IBM pulls ads on X because of ‘unacceptable content’, AI exec quits over copyright concerns
IBM has suspended advertising on X after a report said its ads were placed next to posts praising Adolf Hitler and Nazism. The company said it was “completely unacceptable” that its content appeared in such threads on the platform. X said it does not intentionally place brands “next to this kind of content”. It comes as X owner Elon Musk was criticised after calling an antisemitic conspiracy theory “actual truth” when replying to a post on the platform. The left-leaning watchdog Media Matters for America said it found ads bought by IBM and other companies next to posts including Hitler quotes, praise of Nazis and Holocaust denial. BBC
Apple could be making a big step toward improving texting between iPhone and Android devices by adopting the Rich Communication Services standard in 2024. According to 9to5Mac on Thursday, an Apple spokesperson said in a statement that RCS — a more feature-rich texting standard that’s available on Android phones — will be coming to the iPhone and will work alongside iMessage. Apple did not respond to a request for comment from CNET. “Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to 9to5Mac. CNet
The VP of audio at Stability AI has decided his position at the content-generating startup is untenable, given his belief in protecting artists’ copyrights and his now-former employer’s stance that training machine-learning models on copyrighted material is legally OK. “I’ve resigned from my role leading the Audio team at Stability AI, because I don’t agree with the company’s opinion that training generative AI models on copyrighted works is ‘fair use’,” former veep Ed Newton-Rex wrote on social media. Operations like Stability often train their models on huge amounts of information scraped from the internet. The Register
Elon Musk’s Starship will make its second launch attempt on Saturday after its first effort ended in a fireball minutes after blast off. The billionaire’s 390ft tall rocket, which has been picked to carry a mission to the moon by 2025 and is intended to one day take humans to Mars, will take off from a launch pad at Starbase in Texas. The last launch attempt on 20 April ended in failure after the SpaceX rocket’s first and second stages failed to separate, sending it into a tailspin and ending with a fireball. Telegraph
A few months ago, Google unveiled Bard, its Generative AI-based chatbot, which integrates with Google Search. It has been released in 180 countries since its announcement. However, it was restricted to adults, and it is now being made available to teens. And to make it available in a safe manner, there are certain safety measures. Starting today, Google Bard is available to teens in most countries where the AI chatbot is available. However, it is only available to those who have set English as their preferred language. SamMobile
Swedish workers are uniting against Tesla. From tomorrow, cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians won’t fix the company’s charging points, and dockworkers will refuse to unload Tesla cargo at all Swedish ports. What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk’s carmaker and the conventions they say make the country’s labor market fair and efficient. Wired
