Emanuel Maiberg reports via 404 Media: Dozens of Ghost kitchens, restaurants that serve food exclusively by delivery on apps like DoorDash and Grubhub, are selling food that they promote to customers with AI-generated images. It's common for advertisements to stage or edit pictures of food to make it look more enticing, but in these cases the ghost kitchens are showing people pictures of food that literally doesn't exist, and looks nothing like the actual items they're selling, sometimes because the faulty AI is producing physically impossible food items. [...] Some ghost kitchens exist as unmarked commercial kitchens with no actual restaurant you can visit that simply fulfill orders for a variety of brands that only exist on the food delivery services. Other ghost kitchens piggyback on existing, real restaurant kitchens to fulfill orders for those brands that exist only on food delivery apps.

[The food from a business on DoorDash called Pasta Lovers] actually comes from Tony's Pizzeria in North Brooklyn, which also fulfills orders for a cheesesteak brand called Philly Cheez, a hero sandwich brand called Hero Mania, and a wrap brand called That's A Wrap. All of these brands deliver food from different ghost kitchens across the country, and all of them feature the same type of AI-generated images to promote their food, some of which looks ridiculous. [...]

"We don't allow the use of AI-generated images and if we find a merchant is using any, we will remove those images from their menu," Grubhub, which also operates Seamless, told me in an email. However, at the time of writing the AI-generated images on Seamless I sent the company are still live on its site. "We know how important it is for diners to have realistic expectations of what they are ordering and should expect to receive, which is why we share image guidelines with our partners and our system reviews image submissions before they're allowed on our platform." "DoorDash is committed to showcasing realistic representations of meals that customers would receive when ordering online," DoorDash told me in an email. "Showcasing high-quality, accurate, and realistic menu images is crucial for maintaining customer trust and generating sales through DoorDash Marketplace." "This is all incredibly depressing," concludes Maiberg. "A local pizzeria can't get by unless it makes sandwiches for ghost kitchen brands, the people who make a living taking photographs of food are being displaced by AI tools, and gigantic food delivery apps are still making money by taking a cut from restaurants and screwing over gig delivery drivers."

"AI-generated images of food that people can order and eat finally brings us to a shockingly literal manifestation of Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra. Baudrillard would say the Spicy Philly Cheese from Philly Cheez is "never that which conceals the truth -- it is the truth which conceals that there is none."

Regulators in Massachusetts are seeking to revoke Robinhood's broker-dealer license in the state, after accusing the company of failing to properly account for fractional shares traded by customers on its platform. They also say the company "continues to entice and induce inexperienced customers into risky trading." CNN reports: The battle began in December when regulators in Massachusetts filed a 24-page complaint against Robinhood accusing the company of violating state law and regulations by failing to protect customers and safeguard its system. Officials alleged Robinhood lured inexperienced investors to its platform with gaming elements such as colorful confetti -- a practice that the company recently said it is getting rid of. The amended complaint filed Thursday says Robinhood has continued a pattern of aggressively enticing customers, including some with "little or no investment experience." It cites news reports indicating Robinhood has expanded margin lending and sought to persuade customers to deposit their stimulus checks by offering "free cash" for deposits.

Robinhood's conduct since the complaint was filed in December "poses a substantial and continued risk to Massachusetts investors," the complaint said. Massachusetts regulators said Robinhood has failed to report its fractional share trade executions for over a year, "demonstrating its inability to follow the most basic requirements" required of broker-dealers.

In a blog post, Robinhood sharply criticized what it described as "unfounded, politicized allegations and unreasonable demands" from regulators in Massachusetts and warned that revoking its license would block access for millions of customers. "The Massachusetts Securities Division's attempt to prevent Massachusetts residents from choosing how they invest is elitist and against everything we stand for," Robinhood said. "We don't believe our customers are naive as the Massachusetts Securities Division paints them to be." Robinhood fired back by filing a complaint and motion in Massachusetts State Court for a preliminary injunction that would stop the regulatory case against the company. Robinhood is arguing that the regulator's new fiduciary rule "exceeds its authority" under both state and federal law. "By trying to block Robinhood, the division is attempting to bring its residents back in time and reinstate the financial barriers that Robinhood was founded to break down," Robinhood said in the blog post.

Max Read makes his case via New York Magazine for how Facebook was the reason for Donald Trump's surprise victory on November 8th. Though, to be fair, "Facebook" is called out specifically due to its large online presence, but in reality all the "large and influential boards and social-media platforms where Americans now congregate to discuss politics" are to blame. The main reason why has to do with Facebook's "inability (or refusal) to address the problem of hoax or fake news" that is spread rampantly and effortlessly across the platform: Fake news is not a problem unique to Facebook, but Facebook's enormous audience, and the mechanisms of distribution on which the site relies -- i.e., the emotionally charged activity of sharing, and the show-me-more-like-this feedback loop of the news feed algorithm -- makes it the only site to support a genuinely lucrative market in which shady publishers arbitrage traffic by enticing people off of Facebook and onto ad-festooned websites, using stories that are alternately made up, incorrect, exaggerated beyond all relationship to truth, or all three. Many got hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of shares, likes, and comments; enough people clicked through to the posts to generate significant profits for their creators. The valiant efforts of Snopes and other debunking organizations were insufficient; Facebook's labyrinthine sharing and privacy settings mean that fact-checks get lost in the shuffle. Often, no one would even need to click on and read the story for the headline itself to become a widely distributed talking point, repeated elsewhere online, or, sometimes, in real life. When roughly 170 million people in North America use Facebook every day and nearly forty-four percent of all adults in the U.S. say they get news from Facebook, the spread of "fake news" is all the more detrimental. The problem is that Facebook seems "insecure about its power, unsure of its purpose, and unclear about what its responsibilities really are." Earlier this year, Facebook acted on what was right and wrong by censoring the iconic "napalm girl" photograph, later issuing a statement saying "These are difficult decisions and we don't always get it right." Of course, lies and exaggerations have always been central to real political campaigns; Facebook has simply made them easier to spread, and discovered that it suffers no particular market punishment for doing so -- humans seem to have a strong bias toward news that confirms their beliefs, and environments where those beliefs are unlikely to be challenged.

Kristian vonBengtson writes "Objective Europa aims to send human beings to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, on a one way mission in search of extraterrestrial life while expanding the borders of exploration and knowledge for all mankind. The starting point of Objective Europa is purely theoretical (Phase I) but will move into more advanced phases including prototyping, technology try-outs, and eventually a crewed launch. Objective Europa is a crowd-researched project made up of an international team of volunteers. Many people from a wide range of backgrounds have already joined and become a vital part of the mission. ... [Europa's] deep ocean and active geology provide a solid platform for extraterrestrial life, making Europa one of the most enticing locations to explore in the solar system. The 600-day flight required to reach Europa is manageable with today's technology, and the many challenges of such a mission pose a perfect starting point for new research and innovative thinking."

koniosis writes "XboxLink has just launched their new site for XLink Kai7 - this nifty little soon-to-be-available tool lets you play LAN-enabled games over the internet with some funky packet sniffing. You can play PS2/Xbox and Gamecube games online, connecting through your PC, and it's completely free - there's even 'integrated Speex.org codec based group chatting'! The XLink Kai download client itself 'will debut... on Saturday 22nd May, at midnight BST', according to the site, but you can register as part of the community now." We've previously covered the WarpPipe tunneling software for GameCube, but this multi-platform solution looks even more enticing.