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Tag: artificial intelligence

  • Meta Drops $65 Million on Super PACs to Back Pro-AI Candidates Against Big Tech Critics

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    Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows a prototype of computer glasses that can display digital objects in transparent lenses at the Meta Connect developers conference in Menlo Park, California on September 25, 2024. (Photo: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)

    “We can’t afford more corrupt politicians bought by Big Tech,” said one Democratic US House candidate.

    Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is spending big bucks to ensure that government regulations don’t interfere with its ambitions in artificial intelligence.

    The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Meta is planning to spend $65 million on this year’s midterm elections, with one super political action committee (PAC) dedicated to electing AI-friendly Democrats, and another dedicated to electing AI-friendly Republicans.

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    The pro-Democratic super PAC, called Making Our Tomorrow, will work to influence congressional races in Illinois, while the pro-GOP PAC, called Forge the Future Project, will be focusing on congressional races in Texas.

    The Times noted that Meta has in the past been “cautious about campaign engagements, making small donations out of a corporate political action committee and contributing to presidential inaugurations,” but it has decided to ramp up its spending to defend its AI business from governmental interference.

    Meta’s spending splurge to elect pro-AI candidates is just one of many efforts by the AI industry to ensure a friendly regulatory environment.

    CNN reported last week that Leading the Future—a super PAC backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights—is pledging to spend at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterm election.

    The goal of the PAC will be to elect lawmakers who will pass legislation to set a single set of AI regulations that will take effect throughout the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.

    The PACs’ big spending comes as a nationwide backlash to Big Tech has been forming across the US, as many communities are fighting against the construction of energy-devouring AI data centers that are raising electricity prices and have been accused of degrading the quality of local water supplies.

    Reed Showalter, a Democratic US House of Representatives candidate running in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District, said the report of Meta’s big spending showed the importance of ensuring that voters elect leaders who will hold the major tech companies accountable.

    “We deserve representatives who are going to take an honest look at AI and regulate it accordingly,” he wrote in a social media post. “We can’t afford more corrupt politicians bought by Big Tech.”

    Democratic New York congressional candidate Alex Bores, who is running on a platform of regulating AI, said during an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the tech companies’ actions show they are “terrified” of being held accountable by elected officials.

    He also noted that being attacked by the Leading the Future super PAC has ironically helped his candidacy.

    “The fact that they’re being so aggressive with it, I think, has been redounding to my benefit,” he told host Dana Bash. “I’ve had a lot of constituents who have reached out and said, ‘I hadn’t even heard of you until all these text messages [from the AI super PAC].”

    Watchdog social media account @OilPACTracker predicted that Meta’s major political spending could turn into a liability if voters are made aware of its machinations.

    “We would make sure the electorate knows about it,” the watchdog wrote. “Big Tech money is toxic.

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    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
    Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
    Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • Nationwide Backlash Brewing Against Big Tech’s Energy-Devouring AI Data Centers

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    Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    An operator works at the data centre of French company OVHcloud in Roubaix, northern France on April 3, 2025. (Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

    “For any Democrat who wants to think politically, what an opportunity,” said Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The people are way ahead of the politicians.”

    America’s biggest tech firms are facing an increasing backlash over the energy-devouring data centers they are building to power artificial intelligence.

    Semafor reported on Monday that opposition to data center construction has been bubbling up in communities across the US, as both Republican and Democratic local officials have been campaigning on promises to clamp down on Silicon Valley’s most expensive and ambitious projects.

    In Virginia’s 30th House of Delegates district, for example, both Republican incumbent Geary Higgins and Democratic challenger John McAuliff have been battling over which one of them is most opposed to AI data center construction in their region.

    In an interview with Semafor, McAuliff said that opposition to data centers in the district has swelled up organically, as voters recoil at both the massive amount of resources they consume and the impact that consumption is having on both the environment and their electric bills.

    “We’re dealing with the biggest companies on the planet,” he explained. “So we need to make sure Virginians are benefiting off of what they do here, not just paying for it.”

    NPR on Tuesday similarly reported that fights over data center construction are happening nationwide, as residents who live near proposed construction sites have expressed concerns about the amount of water and electricity they will consume at the expense of local communities.

    “A typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest under development will consume 20 times more,” NPR explained, citing a report from the International Energy Agency. “They also suck up billions of gallons of water for systems to keep all that computer hardware cool.”

    Data centers’ massive water use has been a consistent concern across the US. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Monday that residents of the township of East Vincent, Pennsylvania have seen their wells dry up recently, and they are worried that a proposed data center would significantly exacerbate water shortages.

    This is what has been happening in Mansfield, Georgia, a community that for years has experienced problems with its water supply ever since tech giant Meta began building a data center there in 2018.

    As BBC reported back in August, residents in Mansfield have resorted to buying bottled water because their wells have been delivering murky water, which they said wasn’t a problem before the Meta data center came online. Although Meta has commissioned a study that claims to show its data center hasn’t affected local groundwater quality, Mansfield resident Beverly Morris told BBC she isn’t buying the company’s findings.

    “My everyday life, everything has been affected,” she said, in reference to the presence of the data center. “I’ve lived through this for eight years. This is not just today, but it is affecting me from now on.”

    Anxieties about massive power consumption are also spurring the backlash against data centers, and recent research shows these fears could be well founded.

    Mike Jacobs, a senior energy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, last month released an analysis estimating that data centers had added billions of dollars to Americans’ electric bills across seven different states in recent years. In Virginia alone, for instance, Jacobs found that household electric bills had subsidized data center transmission costs to the tune of $1.9 billion in 2024.

    “The big tech companies rushing to build out massive data centers are worth trillions of dollars, yet they’re successfully exploiting an outdated regulatory process to pawn billions of dollars of costs off on families who may never even use their products,” Jacobs explained. “People deserve to understand the full extent of how data centers in their communities may affect their lives and wallets. This is a clear case of the public unknowingly subsidizing private companies’ profits.”

    While the backlash to data centers hasn’t yet become a national issue, Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), predicted in an interview with Semafor that opposition to their construction would be a winning political issue for any politician savvy enough to get ahead of it.

    “For any Democrat who wants to think politically, what an opportunity,” he said. “The people are way ahead of the politicians.”

    Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

  • Probes Reveal Depth of Big Tech Complicity in Israel’s AI-Driven Gaza Slaughter

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    Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    An aerial view shows Palestinians walking through the ruins of destroyed buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, on February 5, 2025.
     (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images

    “Many nations are looking to Israel and its use of AI in Gaza with admiration and jealousy,” said one expert. “Expect to see a form of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon-backed AI in other war zones soon.”

    Several recent journalistic investigations—including one published Tuesday by The Associated Press—have deepened the understanding of how Israeli forces are using artificial intelligence and cloud computing systems sold by U.S. tech titans for the mass surveillance and killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

    The AP‘s Michael Biesecker, Sam Mednick, and Garance Burke found that Israel’s use of Microsoft and OpenAI technology “skyrocketed” following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

    “This is the first confirmation we have gotten that commercial AI models are directly being used in warfare,” Heidy Khlaaf, chief artificial intelligence scientist at the AI Now Institute and a former senior safety engineer at OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, told the AP. “The implications are enormous for the role of tech in enabling this type of unethical and unlawful warfare going forward.”

    As Biesecker, Mednick, and Burke noted:

    Israel’s goal after the attack that killed about 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages was to eradicate Hamas, and its military has called AI a “game changer” in yielding targets more swiftly. Since the war started, more than 50,000 people have died in Gaza and Lebanon and nearly 70% of the buildings in Gaza have been devastated, according to health ministries in Gaza and Lebanon.

    According to the AP report, Israel buys advanced AI models from OpenAI and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. While OpenAI said it has no partnership with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in early 2024 the company quietly removed language from its usage policy that prohibited military use of its technology.

    The AP reporters also found that Google and Amazon provide cloud computing and AI services to the IDF via Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021. Furthermore, the IDF uses Cisco and Dell server farms or data centers. Red Hat, an independent IBM subsidiary, sells cloud computing services to the IDF. Microsoft partner Palantir Technologies also has a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military.

    Google told the AP that the company is committed to creating AI “that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security.”

    However, Google recently removed from its Responsible AI principles a commitment to not use AI for the development of technology that could cause “overall harm,” including weapons and surveillance.

    The AP investigation follows a Washington Post probe published last month detailing how Google has been “directly assisting” the IDF and Israel’s Ministry of Defense “despite the company’s efforts to publicly distance itself from the country’s national security apparatus after employee protests against a cloud computing contract with Israel’s government.”

    Google fired dozens of workers following their participation in “No Tech for Apartheid” protests against the use of the company’s products and services by forces accused of genocide in Gaza.

    “A Google employee warned in one document that if the company didn’t quickly provide more access, the military would turn instead to Google’s cloud rival Amazon, which also works with Israel’s government under the Nimbus contract,” wrote Gerrit De Vynck, author of the Post report.

    “As recently as November 2024, by which time a year of Israeli airstrikes had turned much of Gaza to rubble, documents show Israel’s military was still tapping Google for its latest AI technology,” De Vynck added. “Late that month, an employee requested access to the company’s Gemini AI technology for the IDF, which wanted to develop its own AI assistant to process documents and audio, according to the documents.”

    Previous investigations have detailed how the IDF also uses Habsora, an Israeli AI system that can automatically select airstrike targets at an exponentially faster rate than ever before.

    “In the past, there were times in Gaza when we would create 50 targets per year. And here the machine produced 100 targets in one day,” former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi told Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine, a joint Israeli-Palestinian publication, in 2023. Another intelligence source said that Habsora has transformed the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.

    Compounding the crisis, in the heated hours following the October 7 attack, mid-ranking IDF officers were empowered to order attacks on not only senior Hamas commanders but any fighter in the resistance group, no matter how junior. What’s more, the officers were allowed to risk up to 20 civilian lives in each strike, and up to 500 noncombatant lives per day. Days later, that limit was lifted. Officers could order any number of strikes as they believed were legal, with no limits on civilian harm.

    Senior IDF commanders sometimes approved strikes they knew could kill more than 100 civilians if the target was deemed important enough. In one AI-aided airstrike targeting one senior Hamas commander, the IDF dropped multiple U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs, which can level an entire city block, on the Jabalia refugee camp in October 2023. According to the U.K.-based airstrike monitor Airwars, the bombing killed at least 126 people, 68 of them children, and wounded 280 others. Hamas’ Qassam Brigades said four Israeli and three international hostages were also killed in the attack.

    Then there’s the mass surveillance element. Independent journalist Antony Loewenstein recently wrote for Middle East Eye that “corporate behemoths are storing massive amounts of information about every aspect of Palestinian life in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and elsewhere.”

    “How this data will be used, in a time of war and mass surveillance, is obvious,” Loewenstein continued. “Israel is building a huge database, Chinese-state style, on every Palestinian under occupation: what they do, where they go, who they see, what they like, what they want, what they fear, and what they post online.”

    “Palestinians are guinea pigs—but this ideology and work doesn’t stay in Palestine,” he said. “Silicon Valley has taken note, and the new Trump era is heralding an ever-tighter alliance among Big Tech, Israel, and the defense sector. There’s money to be made, as AI currently operates in a regulation-free zone globally.”

    “Think about how many other states, both democratic and dictatorial, would love to have such extensive information about every citizen, making it far easier to target critics, dissidents, and opponents,” Loewenstein added. “With the far right on the march globally—from Austria to Sweden, France to Germany, and the U.S. to Britain—Israel’s ethno-nationalist model is seen as attractive and worth mimicking.

    Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

  • Revealed: Microsoft deepened ties with Israeli military to provide tech support during Gaza war

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    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/israeli-military-gaza-war-microsoft

     Illustration: Guardian Design

    Leaked documents shed light on how Israel integrated the US tech giant into its war effort to meet growing demand for cloud and AI tools

    Harry Davies and Yuval Abraham in JerusalemThu 23 Jan 2025 12.00 CETShare

    The Israeli military’s reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology and artificial intelligence systems surged during the most intensive phase of its bombardment of Gaza, leaked documents reveal.

    The files offer an inside view of how Microsoft deepened its relationship with Israel’s defence establishment after 7 October 2023, supplying the military with greater computing and storage services and striking at least $10m in deals to provide thousands of hours of technical support.

    Microsoft’s deep ties with Israel’s military are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and a Hebrew-language outlet, Local Call. It is based in part on documents obtained by Drop Site News, which has published its own story.

    The investigation, which also draws on interviews with sources from across Israel’s defence and intelligence establishment, sheds new light on how the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) turned to major US tech companies to meet the technological demands of war.

    …

    Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/israeli-military-gaza-war-microsoft

  • Knowing less about AI makes people more open to having it in their lives – new research

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    Anggalih Prasetya / Shutterstock

    Chiara Longoni, Bocconi University; Gil Appel, George Washington University, and Stephanie Tully, University of Southern California

    The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy – those who understand how AI works – who are most eager to adopt it.

    Surprisingly, our new research (published in the Journal of Marketing) finds the opposite. People with less knowledge about AI are actually more open to using the technology. We call this difference in adoption propensity the “lower literacy-higher receptivity” link.

    This link shows up across different groups, settings and even countries. For instance, our analysis of data from market research company Ipsos spanning 27 countries reveals that people in nations with lower average AI literacy are more receptive towards AI adoption than those in nations with higher literacy.

    Similarly, our survey of US undergraduate students finds that those with less understanding of AI are more likely to indicate using it for tasks like academic assignments.

    The reason behind this link lies in how AI now performs tasks we once thought only humans could do. When AI creates a piece of art, writes a heartfelt response or plays a musical instrument, it can feel almost magical – like it’s crossing into human territory.

    Of course, AI doesn’t actually possess human qualities. A chatbot might generate an empathetic response, but it doesn’t feel empathy. People with more technical knowledge about AI understand this.

    They know how algorithms (sets of mathematical rules used by computers to carry out particular tasks), training data (used to improve how an AI system works) and computational models operate. This makes the technology less mysterious.

    On the other hand, those with less understanding may see AI as magical and awe inspiring. We suggest this sense of magic makes them more open to using AI tools.

    Our studies show this lower literacy-higher receptivity link is strongest for using AI tools in areas people associate with human traits, like providing emotional support or counselling. When it comes to tasks that don’t evoke the same sense of human-like qualities – such as analysing test results – the pattern flips. People with higher AI literacy are more receptive to these uses because they focus on AI’s efficiency, rather than any “magical” qualities.

    It’s not about capability, fear or ethics

    Interestingly, this link between lower literacy and higher receptivity persists even though people with lower AI literacy are more likely to view AI as less capable, less ethical, and even a bit scary. Their openness to AI seems to stem from their sense of wonder about what it can do, despite these perceived drawbacks.

    This finding offers new insights into why people respond so differently to emerging technologies. Some studies suggest consumers favour new tech, a phenomenon called “algorithm appreciation”, while others show scepticism, or “algorithm aversion”. Our research points to perceptions of AI’s “magicalness” as a key factor shaping these reactions.

    These insights pose a challenge for policymakers and educators. Efforts to boost AI literacy might unintentionally dampen people’s enthusiasm for using AI by making it seem less magical. This creates a tricky balance between helping people understand AI and keeping them open to its adoption.

    To make the most of AI’s potential, businesses, educators and policymakers need to strike this balance. By understanding how perceptions of “magicalness” shape people’s openness to AI, we can help develop and deploy new AI-based products and services that take the way people view AI into account, and help them understand the benefits and risks of AI.

    And ideally, this will happen without causing a loss of the awe that inspires many people to embrace this new technology.

    Chiara Longoni, Associate Professor, Marketing and Social Science, Bocconi University; Gil Appel, Assistant Professor of Marketing, School of Business, George Washington University, and Stephanie Tully, Associate Professor of Marketing, USC Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.