system was improved.“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies,” he said.Asked Monday about the immigration raid, Trump said, “I was opposed to getting them out,” and he said an improved visa system would make it easier for companies to bring in skilled workers. Trump-Xi meeting is expected Thursday While in South Korea, Trump is also expected to hold a closely watched meeting on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Washington and Beijing have clashed over trade, but both sides have indicated that they’re willing to dial down tensions.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that he expects to lower tariffs targeting China over the flow of fentanyl ingredients.“They’ll be doing what they can do,” he said. Trump added that “China is going to be working with me.”Trump sounded resigned to the idea that he wouldn’t get to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on this trip. The president previously floated the possibility of extending his stay in South Korea, but on Wednesday said “the schedule was very tight.”North Korea has so far dismissed overtures from Washington and Seoul, saying it won’t resume diplomacy with the United States unless Washington drops its demand for the North’s denuclearization. North Korea said Wednesday it fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, in the latest display of its growing military capabilities as Trump visits South Korea.Trump brushed off the weapons test, saying “he’s been launching missiles for decades, riht?”The two leaders met during Trump’s first term, although their conversations did not produce any agreements about North Korea’s nuclear program. Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim contributed from Seoul, South Korea, and Josh Boak contributed from Tokyo. Chris Megerian, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia that the billionaire seeks to position as a rival to Wikipedia.Writing on social media, Musk said that Grokipedia.com is “now live” and its goal is the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”Musk has previously criticized Wikipedia for being filled with “propaganda” and called for people to stop donating to the site, which is run by a nonprofit. In September he announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI was working on Grokipedia.The Grokipedia site has a minimalist appearance with little beyond a search bar where users can type in queries. It states that it has 885,279 articles. Wikipedia, meanwhile, says it has more than 7 million articles in English.Like Wikipedia, users can search for articles on various topics such as Taylor Swift, the baseball World Series, or Buckingham Palace.While Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteers, it’s unclear how exactly Grokipedia articles are put together. Reports suggest the site is powered by the same xAI model that underpins Musk’s Grok chatbot, but some articles are seemingly adapted from Wikipedia.The San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement Tuesday that it is “still in the process of understanding how Grokipedia works.”As a huge trove of well-constructed sentences with little restriction on how it’s used, Wikipedia has been a key source used to train AI chatbots, including Grok’s rivals ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.“This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist,” said the Wikimedia Foundation.Wikipedia for months has been a target of the political right. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress launched an investigation in August of alleged “manipulation efforts” in Wikipedia’s editing process that they said could inject bias and undermine neutral points of view on its platform and the AI systems that rely on it.Wikipedia encourages its volunteer editors to cite nearly every sentence or paragraph with a primary source, and sentences not verified can be challenged and removed. Some of Grokipedia’s entries are thinly sourced, such as an entry on the Chola Dynasty of southern India that has three linked sources, compared to Wikipedia’s that has 113 linked sources plus dozens of referenced books.Grokipedia’s entry on Wikipedia accuses the site of having “systemic ideological biases particularly a left-leaning slant in coverage of political figures and topics.”The Wikimedia Foundation said in its statement Tuesday: “Unlike newer projects, Wikipedia’s strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, rigorous volunteer oversight, and a strong culture of continuous improvement. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, written to inform billions of readers without promoting a particular point of view.” Associated Press
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