Today, there aren't just two countries competing to get to the Moon. More countries have space programs, and private industry plays a larger role.
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John J. Green, director of the Southern Rural Development Center at Mississippi State University and professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, has been named a Community Development Research Fellow with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a part of the Federal Reserve System’s network of regional banks that help promote a healthy U.S. economy.
The Trump administration has not shied away from sharing AI-generated imagery online, embracing cartoonlike visuals and memes and promoting them on official White House channels.But an edited — and realistic — image of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong in tears after being arrested is raising new alarms about how the administration is blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s account posted the original image from Levy Armstrong’s arrest before the official White House account posted an altered image that showed her crying. The doctored picture is part of a deluge of AI-edited imagery that has been shared across the political spectrum since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Border Patrol officers in MinneapolisHowever, the White House’s use of artificial intelligence has troubled misinformation experts who fear the spreading of AI-generated or edited images erodes public perception of the truth and sows distrust.In response to criticism of the edited image of Levy Armstrong, White House officials doubled down on the post, with deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr writing on X that the “memes will continue.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson also shared a post mocking the criticism.David Rand, a professor of information science at Cornell University, says calling the altered image a meme “certainly seems like an attempt to cast it as a joke or humorous post, like their prior cartoons. This presumably aims to shield them from criticism for posting manipulated media.” He said the purpose of sharing the altered arrest image seems “much more ambiguous” than the cartoonish images the administration has shared in the past.Memes have always carried layered messages that are funny or informative to people who understand them, but indecipherable to outsiders. AI-enhanced or edited imagery is just the latest tool the White House uses to engage the segment of Trump’s base that spends a lot of time online, said Zach Henry, a Republican communications consultant who founded Total Virality, an influencer marketing firm.“People who are terminally online will see it and instantly recognize it as a meme,” he said. “Your grandparents may see it and not understand the meme, but because it looks real, it leads them to ask their kids or grandkids about it.”All the better if it prompts a fierce reaction, which helps it go viral, said Henry, who generally praised the work of the White House’s social media team.The creation and dissemination of altered images, especially when they are shared by credible sources, “crystallizes an idea of what’s happening, instead of showing what is actually happening,” said Michael A. Spikes, a professor at Northwestern University and news media literacy researcher.“The government should be a place where you can trust the information, where you can say it’s accurate, because they have a responsibility to do so,” he said. “By sharing this kind of content, and creating this kind of content ... it is eroding the trust — even though I’m always kind of skeptical of the term trust — but the trust we should have in our federal government to give us accurate, verified information. It’s a real loss, and it really worries me a lot.”Spikes said he already sees the “institutional crises” around distrust in news organizations and higher education, and feels this behavior from official channels inflames those issues.Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA and the host of the Utopias podcast, said many people are now questioning where they can turn to for “trustable information.” “AI systems are only going to exacerbate, amplify and accelerate these problems of an absence of trust, an absence of even understanding what might be considered reality or truth or evidence,” he said.Srinivasan said he feels the White House and other officials sharing AI-generated content not only invites everyday people to continue to post similar content but also grants permission to others who are in positions of credibility and power, like policymakers, to share unlabeled synthetic content. He added that given that social media platforms tend to “algorithmically privilege” extreme and conspiratorial content — which AI generation tools can create with ease — “we’ve got a big, big set of challenges on our hands.”An influx of AI-generated videos related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement action, protests, and interactions with citizens has already been proliferating on social media. After Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer while she was in her car, several AI-generated videos began circulating of women driving away from ICE officers who told them to stop. There are also many fabricated videos circulating of immigration raids and of people confronting ICE officers, often yelling at them or throwing food in their faces.Jeremy Carrasco, a content creator who specializes in media literacy and debunking viral AI videos, said the bulk of these videos are likely coming from accounts that are “engagement farming,” or looking to capitalize on clicks by generating content with popular keywords and search terms like ICE. But he also said the videos are getting views from people who oppose ICE and DHS and could be watching them as “fan fiction,” or engaging in “wishful thinking,” hoping that they’re seeing real pushback against the organizations and their officers.Still, Carrasco also believes that most viewers can’t tell if what they’re watching is fake, and questions whether they would know “what’s real or not when it actually matters, like when the stakes are a lot higher.”Even when there are blatant signs of AI generation, like street signs with gibberish on them or other obvious errors, only in the “best-case scenario” would a viewer be savvy enough or be paying enough attention to register the use of AI.This issue is, of course, not limited to news surrounding immigration enforcement and protests. Fabricated and misrepresented images following the capture of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro exploded online earlier this month. Experts, including Carrasco, think the spread of AI-generated political content will only become more commonplace.Carrasco believes that the widespread implementation of a watermarking system that embeds information about the origin of a piece of media into its metadata layer could be a step toward a solution. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity has developed such a system, but Carrasco doesn’t think that will become extensively adopted for at least another year.“It’s going to be an issue forever now,” he said. I don’t think people understand how bad this is.”—Kaitlyn Huamani, AP technology writerAssociated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.
Prediction markets on the BNB Chain have seen massive growth over the past months, with the leading platforms within the ecosystem reaching remarkable levels and their cumulative trading volume hitting a new milestone. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price At Risk Of 50% Correction As BTC’s 2022 Bearish Playbook Repeats BNB Chain Sees Prediction Markets Explosion On Monday, BNB Chain announced that prediction markets in the ecosystem reached a new milestone, surpassing the $20.91 billion mark in cumulative trading volume over the weekend. Notably, the BNB Chain has expanded its presence over the past few months, diversifying with key players such as Opinion Labs, Probable, Myriad Markets, Predict.Fun, and XO Markets. Prediction markets are one of the most popular ways to forecast events and manage risk at scale, the BNB Chain explained in a blog post, becoming “powerful tools for smarter decisions in finance, governance, and beyond.” “From elections and sports to AI milestones and macroeconomic shifts, prediction markets transform scattered knowledge into actionable signals. Platforms like Polymarket, which saw over $2B in volume in October 2024, prove that decentralized markets can even outperform centralized forecasters,” they added. According to Dune data, prediction markets within the ecosystem have seen a significant surge since Q4, increasing nearly 89% just in the past month. The data also shows that BNB Chain has taken the lead in weekly trading volume by chain, surpassing off-chain prediction markets, Polygon, Solana, and Base since the start of 2026. Moreover, DeFiLlama data indicate that three platforms in the BNB ecosystem are currently among the top 5 prediction markets, only behind Kalshi and Polymarket, signaling increasing adoption. Opinion Labs ranks third in the list, with its 7-day and 30-day trading volumes reaching $725.56 million and $3.35 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, its open interest exceeded $144 million as of late January. Probable has seen $558 million in volume over the past 7 days and $1.05 billion in the last 30 days. The platform has also reached a $1.4 billion in notional volume and over 17,000 users just a month after its launch. ETF Push And Price Recovery The recent milestone comes as major institutional players share interest in the BNB token. Last week, Grayscale filed an S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a spot Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) based on the cryptocurrency. If approved, the Grayscale BNB Trust (GBNB) will “reflect the value of BNB held by the Trust, including BNB earned as Staking Consideration” and offer investors exposure to the token without having to hold it directly. As of this writing, BNB’s price has recovered from Sunday’s correction and is attempting to turn a key area back into support. Market observer Rose Premium Signals highlighted that the cryptocurrency bounced from the strong $860 demand zone after the sharp corrective move. Related Reading: Bitcoin Confirms Bearish Structure After $98,000 Rejection — Here’s The Next Potential Target Moreover, it held the key Fibonacci retracement area, “which increases the probability of a bullish reaction.” If the altcoin successfully reclaims the $900 area as support, the analyst suggested that a retest of the $937 and $980 targets could follow. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
As Europe’s cities grapple with congestion, decarbonisation and the fast rise of new transport technologies, Luxembourg is positioning itself firmly at the centre of the conversation. On Tuesday, at an event hosted at the Automobility Incubator in Bissen, Technoport officially kicks off a three-year collaboration with EIT Urban Mobility, one of the European Institute of [...]
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How much passive income can be unearthed?The post If I invest $12,000 in BHP shares, how much passive income will I receive in 2026? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.
Bloom Energy offers onsite power generation through solid oxide fuel cells that are behind the meter to reduce dependency on the grid. Read more on how the company supports AI.
Australia will release the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report on Wednesday, and it is expected to show inflation rose 3.6% year over year in December, slightly above the previous reading of 3.4%. The monthly CPI is foreseen at 0.7% after posting 0% in November.
Plan consistent with 'changing nature of the area', doc states.