Scraping the open web for AI training data can have its drawbacks. On Thursday, researchers from Anthropic, the UK AI Security Institute, and the Alan Turing Institute released a preprint research paper suggesting that large language models like the ones that power ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can develop backdoor vulnerabilities from as few as 250 corrupted documents inserted into their training data. That means someone tucking certain documents away inside…

A few weeks ago, Google told US Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that it would allow creators banned for COVID and election misinformation to rejoin the platform. It didn’t offer many details in the letter, but now YouTube has explained the restoration process. YouTube’s “second chances” are actually more expansive than the letter made it seem. Going forward, almost anyone banned from YouTube will have an opportunity to request a new…

Discord says that hackers made off with images of 70,000 users’ government IDs that they were required to provide in order to use the site. Like an increasing number of sites, Discord requires certain users to provide a photo or scan of their driver’s license or other government ID that shows they meet the minimum age requirements in their country. In some cases, Discord allows users to prove their age…

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but the press that Intel has generated in the last year has certainly been testing the boundaries of the aphorism. Is it good when your company posts an annual loss for the first time in almost 40 years? When you’re doing multiple rounds of mass layoffs? When your board pushes your CEO into leaving, and starts arguing with the new CEO…

AI bubble talk is in the air, and among the chorus of voices warning of an AI-fueled market bubble (which includes OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos) is the Bank of England, which warned on Wednesday that global financial markets could face a sharp correction if investor sentiment turns negative on AI. The UK central bank said US stock valuations resemble those seen near the peak of the…

Salesforce says it’s refusing to pay an extortion demand made by a crime syndicate that claims to have stolen roughly 1 billion records from dozens of Salesforce customers. The threat group making the demands began their campaign in May, when they made voice calls to organizations storing data on the Salesforce platform, Google-owned Mandiant said in June. The English-speaking callers would provide a pretense that necessitated the target connect an…

In another loss for early smart home adopters, Logitech has announced that it will brick all Pop switches on October 15. In August of 2016, Logitech launched Pop switches, which provide quick access to a range of smart home actions, including third-party gadgets. For example, people could set their Pop buttons to launch Philips Hue or Insteon lighting presets, play a playlist from their Sonos speaker, or control Lutron smart…

When the first foldable phones came along, they seemed like a cool evolution of the traditional smartphone form factor and, if they got smaller and cheaper, like something people might actually want. After more than five years of foldable phones, we can probably give up on the latter. Google’s new Pixel 10 Pro Fold retains the $1,800 price tag of last year’s model, and while it’s improved in several key…

Of the many minor to medium-size annoyances that come with a modern Windows 11 installation, the requirement that you sign in with a Microsoft account is one of the most irritating. Sure, all operating systems (including Apple’s and Google’s) encourage account sign-in as part of their setup process and prevent you from using multiple operating system features until and unless you sign in. Various sanctioned and unsanctioned tools and workarounds…

As generative AI has taken off since ChatGPT’s debut, inspiring hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and infrastructure developments, the top question on many people’s minds has been: Is generative AI a bubble, and if so, when will it pop? To help us potentially answer that question, I’ll be hosting a live conversation with prominent AI critic Ed Zitron on October 7 at 3:30 pm ET as part of…