Submission + - South Korea To Spend $1 Trillion On More Memory Chip Production, Humanoid Robots (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: South Korea’s government and top tech companies are committing $1 trillion to several flagship megaprojects that could bolster global memory chip supply, build new AI data centers and spur commercial deployment of humanoid robots by 2028. [...] “We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country,” said South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in a televised speech on June 29, as reported by BBC News and other media outlets. “Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers are the triple axis for a great leap forward.” [...]

The most costly of the megaprojects involves Samsung and SK Hynix committing $585 billion to building new chip fabrication plants in the southwest provinces of South Korea, along with boosting semiconductor fab construction in the Seoul capital region, according to Reuters. The government’s goal is to double South Korea’s production of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) within five years. [...] The second flagship megaproject involves a $357 billion investment by the South Korean tech companies SK Group, GS Group, and Naver into building large-scale AI data centers in more outlying provinces, including South Chungcheong Province in the west, Gangwon Province in the east, and the North and South Jeolla Provinces in the southwest corner of South Korea.

The third flagship megaproject revolves around the South Korean government assigning a “national strategic industry” designation to physical AI—the AI systems that enable robots and self-driving vehicles to interact more autonomously with the real world. The government aims to develop a Korean “general-purpose foundation model” based on a world model to support robots within three years, according to The Chosun Daily. Hyundai Motor Company has also committed $5.8 billion to build a robot manufacturing facility and AI data center in the Saemangeum region of North Jeolla Province in the southwest, The Chosun Daily reported.

The South Korean automaker has already been helping Boston Dynamics—the US robotics company it acquired in 2021—use the South Korean supply chain in scaling up manufacturing to produce 30,000 Atlas humanoid robots each year by 2028. Similarly, the South Korean government announced it would aim to commercialize humanoid robots in 10 major industries by 2028, along with training 10,000 human workers as “AI robotics specialists” over the next five years, Reuters reported.

Submission + - Ex-Governors, Big Tech Launch RAISE US to Help Workers 'Navigate the AI Economy'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Just how many jobs will AI upend?" asks the WSJ. "A new coalition of companies and policymakers said it is time to ready the U.S. workforce for major disruption, no matter the ultimate scale. To that end, the bipartisan consortium, which includes state governments, philanthropic groups and employers ranging from Amazon.com and Microsoft to Bank of America and Eli Lilly, is coming together to develop a new 'people strategy' for the artificial-intelligence era. Called RAISE US, it launches Thursday and will be led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who served under former President Joe Biden, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican."

"Its mandate, they said, isn’t just to build retraining programs but also to reconsider decades-old policies such as unemployment insurance and act as a working lab for testing the most effective ways to transition workers to new fields. The group will explore corporate incentives for employers to hold on to workers whose jobs are disrupted by AI and prep them for new roles. The organization said it has so far raised more than $500 million—about half of its multiyear goal—from companies and nonprofit groups. It will initially work with state governments in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and Connecticut. OpenAI and Anthropic are also involved, and academics including MIT economist David Autor sit on an advisory board."

With AI "there’s an enormous amount of money and focus right now on winning the technology: the chips, the models," said Raimondo, the group’s CEO. " There’s not enough attention on securing the future for the American worker." The NY Times reported the group plans to furnish technical assistance for companies that want to retain workers as A.I. changes their roles, rather than eliminating them. Microsoft, one of the companies backing the organization, said it had already found a promising model: cross-training its entry-level lawyers in different parts of the organization and equipping them with A.I. skills in order for them to be repositioned as technology evolves. "You can think of doing that with almost any job we have," said Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft [and formerly its Chief Counsel], who recently likened AI doubters to 19th century photography naysayers. "It creates an opportunity to transfer people from jobs that are being eliminated to jobs that are being created."

If you think you've seen this movie before, prior to "partnering with governors, employers, and training partners to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy" with RAISE US, Raimondo and Holcomb partnered with governors, employers and training partners to help U.S. K-12 students make a successful transition to a CS economy with the Governors for Computer Science coalition. And much like a Who's Who of CEOs endorsed RAISE US in 2026 to make the U.S. workforce AI-savvy, a Who's Who of CEOs endorsed K-12 CS education in 2022 to make U.S. students entering the workforce CS-savvy. It's another reminder that Learn To AI Is the New Learn To Code.

Submission + - China Has Matched Anthropic in Cybersecurity, Resetting AI Race (archive.ph)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Chinese artificial-intelligence systems have matched the performance of Anthropic’s powerful model Mythos in some cybersecurity scenarios, a development poised to reset the global tech race and pressure the White House in its overhaul of U.S. AI policy.

Security researchers said that a new AI model, released this month by China’s Zhipu AI, also known as Z.ai, can match the latest U.S. models when it comes to finding security bugs, although it still lags behind Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s products in other tasks.

Overall, the capability gap between top U.S. models and those built by Chinese companies has narrowed significantly, and use of Chinese AI systems has surged as businesses seek to rein in runaway costs. A host of companies, including Microsoft, are weighing how they can offer Chinese models on their platforms, a development that is set to alter the balance of power among tech companies.

“China is making sure that the gap becomes smaller and smaller over time,” said Lior Div, chief executive officer of the cybersecurity company 7AI.

Submission + - LA Schools Chief Resigns Amid FBI Probe Into Failed K-12 AI Chatbot Company

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Four years after leaving Miami-Dade County Public Schools for one of the nation’s most prominent education jobs, Alberto Carvalho has resigned as superintendent of Los Angeles schools amid an FBI investigation," reports the Miami Herald. "The FBI has conducted raids on Carvalho’s Los Angeles home and office as part of a probe into a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to a failed AI-focused education company [AllHere Education]. Investigators also raided the Broward County home of a lobbyist connected to the deal. Carvalho led Miami-Dade public schools for 14 years before joining Los Angeles Unified School District in Feb. 2022. The lobbyist, Debra Kerr, had previously sold hundreds of thousands worth of textbooks to the Miami-Dade County school district and was retained as a salesperson for the startup chatbot company when it dealt with the Los Angeles district."

In What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools?, The New Yorker's Jessica Winter points out that "Carvalho, who has denied any wrongdoing, is also on the board of [tech-backed nonprofit] Code.org [recently rebranded to CodeAI], purveyors of Mix & Move with AI," Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2025 Hour of AI, which was built on the Carvalho-endorsed Music Lab, Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2024 Hour of Code that was developed with Amazon ("Code.org has mastered the art of bringing joy and curiosity into the classroom," Carvalho gushed in a press release, "while preparing students with essential computer science skills, and Music Lab is the perfect example.”). Winter is not as big a fan of the nonprofit's edtech software as Carvalho, writing that the "Certificate of Completion," her 3rd grader brought home from school for "demonstrating an understanding of the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence" was for "playing a computer game produced by the nonprofit Code.org in partnership with Amazon Future Engineer, called Mix & Move with AI, in which the student 'designs' a cartoon dancer and 'remixes' a popular song—available, needless to say, on Amazon Music. The game is an inane drag-and-drop affair that has little to do with A.I.; the certificate, it turned out, was merely a memento of a pointless and deceptive branding exercise [Amazon is a $30+ million Code.org Lifetime Supporter]."

Carvalho has been scrubbed from the Code.org Board of Directors page — archive.org webpage captures suggest a change was made on Wednesday, three days after his Sunday resignation and on the same day that Carvalho's replacement was named by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Curiously, the Miami Herald earlier reported a firm registered to current Code.org Board Member and former Broward County (FL) Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie is listed as a creditor in bankruptcy files for AllHere Education, the provider of LAUSD's failed "Ed" AI chatbot that's at the center of the FBI investigation.

And on Tuesday — two days after Carvalho's resignation — LAUSD banned screen time before the second grade and enacted limited use for older students, among the strictest policies in the nation, reflecting growing backlash from parents and educators concerned about an over-reliance on computers and technology in K-12 learning.

Submission + - Eighty per cent of Australian children escape social media ban (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Eight in 10 Australian children are still using social media despite their government’s ban on access to under-16s, research has revealed.

The study, by the University of Newcastle in Australia, suggested there was “insufficient evidence” to show “any substantive effects” on children’s use of social media, more than six months after the ban was introduced in December.

Australian ministers have blamed social media platforms for “systemic breaches” of the ban after the tech companies failed to remove or block children from their sites.

Submission + - Google Starts Lowering Play Store Fees, Making Good On Epic Games Settlement (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google’s stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding. Until a few years ago, Google followed an Apple-like approach to app store billing, charging most developers a 30 percent commission for transactions in the Play Store. That was the only option, too. Directing users to make purchases outside the store was not allowed, and that’s what got Epic in hot water in 2020. Epic added cheaper external billing to the Android and iOS versions of Fortnite, getting the game pulled from both stores and prompting a lawsuit. Apple managed to (mostly) win its case, but Google tripped up in how it tried to control the Play Store while keeping a more open appearance. The judge in the case was set to impose some dramatic remedies in 2024, including forcing Google to distribute third-party app stores in Google Play. The settlement, which Google has noted will end its dispute with Epic globally, doesn’t go that far. However, developers are about to get the promised fee reductions.

Starting on June 30, developers in Europe, the UK, and the US will have access to the new fee structure. This system will split the commission into two components: billing and service fees. The biggest win for small developers is the new flat 10 percent service fee for the first $1 million in earnings every year. Above that, the rate for various transaction types may reach 25 percent on existing installs. Apps installed after June 30 will top out at 20 percent. Developers will finally be allowed to send users outside the Play Store to complete a transaction, too. Google says they can design a choice screen “in accordance with our UX guidelines” to direct users to these external options. Devs pay the standard service fee on these purchases, but they’ll avoid the billing fee. All transactions that run through Google’s Play Store platform add a 5 percent billing fee—even the base rate for publishers earning less than $1 million. Google notes that the billing fee is set at 5 percent in the initial markets, but it could be different in other regions.

Submission + - report sheds light on ICE's booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: Spending on government contracts with tech firms that use AI-powered tools to track immigrants has soared to record levels under Trump 2.0, report says.

A new report sheds light on the unprecedented growth of the US government’s immigration surveillance arsenal, revealing fresh details about how spending on technology and AI tools to find and track migrants has soared to record levels during Donald Trump’s second term.

The report, released this week, analyzed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contracts with 11 companies the authors said provide surveillance tech. They found the money awarded to these firms doubled from 2024 to 2025, to just over $310m – and in 2026, that number soared to a record $513m.

Submission + - Bill Gates says Epstein sought to blackmail him over extramarital affairs (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: The Microsoft founder Bill Gates told US members of Congress that the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had sought to “blackmail” him over his extramarital affairs, according to a transcript of the testimony.

The tech pioneer testified behind closed doors before the House oversight committee on 10 June regarding his friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes.

According to the transcript released by the committee on Tuesday, Gates spoke of “veiled” threats and said Epstein had considered exploiting his own knowledge of Gates’s extramarital affairs to force him to remain in Epstein’s orbit, even as Gates was distancing himself from Epstein.

Submission + - Walmart's first nuclear deal shows demand beyond AI data centers (msn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry’s future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom.

The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy for its operations in the area, including its stores and a high-tech warehouse in Illinois that stores and sorts perishable food.

Walmart will buy 176 megawatts of power from the plant over a 15-year period, or enough power to serve around 150,000 homes.

The Walmart deal will allow Constellation to expand the capacity of the Illinois plant by 30 megawatts, a process known as an uprate, which can involve replacing older equipment and improving efficiency.

Walmart, which has pledged to eliminate net carbon emissions from its U.S. operations by 2040, will also receive the environmental attributes associated with the nuclear energy, which generates electricity without carbon emissions.

Submission + - College Board Announces AI-Focused AP CS Principles Course Redesign for 2027-28

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Two days after tech-backed nonprofit Code.org completed "switching hats" from coding to AI with its announced rebranding as CodeAI, the College Board followed suit, announcing plans to 'modernize' the high school AP Computer Science Principles curriculum with AI. From the College Board's "Dear Colleague" letter announcement:

"We’re writing to share some exciting news about the design of AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) for the 2027-28 school year," begins a June 4th College Board announcement to educators. "Given the rapidly evolving technology landscape and especially the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the AP Program will redesign the course and exam to meet the moment. Through the redesign, students will have an opportunity to learn about AI concepts and apply them immediately, while still maintaining a focus on the fundamentals of coding."

"This redesign will: 1. Modernize AP CSP with AI while maintaining its core structure. The AP Program has partnered with key organizations to identify high-priority AI skills and concepts and embed AI throughout the course sequence. 2. Update the existing project and add a second project. Students will learn AI concepts, practice AI tools, and demonstrate their understanding in a culminating AI Design Project. This new project will be offered alongside a revised and updated Code Create Project. 3. Enhance the exam with questions on AI. The AP CSP Exam will also change to include exam questions that assess understanding of AI, as well as the new AI Design Project, which provides an opportunity for students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of AI logic."

"This redesign ensures that all students develop foundational AI skills aligned to how computing is evolving. The result is a course that is more career-relevant and better aligned to the future of computer science, equipping students with the skills they need to be ahead of the curve. These changes won’t affect the 2026-27 school year. The redesigned course framework will be available in fall 2026."

Submission + - Clickfix is in the wild, Gizmodo currently under attack

Submitted by 278MorkandMindy
278MorkandMindy writes: While I knew about clickfix, I didn't expect it to hit "mainstream" websites.

The "open powershell, then ctrl-v" is a dead giveaway, but only for those with medium Internet literacy. Looks like a reCaptcha, although 4 steps to "confirm your identity" seemed a little much.

Let your less tech savy friends know.

Submission + - Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs (macrumors.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple is raising its prices to offset the high cost of memory and storage, CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Apple is no longer able to absorb the increased prices and will need to pass some of the cost on to consumers. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," said Cook. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable."

Growing demand for memory and storage chips from AI companies has led to chip shortages and higher costs. The Wall Street Journal suggests Apple will need to increase device costs "substantially" to maintain its current profit margins given the cost of memory chips and SSDs. Research firm TechInsights claims Apple will need to make the iPhone 18 Pro around $270 more expensive to keep its existing profit margin.

Apple is struggling more with memory chips, but storage chips are also an issue. "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases," Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Cook said Apple will use its cash to increase memory supply, but he did not give details on what that means. Apple does not plan to create its own memory and storage factories. "We can't do everything," Cook said. "We know what we're good at."

Submission + - Trump's "Made in the USA" Phone is just a reskinned HTC U24 Pro 1

Submitted by necro81
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."

Submission + - 'Dave Eggers doesn't need a smartphone, the internet or your Flock camera' (sfgate.com)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: Without a pen and paper handy, he was stuck texting the idea to himself. The problem? Eggers doesn't own a smartphone. "It takes 20 minutes to write a sentence," Eggers said... It's a funny predicament for Eggers, given that he's arguably the city's biggest proponent of the written word... Now age 56, Eggers’ latest book is called "Contrapposto "...

On writing days, Eggers bikes to his sailboat docked near the Golden Gate Bridge. He writes using a hefty 1998 Mac that has never been connected to the internet. On the boat, he keeps "banker's hours," working 9 to 5 without any meetings or interruptions except for the occasional wildlife visit. "You're there with the cormorants and the occasional porpoise and sea lions and seals, and when you want to take a break, you walk around and you're in the thick of it, one of the most beautiful spots on Earth," he said. "Especially coming from the Midwest, it never gets old."

Given Eggers' decidedly low-tech existence, it's not surprising that the current state of San Francisco gives him pause, but there's a streak of hope that underlies his concerns. He abhors the growing surveillance technology that's gripping the city, refusing to get into Ubers that use recording devices, but he feels a well-written ballot measure about Flock cameras could potentially save our dwindling privacy. ChatGPT's effects on the art of writing are demoralizing, but he welcomes that teachers are re-embracing pencil and paper, with cursive making a big comeback. The wave of artificial intelligence ads blanketing bus stops imploring companies to stop hiring humans are so over the top, they'd sound cliché if he were to include them in one of his dystopian tech industry novels like "The Circle" or "The Every," but tech philanthropy has helped many of his projects flourish.

Case in point, Art + Water, a new art space scheduled to open next year on Pier 29 funded largely by art world donations... Co-founded with the artist JD Beltran, the space is slated to operate as an old-school apprenticeship system, hosting 10 artists in residence mentoring 20 students, all free of charge... The ultimate goal is to break down the financial barriers that keep students from pursuing art.

Submission + - Data Center Opponents Have Blocked or Delayed Projects Worth Nearly $130 Billion (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first quarter of 2026 produced the most blocked and delayed data center projects on record, according to a new study shared with NBC News. The study — conducted by Data Center Watch, a project of the AI intelligence firm 10a Labs that tracks local data center activity — found that data center opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects nationwide worth about $130 billion from January through March, the most in a three-month period since the group began tracking in 2023.

“The quarter reflected a structural shift rather than a cyclical spike: communities have internalized an opposition playbook, legislative sessions introduced formal regulatory uncertainty, and the number of active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states,” the authors wrote, noting that the total number and value of data centers blocked or delayed during the first three months of 2026 roughly matched the total for all of 2025.

[...] The report found that legislative pushes for moratoriums on constructing data centers ballooned during the first quarter of 2026, sponsored by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The report found such proposals introduced in 14 states from January through March, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introducing a federal version. Though none of the proposals has been signed into law, one did reach the desk of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in Maine. She vetoed it in April.

More than 300 bills were introduced in statehouses across the country just in the first six weeks of 2026, the authors found, saying it marked “a clear shift from incentive-focused policies toward regulatory oversight as the scale of energy demands became clearer.” What’s more, the study found that the number of active grassroots opposition groups across the country more than doubled from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 by March. The authors found that the states with the most opposition groups through that month were Maryland, Ohio and Texas. “In some cases,” they wrote, “opposition mobilized before any project was officially filed, the mere rumor of a data center was enough to trigger organized resistance.”

Submission + - Google Sues Chinese-Cybercrime Operation That Used Gemini AI To Send Scam Texts (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google is suing to dismantle the infrastructure behind an alleged massive AI-powered cybercrime operation. On Friday, the tech giant announced a lawsuit against an alleged Chinese cybercrime network called Outsider Enterprise, which Google says uses AI in its campaigns to send scam text messages impersonating Google and other brands to steal passwords and credit card numbers.

Outsider Enterprise has financially scammed “hundreds of thousands of victims” with losses “estimated in the millions.” The group deployed 9,000 fake websites, 1 million fraudulent web domains, and 2.5 million texts sent to Android users in a two-week period, according to Google. “55,000 spam texts were flagged by Android users in just two weeks this past May — that’s more than two text spam complaints a minute,” Google said.

Google said it uses “AI-powered tools to fight AI-powered scams”, which enable the company to detect scams and alert users of suspicious calls and text messages, leading to the interception of more than 10 billion scam messages a month. The company said it has been collaborating with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to block the scam text messages and said it is coordinating with the FBI, which is taking unspecified law enforcement actions.

Submission + - College Students Are Rapidly Losing the Ability to Read (futurism.com)

Submitted by schwit1
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.

Submission + - OpenAI Says China Launched Influence Campaign To Shape US Attitudes On AI (politico.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: China was likely behind an online influence operation to sway U.S. perceptions of artificial intelligence technology and reshape the debate in Washington around the infrastructure needed to support it, according to research from OpenAI published Wednesday. OpenAI said it caught the influence campaign because China-backed operatives were using ChatGPT to create content for the social media campaign. [...] OpenAI’s researchers identified two clusters of ChatGPT users “likely originating from China” who used the AI chatbot to generate social media content “in support of apparent covert influence operations” promoting certain narratives about AI. This includes claims that data center build-outs are raising electricity costs for the average American family and that President Donald Trump has weaponized tariffs to keep the U.S. ahead in the global tech race. These accounts have since been banned, the report said.

One cluster of users asked ChatGPT to generate images and comments pushing these narratives. These comments were then posted on social media by “batches of accounts” posing as Americans, Nimmo said. Another cluster identified by researchers used AI to generate social media content criticizing the Trump administration’s tariffs as an attempt to “dominate technological competition.” Prompts used for this campaign were submitted in Simplified Chinese and asked that AI-generated content not include Chinese President Xi Jinping and focus solely on Trump — a possible tell that China was behind the operation, according to the report. Nimmo said that the influence campaign amplified existing public backlash in the U.S. against the creation of new AI data centers, which has resulted in dozens of proposed moratoriums at the local, state and national level.

Submission + - Pokémon Go Trained the Nav Tech For Military Drones (dronexl.co) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hundreds of millions of Pokémon Go players spent years filming the streets, parks, and buildings around them to earn in-game rewards. Those roughly 30 billion environmental scans are now owned by Niantic Spatial, and they helped train a camera-based navigation model that a U.S. defense contractor is preparing to put into drones and other military robots. Most of the players had no idea.

The pipeline runs from a mobile game to the battlefield in three steps. Players scanned the physical world. Niantic Spatial turned those scans into a 3D map that lets a machine locate itself by sight when satellite signals fail. And in December 2025, Niantic Spatial announced a partnership with Vantor, the defense and intelligence firm formerly known as Maxar Intelligence, to fuse that ground-level system with Vantor’s aerial navigation software for use in GPS-denied operations.

Niantic’s Roots Run Back to a CIA-Backed Mapping Firm

The military turn looks less like a swerve once you trace the company’s lineage. Niantic grew out of Keyhole, a geographic data firm that took funding in 2003 from In-Q-Tel, the venture arm financed by the CIA. An In-Q-Tel release from that year stated Keyhole’s services were used to support U.S. troops during the Iraq War. Google bought Keyhole the following year, and Keyhole CEO John Hanke went on to lead the team behind Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View.

Hanke formed Niantic Labs inside Google in 2010, then spun it out in 2015. The company collected camera imagery from players once before, through its 2014 game Ingress, using the same method later applied in Pokémon Go. In 2025 the structure split again: Scopely, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group and ultimately the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, acquired Niantic’s games business for $3.5 billion in a deal that closed in late May, while the technology platform spun off as the standalone Niantic Spatial under Hanke. The games went to a Saudi sovereign wealth fund. The map went to defense.

Submission + - Microsoft publishes lengthy AI jobs manifesto but fails to promise no mass layof (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
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.

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