Risks Digest 34.52

RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 11 January 2025 Volume 34 : Issue 52

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34.52>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:
10 killed and dozens injured in pickup-truck attack on New Orleans crowd
(Lauren Weinstein)
'Fundamentally wrong': Self-driving Tesla steers Calif. tech
founder onto train tracks (SFGate)
Driver accidentally disconnects autopilot, crashes car
(Lars-Henrik Eriksson)
Driver in Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion used ChatGPT to plan
blast, authorities say (NBC News)
It's not just Tesla. Vehicles amass huge troves of possibly
sensitive data. (WashPost)
Tech allows Big Auto to evolve into Big Brother
(LA Times via Jim Geissman)
Wrong turn from GPS leaves car abandoned on Colorado ski run (9news.com)
A Waymo robotaxi and a Serve delivery robot collided in run Los Angeles
(TechCrunch)
Waymo robotaxis can make walking across the street a game of chicken
(The Washington Post)
Trifecta of articles in *LA Times* about cars (Ssteve Bacher)
LA Sheriff outage (LA Times)
Eutelsat resolves OneWeb leap year software glitch
after two-day outage (SpaceNews)
Traffic lights will have a fourth color in 2025
(ecoticias via Steve Bacher)
FAA chief: Boeing must shift focus to safety over profit
(LA Times)
ARRL hit with ransomware (ARRL)
Taiwan Suspects China of Latest Undersea Cable Attack"
(Tom Nicholson)
The Memecoin Shenanigans Are Just Getting Started (WiReD)
Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of
eavesdropping (CBC)
Meta Getting Rid of Fact Checkers (Clare Duff)
Huge problems with axing fact-checkers, Meta oversight
board says (BBC)
Meta hosts AI chatbots of 'Hitler,' 'Jesus Christ,' Taylor Swift
(NBC News)
God can take Sunday off
(NYTimes via Tom Van Vleck)
Several items Google and Meta (Lauren Weinstein_
AI means the end of Internet search as we've known it (Technology Review))
Is it still 'social media' if it's overrun by AI? (CBC)
AI Incident Database (Steve Bacher)
Apple's AI News Summaries and Inventions (BBC)
What real people think about Google Search today (Lauren Weinstein)
WARNING: Google Voice is flagging LEGITIMATE robocalls from
insurance companies to their customers in the fires as spam
(Lauren Weinstein)
A non-tech analogy for Google Search AI Overviews (Lauren Weinstein)
Happy new year, compute carefully (Tom Van Vleck)
How to understand Generative AI (Lauren Weinstein)
Google censoring my AI criticism? (Lauren Weinstein)
U.S. newspapers are deleting old crime stories offering
subjects a clean slate (The Guardian)
EU Commission Fined for Transferring User Data
to Meta in Violation of Privacy Laws (THN)
The Ghosts in the Spotify Machine (Liz Pelly:)
Spotify (Rob Slade)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2025 09:09:56 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: 10 killed and dozens injured in pickup-truck attack on New Orleans
crowd

Driver was killed by police. It is reported that he shot at them and
also had explosive devices. Pickup is reportedly registered to a 42
year old man from Texas. -L

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 09:45:55 -0700
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: 'Fundamentally wrong': Self-driving Tesla steers Calif. tech
founder onto train tracks (SFGate)

Jesse Lyu trusts his Tesla’s “self-driving” technology; he’s taken it to
work, and he’s gone on 45-minute drives without ever needing to intervene. He’s a “happy customer,” he told SFGATE. But on Thursday, his Tesla scared
him, badly.

Lyu, the founder and CEO of artificial intelligence gadget startup Rabbit,
was on the 15-minute drive from his apartment to his office in downtown
Santa Monica. He’d turned on his car’s self-driving features, called “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving (Supervised),” after pulling out of his
parking garage. The pay-to-add features are meant to drive the Tesla with “minimal driver intervention,” steering, stopping and accelerating on highways and even in city traffic, according to Tesla's website. Lyu was cruising along, resting his arms on the steering wheel but letting the car direct itself, he said in a video interview Friday.

Then, Lyu’s day took a turn for the worse. At a stoplight, his Tesla turned left onto Colorado Avenue, but it missed the lane for cars. Instead, it
plunged onto a street-grade light rail track between the road’s vehicle traffic lanes, paved but meant solely for trains on LA’s Metro E Line. He couldn’t just move over — a low concrete barrier separates the lanes, and a fence stands on the other side.

“It’s just f–king crazy,” he said, narrating a video he posted to X of the
incident. “I’ve got nowhere to go. And, you can tell from behind -- the train’s right here.” (He pointed to the oncoming train, stopped about a block behind his car.) [...] https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/tesla-fsd-jesse-lyu-train-20014242.php

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 10:25:39 +0100
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <lhe@it.uu.se>
Subject: Driver accidentally disconnects autopilot, crashes car

A Swedish driver was convicted for reckless driving and insurance fraud
after crashing his Tesla.

To show off, he engaged the autopilot at a speed of 70-80 km/h and then
moved over into the passenger seat. After a short while the car
crashed. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. It was initially seen as a normal car accident and his insurance compensated him for the car which was
a total loss, but his (now ex) wife had recorded everything from the back
seat and later turned the video over to the police.

The police asked him if he was aware that the autopilot would disengage if
the driver seat belt was released and he replied that he wasn't.

The risk here is not primarily one of idiot drivers but of the increasing complexity of modern cars where the drivers don't fully understand how they behave and there is no real pressure to motivate them. In traffic, you can
see that drivers frequently mishandle such a relatively simple thing as automatic front and rear lights.

In aviation, pilots of larger aircraft have to take formal training to completely understand the aircraft systems. Even with smaller aircraft --
which may have less complex systems than modern cars -- pilots are expected
to read up on how the aircraft systems operate.

(https://www.unt.se/nyheter/tarnsjo/artikel/filmbeviset-trodde-bilen-var-sjalvkorande-kraschade/j8ex8emj, in Swedish and behind a paywall.)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 06:40:48 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: Driver in Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion used ChatGPT to plan
blast, authorities say (NBC News)

NBC News (01/07/25) Tom Winter and Andrew Blankstein ; Antonio Planas

The soldier who authorities believe blew up a Cybertruck on New Year's Day
in front of the entrance of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas used artificial intelligence to guide him about how to set off the explosion, officials said Tuesday.

Matthew Alan Livelsberger, 37, queried ChatGPT for information about how he could put together an explosive, how fast a round would need to be fired for the explosives found in the truck to go off —- not just catch fire -— and what laws he would need to get around to get the materials, law enforcement officials said.

An OpenAI spokesperson said, "ChatGPT responded with information already publicly available on the Internet and provided warnings against harmful or illegal activities."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/driver-las-vegas-cybertruck-explosion-used-chatgpt-plan-blast-authorit-rcna186704

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 08:46:42 -0700
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: It's not just Tesla. Vehicles amass huge troves of possibly
sensitive data. (WashPost)

Video footage and other data collected by Tesla helped law enforcement
quickly piece together how a Cybertruck came to explode outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day.

The trove of digital evidence also served as a high-profile demonstration of how much data modern cars collect about their drivers and those around them.

Data privacy experts say the investigation -- which has determined t= hat
the driver, active-duty U.S. Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger, died by
suicide before the blast -- highlights how car companies vacuum up reams of data that can clear up mysteries but also be stolen or given to third
parties without drivers' knowledge. There are few regulations controlling
how and when law enforcement authorities can access data in cars, and
drivers are often unaware of the vast digital trail they leave behind.
``These are panopticons on wheels,'' said Albert Fox Cahn, who founded the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy group that argues the volume and precision of data collected can pose civil liberties concerns for people in sensitive situations, like attending protests or going to abortion clinics.

Federal and state officials have begun to scrutinize companies' use of car
data as evidence has emerged of its misuse. There have been reports that abusive spouses tracked partners' locations, and that insurers raised rates based on driving behavior data shared by car companies. There have also been cases in which local police departments sought video from Tesla cars that
may have recorded a crime, or obtained warrants to tow vehicles to secure
such footage. [...]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/it-s-not-just-tesla-vehicles-amass-huge-troves-of-possibly-sensitive-data/ar-AA1wX8Lo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2025 07:33:49 -0800
From: "Jim" <jgeissman@socal.rr.com>
Subject: Tech allows Big Auto to evolve into Big Brother

[Another on this topic]

Your car is spying on you.

That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on
the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas last week.

Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk's company was impressive but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become more like computers on wheels.

Is your car company violating your privacy rights?

"You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?" said Jodi Daniels, chief executive of the privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. "Where is the line?"

Many of the latest cars not only know where you've been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your
texts and other sensitive information, thanks to cellphone syncing.

The data collected by Musk's electric car company after the Cybertruck
packed with fireworks burst into flames in front of the Trump International Hotel proved valuable to police in helping track the driver's movements.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=432286e7-91d3 -4e45-9e57-aa95a830767e

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2025 03:03:33 -0700
From: Jim Reisert AD1C <jjreisert@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Wrong turn from GPS leaves car abandoned on Colorado ski
run (9news.com)

Melissa Reeves, 9NEWS, Updated: 10:19 PM MST January 6, 2025

The Summit County Sheriff's Office (SCSO) posted pictures on social
media of an abandoned car at Keystone Resort that was left behind on a
ski run overnight.

The sheriff's office said the driver left the car after it got stuck
in the snow, but they left a note on the car's windshield for the
resort and police that made it easy to find them.

The note explained that the driver was following directions from a GPS
as they were on their way to visit a friend who lives in nearby
employee housing.

https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/colorado-news/driver-makes-wrong-turn-keystone-ski-run/73-b54a9f76-451e-44b9-b5e8-014d28963a6d

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 18:45:51 -0700
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: A Waymo robotaxi and a Serve delivery robot collided in
Los Angeles (TechCrunch)

On 27 Dec 2024, a Waymo robotaxi and a Serve Robotics sidewalk delivery
robot collided at a Los Angeles intersection, according to a video that's circulating on social media.

The footage shows a Serve bot crossing a street in West Hollywood at night
and trying to get onto the sidewalk. It reached the curb, backed up a little
to correct itself and started moving toward the ramp. That's a Waymo making
a right turn hit the little bot. [...]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/a-waymo-robotaxi-and-a-serve-delivery-robot-collided-in-los-angeles/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 15:24:37 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Waymo robotaxis can make walking across the street a game of
chicken (The Washington Post)

On roads teeming with robotaxis, crossing the street can be harrowing -- Our tech columnist captured videos of Waymo self-driving cars failing to stop
for him at a crosswalk. How does an AI learn how to break the law?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/30/waymo-pedestrians-robotaxi-crosswalks/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2025 06:42:54 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: Trifecta of articles in *LA Times* about cars

Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport: 'Is
somebody playing a joke?'
[Matthew Kruk spotted this one:
Mike Johns boarded a driverless Waymo taxi to an airport in Scottsdale,
Arizona, but it began spinning in circles in a parking lot. He filmed the
moment he was trapped in the vehicle, unable to stop the car or get help.
Johns said he almost missed his flight.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c70e2g09ng9o]

LA tech entrepreneur Mike Johns posted a video of his call to a customer service representative for Waymo to report that the car kept turning in
circles

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-05/los-angeles-man-trapped-in-circling-waymo-says-he-missed-his-flight-home

[Jim Geissman also noted it. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2025 09:21:47 -0800
From: "Jim" <jgeissman@socal.rr.com>
Subject: LA Sheriff outage (LA Times)

A few hours before the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, the computer dispatch system for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crashed, rendering
all patrol car computers nearly useless and forcing deputies to handle all calls by radio, according to officials and sources in the department.

Department leaders first learned of the problem around 8 p.m., when deputies
at several sheriff's stations began having trouble logging onto their patrol car computers, officials told The Times in a statement.

The department said it eventually determined its computer-aided dispatch program -- known as CAD -- was "not allowing personnel to log on with the
new year, making the CAD inoperable."

It's not clear how long it will take to fix the problem, but in the meantime deputies and dispatchers are handling everything old-school - using their radios instead of patrol car computers.

"It's our own little Y2K," a deputy who was working Wednesday morning told
The Times.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-01/l-a-sheriffs-dispatch-sy stem-crashes-on-new-years-eve

And there is more on this -- a "temporary fix". http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=8276009d-5b4b -4787-bece-ec72b2bbe0df

[Also noted by Jan Wolitzky. Also, Paul Saffo noted

If the trouble began a little after 16:00 local time (00:00 UTC), I
would suspect the system was keeping time internally with UTC, but news
reports say it started around 20:00. Furthermore, they say the system is
old and needs to be replaced, which implies it's handled the end of year
successfully many times.

Perhaps there's a rollover issue, such as the GPS week number rollover
that happened years ago. Since that occurred, my ca. 2000 Magellan
receiver is years in error in its dates, though it still navigates
without trouble. In fact, it's better than new in that respect. Rarely
do I see its positions off by more than 10 feet. PS

It still smells like a residual Y2K-type poor retrofix. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2025 18:03:01 -0500
From: Steve Golson <sgolson@trilobyte.com>
Subject: Eutelsat resolves OneWeb leap year software glitch
after two-day outage (SpaceNews)

https://spacenews.com/eutelsat-resolves-oneweb-leap-year-software-glitch-after-two-day-outage/

Eutelsat said Jan. 2 it has restored services across its low Earth orbit
(LEO) OneWeb broadband network following a two-day outage.

The software issue was caused by a failure to account for 2024 being a leap year… services were partially restored 36 hours after the disruption began
31 Dec 2024.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2025 09:14:58 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: Traffic lights will have a fourth color in 2025

It is hard not to recognize the famous red, yellow, and green traffic
signals on roads throughout the globe. By 2025, traffic signals may have one
of the biggest changes because one more color will be added to them. This shift aims to meet new increases by AVs and redefine the meaning of traffic management to make it safer and more effective in the future. [...]

To further illustrate this strategy, we provide the proposed fourth color, white, which would signal to other drivers that the self-driving vehicle is managing traffic conditions. However, unlike the traditional Traffic
signals, which inform other motorists of the behavior expected from
autonomous vehicles at AIs, the White light informs the human drivers to
mimic the behavior of the AVs at AIs. This system leverages the idea that
AVs are intelligent vehicles that actively relay information and manage
traffic information flow.

In the case the AVs get to an intersection, they communicate with the
traffic signals, as well as other AVs, to achieve the best flow. When AVs
are in command, a white light informs human drivers what the self-driving vehicles intend to do. This makes it easier for human drivers to decide when
to veer in either direction, thus eagles traffic congestion and making the
road safer. [...]

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/traffic-lights-fourth-color/10086/

[Don't fire the traffic-manager programmer until you see the WHITES of his
LIGHTS? PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2025 07:47:23 -0800
From: "Jim" <jgeissman@socal.rr.com>
Subject: FAA chief: Boeing must shift focus to safety over profit

Boeing used to manufacture airplanes and make profit as a side-effect. Then they changed to making profits primary with airplanes as a side-effect. FAA tells them to go back to the original model.

A year after a panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during a flight, the
nation's top aviation regulator says the company needs "a fundamental
cultural shift" to put safety and quality above profit.

Mike Whitaker, chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, said in an
online post Friday that his agency also has more work to do in its oversight
of Boeing.

Whitaker, who plans to step down in two weeks to let President-elect Donald Trump pick his own FAA administrator, looked back on his decision last
January to ground all 737 Max jets with similar panels called door plugs. Later, the FAA put more inspectors in Boeing factories, limited production
of new 737s and required Boeing to come up with a plan to fix manufacturing problems.

"Boeing is working to make progress executing its comprehensive plan in the areas of safety, quality improvement and effective employee engagement and training," Whitaker said. "But this is not a one-year project. What's needed
is a fundamental cultural shift at Boeing that's oriented around safety and quality above profits. That will require sustained effort and commitment
from Boeing, and unwavering scrutiny on our part."

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=72e50023-50c9-470e-812e-39984c87cf63

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2025 18:03:09 -0500:
From: Steve Golson <sgolson@trilobyte.com>
Subject: ARRL hit with ransomware (ARRL)

American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the U.S. national association for
amateur radio, was hit with a sophisticated ransomware attack.

https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-it-security-incident-report-to-members

Sometime in early May 2024, ARRL’s systems network was compromised by threat actors (TAsing everything from desktops and laptops to Windows-based and Linux-based servers. Des) using information they had purchased on the dark
web. The TAs accessed headquarters on-site systems and most cloud-based systems. They used a wide variety of payloads affecting everything from desktops and laptops to Windows-based and Linux-based servers. Despite the
wide variety of target configurations, the TAs seemed to have a payload that ould host and execute encryption or deletion of network-based IT assets, as well as launch demands for a ransom payment, for every system.

This serious incident was an act of organized crime. The highly coordinated
and execute d attack took place during the early morning hours of May
15. That morning, as staff arrived, it was immediately apparent that ARRL
had become the victim of an extensive and sophisticated ransomware
attack. The FBI categorized the attack as “unique” as they hadn't yet seen this level of sophistication among the many other attacks, they have
experience with.

The ransom demands by the TAs, in exchange for access to their decryption tools, were exorbitant. It was clear they didn’t know, and didn’t care, that
they had attacked a small 501(c)(3) organization with limited
resources. Their ransom demands were dramatically weakened by the fact that they did not have access to any compromising data. It was also clear that
they believed ARRL had extensive insurance coverage that would cover a multi-million-dollar ransom payment.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 11:24:10 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Taiwan Suspects China of Latest Undersea Cable Attack"
(Tom Nicholson)

Politico Europe (01/05/25) Tom Nicholson

Taiwanese officials suspect a Cameroon-flagged cargo ship owned by Je Yang Trading Limited of Hong Kong, led by Chinese citizen Guo Wenjie, was responsible for cutting an international undersea telecom cable on
Jan. 3. The Shunxin-39 was intercepted by Taiwan's coast guard, but rough weather prevented an on-board investigation, and the ship continued on to a South Korean port.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2025 21:11:00 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: The Memecoin Shenanigans Are Just Getting Started (WiReD)

The market for absurdist cryptocurrencies mutated into a
hundred-billion-dollar phenomenon in 2024. Yes, things can get even more deranged.

Around that time, a bunch of other celebrities—from Caitlyn Jenner to Andrew Tate and Jason Derulo—were all launching their own crypto coins. The
pile-on reflected a renewed fervor among traders for memecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that generally has no utility beyond financial speculation.

Because memecoins do not generate revenue or cash flow, their value is
entirely based on the attention they attract, which can fluctuate
wildly. Though some people make a lot of money on memecoins, many others
lose out. With a general euphoria taking hold in cryptoland as the price of bitcoin rises to historic levels above $100,000, the stage is set for yet further memecoin “degeneracy,” says Azeem Khan, cofounder of the Morph blockchain and venture partner at crypto VC firm Foresight Ventures.

https://www.wired.com/story/memecoins-cryptocurrency-regulation

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 11:05:47 -0700
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com>
Subject: Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of
eavesdropping (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/apple-siri-privacy-settlement-1.7422363

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million US to settle a lawsuit accusing the privacy-minded company of deploying its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop
on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.

The proposed settlement filed Tuesday in an Oakland, Calif., federal court would resolve a five-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that
Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through
iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than
a decade.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 11:24:10 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Meta Getting Rid of Fact Checkers (Clare Duff)

CNN 01/07/25) Clare Duffy

Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that Meta will adjust its content review
policies on Facebook and Instagram, replacing fact checkers with
user-generated "community notes." In doing so, Zuckerberg follows in the footsteps of Elon Musk who, after acquiring Twitter, dismantled the
company's fact-checking teams. Said Zuckerberg, "Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 07:08:55 -0700
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com>
Subject: Huge problems with axing fact-checkers, Meta oversight
board says (BBC)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwlwlqpwx7o

While Meta says the move -- which is being introduced in the US initially -
is about free speech, others have suggested it is an attempt to get closer
to the incoming Trump administration, and catch up with the access and influence enjoyed by another tech titan, Elon Musk.

The tech journalist and author Kara Swisher told the BBC it was "the most cynical move" she had seen Mr Zuckerberg make in the "many years" she had
been reporting on him.

"Facebook does whatever is in its self-interest", she said.
"He wants to kiss up to Donald Trump, and catch up with Elon Musk in that
act."

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2025 14:19:32 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Meta hosts AI chatbots of 'Hitler,' 'Jesus Christ,' Taylor Swift
(NBC News)

Meta says it reviews every user-generated AI chatbot, but NBC News found
dozens that seemed to violate Meta’s policies.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-user-made-ai-chatbots-include-hitler-jesus-christ-rcna186206

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 08:41:43 -0500
From: Tom Van Vleck <thvv@multicians.org>
Subject: God can take Sunday off (NYTimes)

from the New York Times 8 Jan 2025

To members of his synagogue, the voice that played over the speakers of Congregation EmanuEl in Houston sounded just like Rabbi Josh Fixler's. In
the same steady rhythm his congregation had grown used to, the voice
delivered a sermon about what it meant to be a neighbor in the age of artificial intelligence. Then, Rabbi Fixler took to the bimah himself. "The audio you heard a moment ago may have sounded like my words," he said. "But they weren't." The recording was created by what Rabbi Fixler called "Rabbi Bot," an AI chatbot trained on his old sermons. The chatbot, created with
the help of a data scientist, wrote the sermon, even delivering it in an
AI version of his voice. During the rest of the service, Rabbi Fixler intermittently asked Rabbi Bot questions aloud, which it would promptly
answer.

Rabbi Fixler is among a growing number of religious leaders experimenting
with AI in their work, spurring an industry of faith-based tech companies
that offer AI tools, from assistants that can do theological research to chatbots that can help write sermons. [...] Religious leaders have used
AI to translate their livestreamed sermons into different languages in
real time, blasting them out to international audiences. Others have
compared chatbots trained on tens of thousands of pages of Scripture to a
fleet of newly trained seminary students, able to pull excerpts about
certain topics nearly instantaneously. The report's author draws a parallel
to previous generations' initial apprehension -- and eventual embrace -- of transformative technologies like radio, television, and the Internet. "For centuries, new technologies have changed the ways people worship, from the radio in the 1920s to television sets in the 1950s and the Internet in the 1990s," the report says. "Some proponents of AI in religious spaces have
gone back even further, comparing AI's potential -- and fears of it -- to
the invention of the printing press in the 15th century."

Well, we are halfway there. Now all we need is AI-generated parishioners.

Think of the savings in time and real estate. Church services can be over
in microseconds. No need for church buildings, pews, altars: all virtual.
They could repurpose churches as Amazon warehouses, patrolled by robots.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2025 11:29:50 PST
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Several items Google and Meta (Lauren Weinstein_

* Google gives a million dollars to Trump inauguration, as billionaire CEO
Sundar goes full MAGA]

* Changes at Meta amount to a MAGA Makeover Kevin Roose, *The New York
Times*, 9 Jan 2025, front page of Business Section.
[Lauren suggests META == Make Evil Trendy Again.]

* Zuckerberg falls in line, goes fully MAGA
Joe Garifoli, *The San Francisco Chronicle*, 9 Jan 2025

* Google gives a million dollars to Trump inauguration, as billionaire CEO
Sundar goes full MAGA, Lauren Weinstein, 9 Jan 2025

[The best government money can buy? PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 08:47:42 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: AI means the end of Internet search as
we've known it (Technology Review))

The way we navigate the web is changing, and it’s paving the way to a more AI-saturated future.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/06/1108679/ai-generative-search-internet-breakthroughs/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 06:47:35 -0700
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com>
Subject: Is it still 'social media' if it's overrun by AI? (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meta-ai-generated-characters-future-social-media-1.7424641

Back in 2010, a 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg shared his vision for Facebook
-- by that point a wildly popular social network with more than 500-million users.

"The primary thing that we focus on all day long is how to help people
share and stay connected with their friends, family and the people in the community around them," Zuckerberg told CNBC. "That's what we care about,
and that's why we started the company."

Fifteen years and three billion users later, Facebook's parent company Meta
has a new vision: characters powered by artificial intelligence existing alongside actual friends and family. Some experts caution that this could
mark the end of social media as we know it.

For early users of social media, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become "about as anti-social as you can imagine," said Carmi Levy, a
technology analyst and journalist based in London, Ont. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to connect with an actual human being."

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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 08:38:38 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: AI Incident Database

This should be of interest to RISKS readers:


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