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The Associated Press published standards today for generative AI use in its newsroom. The organization, which has a licensing agreement with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, listed a fairly restrictive and common-sense list of measures around the burgeoning tech while cautioning its staff not to use AI to make publishable content. Although nothing in the new guidelines is particularly controversial, less scrupulous outlets could view the AP’s blessing as a license to use generative AI more excessively or underhandedly.

The organization’s AI manifesto underscores a belief that artificial intelligence content should be treated as the flawed tool that it is — not a replacement for trained writers, editors and reporters exercising their best judgment. “We do not see AI as a replacement of journalists in any way,” the AP’s Vice President for Standards and Inclusion, Amanda Barrett, wrote in an article about its approach to AI today. “It is the responsibility of AP journalists to be accountable for the accuracy and fairness of the information we share.”

The article directs its journalists to view AI-generated content as “unvetted source material,” to which editorial staff “must apply their editorial judgment and AP’s sourcing standards when considering any information for publication.” It says employees may “experiment with ChatGPT with caution” but not create publishable content with it. That includes images, too. “In accordance with our standards, we do not alter any elements of our photos, video or audio,” it states. “Therefore, we do not allow the use of generative AI to add or subtract any elements.” However, it carved an exception for stories where AI illustrations or art are a story’s subject — and even then, it has to be clearly labeled as such.

Barrett warns about AI’s potential for spreading misinformation. To prevent the accidental publishing of anything AI-created that appears authentic, she says AP journalists “should exercise the same caution and skepticism they would normally, including trying to identify the source of the original content, doing a reverse image search to help verify an image’s origin, and checking for reports with similar content from trusted media.” To protect privacy, the guidelines also prohibit writers from entering “confidential or sensitive information into AI tools.”

Although that’s a relatively common-sense and uncontroversial set of rules, other media outlets have been less discerning. CNET was caught early this year publishing error-ridden AI-generated financial explainer articles (only labeled as computer-made if you clicked on the article’s byline). Gizmodo found itself in a similar spotlight this summer when it ran a Star Wars article full of inaccuracies. It’s not hard to imagine other outlets — desperate for an edge in the highly competitive media landscape — viewing the AP’s (tightly restricted) AI use as a green light to make robot journalism a central figure in their newsrooms, publishing poorly edited / inaccurate content or failing to label AI-generated work as such.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-ap-guidelines-lay-the-groundwork-for-ai-assisted-newsrooms-201009363.html?src=rss 

My AI, the in-app digital assistant that rides herd on your Snapchat Plus experience, has suffered numerous breakdowns and technical malfunctions since its debut in February. Tuesday was more of the same as the chatbot took it upon itself to post single-second-long Stories to users’ feeds and then go unresponsive for extended periods of time. Thing is, My AI doesn’t have the capacity to post to Stories. And now it’s got a bunch of people on Twitter wondering if we’re at the dawning of the Singularity.

As first reported by TechCrunch, the My AI chatbot posted a two-tone image in Stories, which one user mistook for a shot of their ceiling. What’s more, upon being asked about the mysterious post, the bot would either go dark or respond that it was suffering a technical issue. This explanation proved insufficient for many users, causing minor panic and jokes about the AI system’s imminent awakening. In the end however, it really was a technical issue.

“My AI experienced a temporary outage that’s now resolved,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch, adding that “At this time, My AI does not have Stories feature.”

The My AI bot is bundled as part of the company’s $3.99/month Snapchat Plus package and offers users a variety of features. These include AR filter recommendations and suggestions for restaurant and activities based on currently popular places on the Snap Map. It also offers AI functionality in group chat, photo and video snaps, and text messages, as well as an AI persona. A text-to-image genAI is also reportedly in the works, though the ads have already arrived.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/snapchats-my-ai-chatbot-glitched-so-hard-it-started-posting-stories-190809341.html?src=rss 

New York City will ban TikTok from government devices, The Verge reported on Wednesday. City agencies have 30 days to remove the ByteDance-owned app from their devices. Employees will not be allowed to download or use TikTok on their city-sanctioned tech effective immediately. This comes three years after New York state banned TikTok from government devices in 2020, according to Times-Union.

NYC Cyber Command, a subset of the Office of Technology and Innovation, spurred the decision after reporting to the city that TikTok posed a security threat. “NYC Cyber Command regularly explores and advances proactive measures to keep New Yorkers’ data safe,” a City Hall spokesperson said. “As part of these ongoing efforts, NYC Cyber Command determined that the TikTok application posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks and directed its removal from city-owned devices.”

Other states and localities, notably Montana, have made waves banning TikTok more generally across the jurisdiction. But on a wider scale, most legislators have taken an approach banning the app for government employees, including the federal government. Thirty-three states across parties lines now have restrictions on the use of TikTok on government-owned tech.

As legislation continues to resurface considering a total ban on TikTok and other apps affiliated with the Chinese government, ByteDance fights to proven that its not a threat to national security. TikTok CEO Shou Chew even testified in front of Congress reiterating that “ByteDance is not an agent of China.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-york-city-bans-tiktok-for-government-employees-174806575.html?src=rss