Author: Taylor Lowery

A clip of a politician I had interviewed years prior was the first convincing audio deepfake I had ever heard. The rhythm was appropriate. It sounded just like him, with the pauses, the slight lift at the end of some words, and even the clearing of the throat. However, he had never mentioned any of it. And that is the main concern for anyone watching the upcoming election cycle. Topic ProfileDetailsSubjectAudio Deepfakes in ElectionsCategoryGenerative AI / Election SecurityPrimary ConcernVoice cloning used in disinformation campaignsTime Required to Clone a VoiceAs little as 15 seconds of audioNotable IncidentsBiden robocall (New Hampshire, Jan…

A significant security revelation usually results in a certain kind of silence, and this week’s silence over Cupertino feels heavier than most. Working with Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, iVerify has outlined what may be the first mass exploitation of iPhones that has been seen. This is not a targeted attack on a foreign minister or dissident, but rather something more widespread, messier, and difficult to ignore. The Coruna framework resembles a tool that started out inside the US government and then ended up somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. You can practically see how it took place. A beautifully written piece…

The way officials discuss phones has changed over the past year, and you can almost feel it. Smartphones used to be met with a kind of dejected shrug: “Yes, they listen, yes, they track, what can you do?” The tone has shifted. The dialogue has become more intense in Brussels, Washington, Delhi, and London. Your pocket phone is no longer viewed as a passive gadget that occasionally misbehaves. It is increasingly being viewed as something more akin to an unregulated intelligence organization that operates out of your jeans. Topic SnapshotDetailsSubjectAI integration inside consumer smartphonesPrimary concern flagged by governmentsMass data collection,…

Five years ago, there was no such thing as a newsroom silence. You can see it between the keyboards when you walk through one today, whether you’re in Buenos Aires or London. fewer calls. fewer disputes over a lede. Staring at a chat window, a junior reporter types a prompt in the same manner that an older colleague once asked a source a question. It’s peculiar because it’s not dramatic. Topic OverviewDetailsSubjectThe Rise of AI-Generated JournalismPrimary Research SourceReuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of OxfordCountries StudiedArgentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the UK, the United StatesMost Used AI ToolChatGPT (22%…

A senior European official made a statement that stuck with me a few months ago in a quiet corner of a defense conference in Brussels. He claimed that no longer creating policy was the most difficult aspect of his work. It was telling ministers that a Taiwanese chip factory was more important than a Russian missile silo. When he said that, he didn’t really laugh. In a nutshell, that is where global politics have strayed. Power was measured in tanks, trade routes, and treaties for the majority of the last century. Beneath all of this is now a more subdued…

You can learn most of what you need to know by taking the morning train through Silicon Valley. As the hills fade into the distance, young engineers with earbuds in and laptop screens illuminating their faces fix bugs. They leave DeepMind at Mountain View, Stanford at Palo Alto, and Nvidia at Santa Clara. Each station feeds a distinct node in a global supply chain that, three or four years ago, nearly no one outside the industry could identify. Everyone is aware now. or believes they do. The race to create the best AI chip has grown to be the most…

When you first see a functioning construction printer, it’s not the technology that catches your attention, but rather how relaxed the entire area seems. There are no workers yelling over saws. There were no flatbed deliveries waiting at the curb. The people watching it spend most of their time on their phones while a long mechanical arm glides back and forth, laying concrete in slow ribbons that stack into a wall. It has an odd serenity to it. The question that no one has fully addressed is whether that calm scales into a true solution to the housing crisis. The…

It’s difficult to describe your initial reaction when you see Genie 3 spit out a forest that you can actually walk through. Mostly I wonder. A hint of discomfort beneath. At the edges, the trees aren’t quite right. No rasterizer could handle the way the light bends. However, you are free to relocate, and the world continues on. This straightforward fact—generated, not loaded—is what is currently subtly shaking some areas of the gaming industry. After a year of trusted-tester demos and screenshots leaked to Reddit, Google DeepMind finally released Project Genie to its AI Ultra subscribers in late January. The…

These days, it’s not the orange light from the desert or the palm trees that greet you as you stroll around Arizona State’s Tempe campus. It’s how frequently students bring up AI in casual conversation, such as at the coffee cart, outside the library, or in between classes, just as a previous generation might have brought up Wikipedia or email. The majority of the nation hasn’t quite caught up to how quickly things have changed. Universities across the country are moving swiftly, which is something they don’t typically do. According to surveys, between 80 and 90 percent of college students…

Modular smartphones seemed like a joke for a very long time. It’s the kind of thing engineers would roll their eyes at if you brought it up over dinner. LG gave it a shot. Google gave it a shot. Both appeared somewhat embarrassed as they left. Ten years later, however, we are once more discussing phones that can be disassembled, reassembled, and kept functional long after the typical upgrade cycle would have pushed them into a drawer. It’s difficult to ignore how subtly this comeback has been developing. There were no glitzy keynote addresses, celebrity endorsements, or eye-catching teaser videos.…