TikTok's chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas is leaving the company, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN, after spending several tumultuous years as its top public advocate and a champion of TikTok creators in the face of accusations the platform poses a national security risk.

The White House has challenged hackers to break ChatGPT and other AI chatbots in order to better understand the risks that the technology poses. The test of generative artificial intelligence will take place at the Def Con 31 hacker convention in Las Vegas this August, with leading AI developers like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI all agreeing to let their products be tested. “AI is one of the most powerful technologies of our time, but in order to seize the opportunities it presents, we must first mitigate its risks,” the White House said in a statement. “The Administration is announcing an independent commitment from leading AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Stability AI, to participate in a public evaluation of AI systems.” The event was announced during a meeting between US Vice President Kamala Harris and tech executives at the White House, which aimed to address concerns about fast-growing AI technology. The hacking contest aligns with the Biden Administration’s AI Bill of Rights announced last year, which aims to protect citizens against potential harms associated with AI. “This independent exercise will provide critical information to researchers and the public about the impacts of these models, and will enable AI companies and developers to take steps to fix issues found in those models,” the White House’s statement read. Last week, a blog post from the White House Domestic Policy Council and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy warned that the technology currently poses a significant risk to workers. Longer term, technologists and policy makers warn that advanced artificial intelligence could have catastrophic consequences for society. A former OpenAI researcher recently said that he believed there was a “50/50 chance of doom” if AI systems reach and surpass the cognitive capacity of humans. “I tend to imagine something like a year’s transition from AI systems that are a pretty big deal, to kind of accelerating change, followed by further acceleration, et cetera,” Dr Paul Christiano, who now runs AI research non-profit Alignment Research Center, said last month. “I think once you have that view then a lot of things may feel like AI problems because they happen very shortly after you build AI.” Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity Google and ChatGPT are facing a major threat, leaked document warns Microsoft lets the world access its controversial Bing chatbot DeepMind boss says human-level AI is just a few years away

The voting technology company Smartmatic blasted Rudy Giuliani in court filings Monday night, accusing him of fabricating "excuse after excuse" to avoid turning over documents in its massive defamation suit against him, Fox News and others who spread lies about the 2020 election.

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Snapchat users say they were left terrified after the app’s artificial intelligence system posted a “scary” image of its own. The “My AI” tool is built into Snapchat and works as a chatbot: users can talk to it like they would a real person. It will not only recommend Snapchat features but also converse with people. Overnight, however, Snapchat users found that their AI friend had posted an image to its story. That came as a surprise since it was not clear the system was even able to do so. Users then found themselves concerned by the picture itself. It showed two interlocking colours – in such a way that led many to speculate that it was a picture of a wall and a ceiling. On Twitter, some users even said they became panicked because of fears that the picture depicted their own wall. But the picture appears to have been the same for all Snapchat users, and it is unclear what it actually shows. Very soon after the picture was posted, it was removed again. And Snapchat’s My AI then went offline, with users who tried to talk to it receiving an error messaging indicating that it was experiencing a “technical issue”. Some time after, My AI came back online, though the post remained deleted. Users were then able to ask the system what had happened – and in response to one, it said that the post was a “fun way to mix things up” and then apologised if it had “caused any concern”. In another conversation, My AI said that the post was a “spooky ghost prank” that was “hilarious and gave us quite a scare”. It then appeared to suggest that it needed help. But both the explanation and the other suspect messages that came from My AI are likely a result of the artificial intelligence system inventing stories in response to questions, rather than giving factual information about what had actually happened. Large language models such as those used in My AI are very good at giving convincing answers in response to questions – but often that information is not actually factually accurate. Snapchat confirmed in a statement that it had experienced technical issues. “My AI experienced a temporary outage that’s now resolved,” a spokesperson told The Independent. But it did not address the unusual picture that had been posted just before that temporary outage began. Read More iPhone owners to receive payouts from Apple Something unexpected is happening to people’s iPhone 14s, owners claim Twitter turning Tweetdeck into paid service after slowing down access to rivals iPhone owners to receive payouts from Apple Something unexpected is happening to people’s iPhone 14s, owners claim Twitter turning Tweetdeck into paid service after slowing down access to rivals

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MANILA Analog chipmaker Texas Instruments is planning to invest up to $1 billion to expand its Philippine facilities,

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A hacker used AI to deepfake an employee’s voice and break into an IT company.