Latest ChatGPT model uses Elon Musk’s Grokipedia as source, tests reveal

The latest model of ChatGPT has begun to cite Elon Musk’s Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers, raising concerns about misinformation on the platform.In tests done by the Guardian, GPT-5.2 cited Grokipedia nine times in response to more than a dozen different questions. These included queries on political structures in Iran, such as salaries of the Basij paramilitary force and the ownership of the Mostazafan Foundation, and questions on the biography of Sir Richard Evans, a British historian and expert witness against Holocaust denier David Irving in his libel trial.Grokipedia, launched in October, is an AI-generated online encyclopedia that aims to compete with Wikipedia, and which has been criticised for propagating rightwing narratives on topics including gay marriage and the 6 January insurrection in the US

Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF

Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”She suggested that in advanced economies, one in 10 jobs had already been “enhanced” by AI, tending to boost these workers’ pay, with knock-on benefits for the local economy

TikTok announces it has finalized deal to establish US entity, sidestepping ban

TikTok announced on Thursday it had closed a deal to establish a new US entity, allowing it to sidestep a ban and ending a long legal battle.The deal finalized by ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, sets up a majority American-owned venture, with investors including Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX owning 80.1% of the new entity, while ByteDance will own 19.9%.The announcement comes five years after Donald Trump first threatened to ban the popular platform in the US during his first term

Campaigner launches £1.5bn legal action in UK against Apple over wallet’s ‘hidden fees’

The financial campaigner James Daley has launched a £1.5bn class action lawsuit against Apple over its mobile phone wallet, claiming the US tech company blocked competition and charged hidden fees that ultimately harmed 50 million UK consumers.The lawsuit takes aim at Apple Pay, which they say has been the only contactless payment service available for iPhone users in Britain over the past decade.Daley, who is the founder of the advocacy group Fairer Finance, claims this situation amounted to anti-competitive behaviour and allowed Apple to charge hidden fees, ultimately pushing up costs for banks that passed charges on to consumers, regardless of whether they owned an iPhone.It is the first UK legal challenge to the company’s conduct in relation to Apple Pay, and takes place months after regulators like the Competition and Markets Authority and the Payments Systems Regulator began scrutinising the tech industry’s digital wallet services

Former FTX crypto executive Caroline Ellison released from federal custody

The Disgraced former cryptocurrency executive Caroline Ellison has been released from federal custody after serving about 14 months for her involvement in the multibillion-dollar FTX fraud scandal. Ellison was previously head of FTX’s associated trading arm and the on-again, off-again romantic partner of the crypto exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.Ellison, 31, was sentenced to 24 months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to seven charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. She featured prominently as a witness for the prosecution of Bankman-Fried, testifying that her former paramour directed her to commit crimes. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison

Experts warn of threat to democracy from ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media

Political leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned.The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new “disruptive threat” posed by hard-to-detect, malicious “AI swarms” infesting social media and messaging channels.A would-be autocrat could use such swarms to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results, they said, amid predictions the technology could be deployed at scale by the time of the US presidential election in 2028.The warnings, published today in Science, come alongside calls for coordinated global action to counter the risk, including “swarm scanners” and watermarked content to counter AI-run misinformation campaigns. Early versions of AI-powered influence operations have been used in the 2024 elections in Taiwan, India and Indonesia