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‘The CGI would have cost millions. I spent $2,000.’ Is Dreams of Violets AI slop – or the future of film-making?
It should have taken years, but Ash Koosha made a drama about Iran’s anti-government protests in weeks – and now it’s the first AI-made movie to screen at a major film festival. It could transform indie film-making, claims the director Next week a breakthrough 75-minute drama about the brutal crackdown in Iran on anti-government protesters…
‘This isn’t freedom’: anger, anxiety and tears as Iran’s internet flickers back
After 88 days of near-total blackout, first reactions to the return of partial connectivity were not celebratory After 88 days of near-total internet blackout in Iran, long-delayed messages, images and poems flooded phones and social media feeds at about 5pm on Tuesday, when still-limited connectivity flickered back to life. The first reactions, however, were not…
Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military
The inquiry came after the Guardian revealed Israel used company technology to support mass surveillance of Palestinian phone calls The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military. Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian…
X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts
Social media company tells MPs of continual fight against state-backed efforts, with Russia being most prolific Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform. The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack…
The Guardian view on AI in war: the Iran conflict shows that the paradigm shift has already begun
The intensified use of artificial intelligence, and rows over its control, demonstrate the need for democratic oversight and multilateral controls “Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed…
Iran war heralds era of AI-powered bombing quicker than ‘speed of thought’
Speed and scale of US military’s AI war planning raises fears human decision-making may be sidelined The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran heralds a new era of bombing quicker than “the speed of thought”, experts have said, amid fears human decision-makers could be sidelined. Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used…
An ecosystem of smuggled tech holds Iran’s last link to the outside world
Despite internet blackout, a small number of Iranians are risking their lives to share messages as protests continue For most of Iran, the internet was shut off on Thursday afternoon – the most severe blackout the country has seen in years of internet shutdowns, coming after days of escalating anti-government protests. For a very small…
‘We want justice’: workers at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia still waiting on financial redress
Asian migrant laborers who paid predatory recruiting fees say global mega-corporation has not kept its promise to pay them restitution Warehouse laborers from Asia say the world’s second largest employer, Amazon, has failed to live up to its promises to compensate them for financial abuses tied to their work for the online retailer in Saudi…
How Israel used Microsoft technology to spy on Palestinians – podcast
Harry Davies on how Microsoft’s cloud was used to facilitate mass surveillance of Palestinians Yossi Sariel was in charge of one of the branches of Israel’s intelligence agency. When he took over Unit 8200 he arrived with ambitious plans – to use tech to change the way intelligence was gathered and analysed. The Guardian’s Harry…
‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians
Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe One afternoon in late 2021, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, met with the commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200. On the spy chief’s agenda: moving vast amounts of top secret intelligence…