183910430
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
A global survey from Hexagon found that people are generally comfortable with robots handling heavy lifting, deliveries, and hazardous work, but remain skeptical about using them in hospitals and schools. Just 12 percent of adults said they would prefer a robot caregiver, while 63 percent were comfortable with robots working in factories and warehouses. The study also found that 86 percent of adults believe clear rules governing robot behavior are essential as adoption increases.
183902488
submission
alternative_right writes:
The Cornell research finds that deep research agents, which are the real-time scrapers that tools like Google AI search and ChatGPT use to retrieve web content with citations in response to user queries, cite user-generated content from sites like Reddit or Wikipedia in roughly half of all queries, and that nearly a quarter of all citations come from user-generated websites. The paper suggests that what we have been seeing is basically Redditor suggests you put glue on your pizza as a service, or an end-to-end attack against the systems that increasingly dominate the ways that people access information online. The researchers found that âoea single poisoned Reddit comment can influence generated outputs for an entire cluster of related [AI] queries,â the paper said.
âoeWe show that a tiny snippetâ"just 13 wordsâ"of retrieved text on a UGC website like Reddit, Wikipedia, Quora, Facebook, etc. can change AI agents to output spam / scam content pretty consistently,â Triedman told 404 Media.
183890198
submission
schwit1 writes:
Erin Maus is a Unitarian Universalist and Unitarian Universalists believe everything.
And it worked.
Her employer granted her the religious exemption. Now, she's coding vibe-free.
‘I'm writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say,‘ she told Business Insider.
‘Just two years ago, how else would you do it?'
But it's not just the Unitarians who could file for the exemption. Pope Leo has also condemned AI as unethical, particularly the huge numbers of people enslaved at data labeling centers around the world who are forced to work in near slave conditions teaching AI.
And the number of people suddenly finding religion just so they don't have to use AI is kind of hilarious.
The funny thing is, U.S. citizens don't have to prove their sincerely held beliefs. All these heathens don't have to actually convert to get the exemption.
Besides, at some point the companies will realize what Maus did: Maus found that completing her coding tasks without AI was just as quick as her colleague, who used AI, telling the publication that ‘AI doesn't really seem to be this game changer.'
183889520
submission
necro81 writes:
The heavily promoted, $499 T1 "Trump Phone" was originally said to be "Made in the USA" and ship in September 2025. Later, that was downgraded to "Assembled in the USA". Given the Trump Organization's lack of engineering or supply chain expertise, many assumed the "T1" would just be a private-label phone made by someone else. After a number of delays, the first phones are finally shipping.
iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a just gold-painted 2024 HTC U24 Pro — a device from a Taiwanese company, probably using mainland China design and supply chains. In collaboration with NBC News, the iFixit team examined both phones using CT scans, side-by-side teardowns, and even reassembled a working T1 using a U24 Pro main board. As for "assembled in the USA", that may be true, in the same sense that your phone's repairman can "assemble" a phone from a handful of subassemblies sourced from someone else. Or it may have been assembled in Guangdong, China like the other U24 Pros.
iFixit sums it up: "What you have is not an 'American-Proud Design', but a phone designed in China, made in China, with the vast majority of parts sourced from China. I’m failing to find any stirring of American pride within me. I’ve certainly felt it before, so I can confirm that it is absent at this time."
183753530
submission
Morpeth writes:
A German court made clear distinction between Google simply returning search results which point to websites they did not generate/control/own, versus the information provided by Google's AI Overviews, which the court deems as content they are creating, and hence liable for.
"A German court has ruled that Google is directly liable for what its AI search overviews say. Previous case law shielding search engine operators from liability doesn't apply to AI overviews..."
"Google's AI overviews work nothing like traditional search results, the court argues. The AI rewrites and judges results "in its own words and according to its own structure," the ruling says. "
"The court also examined existing rulings from Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH), which gave traditional search engines and autocomplete limited liability. The BGH had argued that search engine operators were only liable as indirect infringers because they merely made third-party content findable. A proactive duty to check results would threaten how search engines work.
The Munich court found that this reasoning doesn't apply to AI overviews. A regular search engine just points to outside websites. But AI overviews generate "independent, new, and substantive statements"
183753116
submission
fjo3 writes:
Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it.
183752734
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
HP is warning that hackers are increasingly abusing legitimate remote access tools such as LogMeIn and ScreenConnect instead of relying solely on traditional malware. According to the companyâ(TM)s latest Wolf Security Threat Insights Report, attackers have used tax-themed phishing emails, fake software updates, and bogus app downloads to trick users into installing authentic remote access software that ultimately gives cybercriminals persistent control over their PCs. Because the software is legitimate and digitally signed, the activity can blend in with normal IT operations and avoid raising suspicion.
The report also highlights a growing number of attacks involving fake cryptocurrency wallet recovery tools, AI-assisted âoevibe-codedâ malware, and ClickFix campaigns that disguise malware as audio files behind realistic CAPTCHA prompts. HP says email remains the top malware delivery method, accounting for 57 percent of threats observed during the first quarter of 2026. The company argues that modern attackers are increasingly hiding behind trusted software, familiar workflows, and convincing social engineering rather than obviously malicious programs. What do you think about attackers abusing legitimate tools instead of creating their own malware? Is user education enough, or do operating systems need stronger protections against this sort of abuse?
183751500
submission
schwit1 writes:
In a new essay for The Chronicle Higher Education , university-level literature and writing instructor Tyler Jagt recalls how not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20-page article, something that he had read "without complaint" as an undergraduate a decade ago.
One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone.
Jagt cites the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment results released last year. It showed that 12th grade reading scores were at the lowest level since the assessment began in 1992. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's "basic" level in reading, meaning they likely "cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text." Younger children aren't better off: a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 70 percent of fourth graders, or around two million kids, can't read at a proficient level.
"What I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch," Jagt writes. "There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires."
Pupils arriving unable to read is an increasingly common complaint from college-level educators amid the explosion of generative AI. Many students treat AI as a genuine learning tool — perhaps to summarize a lengthy article they can't understand, for example — becoming reliant on its speedy responses to race through coursework.
More flagrantly detrimental to learning, plenty more use the tech to generate entire essays and solve math problems — or, in a word, cheat. That many universities have partnered with tech companies to provide students with access to their shiny AI models has only served to rubber stamp and accelerate the tech's adoption in the classroom, marooning individual instructors to figure out how to work around AI on their own.
183734028
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Microsoft has published a lengthy manifesto on AI, jobs, and the future of work, with company vice chair and president Brad Smith acknowledging growing anxiety among students and workers over artificial intelligence. The essay discusses the âoedignity of work,â fears surrounding disappearing entry-level jobs, and even references graduates booing mentions of AI during commencement speeches. Smith argues that AI should strengthen human capabilities rather than replace people outright, comparing todayâ(TM)s AI transition to past technological disruptions like photography and personal computing.
Critics, however, may notice what the essay does not say. Despite discussing workforce anxiety at length, Microsoft stops short of promising there will be no AI-driven mass layoffs. That omission stands out as tech companies increasingly market AI around efficiency, automation, and reduced labor needs while simultaneously investing billions into datacenters and AI infrastructure.
183733918
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Microsoftâ(TM)s growing AI infrastructure now needs so much electricity that the company just added another 260 megawatts of solar power capacity across Texas and North Carolina. Energy company MN8 Energy announced that two utility-scale solar projects tied to long-term agreements with Microsoft are now fully operational. The projects include a 120 MW solar installation in Texas and a 140 MW project in North Carolina.
While the announcement focuses heavily on sustainability goals, the bigger story is how AI is reshaping the energy industry itself. As companies like Microsoft continue expanding AI datacenters and cloud infrastructure, power demand is exploding alongside it. Solar, battery storage, and even nuclear energy are increasingly becoming part of the broader AI conversation as hyperscalers race to secure enough electricity for future growth.
183721290
submission
schwit1 writes:
Hospitals get billions in federally discounted drugs, and aren't required to pass a penny to patients.
The Trump Administration is trying to fix with a rebate model that creates a paper trail proving the savings actually reach the poor.
The hospital lobby sued to stop it. Transparency shouldn't stop reform it should drive it.
183688280
submission
fjo3 writes:
Gene-editing human embryos—the sci-fi scenario that many have feared and many others have cheered—may now be a reality. Columbia University scientists say they have found an "efficient and precise" way to edit human embryos. Unlike earlier methods using CRISPR alone, this method works without introducing chromosomal abnormalities into the embryo or deleting large sequences of DNA.
183665516
submission
AmiMoJo writes:
We’ll often see headlines quoting how many gigawatts of new solar farms or coal plants China is building. But it’s hard to get a meaningful sense of scale for how electricity generation in China is changing.
The chart puts it in perspective.
In 2025 alone, China’s electricity generation increased by almost 500 terawatt-hours (TWh). This is compared here to the total amount of electricity that whole countries generate each year.
Germany generates almost exactly that amount. That means China effectively added a Germany-sized grid to its electricity system in just one year.
What’s also quite staggering is that almost all of this new generation came from solar and wind. China generated 340 TWh more electricity from solar than the year before.
183660740
submission
joshuark writes:
The injured teenage survivor of a January 2025 shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee high school recently sued the manufacturer of an “AI gun detection” system that failed to detect the handgun that left two dead, including the shooter.
In 2023, the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Board approved a contract worth over $1 million to install an AI detection layer on top of its district-wide network of cameras and related security infrastructure.
The lawsuit alledges the security company Omnilert either knew or should have known that there were “significant operational limitations in its gun detection system that could result in detection failures during actual emergencies, including limitations based on camera placement, proximity of the weapon to camera sensors, camera angle, lighting, and weapon visibility.”
Omnilert cofounder Ara Bagdasarian declined an invitation to answer questions about the lawsuit. System Integrations, the other defendant in the case, which resold the Omnilert system, also did not respond to a request for comment.
MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted said in a press conference following the January 2025 shooting that due to where the shooter was in relation to the cameras, the imagery “wasn’t close enough to get an accurate read and to activate that alarm.”
The money that MNPS spent on deploying these detection systems, he added, “could have gone to a counselor or something else to a kid in crisis. Every decision that you make is pointing away resources from something else.”
183655278
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Five leading scientists were ousted from the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in New Orleans on Friday. Their crime: handing out copies of an editorial, published in the journal Diabetes Care on April 29, sharply criticizing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on scientific research.
Those ousted were Steven Kahn, professor of medicine at the University of Washington and editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, who co-authored the published editorial; former ADA president Desmond Schatz of the University of Florida, Gainesville; Aaron Kelly, pediatrics professor at the University of Minnesota; Justin Ryder of Northwestern University; and Irl Hirsch, also of the University of Washington. The five were handing out reprints of the editorial outside a room where NIH director Jay Bhattacharya had been scheduled to speak. Bhattacharya cancelled and another NIH official spoke in his stead.
“They physically grabbed us, forced us out of the conference center, and now are telling us we can no longer attend this meeting,” Kelly told MedPage Today, which first reported the incident. “They’re taking our lanyards. It really has come to this in America. Censorship is real. America needs to stand up. Scientists, stand up. Physicians, stand up.”
The ADA confirmed to MedPage Today that five registered scientists had been removed from the meeting, claiming the scientists had violated the organization’s code of conduct for conferences. “These attendees were escorted out by our onsite event security because they demonstrated behavior not consistent with this code of conduct,” the ADA media team said in a statement. “They were respectfully given the opportunity to cease this behavior and chose not to which is why they were escorted out.”
“All attendees will conduct themselves in a professional and respectful manner, free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation,” the code of conduct states. “Inappropriate conduct, including but not limited to harassment; threatening or unwelcome physical or verbal actions; or disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting, will not be tolerated.”
Online backlash to the ADA’s actions spread rapidly on both Twitter/X and BlueSky, and sharply increased the number of page views for Kahn et al.’s April editorial. According to Kahn, the editorial was published with a disclaimer, added by ADA leadership, insisting that the ADA had nothing to do with developing or writing the article. He has written to the ADA seeking re-admittance to the conference, since he is slated to speak and chair a session.
Some questioned how handing out reprints of an editorial published in the ADA’s own journal, at the ADA’s own annual conference, could be construed as a violation of that code. The scientists were not disruptive or disorderly in their conduct, based on the videos posted by MedPage Today, although the fact that they were handing out reprints just before an NIH representative was scheduled to speak might be construed as a form of protest. But it could just as easily be argued that such actions fall under valid scientific dissemination and discussion, the conference’s stated objective.
“It is no longer enough to stand idly by or work behind the scenes with lawmakers,” the authors wrote in their editorial. “Moreover, it is no longer appropriate to fret about political backlash. Now is the time to recognize and fight to reverse the spiraling fall of the United States of America’s status as the foremost nation in health care innovation. As a nation, we must continue to believe in ensuring better health for all. A few brushes of a pen, some clearly visible through budget requests, others less so through internal machinations, are rapidly destroying what generations have built. We can no longer afford complacency and fear. We must all act now!”
