Creating realistic deepfakes is getting easier than ever. Fighting back may take even more AI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone rings. It's the secretary of state calling. Or is it?

For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump's administration.

Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age.

Canadian researchers create tool to remove anti-deepfake watermarks from AI content

OTTAWA - University of Waterloo researchers have built a tool that can quickly remove watermarks identifying content as artificially generated — and they say it proves that global efforts to combat deepfakes are most likely on the wrong track.

Academia and industry have focused on watermarking as the best way to fight deepfakes and "basically abandoned all other approaches," said Andre Kassis, a PhD candidate in computer science who led the research.

At a White House event in 2023, the leading AI companies — including OpenAI, Meta, Google and Amazon — pledged to implement mechanisms such as watermarking to clearly identify AI-generated content.

AI companies’ systems embed a watermark, which is a hidden signature or pattern that isn’t visible to a person but can be identified by another system, Kassis explained.

Musk’s xAI scrubs inappropriate posts after Grok chatbot makes antisemitic comments

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company said Wednesday that it's taking down “inappropriate posts" made by its Grok chatbot, which appeared to include antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler.

Grok was developed by Musk’s xAI and pitched as alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini, or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Musk said Friday that Grok has been improved significantly, and users “should notice a difference.”

Since then, Grok has shared several antisemitic posts, including the trope that Jews run Hollywood, and denied that such a stance could be described as Nazism.

What to know about a potential deal to keep TikTok running in US

Less than a month after extending a deadline to ban TikTok for the third time, President Donald Trump told reporters late Friday night that, “We pretty much have a deal,” on TikTok — but he did not offer details.

The details and timing of a potential deal are not clear. TikTok did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Monday.

Emarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman said while TikTok is “reportedly planning” a U.S. version of its app to comply with legal restrictions, the platform — if it launches without the original TikTok algorithm — “risks losing the very personalization that drives user engagement.”

In other words, TikTok just isn't TikTok without its algorithm.

China’s humanoid robots generate more soccer excitement than their human counterparts

BEIJING (AP) — While China's men's soccer team hasn't generated much excitement in recent years, humanoid robot teams have won over fans in Beijing based more on the AI technology involved than any athletic prowess shown.

Four teams of humanoid robots faced off in fully autonomous 3-on-3 soccer matches powered entirely by artificial intelligence on Saturday night in China's capital in what was touted as a first in China and a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing.

According to the organizers, a key aspect of the match was that all the participating robots operated fully autonomously using AI-driven strategies without any human intervention or supervision.

Equipped with advanced visual sensors, the robots were able to identify the ball and navigate the field with agility

Tech industry group sues Arkansas over new social media laws

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A tech industry trade group sued Arkansas Friday over two new laws that would place limits on content on social media platforms and would allow parents of children who killed themselves to sue over content on the platforms.

The lawsuit by NetChoice filed in federal court in Fayetteville, Arkansas, comes months after a federal judge struck down a state law requiring parental consent before minors can create new social media accounts. The new laws were signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year.

“Despite the overwhelming consensus that laws like the Social Media Safety Act are unconstitutional, Arkansas elected to respond to this Court’s decision not by repealing the provisions that it held unconstitutional but by instead doubling down on its overreach,” NetChoice said in its lawsuit.

Arkansas is among several states that have been enacting restrictions on social media, prompted by concerns about the impact on children's mental health. NetChoice — whose members include Facebook parent Meta and the social platform X — challenged Arkansas' 2023 age-verification law for social media. A federal judge who initially blocked the law struck it down in March.

Hackathon teams race to solve defense tech challenges as Europe boosts military capabilities

SANDHURST, England (AP) — Hunched over laptops, the team of four raced to solve a challenge: how to get a set of drones to fly themselves from one place to another when GPS and other signals are jammed by an enemy.

Elsewhere around the hall, groups of people — engineering students, tech workers and hobbyists — gathered around long tables to brainstorm, write computer code or tinker with more drones and other hardware.

Most of them were strangers when they first gathered last month at Britain's Sandhurst Military Academy to compete in a 24-hour “hackathon" focused on defense technology. Many were drawn to the event because they wanted to use their technical skills to work on one of the biggest challenges confronting Europe: the continent's race to beef up its military capabilities as Russia's war in Ukraine threatens to widen global instability.

“Given the geopolitical climate, defense tech is relevant now more than ever,” said Aniketh Ramesh, a startup founder with a Ph.D. in robotics in extreme environments and one of the drone team members. The hackathon, he said, “is a good place to sort of go and contribute your ideas.”

Long-awaited Winnipeg Transit network overhaul goes live Sunday

Winnipeg’s bus network will undergo a massive one-day transformation on Sunday that alters virtually every route.

Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud

LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters.

Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently.

The app will display an on-screen label warning about “AI-generated content" and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators.

Deezer is a small player in music streaming, which is dominated by Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but the company said AI-generated music is an “industry-wide issue.” It's committed to “safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models," CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.

‘Elio’ is an intergalactic tale — but for Toronto’s Domee Shi, it hits close to home

TORONTO - For Domee Shi, making a movie about an introverted kid getting abducted by aliens felt oddly familiar.

Not because she’s had any close encounters, but because she remembers being a teenager longing to be taken away to a world where her weirdness was understood.

The Toronto native co-directs “Elio,” a Pixar animated sci-fi film about an 11-year-old orphan who yearns to be snatched by extraterrestrials to escape his loneliness — and gets his wish when an interplanetary organization mistakes him for Earth’s ambassador.

“He's this lonely artsy kid who just wants to belong somewhere. I definitely felt that way growing up,” says the Oscar-winning animator behind 2022’s coming-of-age Toronto-set hit “Turning Red.”

Colorado’s governor vetoes landmark ban on rent-setting algorithms

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has vetoed a bill that would have made Colorado the first state to ban landlords from using rent-setting algorithms, which many advocates have blamed for driving up housing costs across the country.

RealPage is the target of a federal lawsuit filed last year that accuses the real estate software company of facilitating an illegal scheme to help landlords coordinate to hike rental prices. Eight other states, including Colorado, have joined the Department of Justice's lawsuit, though RealPage has vehemently denied any claims of collusion and has fought to have the lawsuit dismissed.

Critics say RealPage software combines confidential information from each real estate management company in ways that enable landlords to align prices and avoid competition that would otherwise push down rents. RealPage’s clients include huge landlords who collectively oversee millions of units across the U.S.

The Colorado bill, which recently passed the Democratic-led Legislature along party lines, would have prevented the use of such algorithms.

Flin Flon, Man., virtually deserted, thousands more evacuees expected as fires rage

WINNIPEG - Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says thousands more evacuees are expected and the city of Flin Flon is virtually deserted as wildfires continue to rage in his province.

Kinew told a Friday news conference that the mayor, councillors, health-care staff and other officials have had to depart Flin Flon.

"The only folks remaining on the ground are firefighters and folks in the office of the fire commissioner and RCMP, who are there to battle the blaze," Kinew said.

"We do expect some very, very challenging conditions in Flin Flon and in the surrounding community."

Lance McCullers gets 24-hour security after online death threats, some aimed at 5-year-old daughter

HOUSTON (AP) — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.’s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Houston Astros’ pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it.

What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl.

“She asked me when I came home: ‘Daddy like what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?’” McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So, those conversations are tough to deal with.”

McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening his wife’s life and directing “vile” comments at him.

Generating goodwill at the parking meter

Recent reports from the City of Winnipeg about plans to remove all the downtown parking meters left our household upset.

Judge wrestles with far-reaching remedy proposals in US antitrust case against Google

WASHINGTON (AP) — The fate and fortunes of one of the world’s most powerful tech companies now sit in the hands of a U.S. judge wrestling with whether to impose far-reaching changes upon Google in the wake of its dominant search engine being declared an illegal monopoly.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta heard closing arguments Friday from Justice Department lawyers who argued that a radical shake-up is needed to promote a free and fair market. Their proposed remedies include a ban on Google paying to lock its search engine in as the default on smart devices and an order requiring the company to sell its Chrome browser.

Google’s legal team argued that only minor concessions are needed and urged Mehta not to unduly punish the company with a harsh ruling that could squelch future innovations. Google also argued that upheaval triggered by advances in artificial intelligence already is reshaping the search landscape, as conversational search options are rolling out from AI startups that are hoping to use the Department of Justice’s four-and-half-year-old case to gain the upper hand in the next technological frontier.

It was an argument that Mehta appeared to give serious consideration as he marveled at the speed at which the AI industry was growing. He also indicated he was still undecided on how much AI’s potential to shake up the search market should be incorporated in his forthcoming ruling. “This is what I’ve been struggling with,” Mehta said.

Cohere asks U.S. court to toss complaint from media alleging copyright infringement

TORONTO - Cohere is asking a U.S. court to throw out complaints from media outlets that have accused the artificial intelligence company of infringing on their copyright.

In a dismissal motion filed in a New York court on Thursday, Cohere accused publishers including the Toronto Star, Condé Nast, McClatchy, Forbes Media and Guardian News of deliberately using its software to "manufacture a case."

The Toronto-based company said the outlets must have "stylized" prompts they entered into Cohere's software to elicit portions of their own work, which sometimes included inaccuracies.

It argued nothing in the complaint filed by the outlets suggests that any real customer has ever used the company's software to infringe on the publisher's copyright.

Paul Reubens tells his story in ‘Pee-wee as Himself.’ Here’s how it came together after his death

Paul Reubens did not tell his director that he was dying.

On July 31, 2023, the news of Reubens' death came as a shock to documentary filmmaker Matt Wolf, who had spent a year trying to convince him to make the ambitious two-part documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” now streaming on HBO Max, and over 40 hours interviewing him on camera.

But in 2023, the project was in danger of falling apart: The two had been at an impasse for a while over the issue of creative control and they’d finally found a way forward. He had one last interview scheduled, set for the first week of August. Then the texts started coming in. Wolf sat there shaking.

They’d spoken about everything — Reubens' childhood, his complicated relationship with fame, his ambitions, his commitment to his alter-ego Pee-wee Herman, his sexuality, his arrest — except the fact that he’d been battling cancer for the past six years. But after the initial shock, a renewed purpose set in.

The Cannes Film Festival is over. Here’s some key things that happened

CANNES, France (AP) — This year's Cannes Film Festival is over, ending in dramatic fashion with a power outage ahead of the closing ceremony that bestowed the Palme d'Or trophy to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's film, “It Was Just an Accident.”

This year's festival included a strong slate as Cannes has become increasingly important to the Oscars’ best picture hopefuls. As the festival drew to close Saturday, it was clear that filmmakers are reckoning with geopolitical doom, climate change and other calamities that closely resemble current events.

This year's festival was an attention-grabbing affair since its start — from new rules for its red carpets, nerves about potential U.S. tariffs and the return of Tom Cruise.

Even in a normal year, Cannes is a lot to keep up with. Here's a handy guide of what's happened so far, what's left and what it may mean.

Trump threatens 50% tariffs on EU and 25% penalties on smart phones as his trade war intensifies

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 50% tax on all imports from the European Union as well a 25% tariff on smartphones unless those products are made in America.

The threats, delivered over social media, reflect Trump's ability to disrupt the global economy with a burst of typing, as well as the reality that his tariffs have yet to produce the trade deals he is seeking or the return of domestic manufacturing he has promised voters.

The Republican president said he wants to charge higher import taxes on goods from the EU, a longstanding US ally, than from China, a geopolitical rival that had its tariffs cut to 30% this month so Washington and Beijing could hold negotiations. Trump was upset by the lack of progress in trade talks with the EU, which has proposed mutually cutting tariffs to zero even as the president has publicly insisted on preserving a baseline 10% tax on most imports.

“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”

Trump hosts top crypto investors as some industry leaders fear he’s putting personal profits first

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rewarded top investors in one of his cryptocurrency projects with a swanky dinner on Thursday night, an event that showed the ascendance of an emerging financial industry — and also the president's willingness to mix public office with personal profit.

Some 220 of the biggest investors in the $TRUMP meme coin were invited to Trump's luxury golf club in Northern Virginia, where they dined on filet mignon and halibut. According to participants' posts on social media, Trump spoke for about half an hour before dancing to the song “YMCA.”

Despite the White House insisting that Trump would be attending the event “in his personal time,” he stood behind a lectern with the presidential seal as he touted an industry that's generating profits for his family business.

After feeling unfairly targeted under President Joe Biden, the crypto industry has quickly become a powerful political force, donating huge sums to help Trump and friendly lawmakers. The U.S. Senate is advancing key pro-crypto legislation while bitcoin prices soar.

Increase in sextortion cases prompts call for legislation to combat predators

The spike in online sextortion cases in Winnipeg has alarmed police and augmented advocates’ calls for Canada to begin regulating social media platforms to help protect children from predators.

Little pictures, big ears, and bad examples

One of the pillars of a thriving democratic society is exemplified through the civil conduct of our elected political leaders. The ethos of honesty, humility, and empathy are becoming increasingly relinquished in lieu of posturing public vitriol and moral indifference.

Increasingly sophisticated deepfake AI-generated political ads threaten to unravel Canada’s social order

Increasingly sophisticated deepfake AI-generated internet political ads threaten to unravel Canada’s social order, experts warn, pointing to the successful war on truth U.S. President Donald Trump is waging south of the border.