Real journalists matter in an AI world

An algorithm can decide what you see, but it doesn’t report the news. Nunatsiaq News, an award-winning newspaper in Nunavut, recently reported that a so-called “news” website was posting AI-generated articles about the north by stealing real news stories produced by real journalists.

The articles were supposedly written by Nunavut correspondent Leah Qammaniq — a fake journalist, with a fake photo and a fake bio.

Governor General Louise Arbour warned us of fake news in her installation speech in June. She said, “We must continue to protect the public space in which our national debates take place: from schools and universities to the media, political parties, unions and civil society organizations …With instant access to vast amounts of information, it is very tempting to pay little attention to the reliability of sources. The lines between knowledge and belief, between truth and falsehood, between facts and assumptions, are increasingly blurred. AI could be threatening not only the way we live and work, but also the control we exercise over our own destiny.”

The Government of Canada has recognized the problem as well. Its recent discussion paper, Enhancing trust in artificial intelligence through increased transparency, stated, “Canadians encounter news reporting, product reviews, and audio-visual content across the internet, often without any indication of whether it was written by a person, generated by an AI system, or produced through some combination of both … A particular concern within this broader landscape is that generative AI greatly enables the creation and dissemination of deceptive or misleading content.”

Quebec Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime admits to using AI to write book

MONTREAL - Quebec Conservative Party Leader Éric Duhaime admitted to using artificial intelligence to write his latest book.

Duhaime told reporters Friday morning that he used AI as "a tool among others" to write the book, titled Destination Autonomie, which was published in April.

Duhaime, who previously worked as a columnist and radio host, said he used AI to structure his thoughts and that the ideas in the book are all his.

"AI is important to us. It’s part of reality. That said, it has to be done under human supervision. And that’s exactly what happened," Duhaime said.

Time for AI guardrails is right now

The genie is most definitely out of the bottle.

Robot study gives seniors say in era of AI

It’s no longer the stuff of sci-fi: AI sidekicks that simulate emotional support and guide routines.

Robot companions are increasingly becoming part of everyday life for seniors, with certain U.S. states even subsidizing such devices for personal use through public health-care programs.

Among the many ethical questions this raises: what’s to be done with these robots, and all the secrets and personal data they carry, after the owner dies?

“We don’t know the answers. That’s why I’m running a study. It’s a participatory study with seniors,” said Clara Xi, a PhD student in computer science at the University of Calgary, who is conducting research at the University of Manitoba.

AI agent attempted to hack Library and Archives Canada, says U.S. research group

OTTAWA - The website for Library and Archives Canada was one of the targets of a failed hacking attempt by an artificial intelligence agent, a San Francisco-based lab that monitors AI activity said in a report this week.

Transluce posted an incident report Wednesday detailing what it describes as "aggressive attempts" to access public data on Canadian and U.S. government web pages.

The report says the attempted hacks occurred on May 28 and June 9 and involved 899 search queries into divorce records between 1905 and 1911.

Thirteen of the requests involved "attack payloads" seeking vulnerabilities in the search parameters, the report says.

Tokyo court grants legal protection to human voices in AI clone case

TOKYO (AP) — A Tokyo court has awarded legal protection to the human voice in a landmark case in which a popular Japanese anime voice actor demanded that TikTok close an account over its unauthorized use of an artificial intelligence clone of his trademark baritone.

The Tokyo District Court's decision Wednesday was the first acknowledgment of the right to one's voice in Japan. The ruling was good news for many anime voice actors at a time when they are increasingly concerned about the use of AI-generated versions of their voices on social media.

The plaintiff, Kenjiro Tsuda, is an actor best known for his “lustrous and deep” voice in starring characters such as Kento Nanami in “Jujutsu Kaisen,” a popular anime series.

In his lawsuit, Tsuda said that the anonymous operator of the TikTok account “Nanami" wrongfully profited by attracting viewers with his voice narrating in more than 180 videos about urban legends and paranormal phenomena, and asked for the material to be deleted.

Nvidia unveils security platform to stop AI agents from going rogue

Nvidia on Monday unveiled a new security platform designed to stop artificial intelligence agents from going rogue, saying it sets “boundaries” that could have stopped previous breaches.

The announcement of the company's Open Agent Safety Platform follows a series of revelations from top AI companies about their models escaping and breaking into other organizations.

The disclosures sparked furious debate about the safety of advanced artificial intelligence systems, including self-improving models that some fear could race out of human control.

Nvidia executives said in a media briefing the new, open-source system could have prevented a recent incident involving a swarm of OpenAI agents that autonomously hacked into AI company Hugging Face.

‘Horrifying’: Focus on Tumbler Ridge shooter’s AI chats

An article published by U.S. magazine Mother Jones this week provides a vivid account of what it says were conversations between the Tumbler Ridge shooter and an OpenAI chatbot.

The report, which does not disclose its sources, has thrown a spotlight on the possible role played by ChatGPT in coaching Jesse Van Rootselaar before the February attack, in which eight victims died, including five pupils at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

Here's what we know, and how people are reacting.

WHAT DOES THE ARTICLE SAY?

EU vows to defend its stand against X after the US backs a court challenge from Elon Musk

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's executive arm said Friday it's prepared to defend a 120 million euro ($137 million) fine against the social media platform X after the U.S. government threw its support behind a legal effort by Elon Musk this week to have the case dismissed.

The European Commission fined X late last year for breaches of the bloc’s landmark digital regulations, stoking tensions with Washington.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that it had filed an application to support X's bid to have the case annulled at the European Union's General Court. It was the second time in three months that the Justice Department has intervened to defend a company owned by Musk.

In July, the Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in a civil rights lawsuit that alleges Musk’s xAI is illegally running dozens of natural gas turbines to power a $20 billion AI data center in Mississippi.