Free Republic

A group of 20 leading tech companies on Friday announced a joint commitment to combat AI misinformation in this year’s elections. The industry is specifically targeting deepfakes, which can use deceptive audio, video and images to mimic key stakeholders in democratic elections or to provide false voting information. Microsoft , Meta , Google , Amazon , IBM , Adobe and chip designer Arm all signed the accord. Artificial intelligence startups OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI also joined the group, alongside social media companies such as Snap , TikTok and X. Tech platforms are preparing for a huge year of elections...

Google will allow businesses to install an auto-updating version of the Chrome operating system to Windows devices, potentially preventing millions of PCs from hitting landfills after Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab ends support for Windows 10 next year, parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab said on Wednesday. The company said ChromeOS Flex will continue receiving regular security updates and features like data encryption, allowing users to keep using their Windows 10 systems. Microsoft has said that its Windows 10 will reach the end of support on Oct. 14 2025, and will no longer provide regular security updates, bug fixes,...

Out of curiosity, I asked the following question to 3 different Artificial Intelligence Chatbots. QUESTION: “Do you know about the Byrna non-lethal pistol”?Here are the respective responses from each ChatBots: Google Gemini Chatbot ( formerly Bard ) I'm a text-based AI, and that is outside of my capabilities. My response: Why is the question outside your capability? Gemini’s response: I understand that you're asking why it's outside my capabilities to provide information about the Byrna non-lethal pistol. There are a few reasons for this: Safety concerns: As a large language model, I am not able to provide information that could...

Top brass at Google have laid off thousands of employees over the past year. As a result, according to multiple recent reports, staff morale is suffering badly, and workers are increasingly public about the slump. Workers’ posts online and details from a company Q&A session on Friday, as reported by the Verge, paint an ugly picture of the Mountain View tech giant’s current employee-boss relations. Long known as a bastion for innovation and a cushy environment for engineers, Google and its work culture are now getting skewered as overly corporate and generally aimless. Google employees can submit questions in advance...

A Pennsylvania man decapitated his 68 year-old federal government employee dad - then held up the victim's head for a YouTube video blasting the Biden administration. Justin Mohn, 32, beheaded his father Michael at their $390,000 home in Middleton Township, Pennsylvania then displayed the head during a rant blaming the federal government for 'woke mobs' and migrants he claims are destroying the United States. The appalling 14 minute clip - which remained on YouTube for six hours after it was posted - sees Mohn hold up his father's head in a bloodied plastic bag. He says: 'This is the head...

ITALY -- Italian regulators said they told OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot has violated European Union’s stringent data privacy rules. The country’s data protection authority, known as Garante, said on Monday that it notified San Francisco-based OpenAI of breaches of the EU rules, known as General Data Protection Regulation. The watchdog started investigating ChatGPT last year, when it temporarily banned within Italy the chatbot that can produce text, images and sound in response to users’ questions. Based on the results of its “fact-finding activity,” the watchdog said it “concluded that the available evidence pointed to the existence of...

Google's Chrome web browser will soon include a warning that "private" browsing does not prevent users from being tracked, a move that comes months after Google settled a related privacy lawsuit. In December, Google settled a $5 billion privacy lawsuit, which alleged that it spied on people who used Chrome's private browsing — or 'Incognito' — mode. A pre-release version of the browser has been found to include an updated privacy warning that addresses a key piece of evidence in the settled lawsuit — that users "overestimate" the privacy protection features in Chrome. When the change is rolled out, users...

We recently discovered that Google’s ad-serving network is blocking its ads from appearing on a story we published almost exactly three years ago. Google declared that the article violated its terms of service because it contained “Dangerous or derogatory content,” which it defines as anything that: - incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization. - harasses, intimidates, or bullies an individual or group of...

My wife's sister is a JUCO medical instructor and this new term the college encourages all faculty/student communications to be done via "Google Voice". She related to us some of the capabilities of the app and it all sounded "kinda OK", and had some positive possibilities. My question to this forum: has anyone on here used Google Voice, and if so, are there any caveats?

The Google engineer charged with murder last week admitted to beating his wife to death with his fist in their $2million Santa Clara home, court documents obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com reveal. Police noticed that suspect Liren Chen’s right hand was ‘extremely swollen and purple’ and that he had blood on his clothing, legs, arms and hands, records reveal. When fire department personnel asked the 27-year-old how he hurt his hand, he replied, ‘I punched my wife,’ and told them it happened the prior day, records state. A friend of Chen told police he’d seen Chen with his wife Xuanyi Yu...

Before a single vote was cast, the 2020 election was baked into the cake. America’s political and media establishment were not going to let what happened to them in 2016 happen again. ... TIME Magazine - “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” which describes a vast effort by a network of partisan political operatives, union leaders, and business titans to create a mail ballot “revolution” to oust Trump... a plan hatched by a highly motivated and well-funded few to undermine American democracy as we know it. Yet, it is not well understood exactly what...

A man has been charged with murdering his Google Engineer wife after he was found 'staring blankly' into space with her dead body nearby. Police arrested Liren Chen, 27, who also works for Google, on January 16 at a home on Valley Way, Santa Clara. He has been charged with murder but his arraignment was postponed after he was hospitalized. Chen was found 'spattered with blood' with an 'extremely swollen and purple arm' kneeling outside a bedroom where his wife was 'deceased on the floor'. His wife, thought to be Xuanyi Yu, had 'severe blunt force injuries to her head',...

Google has laid off over a thousand employees across various departments since January 10th. CEO Sundar Pichai’s message is to brace for more cuts. “We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.” So far, those “tough choices” have included layoffs and reorganizations in Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering, and YouTube teams. “These role eliminations are not...

Nearly one year later, Google is still directing those looking for information on “pregnancy” toward the largest abortion mill in the country: Planned Parenthood. MRC Free Speech America researchers analyzed Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search results for the word “pregnancy” in a “clean environment” one week before the 51st annual national March for Life in Washington, D.C. Bing and DuckDuckGo elevated neutral results with links to popular health websites like Mayo Clinic and Healtline.com, as one might expect. But Google’s first result was a link to Planned Parenthood’s landing page on pregnancy. Planned Parenthood did not show up at all...

Update, 5 p.m.: The Grand County Sheriff’s Office stated that County Road 1/Trough Road is reopened. Please drive with caution. A massive amount of snow has fallen across Grand County over the weekend triggering an avalanche and multiple highway closures. As of noon on Jan. 15 U.S. Highway 40 is still closed in both directions near Berthoud Pass while snow removal continues, Rabbit Ears Pass is closed in both direction on U.S. 40 and Colorado 125 is closed in both directions from mile point 0 to Forest Road 730, which is south of Walden. While everyone is trying to navigate...

Google has established itself as the arbiter of "truth" in the digital age. The company controls the flow of information and can amplify or bury stories on a whim. Its leaders have given themselves god-like powers over shaping human opinion. So when they change their rules over what information they can censor in a "Sensitive Event" scenario, it's worth examining closely. If you’ve ever advertised with Google, you might have received this email yesterday: Dear Advertiser, In February 2024, Google will update the Inappropriate content policy to clarify the definition of Sensitive Events. A "Sensitive Event" is an unforeseen event...

VIDEO AT LINK............... This diversity stuff will get people killed......................

THE SCOOP Google is laying off hundreds of people working on its voice-activated Google Assistant software and eliminating a similar number of roles on its knowledge and information product teams, a Google spokesperson confirmed to Semafor on Wednesday. Google told Semafor the restructuring would help improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products. The company announced in October that it was using its generative AI chatbot Bard to build a new version of Google Assistant that “extends beyond voice, understands and adapts to you and handles personal tasks in new ways.” Google has been...

Perplexity, a startup going after Google’s dominant position in web search, has won backing from Jeff Bezos and venture capitalists betting that artificial intelligence will upend the way people find information online. Started less than two years ago, Perplexity has fewer than 40 employees and is based out of a San Francisco co-working space. The company’s product, which it calls an answer engine, is used by about 10 million people monthly. Those ingredients were enough to persuade Institutional Venture Partners, Bezos and other tech executives to invest $74 million in the company, the largest sum raised by an internet search...

After vocal commitments following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, DEI programs in the tech industry are in broad retreat. Some companies have laid off DEI staffers and leaders of diverse employee resource groups, downsized learning and development programs, and cut budgets for external DEI groups by as much as 90% in 2023... The cuts come as the tech industry doubles down on artificial intelligence. With fewer diverse voices represented in AI development, the resulting products could be less accurate or more harmful to users. ... By mid-2023, DEI-related job postings had declined 44% from the same time a...